I decided to become a natural Health Consultant in order to help other mothers who might find themselves in the same situation as I did: having children with allergies and not understanding why, until The Natural Way.
Being in education originally has led me with a passion to educate the young parent generation. I am passionate about the health of our children, and by helping them, I am also able to help their parents, but by no means am I restricted to this.

I began following the basic principles of the Natural Way around 1997 and then took it on as a complete lifestyle after my son was born in 2005.

 This is my Story:       

The first thing I was able to discover by studying more about nutrition was my own Gluten Intolerance. When I started doing the theory work I discovered the symptoms I had were linked to gluten- ie. Joint pain and haemorrhoids.  I had already been sold on the food combining (10 years back) due to hayfever, but after changing to a natural lifestyle, weight loss and then weight maintenance came without effort and I realised that the eating habits of my children were really very good considering their age and peers diets. 

The difficulties I found in making these lifestyle changes were making my own health a living example. I went through a stage in 2008 when I tried really hard to correct my dry skin problem. Unfortunately my Aimega ran out and the finances were non-existent, so I tried a cheaper version of Flax oil. I have had a problem taking flax before and this seemed, once again to disagree with me. I felt nausea mostly along with a lack of appetite.

The interesting side to this is that after having tried avo for a couple of weeks and not really taking to it, not my favourite food, it was months later and I still couldn’t even think about eating any, not even a piece. (Now I can eat an avo a day, and love it!) I was fortunate enough to be able to buy some more Aimega and Barley life and felt so much better. Although I had loads more energy and was very positive about life generally I still found I had setbacks:

My dry skin, especially cracked fingers, and my memory was not great. I could see I was lacking in zinc as I had white spots on my nails and I wonder whether my thyroid was functioning correctly (also suffer cold hands and feet, during  winter in particular). After having followed such a “healthy” eating plan for then, over 2 years, (no sugar, no gluten, no preservatives…plenty of fruit…) it bothered me that there were still areas that were not completely healthy. This led me to see a doctor at the end of 2008…
My thyroid checked out 100% and I was forced to look at how much I was doing each day and realized that I was just over doing things.

I also went for the Metabolic Energy Testing to check on my food allergies and hopefully discover the source of my dry skin. This test indicated that I should avoid rice and strawberries and later I discovered reactions after eating citrus too. I became disheartened to think I had to eliminate more food. However, I came to realize that I was spending so much time focusing on this problem, when I gave it to God, without taking it back, I was able to move on, not allowing it to be a stress area. Removing rice and citrus helped to improve the condition of my skin but it was still not 100% healthy. Naturally I looked into the environmental chemicals too.  
I have learnt that a chemically-sensitive person like myself, could develop allergy reactions to natural foods if they are consumed continuously over a large period of time. Variety truly is the key to good health. I was tending to have the same fruit breakfast every day and I assume it was because of this that the strawberries and oranges became problematic.

The largest obstacle I find following The Natural Way is eating at other peoples houses, I must always pack my children’s food boxes as they ‘don’t eat other peoples food’, they like to keep all foods separate and won’t have a mixed salad, but will eat the carrot and cucumber (as long as they haven’t been sitting in a bowl mixed up with tomatoes). My daughter’s allergies had us preparing her food separately since the beginning of her life of solid food too. I then have to give a list of dietary requirements, from gluten-free, dairy-free, meat-free to even avoiding rice due to allergies. People don’t believe me that I’m happy with a salad foods and it puts a damper on their idea of inviting us for a meal. This is when my husband feels he must eat whatever comes along as not to offend anyone. However my husband is extremely supportive, he has seen the benefits that I have experienced and thus slowly began implementing the principles to his own diet. He feels the benefits when he eats naturally, feels heavy after a badly combined meal and had less desire to eat meat daily, however he is still happy to eat a “western” meal without feeling pressured to do otherwise. He jokes continuously about what he has to “put up with” at home, and takes delight in telling people that he is the “normal one” in the house, but all in jest.

My children are the main reason I changed my ways, my daughter is an allergy sufferer and as a tactile-defensive child, was and is a very fussy eater and yet she is the one who eats raw vegetables and hates soft cooked ones, she eats fruit from her lunchbox as she can’t eat wheat sandwiches and best of all, she chooses not to eat ice cream when we are out as she knows it gives her a runny nose and eczema. My son, 4 years younger, is still restrictive with his eating and insists on dipping every vegetable in tomato sauce, but he knows the difference between healthy and unhealthy and is glad to please by having healthy foods. Getting my children to this style of living has not been an over night experience and is still a long way from perfect but because I don’t allow the food evils like sugar and colourants and they know that if they say they are hungry I answer with “there’s the fruit bowl”, they are well on their way to being ‘Natural Wayers’ too