Gill's story

As someone who's always paid attention to health and fitness, I was annoyed when I started to collect irritating health issues as I got older.

There was asthma in my 20s, food intolerances in my 30s, sensitivity to most foods in my 40s, and a difficult menopause in my 50s. And then my husband, who had been a sportsman all his life, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Despite making significant lifestyle changes and trying to find solutions, I eventually found myself sliding into anxiety and depression. Building and maintaining optimal health is complex and can be confusing, especially when trying to navigate all the information available on your own.

Thankfully a friend introduced me to Jo, a functional medicine specialist, who was able to make sense of my symptoms. My healthy gut microbiome had become devastated over many years. With Jo's guidance, I made further lifestyle changes to restore my microbiome and my symptoms started to disappear. Jo also guided my husband and he benefitted too.

We didn’t find it easy to make the lifestyle changes. This made me realise why many people fail to halt or reverse their chronic health issues. Changing ingrained behaviours and then sticking to the new ones requires real commitment and some hard work.

However, I also realised how useful support through behaviour-change coaching could be to others making lifestyle changes to regain optimal health. My expertise in this could make a significant difference to others wanting to live their best life or minimize their suffering with chronic disease.

Jo's story

Prior to the birth of my daughter, I was a behavioural therapist, specialising in children with autism and complex learning and behavioural difficulties.

At just 19-months old my daughter was diagnosed with her first autoimmune disease which developed into multiple autoimmune diseases. She went through a four-year chemotherapy regime to suppress her immune system. The treatment was gruelling and made her so unwell.

I knew I had to make immediate changes to regain control of her failing health but couldn’t find guidance to help me make life affecting decisions. I’d always been interested in 'food as medicine' but couldn’t find that one person that could tie it all together, connect the dots, answer all my questions and support our progression back to health.

So, I started digging around to answer my own questions. My favourite question is ‘why’ - why do people get sick, why do they experience the symptoms they do? And so I began the journey to create the ‘no stone unturned’ approach to wellness by studying nutritional therapy with The College of Naturopathic Medicine.

My daughter's journey is always at the forefront of my thoughts and drives my career, my passion and my inspiration to make a difference to everyone I come into contact with. My daughter is now 17, she aced her GCSEs coming out in the top 3% of the country, an absolute example of feeding the brain. Physically, her health has ebbs and flows, but she has never lived her diagnosis, never let it rule her life, and never let it drive her life journey.