My love of nutrition began when I was a teenager out of college. In spite of my mom working really hard to create healthy eating for us, when I was in high school and in college, I had a really crappy diet honestly. I worked at McDonald's when I was in high school. Went to college and had the late-night pizzas and all the things we do when we start college. And then when I was about 19, I was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome. Spent much of my time in college and then out of college really being sick a lot of the time and never really been able to figure out why. You know I had to defend the doctors. They had done testing and to me, I always sort of knew IBS was kind of this vague diagnosis. Like they didn't really know what it was and so they said that unless you know, we'll call it IBS. And so I tried different things, lived on just some over-the-counter medications for a number of years and I got to a point where I just was like, “This is not right. I've got to figure out what's going on here.” So I started changing my diet. Cleaned it up. Stopped eating fast food. Stopped drinking pop. Stopped baking. And I really started feeling a lot better.
So that prompted me to get more interested and to continue to learn more about how my nutrition really had a big impact on how I felt every day. So then I was able to go back to school and pursue my master's degree in nutrition. So moved up to the Twin Cities and went to the University of Minnesota to get my Master's Degree and just continued to love the topic and learn so much about the importance of the choices that we make on our health every day. And that relates to so many things. Not only what we eat, but our stress and our sleep and our exercise habits and all the things that go into really how we feel every day.
I just loved to all the education that I got at the University and then went into private practice. I worked in fitness centers for some years. Went into private practice and as I continued to work with people and help people to eat a very healthy diet. How do we stay really well nourished? That's always what was important to me. And how do we create the best battle in your life, so you feel really good? But what I found was then there's that it doesn't always take people to the highest potential of their health.
Then some years after I was into practice I listened to a class on food sensitivity testing and just understanding a little bit about what happens with food sensitivities. It was sort of this “aha” moment for me because it was a lot about IBS which is why I went into nutrition in the first place. So I subsequently when it continued to get some education and some certification. I'm a Certified LEAP Therapist. So I did his training in food sensitivity testing and the protocol to use around that. So that's been just super rewarding because the results you can get for people is tremendous when we figure out again, very specifically, what is the right eating plan for that person. And you know again eating healthy, nourishing your body really well is super important for all of us. But sometimes people are eating really healthy diets, and it's not working for their body, and there's a variety of reasons that might be the case.
After I spent some time working in that area, I realized there was so much more to it than simply removing the foods that were reactive for people. So I've continued over the last several years to get continued a continuing education in Integrative and Functional Nutrition. So I am continuing to work on some certification from if now the Integrative and Functional Nutrition Academy. And that is helping me to continue to expand my knowledge about why we end up in this position and why do people end up with IBS. Why does autoimmune disease happen?
I'm such a believer that we have so much control over our health if we figure out the reasons why these things happen in the first place, we can we can take the top-down approach and look at symptoms and how do we address those symptoms and that can help a lot. It can help people feel better. But if we don't get to that underlying why did we end up here in the first place and I for me personally I think that's what sort of took me to the next level of really feeling great. I still struggled over the years because I think I'm just sensitive to the things that I eat. But once I figured out about healing the gut and solving leaky gut and the damage that I had probably done from years of fast food; that then I was able to really ultimately just create my best health and that's what I'd love to be able to do with my clients is help them to get to that next level.
About Lynda:
Lynda Enright M.S., RDN, LD, CLT is an educator, coach, and nutrition expert . She has a Master’s of Science in Nutrition from the University of Minnesota, certification in LEAP Therapy for food sensitivities, Health and Wellness Coach certification from Wellcoaches, and is a Registered and Licensed Dietitian Nutritionist. She offers free initial consultation to anyone who wants to understand how nutrition and food can help them achieve their healthcare goals. She can be reached at lynda@bewellconsulting.com , Phone: (612)-581-4668
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