About Me ..
My personal marketing message, or elevator pitch, runs something like this:
"Hello. My name is Richard Owden.
I am a Nutritional Therapist specialising in helping people who are not feeling 100% but whose symptoms have not yet left them needing a doctor. My support allows people to make diet and lifestyle changes that enable them to turn their health around and improve the overall quality of their life.
My clients are in their thirties and beyond, all successful people, many with families. They benefit not just from making changes to what they eat (nutritional therapy) but also from personal coaching that makes it possible for them to achieve breakthroughs in the areas that really matter to them. In fact, many clients credit the coaching they receive as the pivotal factor in their success.
.. etc. etc."
Reading my marketing message today makes me think I am talking to myself - nothing strange there then, as some who know me well might say - or at least to people very much like myself as I was during the eighties and nineties - when I knew much less about anything health related and my personal health situation really needed both assistance and support!.
[And yes, both photos are of yours truly - the cool one in the hat, scarf and shades was taken on a sojourn to Berlin, the other, with the stripey shirt and the greenery behind, on a trip to Kew Gardens in one their hot houses. Both are pre-COVID.]
My History ..
Like many of my practitioner colleagues I came to Nutritional Therapy as a result of my experiences at the hands of the medical profession. After years of suffering silently while numerous GPs, hospital doctors, Consultants and other so-called specialists completely failed to diagnose and treat a small but troublesome patch of eczema-type rash on my right ankle - yes, I was one of the vertically ill with an undiagnosed chronic condition - I became disillusioned and fed up with being on the receiving end of yet another of their pointless attempts - usually in the form of a new clinical trial for a new foul smelling ointment which simply didn't work for me or whatever it was I had on my ankle.
Fed up with the whole stupid rash on the ankle thing - it had become supremely irritating and really didn't look like it was about to go away any time soon no matter what I tried, sort of like the kid brother or the well-meaning friend that simply will not take the hint and disappear - I decided it was high time, this was the early nineties by the way, that I investigated my exceptionally itchy and annoying patch of skin for myself and to see if I could find out both what it was and, hopefully, how get rid of it. I never did find out what it was, but then neither did medical science. But unlike the doctors, I did discover how to get rid of it!
After one heck of a lot of reading, and I do mean one heck of lot of reading, and after a good deal of experimentation and any number of false starts, I began to work out what made it worse and crucially, what made it better. Over the next few years, by including and increasing some things in my diet and lifestyle (oily fish, nuts and seeds, olive oil, etc) and by reducing or eliminating others (stress, woollen socks, scented soap, etc), I more or less eradicated the pesky rash. Not completely but it was enough. What's more I felt great in other ways as well. So much so that I was no longer one of the vertically ill! In researching and defeating my irritating little rash I had discovered the power of nutrition as therapy - and all on my ownsome... The rest, as they say, is history.
My Journey ..
Fascinated by what I had discovered and wanting to learn more, I joined Patrick Holford's ground breaking Institute for Optimum Nutrition (ION), studying under Patrick, Kate Neil, Anthony Haynes and rest of the team until I graduated in September 1997 as a Nutrition Consultant.
Since graduating I have maintained a vibrant Nutritional Therapy practice, initially 'Macrobeus Nutrition', now 'Richard Owden Nutrition', alongside my other career in Information Technology. Over the years I have worked for or with an interesting melange of organisations and people, including Patrick Holford himself, but have always made time and space for my interest in Nutrition and Nutritional Therapy.
I became a member of the British Association for Applied Nutrition and Nutritional Therapy (BANT), in 2005 and have remained an active member ever since, completing the Continued Professional Development requirement annually and working with the organisation as a volunteer on several occasions.
Today all my client clinic involvement is carried out under the safety net and rigorous standards of the BANT Terms of Engagement.
I have recently joined up with Zest4life and become an Associate member, adding the role of Health Coach to my practitioner skill set and have actively set about incorporating this very useful set of techniques and tools within my clinical practice with the aim of making their very real benefits available to all my clients.
My Philosophy ..
In the fourth quarter of 2017, medical science told us: 1 in 9 women are diagnosed with breast cancer, 1 in 7 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer, 1 person in 3 is diagnosed with cancer, 1 in 6 people die too young from heart attacks or strokes, 1 in 6 over 40 have diabetes, 1 in 4 live their last 30 years with arthritic pain, 1 in 3 people over 70 have impaired memory, 1 in 4 over 80 have Alzheimer's, 1 in 3 people are obese and 1 in 2 are overweight. The same statistics today in 2020 will be far worse. And the cause? Medical science points the finger firmly at the large portions of ultra-processed nutrient poor food we now consume on a daily basis.
Today's western style diet with its increasing detrimental influence globally remains the biggest threat to personal health and well being around (and that is even with COVID making an unwelcome appearance), with dementias, obesity, heart disease, cancers and all kinds of other autoimmune nasties being attributed to it. But a person's diet today does not have to be the killer or quality of life destroyer it is rapidly turning in to for so many people. The scientific evidence available today says we can survive the western diet's worst ravages. We can defend ourselves, and our loved ones, from its increasingly nefarious effect on the world's health and well being.
I believe strongly that the best offence is a strong defence. My health and lifestyle approach is simply that of personal self-defence. Self-defence is defined as 'an act or instance of defending or protecting one's own interests, property, ideas, etc., as by argument or strategy'. And it is a strategy-led self-defence, using the best of everything available, the best Health, Nutrition and Lifestyle information, the best foods, the best lifestyle ideas and techniques, to boost and improve your personal health and well being that underpins my practice, my HealthGuard Plus packages and both my HealthGuard Insider and my Health and Vitality Road Trip Facebook groups. Would you like to join the growing number of survivors, the people fighting back, and find out how it's done?
Your Opportunity ..
For your free 30 minute HealthCheck chat, a sort of health MOT, your opportunity to find out more about my HealthGuard Plus Nutritional Therapy and Health Coaching packages, to find out how my Recipe for Health Success works in practice and to find out how we can best work together to improve your personal health situation, head for my appointments and schedule page NOW!
If the time is not quite right for you - and when is it ever, so much can get in the way these days! (But ask yourself - if not now, then when will you be ready? Your health can only wait so long!), then you have Take Nutrition For A Test Drive to fill the gap (in the short term only) - any of my Made For You eBooks or joining me on my Health & Vitality Road Trip (my public Facebook group) will let you make a start at least.
I look forward to our working together soon (for the sake of your health sooner is better) and to welcoming you to your personal HealthGuard Plus package and to my HealthGuard Insiders (my client only Facebook group).