The road to my becoming a nutritionist officially began in early 2015 when I resigned from my job in the Early Childhood Education sector and enrolled at the Endeavour College of Natural Health. Unofficially though, it began in 2009 - I was eight and a half months pregnant with my second child when my daughter, then 18 months old, became sick with a mild virus.

It was just your everyday, run-of-the-mill virus that all kids get, enough to spike a moderate fever for a few days and make her pretty miserable, but certainly nothing unusual. And then she got better. Except for a post-viral, night-time cough she developed that saw her up coughing for 2-3 hours every night. Violent outbursts that left her retching or vomiting before she eventually fell into an exhausted sleep at around midnight. Oh, and did I mention this lasted for weeks? Every. Single. Night. For more than 8 weeks. Not much fun with a newborn in the house I can tell you.

Unfortunately, that was just the start of it all. From that point on, every time my daughter got sick – with anything – she followed it up with this post-viral cough that lasted 8-10 weeks each time. We tried everything to help her, consulting multiple GPs and eventually being referred to a specialist at the children’s hospital. We tried all of the usual treatments like steroids, asthma inhalers etc; they told us it was an allergy driven response, we just didn’t know what was causing it. At one point we had to take all of her soft toys off her and wash her sheets every day, but even that didn’t help.

No one seemed all that interested in helping us identify what the trigger for my daughter’s problem was, so we started looking for answers ourselves. Eventually (after adding another child to the family), the possibility of food allergies came up on our radar and we completed a supervised elimination diet. And BINGO, we finally had an answer.

What was even more surprising was discovering that all three of my kids, as well as myself, responded to the same foods – but we all presented with different symptoms! For my middle son it was tummy pains and meltdowns, for my youngest it was all about his gut and bowel movements, whilst for me it was complete and utter exhaustion (wait, that wasn’t a ‘normal’ feeling for a mum with three young kids???), irritability & perpetually feeling run down.

Our journey showed me just how powerful diet can be in supporting health and drove me to completely change my career in order to learn as much as I could about nutrition as medicine. Along the way I’ve learnt how to support my own health, including my own auto-immune disease I was diagnosed with in early 2023. And now I get to share my passion with others, to help them learn the power of food & understand that a healthy diet is so much more than calorie counting & balancing fats, carbs & protein.

From food intolerances to balancing hormones, general immune function to autoimmune conditions, and allergies to chronic disease – nutrition as medicine can help so many people live healthier, and I’d love to help you apply these principles and live your best life.