ABOUT ME

Hey there! I’m Kaylee, an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach who loves all things health and wellness. My hobbies include cooking, practicing yoga, learning about and using essential oils, skiing out West and spending time in nature, creating a healthy lifestyle, laughing and dancing with friends and family, and helping others. I want to help YOU live your best life by guiding you through the tools I learned throughout my health journey. I help my clients tune into their bodies, nail down their nutrition, and reframe their mindset so that they can live their happiest, healthiest lives.

HOW MY JOURNEY BEGAN

My love for health, wellness, and nutrition didn’t pop up out of nowhere. My life changed quite dramatically as I went from a highly competitive gymnast to someone who could barely get out of bed. My journey started with debilitating digestive issues, fatigue, night sweats, insomnia, joint pain, and alarming weight loss. Due to the severe state that I was in, I gave up my dream of going to the Olympics, meanwhile, my list of symptoms continued to grow. I was put through the wringer and, quite frankly, traumatized by the conventional medical system. I went from doctor to doctor, doing test after test, trying medication after medication to get to the bottom of this list of symptoms that kept increasing and worsening just to have almost every doctor tell me it was all in my head, give me some kind of medication to cover up my symptoms, and then send me on my way. 

FINDING THE ROOT CAUSE

My frustration turned into passion as I researched endlessly what was at the root of this mysterious illness that felt like it was turning my life upside down. I began to explore the alternative medicine world and dove into natural healing methods. I listened to podcasts and free online submits, did online research, and read books like it was my job. I began to use food as medicine and tried countless different “healing diets.” Through my experiments, I discovered nutrition to be one of the key foundational tools to healing chronic illness, or any kind of disease. However, while proper nutrition greatly improved my symptoms, it wasn’t the end all be all as I still couldn’t get down to the root of what was causing me to feel so awful despite my clean diet. 

After exploring both conventional and naturopathic medicine, I had compiled a laundry list of different diagnoses, some of which include: Celiac disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO), failure to thrive, a rare genetic disorder, growth hormone insufficiency, hypothyroidism, hormone imbalances, depression/anxiety, leaky gut, parasites, gastroparesis, candida, Lyme disease, mold toxicity, Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS), Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), and more. It wasn’t until I finally discovered the Lyme disease and mold toxicity that the way I approached healing changed. Despite thinking I was addressing the root cause of the other diagnoses I received, what I didn’t realize is that those diagnoses were being masked as symptoms, rather than the true root cause. I learned that you can attempt to treat the symptoms (or supposed “diagnoses") all you want, but it’s not until you address the root cause that you will begin to make headway. 

After discovering the root cause of my illness, it finally became clear to me what really makes a difference when it comes to healing—knowing the true cause of dysfunction, nutrition, lifestyle, and mindset. Once I addressed these areas together, my health dramatically started to improve, and I was able to actually start the appropriate treatment. Had it not been for the nutrition, lifestyle, and mindset changes I made, I can’t say that I would be where I am today. 

WHERE I AM TODAY

My love and passion for health, wellness, and nutrition continues to grow stronger every day. I am incredibly grateful to finally be back to my happy-go-lucky, energetic self. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and I don’t doubt that I was destined to go through every single twist and turn I went through so that I could gain the knowledge and experience to help others reach their health goals, thrive throughout all areas of life, and love every moment on this beautiful earth. While I did receive formal training to start health coaching (see below), there's nothing that prepares you to go into the health field quite like 15+ years of going through a chonic illness.

HEALTH COACHING

Finally seeing myself make progress in my healing journey is what inspired me to take a leap of faith and enroll in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition to become an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach so that I could help my community. I am passionately committed to educating and guiding others along their health journeys while offering love and support. 

Aside from studying at IIN and starting my own health coaching business, I also went on to do an internship with Functional Medicine practitioner, Dr. Katie Bayliss. Dr. Bayliss is passionate about helping others live life to its fullest by promoting health, balance, and stamina. She has been practicing medicine in the field of surgical pathology and laboratory medicine for over 25 years. She has held leadership roles in transformative, patient-centered changes in laboratory and cancer care. She completed a fellowship at the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine in 2010. She has gone on to complete Functional Medicine training in a variety of venues including courses with the Institute of Functional Medicine and a mentorship year with Dr. Kara Fitzgerald.

I now work alongside Dr. Katie helping with day-to-day tasks and coaching her patients on how to nourish the root cause of their symptoms by optimizing their nutrition, incorporating healthy lifestyle and mindset techniques, organizing their supplement plan, offerring extra support, empathy, and guidance, and teaching them how to become experts on themselves so that they can make healthy, sustainable lifestyle changes. 

Kaylee Murphy