My journey to becoming a Nutritional Therapist!

I am very blessed to have a career that I am passionate about – nutrition, health, healing, and nature have always been so important to me, and I am so grateful for the journey that has led me to sharing that with many people from all over the world.

Many of you know that I live in the beautiful Oxfordshire countryside and have a thriving business as a nutritional therapist, but how did I get here and what is it that makes me so grateful for what I do on a daily basis?

Let me share a bit about my journey with you!

Childhood and school

I grew up in Scotland and had a very active childhood. I loved spending time outdoors and playing games with my brothers and friends and in a sense, that has never left me. Even now I spend a lot of time outdoors and there is nothing I like better than going for long walks in the countryside with my dog Pickle.

While I enjoyed many aspects of school, I did not enjoy writing essays and looking back, I think I may have suffered from a mild form of dyslexia. But this was never a formal diagnosis and I don’t think I was ever very much affected by it, except to say that I never did like writing (which makes what I am about to say below quite amazing!)

Travelling and first job

When I left school, I travelled quite a bit and met many wonderful people from all around the world and around that time I learnt more and more about my Christian faith. Meeting people who had wonderful stories of their faith was both a challenge and an inspiration and I remember praying to hear from God and to be led by him in my life.

One of my first jobs was as a chef in Edinburgh. I was the head chef for a wonderful café in the heart of the city. It was a very busy and very popular café and one of the carrot cakes I made many times during the week won an award as the best carrot cake in Edinburgh!

During this time, in my late twenties, I went through a very stressful time and my monthly period completely stopped. After no periods for a year, I went to a Nutritional Therapist and after three months they came back and have been like clockwork ever since. During this time, I stopped eating dairy and the asthma I had been suffering with all my life also vanished.

It was working as a chef in Edinburgh that I felt called to become a Nutritional Therapist. I had also always dreamed of working at the Penny Brohn Cancer Centre outside Bristol. At the same time as starting my degree in Nutrition, a job at the Cancer Centre came up and within six weeks of working there I was made Head Chef. This is where I learnt to be creative with the very best healthy ingredients.

Nutrition and healing

It was a massive learning curve, with many challenges along the way and many prayers prayed, but by end of it I had advanced so much in my academic studies that I won the academic award of my year for the best dissertation. Having told you that at school I was considered to be dyslexic, you can understand my amazement! For me, this was also another confirmation that God had heard my prayers and that I was on the right path in my life.

During this journey of nutrition and healing, I met my wonderful husband who is from South Africa. We have had many adventures in South Africa and we now live with our fabulous dog Pickle in Oxfordshire. As you might be able to guess from her name, she often gets herself into a pickle and she makes us laugh all the time with her fun personality and loyalty. She is part Vizsla/part Labrador and full of beans, so she keeps us on our toes and makes us enjoy the beautiful countryside in a whole new way!

Nutritional Therapist

As a fully trained Nutritional Therapist, I set up my practice in various places in Oxfordshire, at The Oxford Chiropractic Clinic in Headington (Oxford) and the Godswell clinic outside Banbury. Since Covid, many of my clients see me with a mixture of Zoom and home clinic visits which is as busy as ever.

You can probably understand that learning about health and well-being is a lifelong process! I am continually doing new courses, developing specific expertise in gut health for example, and training in new specialties, including live and dried blood analysis, using one of the most advanced microscopes on the market, and Well-being Life Coaching.

I am constantly amazed at the way my clients’ lives change as each one goes through their own personal journey towards full health and well-being. I have met so many wonderful people who have faced many health challenges and shown great commitment and courage to make those big changes in their lives. It has been a privilege to use all my training and expertise to guide them along that journey and facilitate the changes that have transformed their health.

Alongside my passion for Nutritional Therapy, I love spending time with my friends, going on adventures to new places, trying new restaurants and experiences, and learning how to grow vegetables. An important part of my practice is to pray for all my client’s before they come into my clinic. I love praying for others!

My vision is to be as self-sufficient as possible at home, and my professional vision is to work as a team of holistic (Christian) practitioners. I would love to work in a Christian Healing Centre where healing prayer is as important as changes to lifestyle and diet.

I hope you enjoy the blogs and posts on my new website. In this post I have included some photographs of Autumnal walks and picking apples and blackberries with Pickle, who loves apples too! If you have been enjoying similar walks and seasonal foods, here is a good recipe for stewed apple which is great for gut health and roasted Autumn fruits which is one of my oldest favourites – every time I serve it people receive it with a gasp of delight.

Every blessing,

Emma

Emma Maitland-Carew – Registered Nutritional Therapist

 Dip.ION, mBANT, CHNC Registered Practitioner,

 Metabolic Balance® Coach, HeartMath Coach, Accredited Wellbeing Coach