ABOUT ME

I’m a total geek when it comes to hormonal biochemistry, functional nutrition, endocrinology, epigenetics, and neuropsychology. I’ve spent the past 15 years studying, researching, personally applying, and globally teaching how to stop hormonal chaos and get into hormonal flow.

I built FLO Living as a virtual online health center to help women solve their hormonal symptoms from anywhere in the world. I published a book called WomanCode, which has been in the Top 50 bestselling women’s health books of all time since it was published.

I’m a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I have a web series on Lifetime, and have been a regular contributor to CBS, Fox, Shape, Women’s Health, MindBodyGreen, and The Huffington Post. I also write Yahoo Health’s Hormone Whisperer column.

15 years ago, I weighed 200 lbs. My face, chest and back were covered in painful — and very unpretty — cystic acne. I only had my period twice a year. I was exhausted, depressed, and I had constant brain fog. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but there was no mistaking this for normal.

Finally, after 6 years of seeing doctor after doctor, specialist after specialist, while doing my own research on my mysterious symptoms, I discovered a condition that sounded exactly like what I was experiencing — polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).

I confirmed it with my doctor, and was given a grim prognosis of what was likely to happen to me as I age — including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and infertility. At age 20, I was told I would never be able to have children naturally… even with the aid of IVF. There was no treatment besides taking an under-researched cocktail of medications that might or might not help my symptoms, but wouldn’t cure me.

I was disheartened, but determined to find another way. There had to be a natural solution. I refused to believe that my life would have to include mandatory unending tests, multiple prescription drugs, and a scary forecast for my future.

I even tried taking the pill for 10 days after a year of working with every type of practitioner, doing cleanses, juicing, spending thousands of dollars on supplements, after which nothing changed. After 10 days on the pill, I lost vision in my left eye and had a mild cardiac episode. Needless to say, that was the end of that, and the beginning of my own research into what causes hormonal dysfunction and how to treat it naturally without synthetic hormones.

My research showed me that food was the most powerful drug at my disposal that would address the underlying issues. I developed a food protocol that eventually restored my hormonal health.

One of my most significant discoveries was that you and your body have cyclical needs. They shift as your hormones shift in your regular cycle. And they shift as you move from your teens to your twenties to your thirties and forties and beyond.

For you to live at your most vibrant level at any stage, you have to feed yourself the things that nurture and protect what makes you uniquely female — your hormones. Everything that’s inside allows you to manifest outside. You can’t be who fully who you are until you’re fully embodied.

As soon as I figured out this missing puzzle piece, everything fell into place. I finally got my period, and it started becoming regular in just a few months. Over 50 pounds of weight melted off easily. My cystic acne disappeared, and my skin became luminous. Even my hair became manageable and shiny. I’ve followed my own FLO food and lifestyle protocol for the last 15 years.