About Mel

Hi! My name is Mel Wakeman MSc. RNutr.

I’m a Registered Nutritionist. Not just someone that calls themselves a nutritionist after reading a few books and doing a £15 online course. 

I've had a lifetime passion for nutrition and health which explains why I have spent 27 years studying and teaching it!

I have been working in the field of health since 1996 after completing my Masters in Nutrition; I started my first lecturing position (nutrition and exercise physiology) at the British College of Osteopathic Medicine in London. 
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After 6 years it was time to leave the big smoke, move to Birmingham and take up the role of a senior lecturer in nutrition and applied physiology. I took up the curriculum lead and programme director position for the university's first nutrition science degree....and now I'm taking Wakeman Nutrition Global.
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Coaching, mentoring and helping others succeed has always been and still remains the most rewarding part of the work that I do.



I love food! It's not always been this way however, spending a big chunk of my teenage years and twenties fighting it. It was not my friend. I did not like myself either. It was this part of my life that ultimately lead to me creating the Anti-Diet System.
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My lived experiences have fed my passion and interest in nutrition, particularly since starting my own family with the pressures of raising children in an image obsessed society that is swimming in diet culture.

For many of us, life can be stressful and not only have I experienced times in my life when I controlled my food to the extreme, I have also experienced times when the impossible struggles of holding a professional career, with unmanageable pressures whist jugging family life and all that entails lead me to burnout. Twice.


 

I am telling you this because (a) I am human too and (b) life experiences and life lessons teach us more than we typically appreciate. So I channel these experiences into helping my clients. I get you.

You can read MY STORY  where I share some of my experiences around food and eating.

I run group programmes and have a small number of private clients who I work with on a 1-1 basis. I help them make peace with food, shift unhelpful beliefs and nurture a positive, healthy relationship with food.

Food is often at the core of the work that I do but of course our stress levels, sleep quality, number of plates we spin, mood, medications and hormones all influence our food choices and other health behaviours. So I can help my clients with all of these.

I work with clients who need support with IBS, Chohn's disease, chronic fatigue, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, hormone imbalances, menopause and help them find a healthy weight at which they feel happy.

I also consult with businesses; helping them initiate or develop an effective well-being strategy. Whether this is to reduce sickness absence or presenteesim figures or run an awesome wellness awareness day, I help organisations think outside the box to improve employee health.

I’m incredibly passionate about calling out snake oil sellers, pseudoscience and nutribollocks. The truth is everything for me and there is nothing more annoying than companies taking advantage of the public in the name of profit.  
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My approach is always evidence based so I've done A LOT of media work as an expert commenter which has taken me to the BBC World Service, Radio 5 Live, BBC Breakfast, ITV and numerous newspapers and magazines.

And I feel it important to add that I have a sweet tooth, a thing for peanut butter and believe you can’t truly enjoy a cuppa without a good dunking biscuit!
 

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