About Tracy

Hi- I am so glad you are here!  Here's the quick rundown- I have over a decade of experience coaching and consulting individuals and groups in achieving their optimal health through nutrition, exercise, stress-management, and sleep optimization in a both a functional medicine setting and my own private practice.  While I love all medical enigmas, I am especially well versed in gut health (leaky gut, SIBO, IBS, IBD, Candida, dysbiosis, acid reflux, microbiome optimization, etc), pre/postnal health, family (parent and children) nutrition, autoimmune conditions, adrenal fatigue, and reversing insulin resistance/type 2 diabetes.  I also live for overall health optimization and promoting longevity through nutrition and exercise.  I pride myself on forming deep and lasting connections with my clients, and providing honest and actionable opinions and plans to foster life-long healthy habits.  Health is not a destination-it's a constant journey, and understanding what works best for YOUR unique body will enable you to weather any present or future storm(s).   I'm a working mother of three kids under 9 years old, so I really do understand how hard it can be to put yourself first.  But I promise, you can, and you and your family will reap the rewards in tenfold.  Take a peak at my full story below.  If it resonates with you-let's have a chat.  Helping people get to the root cause of their issue(s) and gaining their life back through nutrition, exercise and other lifestyle modalities is my true passion and calling.

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My story likely begins somewhat similar to yours. I grew up knowing nothing about nutrition. I consumed copious amounts of coca-cola, frosted flakes, wonder bread, and took antibiotics for sneezing. Sound familiar? 

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Even as a child, I had frequent stomach aches and high cholesterol. I was told that it was normal, it ran in the family.  Your body is more forgiving when you are young and despite the running to the bathroom after most meals, I was a fit, active, sports-loving kid.

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But eventually, the body becomes so out of balance that you cannot ignore it any longer.  After college, I was working for News Corporation in sales. It was a high-stress, all consuming type of job, and I paid little attention to what I ate. My stomach pains really started to hamper my life. Alternating between bouts of constipation, diarrhea, and intense abdominal pains, I started to also experience migraines, extreme exhaustion, brain-fog, and random episodes of vomiting (my absolute final straw- three kids later and it's still my biggest fear!).  My body was literally rejecting what I was eating and how I was living my life- something clearly had to be done.

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Throughout this time, I was seeing countless doctors, from Gastroenterologists, to ENT’s, to endocrinologists.  All the serious diseases were ruled out, like colitis or celiac, and I was told I had IBS and acid reflux.  I even went to the Mayo Clinic because I had no where else to turn and still was not improving.  NO ONE mentioned food to me, and that it might be effecting how I feel.  No one.  And it’s not their fault- conventional medical doctors are not trained in nutrition; they receive less than 24 hours of nutritional training in medical school.  Yes, you read that correctly- one days worth.  CRAZY!!

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I started researching nutrition, and learned how food effects everything- it is the fuel we give to our body. It is information and talks to our DNA.  It can be the most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison (case in point) . I tried an elimination diet to really pinpoint which foods were causing my symptoms.  I also found, and fell in love with, functional medicine, which focuses on the root cause of your symptoms.  Your symptoms are just that- signals from your body that something is off balance. By uncovering WHY these are there, and looking deeper into your entire medical history and life story, including your lifestyle, relationships, stress management, etc, a clearer picture emerges as to what is happening in your body. FINALLY SOMETHING THAT MADE SENSE!! 

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I learned that I had increased gut permeability (aka, leaky gut, meaning my gut lining had little holes in them, allowing undigested food particles to leak into the bloodstream, causing an immune response to occur, making my body intolerant to various foods like gluten, dairy and fructose, to name a few), SIBO (small intestinal bacteria overgrowth), and gut dysbiosis (the ratio of good to bad bacteria and yeast was way too high, my microbiome totally out of whack!).  This can all be caused by all the processed and chemicalized food we eat, acid reflux medication (which I had previously been taking), antibiotics, and stress, to name a few, all of which applied to my life!  70% of our immune system is located in our gut, so it’s no wonder I was feeling so sick, when my flora (our bacteria that keep us healthy) and intestinal lining were clearly a mess due to my lifestyle and eating habits!

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I eliminated a plethora of foods from my diet for a period of time so I could heal, and the results were astonishing.  I literally felt like a new person.  No more stomach aches, headaches, or exhaustion.  My small framed, 5”1 body was carrying too much weight/excess inflammation, and I seamlessly lost 20lbs as my body rid itself of all the toxins I was feeding it with.  FOOD CHANGES EVERYTHING!! 

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I also began to exercise more regularly, practiced meditation, and detoxed through baths, dry brushing, and massage.  This helped keep my digestive system moving, and helped teach me ways to actively calm my nervous system, strengthen my vagal nerve, and connect with myself in a way I hadn't been able to before.

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I quickly became the nutrition and wellness guru for my friends and family; I loved helping them feel more vibrant through their eating and lifestyle choices.  I had an undeniable feeling in my gut, and now that it was finally healthy, I could listen to it.  I knew my true calling was to help people achieve their own health and wellness.  I know my own journey would have gone so much more smoothly (and quickly!) had I had a coach to support and guide me to my best health.  So, I took a leap of faith and left the corporate world to formalize my education at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and immediately went into private practice.  While maintaining my own private practice over the last decade, I also gained invaluable experience working as a Health Coach at Bloomberg, and most spent five years working as a Health Coach for Parsley Health where I coached thousands of patients in a functional medicine setting.  I am also a mother to three magical humans, and see both pediatric and adult clients.  Throughout my pregnancies, and becoming a mother, I had various health set-backs arise (c-sections due to breech babies, cholestasis, adrenal fatigue, etc), but none of them knocked me down for too long. I was already in such a strong place of well-being that it was much easier to get my body back in balance utilizing all the knowledge and healthy practices I know work best for me.  

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We now know that our diet and lifestyle can actually turn on and off good and bad genes (hello fascinating epigenetics field!), and I want my clients to learn how to eat and exercise in the best way for THEM so all their healthy genes dominating, and have their less ideal genes be inactive!  Whether you are a pregnant or a parent trying to give your family the healthiest life, a parent to a child who needs some help optimizing their diet and exercise or helping reverse a new or existing health condition, or have been living with stomach pain, diarrhea, constipation, headaches, low energy, bad skin, or just a feeling that something is off, I can help you examine your nutrition and lifestyle from a holistic, whole-body perspective, so you can live your healthiest and happiest life. Let's DO THIS!!