I assumed I knew what a “healthy diet” was.
Being raised in an Asian household, every meal had a veggie, a meat and a grain. I’d have a fruit every day for my vitamin C and I’d drink my milk for my calcium. What else is there to it? Never did it ever cross mind that the food I ate had anything to do with my mood, my energy or my metabolism.
Like most, the thought of working with a nutritionist never crossed my mind. Until something started going wrong and I’ve exhausted just about every other option. I was in my early twenties and my body suddenly stopped working the way it had before. I began struggling with my skin and my weight. I began feeling very unhappy. I thought the problem was my weight, so I began dieting and working out. I started feeling guilty every time I ate a bowl of rice. I learned what digestive enzymes were for the first time from the labels of fad diet supplements. I knew it wasn’t healthy, but I wanted to get there fast. I thought once I lost the weight, I’ll “start living healthily” again. But any “progress” I made felt minuscule. My acne was out of control, my metabolism slowed to a sludge and my hormones completely out of whack.Food became my ultimate comfort and my worst enemy. It was all I thought about. I leaned into it and went to train as a chef in Paris.
The first time I saw a nutritionist, I was alone in a dimly lit Norwegian cafe, within the first 10 minutes of the zoom call, I cried. I had just finished a gruelling internship at a one Michelin restaurant. Even though I was standing for 15+ hours a day, my weight has skyrocketed and my mood swung like a pendulum. I had felt so alone and ashamed this whole time. She explained to me why the things that were happening to my body was happening. For the first time, I accepted that I needed to commit to a sustainable change.
After moving back to Canada, I enrolled in the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition in Vancouver. I applied my culinary training and became my own guinea pig every time we learned something new. From sports nutrition to allergies to eating for seniors, I was fascinated by everything I learned. But often, I struggled with falling back into old habits, and when that happened, I was harder on myself than ever, because I thought, “I should know better now”. This was when I learned that change isn’t hindered by the lack of knowledge.
Then the shift happened. One day I was suddenly hit with this realization - I feel great, nothing feels wrong! I realized that during my training as a nutritionist, we were constantly living in this bubble of “how to live healthily”, so much so that it rewired the old dialogue that was ingrained in my mind - don’t eat carb, oil is bad, Diet Coke is better… etc.. My life was no longer about restrictions, but the addition of foods and habits that added to my life. This is when it all clicked, cultivating that mindset change is the most pivotal part of any transformation. Exposure, repetition, and intrinsic reason for change. Once that happened, the physical changes felt almost effortless. By the time I graduated, I was the healthiest and fittest I’ve been in years, and you bet I’m enjoying my rice whenever I want.
This is the premise of my program. I will help you understand the root cause behind your symptoms and work with you in adopting a personalized nutritious lifestyle changes. I will give you all my knowledge, my skills and any resources that will guide you towards feeling your best. But most importantly, I will create for you that same consistent and supportive environment that allowed change to happen for me. Trajectory is everything. Trust me, the progress will follow.
Are we a good fit?
Food is preventative medicine
In all the sci-fi movies with time travelling as a trope, the characters are always cautious of every single action they take, in fear of triggering a rippling effect into the present time; yet, very few of us perceive our actions today to have the same significance in our future - This is a “shower thought” that I came across a while back and it’s stuck with me ever since because it holds so much truth. The next time you think to yourself, “ I don’t have time to - eat, sleep, exercise, meditate, etc.” I challenge you to ask yourself what is it that you prioritize over your health, and why?
Nutrition isn’t just about food
The mind body and gut connection is a concept that fascinated me in nutrition school. As someone who struggles with mood swings and ADHD, what I eat 100% impacts how I feel. In my practice, we look at beyond what we put in our bowls and explore how your stress management, daily movements, sleep and mindset affects your well being.
The 80/20 rule
When you work with me, we won’t be labeling any food as “Good” or “Bad”. And I’m not going to ask you to forever give up your favourite comfort food. Eating healthy shouldn’t be “painful” because if the process is not sustainable, neither will your results. What I strive to give my client is what I wish someone gave me with when I struggled with my own healthyeating journey -to achieve food freedom. It took me a while to realize that it isn’t about being able to eat “whatever you want”. It is much more empowering to be in control of your cravings, to honour your body’s hunger cues and to learn about the foods that makes you feel good mentally and physically.