My nutrition journey.

Before becoming a nutritionist, I spent 13 years working in Tax and Consulting with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Sydney and London.

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I transitioned to nutrition after diet changes helped me get pregnant with my first child. 

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Here's my story...

 

​​As a child I loved cooking. I cooked cakes, biscuits and anything sweet. Savoury foods weren’t really something that interested me. Fast forward 25 years and my parents can’t quite believe I’m the same person – the person who says no to Tim Tams and encourages them to eat salmon and sardines! What happened?

 

It all began when we were trying for our first child. I had always known that starting a family might be difficult as I had been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) when I was 16 years old. PCOS is a hormonal syndrome, characterised by irregular periods, ovaries that appear "cystic" on ultrasound and higher levels of male hormones (known as androgens). It is estimated that around 10% of all women of childbearing age have PCOS (ref). While some people suffer with excess facial hair, baldness and weight issues, my symptoms were irregular periods and acne. My symptoms were managed with medications. I was given the contraceptive pill for hormones and creams and medication to manage acne.

 

This suited me for 15 years ... until my husband and I started trying for our first child. I stopped the pill and waited anxiously to see what would happen when my body was left to its own devices.

 

And what happened? Nothing. I lost a lot of weight. I lost around 8kg, which I had put on when I started taking the pill. My periods never returned.

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I contacted my GP and joined the queues of people seeking fertility treatments where I was prescribed clomiphene (aka clomid), to induce my periods, month after month. I was monitored endlessly, my stress levels were through the roof racing between hospital and business meetings.

 

Through this, no doctor suggested I change my diet.

 

Frustrated by my body’s inability to work and wondering if medications and monitoring were the answer, I did a bit of research into PCOS which suggested that diet changes might be able to help due to underlying insulin resistance. This was a novel concept as I had never even considered a link between food and fertility. I already ate a fairly good diet and did plenty of exercise.

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The beauty of diet changes is that there is no harm in trying. And 2 months later I was pregnant.

 

This experience sparked in me a fascination with food and prompted me to enroll in a 3 year diploma in Nutritional Therapy at the Institute for Optimum Nutrition (ION) in London.

 

I learned the science behind why my diet changes worked. I am now much more aware of how the food we eat each day impacts everything. It impacts how sore I am after a hockey game, how quickly the kids tip me over the edge, how efficient I am at work. Everything. 

 

As a society, we only worry about our waistlines. We are obsessed by counting calories and looking at food and exercise as energy in and energy out. Food is about so much more than this.

 

Food is about providing ingredients to our body so they can carry out biochemical reactions. Without the right ingredients, our body don’t work properly.

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There is an age old saying ‘let food be thy medicine’. For me food was – and still is – the medicine that gave me four (mostly) wonderful children.

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Read here for an interview from ION. 

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