Meet Amanda.

“It’s the food you eat everyday that makes a difference. Health is conscious, crafted and individual, and living this way is all about awareness, process and self-analysis.”

MY WELLNESS MARATHON is a gritty true story of survival, health, stress, food and living to see the other side between 1965 to 2021. I was born with the genetic mutation MTHFR, which has a more colourful nickname these days. I say I was born hungry, probably because I was not absorbing vital elements from my food. My DNA set me up for myriad long-term chronic health problems. I suffered from these diseases before they had names. When I was 13, I had chronic IBS, fatigue and inflammation, plus many other angsty issues, such as negative body image and an eating disorder. The worst part I think was that I grew up thinking that feeling this way was normal and okay. I did bear the personal affront of thinking I was lazy because I could not do as much as anyone else. I was told to get fitter by my sports teacher, to lose weight, called names, never picked for sports teams and socially isolated at school. There was a certain amount of depression that went along with the whole package. Now it’s called trauma.

The one thing I could do was cook. And I started early at about nine years, again because I was always hungry. The kitchen was my safe place – no threats here and lots of encouragement. So it became my career choice – a chef – which really could not have been worse. Putting myself in a constant state of stress with exceedingly long and physically demanding hours with little pay and loads of intimidating abuse. Kitchens in the 1980s were tough, male-dominated arenas with all the usual condiments of threats, sexual harassment and humiliation. Again, I thought this was normal. Starting in professional kitchens as a 17-year-old female was the equivalent to being target practice.

With my creative need for self-expression, I have an inherent love of food as a communicator, flavour is its words, so I am a taster as I cook. Plus, I’m dyslexic and hate following written recipes. I self-learnt to cook by feel and taste, plus intuition. I learned later I was one of few who tasted. I would taste everything to check it, to know what raw ingredients taste like, to know, to form a pallet. A reference for food and their profiles was being built in my head. Like a sommelier, but for food. I had a home-grown knowledge of where food came from instilled in me from my rural roots (raised in the Barossa in South Australia)... watching the sheep and chickens being killed and the vegetables being picked. A sense of urgency (like panic) drove me to do well for fear of failure. Every dish had to be perfect, so my care surpassed my ability to physically execute a multilayered job in understaffed kitchens and set me up to be in a form of constant stress. When I was working in Martha’s Vineyard (United States, near Cape Cod, Massachusetts), a guy came into the kitchen and watched me work for a while. As he was leaving he said “you care too much”. This sticks with me today. Somehow my care was hurting me.

Being a chef was not the idea of the century for someone with MTHFR. Stress exacerbated everything. Of course, I did not know that then. So it was no wonder I was constantly battling with IBS, always fatigued with undiagnosed thyroid issues, over weight and inflamed. This was not dissimilar to my high school years, so it was a normal state for me. Moving on, I worked in 21 kitchens before paying my own way to travel and do a Cordon Bleu Certificate in London. Many countries and restaurants later (including with famed Italian chef Carla Tomassi), I fast forward to being about 35, with a four-year-old daughter, and in my own second restaurant (the first was 1918 Bistro and Grill, Australia’s first regional food restaurant, the second was Landhaus, which gained critical acclaim globally). I had a complete breakdown. I could not walk, my IBS was violent and my fatigue had me crying and hiding to sneak sleeps. I consulted my GP, was told to change my career and get a gall bladder operation. The doctor at the time could not tell me if the operation would help. In desperation, I went to a naturopath who told me I was an onion (apt) and began to peel back the layers.

Within a year, I had come to my own realisations and given up gluten, fruit (before FODMAP was a thing!) and sugars (before I Quit Sugar was a thing!). I was on her medication and was the best I had ever been for a short time. Usually stress-related, I did seriously collapse a few more times in my life. My daughter has seen me in bed more than I’d like, and the fatigue always came back and my weight always fluctuated. I had incredible lows where I worried that I could not work and pay rent. I felt it was my fault, that I was not capable, as somehow I had made bad decisions. Basically I dragged myself to work, then bed most of the time for years.

Finally, when I was at one of my lowest ebbs with a very stressful job, I was diagnosed with MTHFR. Which was very new at the time and there was little information available about it. GPs said it was fringe medicine, some even laughed at me if I mentioned it. Plus, my hormone count came back with a progesterone count of one. I had systemic body pain from extremely high oestrogen. I was in peri-menopause, which no professional advised me. Although my new forward-thinking doctor put me on B12 injections once a week and progesterone. This was a little bit successful, but the fatigue came back. Another doctor found I also had a dysfunctional pancreas, liver stress and the thyroid autoimmune disease Hashimotos, which helped explain the fatigue and cold flushes along with the inability to lose any weight. The painful digestion process and the malabsorption of nutrients added to the mix. I was put on immune blockers. They also said I was a six points from Chrone’s disease. It all sounded bleak. Large sums of money went on prescriptions and supplements. Little was working. They played with thyroxin, but it gave me panic attacks. At this point I was drained and desperate, yet somehow determined. Maybe that comes from years of working in hard places in shitty positions and having to turn up and deliver (chef stuff). I started to look for people who had symptoms and disorders like my own and hear how they got better. That’s how I discovered adaptogens, such as ashwagandha.

I started putting ashwagandha into water and it didn't taste good. So I bought a blender and started to make what I call The Smoothie That Saved My Life. Dramatic, I know, but true. That was the beginning of everything. I found more adaptogens and added them to my smoothie. After a while I stopped taking my scripts, thyroxin and many of my pharmacy supplements. However, I continue to take my methylated B12, D and omega 3s. I felt better enough to start walking, which I gradually increased to being able to jog. I started yoga. At my first yoga session, I could not do an upward dog. Gradually I could do a full hour intense lesson at a local school. Plus, I had decided to do something I really loved and took dressage lessons. At my first lesson, I could not trot five circles. I have a wonderful teacher and after a year I could do a full hour in all gates. I even went to a dressage school with two hours of riding a day in Portugal. Movement and having something to look forward to is always in my coaching protocol.

As I took more adaptogens and felt better, I had more energy to concentrate on my food. I knew what conditions I had, so as more information became available, I could maximise my healing with particular food choices. Most people would say I was a health nut before all this. However, when I looked at my food and my conditions, I put new protocols into play. Now, at 56 and post-menopause (which changed everything again and kinda sucked), my initial protocols have evolved to accommodate my new stage of life and I am well. Doing yoga, ballet, weights and dressage, and taking lots of adaptogens – in food and in my clean organic adaptogenic skincare and perfume that I make myself. My whole life is now based around adaptogens, living my best life, living clean and helping others who want to learn from my experience and work towards wellness and better ageing. I am not a health practitioner, and I have a strong professional health team around me, but I also understand that we need to talk to others, share experiences and form a community in which we all individually take responsibility for our health with the best doctors, naturopaths and other health and wellness providers available, and with our own research and questions. It’s important to feel empowered as an individual to ask questions of your professionals at hand.