Integrative Nutrition Health Coach

I’ve been on the journey of wellness and natural healing since the turn of the century. It was my own health challenges followed by my baby girl’s cancer diagnosis that led me onto this path.

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The old Chinese saying “Crisis is opportunity” really sums up my journey. While not pleasant at times, I’ve experienced the most healing and personal growth during the dark days of dealing with physical discomfort and great loss.    

 

Growing up in the countryside of Taiwan in the 70s and 80s, when the industrialized food had limited role in most people’s life there, I was a pretty healthy kid fed on mostly homegrown and homeraised foods up to the point of college. 

 

Throughout my college and the subsequent years as a journalist, I barely cooked and dined out often. The food culture there was so different that I was still able to eat mostly real food even without cooking it myself. But I was constantly stressed due to the nature of a profession that demanded speed, meeting deadlines, and fierce competition among reporters for the next big scoop.          

 

I moved to the US in my early 30s after my husband took a teaching job in a university. While I was very excited and relaxed to explore the new life, the years of stress prior to my move combined with the new-found convenient foods didn’t go well for my body. I already had some digestive issues due to frequent use of antibiotics in my reporting years, as a result of a habit of holding bathroom trips for the entire morning before my deadline at noon. Then the delicious cheese and dairy products, the dinner rolls and biscuits that twisted out of paper can, the Doritos chips and canned salsa for game days, the salad dressing in a bottle… all these exotic Western foods that had never part of my life soon gave me various health challenges. 

 

I started having seasonal allergy issues, an irritable bowel that gave me excruciating pain and frequent diarrhea after eating, chronic UTI symptoms that couldn’t be confirmed by tests and wouldn’t go away with antibiotics, then chemical sensitivity and food intolerance… I’d seen multiple specialists and gone through major medical workups. None of them could decide or find anything wrong with me. Yet I was prescribed with all kinds of meds and continued to struggle without much help. 

 

I eventually got fed up with doctor visits and prescription drugs. I decided to take the healing in my own hand. This was the days when Internet was at the enfant stage and the term "microbiome" was unheard of.  After extensive research, I started implementing diet and lifestyle changes. I  eliminated dairy-- which turned out not agreeable with my body--, processed food and refined sugar; I made green juice every day and exercise regularly. I also threw in occasional green juice fasts-- sometimes over the weekends or as a monthly 3-day cleanse. Miraculously, almost all of my symptoms went away within just two months. I was overjoyed and have since never waved on the power of food and natural healing. 

 

In 2001, after I resolved my health challenges and felt my best, I got pregnant accidentally. It was an overall healthy pregnancy. My daughter was born a full-term, healthy baby in the fall of 2002. Soon tragedy struck. My 5-month-old baby girl was diagnosed with leukemia. Our world had suddenly been turned upside down. After fighting for 4 years, she succumbed to the force of cancer as the grueling treatments caused so much side effects and irreversible complications to her body...   

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(To be continued)