One of my earliest memories was about my body. Feeling embarrassed by it. Feeling too big. Not good enough. I think I was about 8. I begged my Mum for the most fantastic rainbow print string bikini, and I felt incredible in it. I remember prancing in front of the mirror at home and feeling just like all the other girls. That feeling was quickly crushed when I got to the beach and saw the looks of other people. I saw disgust. I saw inappropriateness. I saw humiliation. Those looks killed my self-confidence and caused hatred for my body ever since.
But I masked it. I got on with life until after finishing university when I started suffering with debilitating symptoms that affected my day-to-day life. I had chronic nausea, headaches, brain fog, depression, acne, awful PMS, a multitude of digestive symptoms and I was definitely overweight and each day felt like wading through mud.
The GP unfortunately didn’t have any answers, so I decided to take action. I decided to do what I had done many times before and the only way I knew how to fix the problem of feeling rubbish in myself, I went on a diet. After a little bit of googling, my diet started on Monday (familiar to anyone?) and I took up a gruelling gym regime, that I realise now was never going to be sustainable. Over the next few years, I yo-yoed between the latest ‘health-kick’ and moped about feeling like a failure that I still hadn’t ‘fixed’ myself.
One day my Dr Google search struck gold. I came across a nutritionist who spoke about understanding the root cause of ill health and used diet and lifestyle to solve her client's symptoms. It was like a lightbulb went on. It suddenly seemed so obvious as to why dieting and excessive exercise weren’t going to solve my problems. From then on I devoured everything I could find on nutritional therapy and functional medicine. My health slowly started to improve and I knew I wanted to understand more, so I decided to train as a nutritionist myself.
Many people come to work in the field of nutrition because of their own personal struggles with health. And I did have my own personal struggles with health but it was actually the year I qualified that my own health really bottomed out after overworking myself. Within the space of 3 months I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, adrenal fatigue, depression and PCOS. I was so fatigued and brain fogged I couldn’t hold a thought process or string a sentence together. My weight ballooned. I was sleeping every chance I got and I have never felt so low. On top of all of this, I felt like a fraud. I felt like a failure. I was not the shiny newly qualified nutritionist, ambassador for all things health and happiness that I expected to be.
On the positive side, I was perfectly placed to help myself with my newly diagnosed conditions and the experience has definitely shaped me as a nutritionist. It allowed me to deepen my empathy for what a dark and depressing place ill health can be.
It also allowed me to address what I had kept hidden for so long. It wasn’t because I was lazy or lacked discipline - it was because I didn’t understand how to fuel my body. My weight wasn’t my fault. It was a chance to finally be honest with myself as to how much my weight had taken from me. All the invites I said no to, all the new things I didn’t try, all the times I hid in the shadows because I felt too self-conscious. All of the opportunities missed. I was missing out on life.
It was tough. It was hard. But I got out of my head and started to implement everything I had learnt and before I knew it the weight came off, my energy sky-rocketed and my mood was balanced for the first time in a long time. I also got what 8-year-old Sarah lost, my confidence back.
My journey to becoming a qualified nutritionist has taught me so much about myself and how everything is intertwined. But quite frankly, it gave me my life back.
I am most definitely an all or nothing kind of person and finding a happy balance is continuous work for me. A balance between vegetables and cake, drive and reflection is something I am continually working on. I’m not perfect and I don’t claim to be, but I’m happy, healthy and hugely passionate about life and what I do.
My weight was holding me back from living a life I love but it doesn’t have to be this way. You can lose weight, have infinite energy, get your confidence back and feel incredible in your own skin. And no, you don’t have to go on a diet.
The right diet and lifestyle can change your life – and that’s what I’m passionate about doing.
About
I’m Sarah, I’m a nutritionist and hormone expert. I help women lose weight, reclaim their confidence and reignite their spark when their hormones are fighting against them.
Professional Qualifications
Sarah graduated with distinction from the prestigious Institute for Optimum Nutrition where she was taught evidence-based nutrition throughout the four-year course. She is a member of the professional association BANT (British Association for Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine) and she is also registered with the CNHC (Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council). She attends continuing professional development conferences and seminars to keep up to date with the leading edge developments of nutritional medicine to provide the very best advice to her clients. She has also furthered her knowledge graduating as a NLP Master Practitioner and currently undertaking an MSc in Personalised Nutrition.
You are busy. Period. From the minute you wake up you cram every second of every day with something because there is always something needing your attention. Whether it's the long to-do list at work, running around after the kids, never ending cooking, cleaning, food shopping. There is always something to do and you find yourself crashing at the end of the day so exhausted to do anything other than Netflix and scroll on social media.
Life feels like it never stops and you are always at the bottom of the to-do list. Even if you had time to prioritise yourself you wouldn’t know where to start. Weight watchers, calorie counting and exercise classes worked in the past but only for a while before putting the weight back on, and more. You recently tried keto, intermittent fasting and HIIT for an attempt at getting the weight to shift, boost your energy and feel human again, but they didn’t work so what else is there?
It is easier to forget about it, to carry on making it through and surviving each day. Until you catch yourself in the mirror, your jeans don’t fit, you’re tagged in a photo (do I really look like that?!) or you can’t take the dread of deciding what to wear for another event.
You know you can’t live like this anymore. Dragging yourself through each day, hating your body and feeling ashamed. But you just don’t know where to start anymore.
I totally get it. Because that is exactly where I was. Feeling trapped in the toxic cycle of yo-yoing diet, feeling lost and confused about what is actually healthy and trying to muster up the strength, putting my previous failed attempts aside, and going all in on the next health kick.
If any of that sounds like you, let me tell you it doesn’t have to be this way. You can step into the healthiest and happiest version of yourself, you just need to know how.
If you’ve been struggling with your weight, your hormones are a hot mess and wondering what has happened to your metabolism then you are in the right place.
Start where you are, use what you have, and do what you can.
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Weight gain or an inability to lose weight
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Fatigue
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Brain fog
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Anxiety or depression
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Mood swings
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Headaches or migraines
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Insomnia
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Thyroid issues
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Heavy or painful periods
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PMS or PMDD
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Bloating
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Digestive issues
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Hot flushes or night sweats
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Low libdo
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PCOS, endometriosis, cysts or fibroids
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Stress