hey!

I’m Valerie,

…a Registered Associate Nutritionist and Registered Holistic Nutritionist with a Masters in Behavioral Change, specializing in digestive health and the psychology behind our approach to food.

I’m helping people everyday overcome their food sensitivities, navigate IBS, gas/bloating, along with mood and energy imbalances, ultimately figuring out which foods serve them best, boosting energy, and making sure clients feel GREAT about how and what they eat.

BUT how we get there probably looks a little different than what you’ve maybe experienced before or tried on your own.

I’ve spent the last 10 years studying human behavior and nutrition, determining how you can combine the two to create real, lasting, positive change in people’s health without restrictive diets or feeling shame around how you “should” and “shouldn’t” eat. Furthermore, I take pride in ensuring that my clients are provided with a foundation of the most up-to-date scientific evidence, so they are able to be empowered with proper nutrition education.

Your overall heath and digestive wellbeing are NOT exclusively determined by what you eat. It it so much more than that.

Mending our approach to food and our relationship with health can often improve our symptoms just as much, if not more, than pharmaceuticals or one-size-fits-all approaches that we often see on social media.

That’s why I always combine a holistic and psychological view of nutrition with behaviour change techniques to give you advice that takes a deeper dive into what goes into your personalized health (without giving you cookie cutter advice), and ensuring you are actually heard and listened to.

If you’re ready to approach your health with a whole-person perspective so you can truly feel better without restriction, shame, or protocols that just don’t work for you – I’m here to help you get there!

As featured in

my approach

  • validation

    evidence-based

    listening + validating YOU

  • addressing the root

    so much more than food

    no masking symptoms

  • NO restrictive diets

    foods that support you

    no long-term elimination

  • holistic/psychological

    whole-person-based

    food psychology

my path

My path to becoming a nutritionist has felt anything but linear. However, my story has ultimately influenced my approach to nutrition, health, and how I connect to clients.

My dad used to say “I wish I could live 100 lives!” in order to fulfill all of his varied interests and passions. I feel exactly that. From an early age, I had so many interests, starting with music, evolving to dance, hair artistry, health and fitness, psychology, and eventually science and research. Thankfully, my interests and ambition got me through 10 years of study after high school – a BSc in Psychology, Holistic Nutrition, and a Masters in Nutrition and Behaviour. It also provided me with a 7-year career in music, from a gigging musician to a teacher, and ultimately the Artistic Director of a non-profit music program.

However, ambition can act as a double-edged sword: my strive for “health” and what I thought that meant led to disordered eating, excessive exercising, and burnout. At 20, a scan showed bulging discs in my lower back due to overexercise. I could not sit down for more than 10 minutes without shooting pain, and sometimes I would wake up and feel like my neck was paralysed.
A doctor told me that this would be my baseline for pain. Forever.

At the same time, I was having major digestive issues with dairy, and gluten, and then it seemed like everything I ate caused problems. Food was the enemy. I endured several long-term restrictive diets and ended up furthering my disordered eating AND food intolerances.

I struggled to find answers, but eventually through my own holistic and evidence-based training, and finding practitioners with the right approach, my recovery journey has been successful; nutrition was a huge part of that, but so was healing my relationship with food and health.

Your story is yours, and influences how you think and feel about food.

Your relationship with food and health is JUST AS IMPORTANT as how and what you eat.

questions? let’s chat!