Who is Natcha Maithai?

What I look like now:

I am here to help you make that leap in your life, hence the frog metaphor.

I am, first and foremost, a scientist. I’ve worked in various cancer research labs for more than ten years. (No, there’s no such a thing as the cure for cancer, and I am jaded about conventional treatments. As a holistic practitioner, I am pro- prevention and pro-integrative, rather than conventional, cures.)

I’ve had a love and approval deficiency for most of my life. As an Asian girl, my parents had a life path set out for me – one that I didn’t want to follow, and I was badly punished for not conforming to their expectations. Feeling a lack of love and approval led to constant struggles to be thin and to excel academically.

My personal battles with my weight, including an eating disorder, eventually brought me to resistance training after years of being a chronic cardio and dieting queen with little results.  Gone were my days of restrictive dieting and hours on the cardio machine. I began eating to support building my body, and lifting to celebrate my strength. My newfound fitness knowledge was so empowering that I became a personal trainer. Also, I became so intrigued with the impact of foods on health that I decided to study holistic nutrition at Canadian School of Natural Nutrition.

Me in my beast mode.

During my journey (aka my quarter-life crisis!), I suffered a meltdown that involved depression, epic eczema and allergy flares, and nearly nonexistent menstrual cycles. The conventional treatments for these would have included an anti-depressant for depression, steroid creams for eczema, anti-histamine and allergy shots for allergies, and a birth control pill to regulate my cycles. (That’s from zero to four medications just for turning 25. Yikes!)

Luckily, I had already enrolled in the holistic nutrition program, which changed how I looked at my health conditions and my treatment choices. Although I didn’t believe everything I was taught at first (we scientists are skeptical people!), my own research convinced me that it would be far better to support my body’s own healing rather than to suppress it with medications.

It took really slowing down and spiritually looking inward (not easy for a Type A like me), as much as doing detective work on my body, to figure out how to resolve my health problems. I started eating clean, healing my gut, dealing with my love deficiency and (gasp!) losing my six-pack. I returned to the Vipassana meditation practice I had learned as a child, and it saved my health.

Fast forward two years later, my outlook on life has completely turned around, my acne has cleared up, my menstrual cycles have regulated and I can handle exposure to most of the allergens I tested positive for two years ago – all without medication. I’m active in a lot of social circles and I’m enjoying a much more meaningful life than before.

Over the course of my own health journey, I became increasingly fascinated with the art and science of natural and functional medicine (what I call health detective work), thanks to my scientific research background. So I became a certified health detective through Functional Diagnostic Nutrition, a holistic system for building health by identifying root causes of health problems and healing opportunities through functional lab work.

In addition, because I am a scientist, I do experiments. On my own body. I never believe everything at first, and I give all healing modalities the benefit of the doubt and try them whenever I can. I’ve turned my health struggles on their head and used my body as a laboratory so that I can share with you what my experience has been like, and whether there are any objective outcomes. With my Buddhism background and having once healed myself through Vipassana meditation, I am actually crunchy and open-minded to different ways of healing. As of now, I’ve been an avid (and informed) patient for my acupuncturists, chiropractors, osteopathic manual practitioners, post-rehab personal trainers, physiotherapist, chiropodist, naturopathic doctors, functional medicine doctors, Reiki practitioners, and many more healers. Therefore, it’s a mission of mine to advocate for healing modalities that work, and against ones that don’t. I’d actually try everything in the name of science.

My life mission is to help women enjoy long, happy, and healthy lives. It’s as much about raising awareness as it is about educating. A lot of chronic health issues aren’t symptoms of medication deficiencies, but rather the outcome of years of poor health. Improving your quality of life at a younger age isn’t just easier, it also sets you up for improved quality of life in the future.

Rather than treating diseases or focusing on weight loss, I work with my clients to optimize their health through lifestyle, nutrition, fitness, supplementation, and spiritual practices. I coach both one-on-one and in groups, and I raise awareness of how to address certain health issues through my blog, videos, ebooks, and speaking engagements.

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For individual consultations, please contact me at dr.natchamaithai <at> gmail <dot> com.