Your Best Naturopath

I’ve been in the natural health ‘business’ for 20 years (come the end of this year.)

I’ve been a full-time Naturopath since I graduated from The South Pacific College of Natural Medicine in 2007 with a Bachelor degree in Health Sciences specialising in Complementary Medicine.

I worked as a Naturopath in a retail capacity while I built my practice. I started off seeing clients after-hours (late nights & Saturdays), and kept reducing my ‘shop’ hours as OOMPH got more popular.*

(Even before this – when I was studying – I worked part-time in an organic cafe for one year, and then as a student Naturopath in health supplement stores for two years.)

FYI: Before I worked in Naturopathy I had a career in Advertising. I graduated from AUT, Auckland, New Zealand in 1999. I took a little longer to complete my studies, as I reduced to part-time when I became a ‘Gofer’ in a small boutique design agency.

Note: I ended up working for big, international Ad Agencies such as Young & Rubicam (Y&R) and Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB).

That said, let me tell you how I practice here at OOMPH.

Sorry, I just don’t have time 😅🙏🏻

However, when you’re deciding to book an appointment, you should be able to find all the information you need to know about me (my knowledge, approach, personality, and what type of health issues I help) through the options I have made available to you:

What I say about myself, and about natural health 
I have TWO websites: 

OOMPH
This is my business site.

Here you’ll find information about: me, Naturopathy, and what to expect at your appointment.

You’ll also find appointment costs, and length.
(OOMPH has afterpay available.)

LISA SAID SO
This is my natural health site.

Here I write about what I believe you should be focusing on, or I give you my take on something you might already be focusing on.

I’ve established quite the library of  articles over the last 10+ years. (126 to be exact 😉)

What others say about me, and what I do
My GOOGLE reviews

Note: You’re welcome to drop my admin an email to ask if I deal with a particular health issue if you’re unsure. (More on this below.)

I’m quite happy to discuss absolutely anything that’s concerning you at your appointment!

I actually prioritise lifestyle advice here at OOMPH.

I’m a holistic health practitioner. So to me, this means using my knowledge of you, and natural medicine, to get creative with what I prescribe to you. I believe I should be able to tick off most of your health concerns with no more than three basic, but thoughtfully selected supplements.

Note: I intentionally keep your ‘pill taking’ to a minimum as I don’t want you to ‘rattle’or to be put ‘out of pocket’. And, I need to be able to clearly see what’s helping and what’s not.

I believe health doesn’t have to be boring or get too heavy. In fact, I believe that keeping things interesting and light-hearted (in most cases) helps you to meet your health objectives.

At-the-end-of-the-day my job really is to draw your attention to any important stuff that you may be missing or that might be working against you.

So, in a nut-shell I aim to get you into a good headspace, reduce your stress, determine any food intolerances you may have, correct any nutrient deficiencies you may have, get you on a solid, healthy diet & supplement regime, get you to focus on eating it/taking them correctly, and to get you moving — but not too much!👊

I find this approach simple and effective.

For many reasons (which you can read about on my website) I’m not a fan of the following so-called ‘health foods’ –
Green Smoothies

Coconut 

Kale

Apple Cider Vinegar

Chia Seed

Kombucha

NZ Salmon

Raw baking, and 

Collagen supplements

I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m just saying be mindful. The so-called health experts (and even some actual health experts!) tell you to load up on this ‘stuff’ but to my mind they haven’t really thought their recommendations through thoroughly.

I’m also not a fan of testing. I believe blood testing is crude and insensitive. In most cases when you go to the doctor not feeling well, they will send you to get blood-tested. Then when the results come back ‘normal’ you are given no treatment to help your actual symptoms, or any insight into what you should then do.

And, even if your blood-work does come back showing something… I believe a lot of the tests don’t actually provide enough information on which to base any kind of medical decision (e.g  Thyroid, sex hormones, cortisol, and cholesterol tests).

Modern medicine, huh…🤷‍♀️

And while I believe functional testing is far more accurate than blood-testing, these tests are bloody expensive. They are also open to interpretation… I therefore don’t think they should be used as a first-port-of-call.  

I prefer to rely on my experience, and my actual Naturopathic skills (my eyes, ears, and brain) to help me determine what’s going on with you. And, if I do require you to get blood-work done, I either get it done to give me a rough indication of what might be going on with particular areas of your health picture, for example your iron or B12 levels. Or, I might just get your Thyroid blood-work to appease the (demi-god) Doctors when I have a client on high dose iodine.)

Note: I’m a big advocate of high dose iodine. In fact, I do the most work with it in the country 💜

I like to think I tell you what you need to hear.

And, if you’re not quite in the right head-space at the time to hear it, then I hope at some point in the future my words will sink-in, and you’ll be able to do something positive about it.

I’m not a ‘mother and baby’ or ‘kids’ Naturopath
If you’ve been having issues getting pregnant for more than one year, and you’re over 35 then I’ll refer you to a practitioner who solely deals in this area of health.

And, in general, I only work with people from 16 yr+ (unless the parents are already clients at OOMPH, and know that I might throw out an ‘F bomb’ or two to punctuate something that I’m saying 😜)

I don’t work with cancer patients
Simply because these clients need to work with a practitioner who focuses in this one area. And, I don’t.
I’m a general natural health practitioner.

I don’t work with females primarily wanting to address Endometriosis
This is because many Naturopaths solely focus on this condition — and I don’t. Again, I’m a general natural health practitioner.

I won’t necessary put significantly overweight clients on a fat loss diet.

This is because I believe it may not work. Rather, I change their diets, and focus on modifying their behaviours.

I work a lot in the following areas of health 
— Increasing physical, mental, and emotional resilience to stress
— Dispensing life advice to positively impact your health 
— Improving thyroid function
— Supporting mood disorders (e.g anxiety, depression)
— Screening for ADHD, and providing support
— Correcting sex-hormone imbalance (female, and male hormones)
— Correcting food intolerance
— Increasing energy levels
— Improving sleep quality
— Creating a robust immune system
— Helping you to achieve a healthy weight, and
— Making sense of all the conflicting health information ‘out-there’.

👊