My Struggle, My Mission

I never planned on nutrition becoming a second career.

But when I saw a completed circle of education, counseling, theology, and now nutrition, I had to stand in the gap. My mission became supporting others, struggling with much more than I, on their health and healing journey. 

Whether your battle is for your body, your mind or both – functional nutrition counseling offers a fresh approach; a natural, gentle and sustainable way forward. It can help you cultivate physical and metal fortitude to overcome life’s challenges with greater courage and confidence.

I know. I’ve been there. A few years ago, I was a woman whose body wasn’t behaving and whose mind was a mess. I was stuck in a “performance trap”, striving to make peace with inward and outward expectations. I found myself riddled with toxic stress, exhausted, depressed, and disconnected.

Anxiety and adrenaline had worn me down to a nub.

Most of the women I know feel this way at some point in their life, but this had become my way of life.

If this sounds anything like you and why you’re here – I’m here to tell you there is hope!

I was eating and exercising like I always had but my weight was going up and my energy and hormones were plummeting. My mood was unpredictable, and I didn’t feel at all like myself. Suspicious mammograms also signaled my health was headed in the wrong direction. I wanted to turn things around, but I didn’t know how or where to start.

Then I discovered leading experts on the gut-brain connection and nutritional healing who inspired me to rethink and revise my relationship with food. I dove in deep, learning how to restore my gut, balance my blood-sugar, and de-stress. I began cultivating a lifestyle that allowed my heart and body to heal in ways they had been asking for, but I had ignored.

Slowly but surely the gap between what I was eating and how I was feeling started to close. All thanks to Functional Nutrition.

I never planned on nutrition becoming a 2nd career. But when I saw a completed circle of mind+spirit+body: education, counseling, theology, and now nutrition, I knew I had to stand in the gap, to gently support others who were struggling with much more than I on their health and healing journey. 

I’ve learned first-hand how health struggles can be a catalyst for learning more deeply about who you are, what really matters and brings meaning to your life, and can lead to new and surprising ways to express that more fully. Crises can often be disguised invitations to turn over a new leaf and write a new chapter that is truer to yourself.

My struggle led to this mission. I now get to help people feel better and, this is a biggie, I also help them reclaim their confidence, crushed by shame. People come in believing their weight or signs and symptoms are them - “I am fat. I am sick. I am a mess.” The separation between what is going in in their body and their identity has been blurred.

I can show them through a nutrient analysis or a matrix that something else is going on. It’s often not about a lack of willpower, but about biological barriers to healing. We work to uncover root causes and change the terrain to invite repair. I have seen again and again, that healthy, healed, and thriving people learn to show up differently in the world… they are free. That’s a “New Leaf Life” and helping people achieve this is my mission!

The goal of nutrition counseling isn’t to bring about a quick fix…

but to free your body and your mind from experiences that have disconnected you from your self, to delight you with good health that naturally comes from the good gifts of nutritious food, and to empower you finally come home to yourself. It is sacred work.

~ Julie