The Nutritional Supplement

What Course(s) did you graduate from at CNELM and when did you graduate?

I fast tracked the first two years of the BSc in Nutritional Therapy, then did the MSc in Personalised Nutrition.

What made you decide to embark on this course of study?

I’d always been interested in nutrition and the science behind it. Food and Health related articles were my ‘go to’ reading materials of choice. After having my first child I didn’t want to travel as much, my interest in emerging technologies had waned and my Mum became very sick. Although I’d always loved my job and voluntary work, my priorities had changed so I was happy to revel in my ‘life’s too short, make it count’ way of thinking.

I cashed in my shares and took the leap. Having worked in sales and marketing for a long time I knew I’d also enjoy the challenge of growing my own company, so the business side was also a big draw.

Once I’d decided to retrain, doing a MSc made sense as I still felt like I was moving forward. I already had a Psychology degree from first time round at university, although I never went directly into this field.

What did you do before starting this course?

I was a global accounts director in an US IT company. My day to day job involved managing EU sales and project management teams. Before maternity leave I was also on the board of the London Wildlife Trust and volunteered teaching for the Riding for the Disabled Association.

Did you use your dietary educator’s certificate after the first year of study or undertake any other nutrition work alongside studying at this time?

I didn’t get time for the administrative side of running regular talks which I think would have been great, as I had my second child whilst studying.

I moved to Norfolk during the course so I did quite a bit of groundwork building contacts and understanding what I could do to hit the ground running once I graduated. As an example, I set-up and ran Strolling Sprogs (a parents walking for health group) for a few years to make likeminded friends and promote myself as being health conscious locally. Recently Active Norfolk – who funded this walking project – provided grants to two large local high schools for my nutrition workshops.

Were you working alongside studying?

I gave up my four day a week job but when money was dwindling throughout the three years or I needed adult company, I did occasional consultancy work in my old career. After my second child I didn’t attend CNELM as much so secretly I enjoyed feeling like I needed to do a bit of work to tag it on to college trips the next day!  

What work did you do after graduating?

The first thing I did was get lots of admin type tasks done as I had the opportunity to work at Norwich City football club with individual players. I also became pregnant with my third child, so this seemed like a sensible focus. I wanted to keep developing my business but I knew time would become limited for perfecting forms, streamlining processes and launching a website once I had a baby.

Gradually I started seeing more and more one to one clients and I specialised in functional nutrition for optimising health and performance in business and sport. I then set up a workshop series, ‘Mindful Nourishment’ with my friend from CNELM Amy Berry.  Both of us wanted to reach a wider cross section of the public than we could through individual consultations alone so group work seemed the way forward.

Our first workshop Eating for Energy was designed to promote the importance of sound nutritional practise for short and long-term health benefits. It included our short videos, questionnaires and activities which we worked hard on to make sure it was of high business quality. The plan was initially to offer many workshop packages to other nutritional therapists starting out to help raise their profile in their area and save time. In reality once we completed our first few talks we became busy presenting these ourselves and Amy also had her third baby. We’ve yet to follow up on these original plans…

We’ve now replicated this talk many times, tweaking it and updating the evidence each time. The audiences have been pretty diverse and include Ocado, local councils, NHS, schools, parent groups, sports clubs, business networking events and expos.

I’m not a big fan of doing work for free as it seems to devalue your business in the long run but recently I haven’t been able to resist doing parts of this talk to primary school children actually for fun! They also taste tested my muffins with great enthusiasm.

Why did you settle on sports nutrition as your specialist area?

 

As soon as I did the sports nutrition module near the end of the course I loved it. Suddenly there were new topics I knew absolutely nothing about like exercise physiology and it was all so positive. I struggled with this a bit as I originally wanted to help people with chronic diseases, then there I was jumping on the glory bandwagon and even listening to football matches online if I couldn’t watch them! Norwich were in the premier league when I consistently called them up to see if I could work with them for my MSc project.

The perseverance paid off and I got to work with first team players on personalised nutritional strategies to optimise performance. I also had lots of fun in the process as I had a desk at the training ground, so every opportunity I was there!

It was very practical and I was really included as part of the multi-disciplinary team which was a fantastic experience. Alongside the functional testing, questionnaires and interviews I was asked to do different things like talks to players and sport science teams. For several days I even stood in the canteen queue encouraging healthy food choices for hungry academy players which was definitely outside my comfort zone at the time.

