What do the first 30 minutes of your day look like, your morning routine?

I love my morning ritual for it really sets my day up to flow. I also recommend this to all of my clients as this 10-15 minute of mindfulness is a gamechanger, so you honour yourself before you then pour out to others during the day. It helps keep you stay grounded and peaceful and less likely to be triggered into stress mode each day. I always break my fast each morning after sleeping with 500ml of water with a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime. I then take 10-15 minutes, while my house is still quiet, before I help get my three kids sorted for school. I close my eyes and take five deep breaths and connect with myself. I think and feel five things that I’m grateful for and I hold the feeling that all of my needs are met (my bliss) for one or two minutes. This is a neuroscience technique I learnt recently as I’m doing another Masters in Neuroscience at the moment. I then mix up my WelleCo Super Elixir™ (500ml of water + 2 tsp of The Super Elixir™), shake in my hydrator bottle and I’m ready to start my day and help get my kids off to school. After this is done, I then move my body for 30-60 minutes and I intuitively decide each morning if I swim, dance, walk, cycle, do a yoga or Pilates class. Living in the UAE I’m blessed to be able to get out into the sea to get my bare feet on the earth and do grounding to reset my nervous system but when it’s summertime I opt for my home gym and have regular Epsom salt baths instead.

What were the steps to launching WelleCo and do you remember the day you decided to take the leap of faith to launch? For me it was an organic process. WelleCo, born out of Elle Macpherson’s own authentic wellness journey is the result of her coming to see me as a client at Rejuv, my Harley Street clinic in London. I simply helped Elle get well and shift into optimum health, like I’ve done with all of my clients for the past 25 years. Elle came to me approaching her 50th birthday with many imbalances and she had low energy, dry skin, poor sleep habits, high inflammation, weight gain, cravings, mood imbalances, hormonal issues etc. (all very typical for me working as a Naturopath in Functional Medicine). Her GP said her blood tests revealed she was normal for her age, but Elle wanted to thrive not just survive so she came to see me. I had been formulating supplements for over seven years when I met Elle, so I balanced her 7 Pillars of wellness including her nutrition and supplementation. Within a month Elle came back looking and feeling amazing. I had put her on my plant-based supplements and Elle turned to me leaving my clinic on her second visit and simply said ‘I don’t want to take your capsules I would rather you formulated for me a complete elixir that I can simply add to water each day. I replied sure I can do that!’ and that is how The Super Elixir™ was born. a wonderful spontaneous act of The Universe and so no real leap of faith needed just a shift into formulating a new exciting wellness collection to help bring about wellness.

How did your previous training equip you for having your own wellness company and what were the problems you saw across the board from your patients? I’ve been treating clients for 25 years, I have a bachelors, Masters and PhD in nutrition so I’m a bit of a research geek. By staying patient focused and always researching for solutions for my clients I was equipped to have my own wellness company. Due to many of my own health issues across my career, overcoming these have also really helped equip me along the way. Eating disorders, huge trauma from domestic violence, infertility and breast cancer have all helped to serve me well and equip me with a great toolbox so I can be empathetic with my clients. I feel the science, research and clinical practice combined with my own struggles have helped me become a really good naturopath. My clients have also blessed me for I have treated most conditions over my career from cancer to hormone and thyroid issues to anxiety and depression to ADHD to metabolic and obesity issues to gut issues like Crohn's and IBS. Hav- ing such an exciting cross-section of cases over my career has also helped equip me along the way.

When you launched were you surprised by how quickly it scaled?

To be honest not really for I knew hand on my heart no one was doing what we were doing. I have been formulating for 15 years for Rejuv and eight years for WelleCo and I have seen the huge success with my clients by using plant based whole food supplements. I also saw the huge value in functional support of the body’s 11 systems, no one was thinking about that really all those years ago. There are a lot of basic green powders on the market but not supporting at a cellular level to help the mind and body heal itself. Once again having my own issues allowed me to think outside the box and create The Super Elixir™, as our first WelleCo formula.

