Hi, I’m Ashleigh Banks, FNTP.
Here’s a little about my health journey and why I became Function Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (FTNP).
You don’t have to settle for a diagnosis, a prescription, or chronic pain. Our bodies are so divinely wise and efficient if we allow them to be. We can heal our bodies with the right nutrition, environment, and support.
My own health journey started in my early twenties, finding my way in the beauty industry as a new hairdresser. I was working insanely long hours, eating on the go or not at all until late into the evening, and living off of coffee, Lean Cuisines, and pure drive to make it in my career.
I had always had digestive issues but thought it was normal to feel like complete garbage after every meal. Not to mention the stigma around “digestive issues” like we aren’t all human and experience these troubles from time to time. After a few trips to the ER and a visit to a Gastroenterologist later, I found out I had Celiac disease.
I was told to eliminate all gluten from my diet (what the heck is this “GLUTEN” thing that you speak of anyhow?!?) and that I’d be fine. PERIOD. Done. No mention of how Celiac affects the gut or how eating even the tiniest amount still does damage. So, I blindly shifted to a GF diet and cut it out the best I knew how (unknowingly still consuming it fairly regularly because the food industry is sneaky and it’s hidden EVERYWHERE).
Fast forward a few years, I explored a vegan diet as I was still experiencing digestive issues, struggled with losing weight, and was starting to feel the effects of just plain old not taking care of my body properly. Initially, I felt amazing! I slept better, I began to lose some weight FINALLY, and I started eating real, live, non-processed foods. Vegetables Y’all!! SO many vegetables!
Unfortunately, I also went into this journey pretty blindly, and once I gave birth to my daughter, everything changed. I was so depleted nutritionally and simultaneously trying to feed another being. My body said, “NOPE,” and my health began to crumble. The toxic load of working in such a chemical-heavy environment began to show up as debilitating eczema on my hands. No hands, no work.
After treating my cracked and blistering hands with every cream, steroid, and product known to the eczema-land, it all boiled down to my doctor telling me I had to change careers as it became too unhealthy and risky to continue to work with my hands in such bad shape. Devastated is an understatement. I was so crushed and defeated. I felt like I had done everything right, but, once again, my body failed me. During this time, my daughter was also showing signs of food allergies and experiencing digestive issues in her little body too.
Not long after, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, an auto-immune disease in which your immune system attacks your thyroid. So, here I was, a new mom with a sweet baby girl who was struggling with severe acid reflux, and I myself was struggling with hair loss, weight gain, insomnia, postpartum depression, brain fog, chronic back pain from childbirth, and pre-mature retirement from my career.
I had my second child in 2014 and continued to deal with these symptoms, now as a mom of two small kids. I was never satisfied with my doctor’s diagnosis and knew there had to be a way out of this. I started researching alternative therapies like my life depended on (because frankly, IT DID) and began working with an Integrative Health Doctor. I started teaching myself better ways of managing my Hashimoto’s and the effects Celiac has on the whole body, and how these two diseases are so intertwined. I was determined to feel better and to support my daughter’s health the best I possibly could.
Because of my own research, connecting with alternative health practitioners, and diving into my health journey, I found The Nutritional Therapy Association. It was destiny. Our bodies and our environments are so deeply connected, and everything we put into that powerful system of ours affects us down to a cellular level. This training was so profoundly life-changing.
I hope that I can help teach and empower you to be your own health advocate because of my own struggles and the course of my own health journey. You don’t have to settle for a diagnosis, a prescription, or chronic pain. Our bodies are so divinely wise and efficient if we allow them to be. We can heal our bodies with the right nutrition, environment, and support.
Let me teach you to be your own healer.