The players I were seeing were in peak physical fitness and just wanting to gain a competitive edge. For the club they got to investigate other areas of nutrition they would not have had exposure to, so it worked well for all. Football is a fast moving sport; I still deal with individual players rather than NCFC directly at present.

One thing’s for sure, choosing to do a practical dissertation helped massively to promote Health Embrace and kick started my nutrition career.

Naturally through the Mindful Nourishment workshops and having three children myself family health heath is now more the area I’ve evolved into and I’m happily focusing on. Even with many of my sports and performance related clients, including practical family tips seems to be the key to compliance.

Is there anything you wish you’d known before finishing your studies that you might have prepared for differently?

I would have liked to have been a bit more organised about my filing and downloading interesting studies to refer back to. There was so much amazing cutting edge information provided at the time.

I might not have been so hung up on results unless I had planned to get a job, as no-one has ever asked me for any of this detail. Being enthusiastic and proactive has been the most important factor for me to date.

Was practising the way you thought it would be when you decided to train as a nutritional therapist?

It mainly was but I’ve always kept an eye on the business side and had a plan. I think you have to be patient as it’s easy to expect a lot when you first graduate but realistically if you want to sustain and grow a business for the long term it might take a good three to five years to make proper money. I’ve been lucky in that my children are young so I’ve never felt the pressure to grow quickly and I now have more than enough to do.

Things also evolve, so what I’d initially planned for Health Embrace has changed but the structure is still the same. My first launch product has been very different than I'd anticipated, when I thought sports and performance would be my main focus.

Nowadays my expectations are lower - I don’t expect everyone to make nutritional changes, but if someone gets one or two things from a workshop and sticks with it, I’m delighted.

I still truly believe we’re in exciting times and the opportunities are endless.

What or who has most inspired you in your work?

I was wowed by the Nutrition Coach Network day course I attended back in 2013. I enjoyed Vicki Edgeson’s talk particularly as she enthused about not being afraid to break the mould to try new things. She was very focused on the business side of being a Nutritional Therapist, which I think is huge. I remember doing a quick spreadsheet in my first year at CNELM as I couldn’t fathom how the one-to-one model could work financially, so the day really helped to consolidate my ideas and future plans.

I’m always hugely inspired by those that have a vast amount of technical knowledge that I’d love to have at my fingertips.

Do you have any tips, hints, regrets...?

Tips wise I’d say keep close to your early nutrition friends as they’ll be your lifeline perhaps forever more. Also collaborate to lighten the load where you can.  

I think just give everything you want to do a go. Why not!? Most people have given up a lot to study nutrition so there’s nothing to lose. If you want to get a great job, get involved in projects whilst studying which you can talk about after. Put yourself out there. Make friends with other health professionals. Constantly talk about your business and promote your brand.

If I had to choose a regret it’d be that I’ve wasted a lot of time on administration and I know I’m not very good at it. It’s false economy when you’re paying for childcare.

Tell us a little about your gluten free muffin mix and how you got involved with it.

It’s a nutritious quick bake muffin mix aimed at children, which could work well as an after school snack or a quick breakfast on the go.  It can then also be a fun activity for parents to do with their children with minimal fuss, to encourage a bit of handling real ingredients. You only have to add apples or pears and oil to bake.

For so long I’ve been horrified at the snacks children eat but I know convenience is a big factor with families. The timing seemed right to get involved and take action. I’m also now doing more work in schools and with food providers so I’ve had plenty of exposure to the issues.

I had my absolute list of my perfect nutrition requirements so I approached the gluten free chef I work with at the social enterprise Your Gluten Freedom to collaborate with me to help produce the mixes. I was sure about the branding and packaging and also the children’s character ideas.  We had to compromise on some things when factoring in important things like taste, texture and of course cost! It’s pretty close to my ideal though.

I’ve been the nutritional therapist for the newly formed Your Gluten Freedom for just over a year now and I do a nutrition talk at the bi-annual expo. People come to my stand to ask questions and book in for future workshops and consultations. In April I decided to take the chance to launch the product at the YGF expo as I was familiar with the type of attendees and set-up which was perfect for conducting taste testing and questionnaires. I also do an auditorium talk at the expo and this time I targeted it to parents. We took lots of samples and mixes which all went, so we’ve taken that as a positive sign.

Things are progressing nicely and in a few weeks they’ll hopefully be stocked in delis locally, with plans for further rollout and funding happening currently.