How do we need to approach wellness differently as we get older? We all need to nourish 7 pillars of wellness, to give the body what it needs to stay well. I came up with these 7 pillars after treating clients for 25 years for I realised even though we are all different we also have the same pathways and 100 trillion cells that need to be supported to stay well. The 7 wellness pillars of wellness include sleep, nutrition, movement, supplementation (plant based not synthetic), mindfulness, body balance and environmental toxic load (what you put on your skin and the health of the environments you live and work in). Many also ask why we need to supplement, and I always reply explaining that due to overfarming and many toxic chemicals added to our food we need to supplement to reduce inflammation and help our body’s function for this is the key to reduce ageing. Even for me, I just turned 50 but my biological (internal age) is 34 and this is the goal, for sure you have less wrinkles but mainly you prevent disease and promote ageing well. This is why taking just two tsp of The Super Elixir™ each day is so important as it provides your body with all the missing nutrients not in our food these days and the functional support so our bodies can heal. Getting enough essential protein is also key for as we age, we don’t absorb animal protein as well so taking a vegan protein powder, such as WelleCo Nourishing Protein, gives your body the building blocks it needs to stay strong. Deep restorative sleep is also key for if you don’t get good quality sleep you never detox from the day you just had, which drives inflammation and disease. The three supplements I just mentioned is what we call our WelleCo 3 Steps Welle to provide the optimum foundational wellness support.

How important are meditation, mindfulness and daily movement in seeing optimal results? Absolutely essential and why I include mindfulness as part of our 7 pillars of wellness. If you’re super stressed and triggered each day by others or your inner critic you will live in emergency mode/fight or flight and this first of all shuts the immune system down and causes vasoconstriction, reducing blood flow to all areas of the body increasing the risk of disease. Taking a moment to connect with yourself each morning and choosing to stay in today, such as my morning routine mentioned earlier, will help reduce stress. By staying in today & letting go of yesterday and tomorrow will free us up to enjoy each day. Of course, me must plan and take care of our futures but letting go of what we can- not control, dealing up our faith and dealing down our fear is essential if you want to be well. Movement is also a key part of this for the endorphins produced from the exercise help us shake off stress, increasing our capacity to handle all that life throws at us.

Do you recommend a low inflammation diet as the best and what supplements should we be taking to ensure we get all the nutrients we need? Yes, all disease starts with inflammation, so I suggest eating more plants and less animals. For me that doesn’t mean going vegan, that is your personal choice, but being wise about reducing inflammatory foods such as meat, dairy, sugar, processed and fast foods is key. The ab- solute best supplement to combat inflammation is super greens for they bombard your cells with oxygenating chlorophyll helping your body flush out acidic wastes and fight disease. I feel The Super Elixir™ is the best super greens on the market as based on my many years of experience I synergistically blended the best whole for ingredients that work together to bring about the most amplified effects to scale up your health. Also being a powder mixed with water or fresh veggie juice creates an ionic solution delivery directly to the cell, limited digestive function needed. This is key for with all the chemicals in our food and environment, I have seen poor gut function rise exponentially over my 25-year career with the gut brain axis of most of my clients being greatly impaired causing a huge array or physical, mental and emotional issues.

Which have been the most popular products to date, and do you use them daily yourself?I love our 3 Steps for this keeps my wellness foundation in place: The Super Elixir™, Nourishing protein and Sleep Welle Tea. I also use our Collagen Elixir, Skin Elixir and Hair Elixir daily as I’m now fifty. I also rotate in The Immune Elixir to combat colds or flu if I ever feel something coming along to nip that in the bud so I don’t get sick. Even though I’m fifty my periods are regular, so I don’t take The Goddess Elixir yet, but I gave my daughter The PMS Elixir and she is now back to being her calm, happy self with very mild PMS around her period.

What would be your advice to others wanting to launch a wellness brand? To be authentic and to come from a place of your own wellness journey, staying client and not money focused. Then the business will flow and grow organically, and the finances take care of themselves for you are helping so many along the way.

What drives you when times are tough? Staying client focused and helping one client at a time as I know what it is like to be trapped in poor health, feeling like there is no way out. Knowing that I can help another find their bespoke healing protocol, brings me so much joy, helping others get free and live a life they love.

What have been the biggest challenges to date and how did you over- come them? The biggest challenge is always letting go what you can’t control and staying focused on what you can. Often, we carry a double load of what we can and can’t control. Being accountable on this is key to prevent burn out and to allow myself to enjoy the journey. What advice would you give to your younger self? To just run my race, don’t look to the left or right and not to compare. My life path, my destiny is unique to me so just get on with it for no one can steal this, only I can sabotage this by falling down due to feeling not good enough and comparing myself to others.

When you travel, how do you stay consistent in your morning routine and what essentials do you need to take with you? I always do my morning routine and pack my trainers so at least I can walk whatever city I am in. I also pack my 3 steps well and extra Immune Elixir to keep me strong with long haul flights and different time zones.

What is the best way to reset?I love our 30 days Welle program for it is so simple and yet so effective. You clean up your nutrition, balance your 7 pillars of wellness and supplement with whole food nutrition so you have a powerful long-lasting mind body reset.

As published in Emirates magazine.