From Microsoft executive to bestselling health author: Michele Chevalley Hedge

Nutritionist Michele Chevalley Hedge is taking to the 9 to Thrive stage this Saturday. Ahead of her appearance we caught up with the former Microsoft Marketing Manager, to talk about what led her to the health and wellness industry and deep dive on her bestselling book, The Australian Healthy Hormone Diet.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you started your health journey?

I have always been interested in food – madly interested. My mum is Italian, with 5 sisters, so I grew up in a home where ‘food is love’. I thought I would go into medicine and health as a career but as life has it, I ended up getting a scholarship to a business school and a fellowship for a Masters in Computers. This landed me a career in education and marketing for Microsoft here in Australia 26 years ago. I often tell people how I came here to speak at a conference, and fell in love with a man and a country —in 24 hours!!!

While I was working at Microsoft, like most time poor working people, my physical and mental health began to suffer. My moods, brain clarity, energy, and sleep was unbalanced, not to mention my weight would fluctuate 2-3 kilos a week due to my stress hormone, cortisol being overloaded. In retrospect I am so lucky to have that career, as now as a nutritionist I can say to most super busy time poor people….’I get you! I truly understand wanting to get healthy without an extreme approach!’

Do you subscribe to a food or wellness philosophy?

I like ‘a healthy view’ not an extreme one. I educate our clients on how food needs to be tasty, easy and affordable. If it is not, then it is not in our books, plans or cleanse programs. I believe in eating as much real food as possible and when we are not that is ok, but make a conscious, mindful choice. For example, if you are going to have a couple of Friday night champagnes then perhaps that day you don’t have sushi rice with your meal because you know your going to have a fair bit of sugar from your champagne.

How do you know if your hormones are out of whack?

Do you ever wake up tired after 8 hours of sleep? Do you have trouble losing weight or maintaining weight despite eating like a bird? Do you go to bed exhausted but lie there – tired but wired? Is your weight going straight to your tummy? Are you hungry all the time? Are you mood, anxious or depressed and cannot understand why?

These are just a few of the signs that something is hormonally out of balance.

It could be that you are on cortisol overload from food and life stresses. It could be a sluggish thyroid hormone hijacking your weight. Perhaps it is your insulin levels, creating high testosterone levels and cascading into PCOS. Or oestrogen excess and heavy periods or cystic breasts? Our humble hormones have a lot to answer for.

What are your top tips for people who are trying to balance their hormones?

Take 4 weeks out of your life and eat clean, real food that is low sugar, no gluten and low dairy. Make sure you have someone or a book to guide you and provide you with easy recipes that taste delicious. If your food is tasty and satiating then it is repeatable and becomes a habit and will most like continue beyond the 4 weeks because it is easy to follow.

What inspired you to write your latest book, The Australian Healthy Hormone Diet?

In our clinical practice, A Healthy View and at our corporate speaking engagements, we were seeing an alarming number of people who were angry with themselves for lack of willpower and self discipline. I want people to stop beating themselves up and start looking beneath the surface of weight gain, exhaustion, betty back fat and muffin tops! I want people to start exploring if their fat storage hormone, insulin is out. I would like to people to explore if their stress hormone, cortisol is keeping weight on their belly or perhaps its a undiagnosed, sluggish thyroid hormone. People who are suffering from PMT, fibroid and fertility issues could it be your oestrogen is out of whack? Men who are exhausted and gaining a ‘dad bod’ need to know what is going on with their bodies, brains and hormones and its connection to food.

It’s become a **bestseller, congrats! What’s different about The Australian Healthy Hormone Diet?**

It is a a 4 week, step by step recipe and lifestyle program to rebalance your hormones. It starts off in Part I with real people, sharing their true experiences of PCOS, exhaustion, brain fog, lack of libido, and anxiety.

michele chevalley hedge

Those clients then go on to explain how the 4-week hormone rebalance has become part of their life because it is so easy. It include delicious recipes in a food combining way.

What’s your favourite recipe from The Australian Healthy Hormone Diet?

Brussel Sprout Caesar Salad. ‘ Lock up your Brussels Sprouts”…as Lee says! This dish is scrumptious and nutritious. I love the flavour of the dressing and I am in a race to out Caesar my Italian mum in New York. She is hands down the queen of Caesar dressing. The added benefit of brussel sprouts being liver cleansing just takes this dish to the next level.