I was your most typical “wellness girl.” I followed all the rules and trends of the health and wellness world. I did everything “right.” I ate clean, exercised, and was disciplined about it all. I built my whole life around being healthy.
And still, something wasn’t working.
Gut issues, food intolerances, low mood, depression, constant fatigue, brain fog, and insomnia were a daily thing. Plus, my menstrual cycle had been missing for years.
At 40, I was diagnosed with osteoporosis.
It made me question everything I thought I knew about health...
The Chaos Years
From my early teens to my late 20s, I lived very disconnected from myself.
Right after high school, I left home and moved to London (UK) to work as an au pair. What was meant to be a short escape turned into seven years. It became my first real experience of adult life. I fell in love, learned how to drive, got a job, and got on as best I knew how.
Everything there was different from what I knew, and it was the first time I’d ever been away and on my own like that. I had to learn and adapt, and fast. It wasn’t easy.
I would describe that time as chaotic, hard, and painful, but also exciting, new, and fun at the same time. The problem was, I didn’t have the tools to understand what I was feeling or how to deal with any of it, so I coped the only way I knew how — by numbing and avoiding.
Binge eating, drinking (hello, London pub culture…), partying, binge watching TV. These all worked great short term (like, for the night maybe), but over time started to hurt me and things got dark.
Depression had already been part of my life since high school, but during my 20s I got to meet its darker sides. Eventually, things got so dark I felt I only had two options left: either things were going to have to change…, or I was out. Simple as that.
Luckily, things did change.
And so, little by little, and with gentle nudges from the Universe (the magic of serendipities), I discovered the world of self-development, and it opened a whole new chapter and era in my life. I went on a healing journey.
The “Healthy” Years
If my 20s were all about disconnection and chaos, my 30s became the opposite. I went all in on health and changed my lifestyle completely.
I couldn’t bear city life anymore and craved nature, peace, and quiet. I quit alcohol and ate only organic, whole foods. I overcame my binge eating habits and sugar addiction. I went to Thailand and Bali to learn yoga, meditation, and mindfulness. I did affirmations, journaled, and tried different manifestation techniques. I followed all the wellness trends — intermittent fasting, low-carb high-fat diets, time-restricted eating… you name it.
Basically, I became your typical “wellness girl,” and honestly, got a bit extreme and obsessed with it all.
At first, of course, I felt so much better compared to my lifestyle in my 20s. I felt lighter, calmer, happier. But after a while, I started to notice that something still didn’t feel quite right. In fact, some of the same problems were still there — gut issues, food intolerances, low mood and depression, constant fatigue, and a missing menstrual cycle.
And on top of that, I had developed some new symptoms, such as poor sleep, anxiety, brain fog, and cognitive decline, feeling like my brain wasn’t working properly anymore.
It made no sense to me. I remember thinking, I’m doing everything right… why don’t I feel good at all? So, I started to investigate, and I became a “health detective”.
I went to the gut doctor, the neurologist, the hormone doctor, the gynecologist. I tried alternative medicine. I did tests and analyses. I explored pretty much every option I could think of, but all I got back was:
“There’s nothing wrong with your gut, it’s stress,” or “It’s IBS, just avoid certain foods and live with it.”
“You have PCOS, we can put you on hormone medication.”
“You have depression, take antidepressants.”
Or
“Your results are fine, there’s nothing wrong with you.”
But I’m in my 30s and can barely function anymore. What is going on?
It was like a mystery, I could not figure it out.
From Chaos to Control to Balance
I recently turned 40 and was just diagnosed with osteoporosis. It shook me to my core. I remember thinking, This can’t be happening… aren’t I too young for this?
The good news is that it’s not a primary diagnosis, but a secondary (functional, lifestyle-related) one. Which basically means that, in a way, I’ve done this to myself through the choices I’ve made. But it also means that I can do something about it now, and it doesn’t have to continue this way. This has been unintentional, of course. I thought I was being super healthy, but as I’ve started to realize now, that wasn’t entirely the case.
I’m only now starting to put the puzzle pieces together…
I used to believe carbs were bad for me, so I stopped eating them.
I also believed that the smaller the eating window in a 24-hour period, the better, which meant that as an early riser, even though I’d been up since 4–5am, I wouldn’t allow myself to eat before 8–9am, and would often stop eating by 4–5pm. I was strict about it.
I believed that healthy fats were something you could eat freely, without worry, because fats don’t make you fat, carbs do… right? And fats provide stable energy and don’t spike your blood sugar like carbs do, so it’s okay.
I’m now learning that these may not have been the best beliefs or practices for me to adopt, especially as a woman, and especially long term (we’re talking years, not just a few months). These are not wrong or bad practices, but it’s important to understand for whom, when, and to what extent they are applied. This is key.
I’m analytical, detailed, and thorough by nature, and I tend to go deep with things, which makes it easy for me to go to extremes. I would track, note down, and analyze everything I tested and did so I could notice patterns and draw connections.
It’s served me well in becoming a “health detective” and getting to the root of things, but it has also worked against me, especially when I took my biohacking, optimization, and “healthy” habits to extremes.
I got lost in it all and forgot about the most basic rule:
balance.
Learning to Trust
I feel like I’ve lived on both ends, self-neglect and self-control, and they’ve both taught me something.
Taking care of ourselves, having routines, and discipline is important. But it’s equally important to listen to the signals our body is giving us, and to follow the natural rhythm of our own being.
Dr. Stacy Sims says in her book ROAR, “We can’t outsmart nature”, and if I’m truly honest with myself, deep down… I’ve known this all along.
My body is communicating with me all the time, but I often don’t listen. Why?
Because sometimes what the body is asking for is not quite welcomed by the mind.
You shouldn’t eat that.
This is bad for you.
You have to do it this way, otherwise…
And so I override.
Even now, as I’ve become more aware of these patterns, I notice that shifting from living in the mind to actually listening to the body isn’t that easy. There’s a lot of fear in letting go and loosening control over certain habits and beliefs that I've become used to, and that feel safe to me. That, I’m starting to see, is the real work here.
This is the path I’m currently on, and this is what I’ll be exploring and sharing with you here.
I’ll leave you with something I recently read in an article by Peta Kelly:
“Biohacking is out. Biological living is in.”
Amen to that!
