I am a nutritional therapist who graduated from the Institute for Optimum Nutrition in 2009. Having previously seen clients in London only, I have now set up my business in the Southend area, working with The Body Matters in Leigh-on-Sea. Recently I have teamed up with zest4life and can now offer zest4life one-to-one or group programmes as well as phone coaching.

I mainly see clients - in Leigh-on-Sea or in London - who are professionals in the second half of their working life and are finding that their levels of energy are not what they used to be. Many struggle to handle stress. This is also a time when poor lifestyle choices earlier in life are beginning to take their toll, and some people notice that weight has crept on, joints ache, their blood pressure has gone up or they have even been given the diagnosis of heart disease or diabetes. Yet, they are still young, have families to provide for, mortgages to pay and potentially 20 more years of an active working life to look forward to. Through nutritional advice and health coaching, I am able to help my clients to bounce back, which is something that is thoroughly rewarding.

Years ago I was diagnosed with chronic eczema. There was nothing the dermatologist could do for me to make it go away, except prescribe steroid cream. Moreover, he told me to except to develop asthma at some point as well, because chronic eczema, hay fever (which I had suffered from since my early teens) and asthma tended to go hand in hand. There was nothing I could do but accept this and left, clutching a cream that would not remove the rash, but at least the itching. A few years later, I went vegan for ethical reasons. To my great surprise, my eczema seemed to rapidly improve until it finally vanished. I remembered the doctor's words and was curious to see whether my hay fever would return the next spring. It didn't. Could my new diet have anything to do with this? This is what first triggered my interest in nutrition, and the more I read, the more fascinating it became. So, finally I enrolled in a training course with the Institute for Optimum Nutrition (ION) in London. I am also a qualified translator working from English into German and happy to take on occasional translation work in the subject area of health and wellbeing.