About Mel

Hi! My name is Mel Wakeman

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 my work to those that need it most.
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Coaching, mentoring and helping others succeed has always been and still remains the most rewarding part of what I do.
But now I help people heal their relationship with food and their body.



I love food! It's not always been this way however, spending a big chunk of my teenage years and twenties and thirties fighting it. It was not my friend. I gave food so much power. I did not like myself either. It was this part of my life that ultimately lead to me to here, creating the Anti-Diet System and the Food Freedom Community.
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My lived experiences have fed my passion and interest in how we behave around food. Particularly since having my own family and seeing the pressures first hand, 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 see you.

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

I work with clients individually on a 1-1 basis but also run a membership group and small group programmes. I help you make peace with food 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’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 vulnerable humans 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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