Hi, I am Holly and I'm a Registered Associate Nutritionist based in London, England. 

Burnout. I had heard of the terminology before but had not thought about it deeply. In hindsight, I should have done. After school, I studied Hospitality Management and worked in the luxury hotel sector in the UK for around ten years. Multiple factors, including; continuous fast-paced work environments, long unsociable hours including night shifts and grabbing food on the go led me to have a dramatic burnout.

Symptoms of my burnout appeared overnight, although it was obviously creeping up on me. I recall seeing signs but had ignored them as I felt there was no time to look to them. People experience burnouts differently. In my case, I developed food allergies and intolerances to pretty much all foods. Long-term stress had destroyed all the good bacteria in my gut as well as my gut lining, leading to a so called 'leaky gut'. I was told this was the root cause of all my allergies and intolerances. For six months, I was mainly living off sweet potatoes. I could not even tolerate my daily cup of tea! I love my food, but overnight all of what I used to love I could no longer eat. I lost weight dramatically and felt distinctly unwell. I had so little energy that I had to take two years out to regain my strength and improve my health.