In 2018, the high-stress, fast-paced, "boys club" of the banking world finally broke me. It wasn't a sudden crash; it was a slow, terrifying fade. I was a casualty of a productivity culture that demanded everything and gave nothing back but a hollow, frantic shell of a person. My body was screaming: my period had vanished (hypothalamic amenorrhea), I suffered chronic injuries from being undernourished and over-exercised, and an autoimmune flare turned every meal into an enemy.

What you eat doesn't just fuel your body—it shapes your long-term health. From lowering inflammation and supporting gut health to regulating mood and energy, nutrition influences every system. This article explores the science behind chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, and the gut microbiome, and offers practical, evidence-based strategies to support your body through food. Whether you're managing symptoms or looking to prevent disease, it all starts with what’s on your plate.

For a long time, I’ve perceived a pressure of others’ unspoken expectations that I be perfect—whether in how I eat, behave, or live. When I faltered, this judgment felt magnified, feeding an inner dialogue of shame and self-criticism. Recognizing how I might unwittingly fuel these pressures myself has been part of my healing.

Perfectionism shows up for me as isolation, procrastination, restriction, and numbing out. It has held me back from expressing myself, deep connection, and fueled restrictive eating patterns, over-exercising, over-performing, and anxiety. 

It is distracting, self-sabotaging, and painful, and I am consistently working through it in my personal and professional journey. 

Rooted in the science of Functional Medicine, Functional Nutrition is a personalized, whole-body approach to health. It goes beyond just treating symptoms—it asks, “What does your unique body need to heal and thrive?”

For a long time, health and nutrition—at least how I understood them—meant eating low-fat, avoiding animal protein, restricting calories, overperforming, relying on copious amounts of coffee and artificial sweeteners, and running myself into the ground. Somehow, that all balanced out the weekends I spent drinking too much—or so I thought. I had no idea how much damage I was doing to my bones, liver, reproductive system, and mental health.