About
Hi, I’m Jan, a Functional Nutritionist, a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach, Certified Food & Spirit Practitioner™ and mind-body skills educator. I am also a wanderlust kind of gal, a true creative, alchemist in the kitchen and curator of all things beautiful.
I support women longing to feel vibrant and wanting a unique approach to wellness. Living with symptoms of autoimmunity and chronic stress like fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, insomnia and food sensitivities can be challenging to deal with. Our work together can lessen the overwhelm. We will create a personalized food and lifestyle roadmap to get you feeling more like yourself again. You will feel a sense of freedom and possibility. I love to see my clients experience new found energy and self assurance as they begin to feel better.
I know from my own personal experience and from coaching courageous, motivated women with a variety of health challenges, that food and lifestyle choices can be incredibly powerful medicine. I’ve come to realize that flourishing doesn’t necessarily mean cure, but we can certainly heal and begin to feel more vibrant in many areas of our lives. I am enjoying life in ways I never thought possible through a diet and lifestyle plan based on the functional medicine model of wellness.
I believe that choice and a beautifully integrated mind body spirit approach can offer a unique and transformative path to wellness. The act of eating delicious whole foods, getting restorative sleep, moving the way you love, rediscovering what brings you joy and taking time for luscious self-care, which includes stress resiliency practices, can create a life where you flourish! I have seen how even the simplest changes can shift how we feel. It is your time! I would love to share my approach with you.
Want to learn more about my approach?
My Story
There is nothing I like more than choice and a sense of freedom. I thrive on being outside at high elevation in the mountains, exploring, sitting on rocks soaking in the warmth or working in the garden barefoot. I am passionate about photographing nature and beautiful foods, collecting natural objects, and creating colorful, seasonal meals. I love my family and my husband to pieces along with our dog, Roo. My food and lifestyle choices are all based on the heartfelt longing to continue doing what I love. It is not always possible because I live with autoimmune disease, but I am doing things now that I never imagined possible.
I have lived most of my adult life with the challenges of autoimmune disease. I was thin and sickly as a child, was sensitive to my environment and to an array of foods. This sensitivity impacted my health and I experienced a lot of challenges that were not addressed and followed me into adulthood.
When I was 30, I experienced a combination of extreme stress and a unknown infection (maybe Lyme) that led to an unraveling of my immune system. I was bed bound for several months with fever, fatigue and hyperactivity, rashes, hair-loss, extreme food sensitivities, weight loss, insomnia and anxiety. At the time, I saw an environmental physician and was chelated and given IV vitamins. This treatment actually got me out of bed, but the symptoms continued. They were strange and unpredictable and I often found myself back in bed, desperate. I developed autoimmune diseases with specific names after the birth of my first child: Sjogren’s Syndrome first and then Ankylosing Spondylitis and Celiac Disease after the birth of my second child. I also developed unusual symptoms of connective tissue disease and high cholesterol. I had a heart attack at 46 years old despite being thin and in shape.
I experienced a myriad of strange symptoms that nobody could explain and I was often told that what I was experiencing was in my head. I felt scared and anxious. I also felt victimized and I lost a sense of who I was. I rarely experienced joy and was consumed with trying to figure out why I couldn’t heal, plus I was trying to raise my two boys and could hardly walk a 1/4 mile or make it through my day without pain. I continued to experience challenged and developed new neurological type symptoms along with pain, fatigue, insomnia, anxiety and food sensitivities. I honestly lost hope and felt betrayed by my body. I didn’t trust my internal terrain.
I was always a healthy eater, but began to study nutrition on my own, intensively. I also began researching the impacts of stress. I started living what I was learning and read about it in all my spare time. I also was lucky to find a Functional Medicine practitioner who listened to my story and understood some of what was going on for me. Talking with him gave me hope. He listened to me. Over the years, we have come up with a variety of options to not only alleviate symptoms, but to get to some of the underlying causes. I still have autoimmune disease and so I guess I am a work in progress. However, I am so much better now and understand the relationship between our life experiences, the foods we eat and the lifestyle choices we make in creating health or causing and perpetuating disease. We are all unique, so what works for me might not be ideal for you. That is why we co-create the best plan for your body based on your health and wellness goals. Overall, I trust myself now, experience joy everyday and want to share what I’ve learned. I decided to go back to school to get a Masters in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine along with a Functional Medicine Coaching Certificate so that I could support others in navigating their symptoms with possibility and hope. The work is life-affirming and client-centered. XO
Education + Training
Masters in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine (M.Sc.)—University of Western States, Portland, OR
Masters in Education (M.Ed.)—Antioch University, Keene, NH
Bachelor’s degree in Biology (B.A.)—University of California, Santa Cruz, CA
Certified Nutritionist (CN) Washington State
Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach (FMCHC)—Functional Medicine Coaching Academy
National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC)
Certified Food & Spirit™ Practitioner—Dr. Deanna Minich
Advanced training Mind Body Medicine—Center for Mind Body Medicine, Washington, D. C.
