It all started with....

 

I cannot tell you where my story begins. As far as I can remember I was always feeling sick and anxious. Going to school every day was like going to war. I was afraid to leave the house and go out almost every morning. As it started so early in life, It is the only way I knew and it seemed normal. Looking back from a distance I can now recall that I probably developed hypoglycemia (blood sugar flunctuation) from around the age of 12. I remember feeling very shaky and had to eat every 2 hours, then I’d feel sick after eating. As I found going out with friends or going on dates really challenging I started looking for solutions in health care. I tried counselling and therapy, acupuncture and all kinds of diets. Certain things really helped with some symptoms but the core feeling of anxiety was never solved.

 

When I started seriously looking at nutrition on the path that led me to becoming a nutritionist I started to better understand my childhood sufferings. I was not breast fed and, as was common in those days, received a lot of antibiotics. That must have had a huge effect on the balance of good bacteria in my gut. That in itself can cause a lot of the symptoms of nausea and anxiety, blood sugar problems and compromised immunity. By the time I reached 30 I had high triglycerides and was on my way to join my family’s trend of diabetes.

The biggest change came when I started learning about nutrition and decided to stop eating grains altogether and see what happened. The fact that I lost a stone in weight paled in comparison with the fact that I noticed after only 1 week that my anxieties have gone down dramatically. One day I was traveling on the train trying not to panic between stops and the next day I was reading the paper and was shocked to find that I arrived at my destination without panic. That realisation has led to my interest in the connection with what we eat  and the wellness of the brain and the rest of the body.

 

I trained with the NTA - Nutritional Therapy Association.  It was a course that made absolute sense to me and changed my life.