My Story
I’m Lenka, a plant-based nutritionist and a former nurse.
I adore classical music, trees and love learning about nutrition, health and our motivation.
I enjoy experimenting in the kitchen, curious about the end result. Feeling fresh fruits and veg in my fingers and seeing their bright colours makes me feel connected to nature.
Today, I’m eternally grateful for my head being clear so I can enjoy our two spirited boys and do the things I love, but there were times when all I could think of was food.
And, I don’t mean a bowl of broccoli or an apple!
Lessons of the past
Even though I trained as a nurse and worked in a hospital, I struggled with eating healthy. The biggest challenge was a constant stream of chocolates from our patients, night shifts and the urge to treat myself after a long day. The only vegetable I used to like were carrots and my favourite meal was creamy risotto finished with a milkshake.
A day wasn’t complete without some cheesecake or a large bar of chocolate. In fact, I could go for days eating only cakes, pies and chocolates just to get a hit of pleasure and satisfy my cravings. Then I would starve myself to “mask” it, so it doesn’t show too much on a dance floor.
Yes, I also competed in ballroom dancing and the combination of these two worlds – a hospital and a polished dance world, couldn’t be more different. Yet, it’s these two contrasts which made me realize how incredibly important our health is. How what we put into our body, translates into how we feel every day as well as in the future.
And it made me realize how desperately I wanted to help myself to stop obsessing about food. And how much I wanted to help others, so they don’t need to fear getting old just because “disease comes with age”.
New Beginning
Being a nurse allowed me to see first-hand how what we eat impacts our health. It taught me that life is precious and that it’s worth every effort to take care of our health so we can live and not just survive.
But, I didn’t know how to do that for myself!
I felt lost and didn’t know how to stop obsessing about when I can have the next treat. Not even ballroom dancing gave me the answer, and I had been doing it for for over a decade at that stage. With my night binge-eating trips to town I was able to blow up a size in just a few weeks and then beat myself up endlessly for it.
I started to search for answers.
I understood how our body worked from nursing and from earning a BA in sports management and training. However, I knew there was more. I was looking for more holistic approach considering a human body as whole, which would offer more natural and holistic alternatives to mainstream medicine.
As I left Czech Republic and came to Ireland, I enrolled at College of Naturopathic Medicine in Dublin and after 3 years became a nutritional therapist.
During my studies I came across the concept of using whole plant foods as medicine. I was blown away by the healing ability of our body. Yes, once we create an ideal environment inside by eating the right foods, many diseases not only can be prevented and stopped from progressing but even reversed!
I wanted to know more and so I studied plant-based nutrition at T.Colin Campbell Centre for Nutrition Studies at e-Cornell. From that moment there was no way I could go back to life as normal.
Learning about the science, how “simple” fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts and seeds build our health was what I had been waiting for! Then seeing this science in action in everyday life, was what motivated me to start my own nutritional coaching journey.
And it’s been my passion ever since.
Contact me to find out how I can help you find a healthier lifestyle...