I had done everything right, followed the standard nutritional advice. My health deteriorated anyway.
You have eaten the way you were told to eat. Whole grains, low fat, lean meat, vegetables, margarine instead of butter. You have gone for a blood test and been told your liver enzymes are off, or your blood sugar is creeping up, or your cholesterol ratio is wrong, and you do not understand why because you have been doing everything by the book. You have searched online for answers and found ten different opinions on the same question, half of them contradicting each other. You are not sure who to believe anymore.
I know this because I went through the same thing. I followed conventional dietary advice for over two decades. I ended up with kidney stones, a fatty liver, a gallbladder full of stones, and rising blood sugar. I spent years after that trying to work out what had gone wrong, reading everything I could find, trying diets that made things worse, and getting advice from doctors and surgeons that turned out to be wrong. It took me a long time and a lot of frustration to work out what was actually causing the damage and what to do about it.
The foundation that wasn't enough
I was raised on a dairy farm in Australia. We had raw milk, meat, fruit and vegetables. Nutritionally that mattered because alongside that I was also eating what had become normal. Breakfast cereals, bread, and other grain-based processed foods. These processed products made up a significant proportion of my diet. A strong foundation of nutritionally dense, home-grown food had temporarily mitigated the damage caused by those processed foods. I was fortunate.
Life moved on. I left the farm and left Australia, spending nearly three decades living and working in New Zealand, Brussels, Beijing, Mongolia, and Hong Kong. The countries changed, my dietary habits did not. I continued consuming the same processed foods, but without the quality farm produce.
I was physically active and not overweight. From the outside, I looked fine. But things were not fine. I had done everything right, followed the standard nutritional advice. My health deteriorated anyway.
For most of my adult life I followed conventional, prevailing dietary advice. Grains-based processed products, low in animal products and natural fats, lean meats, vegetables, and processed seed oils instead of butter.
By the time I was 43, I had kidney stones, a fatty liver, skin issues, a gallbladder full of stones, and a painful knee. My once perfect dental health began to deteriorate also. I looked fine on the outside, but internally something was clearly not working. Not accepting poor health, my decade-long quest for answers began.
At 46, a gallstone lodged in my bile duct. I ended up in emergency surgery to remove my infected gallbladder. It was a crunch point, but not pivotal. I continued trying to make sense of my health challenges, seeking answers with a renewed zeal.
Years of figuring it out
What became clear, slowly, was that the problem wasn't a lack of a specific diet. It was the presence of the wrong foods.
The cereals, breads, and processed products that had become ubiquitous, and my norm, were not supporting health. They were driving the problems.
As those foods were reduced, and eventually removed and replaced with whole, unprocessed food, my health recovered. It really is that simple.
The results were not instant, but consistently sticking to a completely different way of eating led to total healing. I stopped getting sick. The health issues outlined above, resolved.
A decade of learning, struggle, and healing taught me that foundational health is actually very straightforward. Working through the associated issues can be challenging however. Conflicting advice, well-meaning and otherwise, makes support valuable. It can be a difficult, emotionally draining, and isolating process.
What I do
The framework I use is simple. Fix the nutritional base which restores health and vitality.
Instead of chasing individual problems, we fix the fundamentals. We work from the bottom up, addressing food, sleep, movement, stress, support, and healthy relationships. We don't try to heal symptoms in isolation.
I know what it's like to do everything "right" and still get worse.
I work with people to make sense of their challenges and help them build something that works in their unique life. We are all uniquely individual. Failing to recognise and embrace this is not support or mentoring and typically results in disheartening failure.
Most people I work with have followed conventional advice, tried to eat well, and made an effort. And yet things are not improving, or are slowly getting worse.
They've looked for answers and found conflicting information. At some point it stops making sense, it can be miserable. That is usually where people realise, or at least hope, something more fundamental is being missed.
Addressing these areas to the best of our abilities enables positive progress. Perfection is not necessary. A supported, earnest, honest, humble, and diligent effort lays the foundation for success.
What I bring
I've spent over a decade working through metabolic health and nutrition, first out of necessity, now by choice, it is a joy and passion. Nutrition, and living one's best life, have become part of my existence and something I want to share with others.
I've lived and worked across cultures, countries, and languages, building a life that has included raising two children and now a grandchild. This has been invaluable in gaining the understanding and skills necessary for the complex problem solving that is the highly variable world of health and nutrition. Health was never meant to be my profession. It became a focus out of necessity, and over time, a life passion and direction.
My background, across almost all of my locations, is in construction, solving complex problems. Other interests include dispute resolution (Massey University, NZ), and more recently as an interest, completing certificates in community services and individual support. Combined with lived experience, my diverse experience allows me to work with people in a practical, grounded way.
There is a lot of noise in the health space. Conflicting advice, trends, strong opinions. Most people don't need more information. They need clarity.
I work with people individually because there is no single template that fits everyone. The goal is to understand what is actually going on, and build an approach that fits the person, not the other way around.
If that sounds like you, book a call and we'll talk it through.
