I’ve often asked my clients to start at the beginning, so I’m doing the same for you.

My path to becoming a Functional Medicine Nutritionist began when my young husband, Isamu, was diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor. At the time, I was just seven weeks pregnant with our only child.

Isamu’s oncologist prescribed a treatment plan, which we followed dutifully. And yet, we knew there had to be more we could do, to both prolong his life and mitigate the treatment side-effects. As a passionate foodie, my attention turned to the power of food. I quickly identified that what we ate was one of the few healing resources we had complete control over, and full access to. I spent the coming weeks and months after Isamu’s diagnosis tirelessly researching nutrition, and how to use food as medicine to help alleviate his medication-induced symptoms, and potentially stave off the effects of the disease long enough for him to meet our baby-to-be, Gilbert.

It was in overcoming his prognosis of six months and prolonging his life for another two years that my expanding interest in nutrition as personalized medicine, especially for those suffering chronic health challenges, became my full-time passion and purpose.

And one of the striking things I learned about nutrition is that it goes way beyond food.

While some of these factors can be measured with stethoscopes and lab tests, much more of it comes from you — both the information and the means to move forward towards health.

There was a time when my own body didn’t feel like it should — fatigue, unexplained weight gain, perpetually tender breasts. It was about six years after Isamu died, now a single mom, going back to school and working full-time, when I unearthed a diagnosis of my own. This one wasn’t so easily named. There was no surgery. No pathology. Just symptoms. Lots of niggling symptoms. I had an autoimmune condition. It’s called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

And it was then that I became a case study unto myself (an N-of-1 as we say in research.) The evidence for what to do wasn’t in a published study or a book or a health expert’s protocol. It was within me. In my choices, my habits, and even more importantly, in my body’s responses to whatever I tried. That’s why I couldn’t afford to stop with or wait for the diagnosis or depend on it to give me the answers. None of us can. Nobody knows you like you. And that’s the good news.

There’s a piece of your healing protocol that only you can bring.

• You are an expert too — the expert on you.

• You are so much more than your diagnosis.

• You have more of a circle of influence than you think.

It’s these three principles that are at the core of the work I now do. My work in the field started in 2009. I began by caring for clients, helping regular people with all kinds of health challenges and diagnoses improve their lives through highly individualized and informed nutrition. Soon, I had a large following of other practitioners who were interested in learning the approaches that were leading to successful outcomes for my clients. It was then that I created Full Body Systems, the online training program for coaches and clinicians that became the cornerstone of the Functional Nutrition Alliance, the brand I had created. Under that umbrella I also launched another passion project, my podcast, 15-Minute Matrix. 1

Over the last 15 years, I’ve trained over 7,000 practitioners in more than 65 countries. While that reach continues to grow, I’ve realized that the greatest and most important thing I can do with the knowledge and experience I’ve gained is to share it outside of the classroom. The science and tools of Functional Nutrition belong out from behind the closed doors of clinicians offices, to be used in the world by anyone who needs them. Now it’s time for me to share my expertise more widely, with you.