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Welcome!  I know the functional nutrition space is filled with slick ads, sexy bios and faces, gimmicky and super-niched marketing galore.   So, the fact that you’ve chosen to even consider working with me is no small thing!  I am likely not the sexiest nutritionist you’ll scroll past, nor do I have the most profound personal story or the hottest website.  What I do have is a fascination with the human body/spirit/soul/mind/experience and a strong midwestern work ethic.  I also bring many skills and much hard-earned life experience to the table.  You can read about it over here on the About Sara page.

In the last 20 years, I’ve identified as both “very sick” and “tentatively well” and many gradations on that spectrum. I have struggled to find quality, comprehensive support on limited funds as I’ve navigated this road of complex health challenges.  I do this work because I believe it is our human right to have access to information, tools and skills that allow us to make informed decisions about our health care and our bodies.  The world is increasingly toxic, and a variety of interlocking systems (capitalism, racism, classism, patriarchy etc.) create systemic pressures on our bodies, spirits and souls.  Unresolved trauma is epidemic.  The health care system is broken.  Most of us are on information overload.  Navigating the mine fields of the health and wellness “industry” is confusing at best and dangerous at worst.  

As I’ve written previously in a social media post, I believe the ecosystem of our own health is inside us and even the scorched earth of our/the world’s worst offenses retains a memory of integrity and how to be whole. The ecosystem must be tended, nourished, observed and allowed to find its own deep wisdom in relationship to each of us.  Let me be your partner in cultivating the inner ecosystem of your health.  There is much work to be done in our personal spheres and in the collective and we can amplify our impact immensely by committing deeply to ourselves and our journey.  I won’t promise perfect health or an “end” to your healing process, but I can promise to be an ally and collaborator as you navigate the road.

I position myself here transparently as an anti-capitalist.  That means I’m not interested in making as much money as possible as quickly as I can off the backs of others.  My approach is relational, reasonable and equitable.  My intention is to provide as much value as I can to those who wish to engage my services or offerings.  I’ve created a pricing structure that allows me to serve the largest number of people at varying tiers of engagement while still caring for my own body and future.  I promise to work as hard for YOU as I do for myself, no matter where you choose to plant your roots in my garden.  I really look forward to hearing from you!

The best way to reach out for now is via email at sara.rose.dealoia@hotmail.com or via text 740.818.7099

We will schedule a free 30 minute consult to assess fit and then go from there!

Hi Folks, lots of content in this free PDF. Recipes, an offer of “Pay-What-You-Can” for my services, self-quarantine Recipes, Immune Support supplement list and how to get access to my dispensary, and a LOT MORE. Please feel free to share widely!!! And hopefully soon, I will make this a little prettier to look at. Hope you’re all well out there

In a talk I listened to recently, Dr Liz Lipski stated that 60% of the US population considers themselves lonely. And that we can’t consider overall health outside the context of community and relational health. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately both from a personal and a global perspective. In James Maskell’s book “The Community Cure” (available on Amazon for $.99) he states:

“A 1988 study published in Science . . . showed how mortality risk decreases as social integration increases, across multiple countries and cultures. Furthermore, a 2010 study . . . concluded ‘the influence of social relationships on the risk for mortality is comparable with well established risk factors for mortality [like smoking, alcohol, physical inactivity].’ Not just comparable; in most cases, social isolation is a bigger determinant on health and disease than any other factor.”

After studying in the functional nutrition world for the past 5 years and observing my own long term struggles with chronic, mysterious symptoms that come and go with no clear linearity or pattern that is easily discernible, I have to start looking deeper and to a more human ecology oriented approach. Many of us who work in the “alternative” health industry ask the question “why are so many people sick?” Chronic disease is at an all time high despite advancements in science and technology. The CDC reports that 6 in 10 (60% which is the same statistic for people who feel lonely, interestingly) adults lives with at least one chronic disease and 4 in 10 live with 2 or more chronic diseases. And these are just the diagnosed disease processes. There are many more like me who unsuccessfully seek help for mystery symptoms that have no clear diagnosis.

There are certainly more toxic substances on the planet than ever before; there are fewer nutrients in our food supply due to depleted soils; there are existential threats like nuclear war and climate unpredictability; there are exposures to many new chemicals through our food supply, air, water, health and beauty products and so many more assaults on our physiologies on a daily basis. All this is true. But what also seems true is that the resiliency of our bodies is declining . . . rapidly. We need more heroic efforts to create and maintain resiliency than ever before.

This also seems true in the rapidly changing climate we’re seeing. The earth’s systems are losing integrity; just look at polar vortexes which have become more common and which indicate a loosening of a barrier system (the jet stream) that has maintained a stable pattern for as long as we’ve been measuring such things. Or the inability of the landscape to withstand what would be a normal, healthy relationship with fire. Or the ongoing assault on the insect population at a planetary scale which will have long-term dire consequences for every system on the planet. These ecosystems and patterns of action are losing integrity.

Our own bodies’ barrier systems are also losing integrity. These barrier systems are key to the functioning of our inner ecosystem. “Leaky gut” is a dysfunction that is epidemic and is directly implicated with the rise in auto-immunity (where the body begins to attack it’s own tissues rather than support them.) Just like the barrier systems of weather and forces of nature and complex relationships between animals and plants are all key to the functioning of the earth ecosystem.

Is Community a barrier system at a scale between our own internal barrier systems and those barrier systems of the planet? Does Community confer some protection from disease process? If we begin to see ourselves as part of a larger Earth community (as humans have for most of their evolutionary life) does that creation of community and fostering of relationship begin to patch the holes that have opened?

Since 2018 (3 years after writing most of the original content on this site) I’ve been struggling in my journey towards health again in mysterious and confounding ways. I’ve forgotten much of what I learned about myself and which I wrote about here. I’ve forgotten about the process of life as it moves through and inside a human body. I’ve forgotten how to cultivate the resilience I talked about in another part of this site. I’ve forgotten how to make the world a beautiful place and how to feed the living world around me. I’ve forgotten how to feel the earth. I’ve forgotten so many things.

This does not make me patently unqualified to help you. In fact, I imagine this personal “failing” is something of an offering to all of you who are trying hard to feel good and not always getting it right. Since beginning my study in this world of functional nutrition and lifestyle hacking, I’ve been inundated with messages from people with perfect bodies, perfect diets, perfect workout routines, perfect families, perfect smiles and oodles of money from tapping the vast internet marketing/sales funnel, which allows them to take perfect vacations and live perfect lives. They all seem to have cracked some secret code and it is . . . seductive.

But my roots are in the warmth of kitchens filled with friends, in the abundance of over-flowing gardens and pantries where there’s always a little too much of everything, in the thrill of adventure, in the smell of pine trees and snow and woodsmoke, in the smell of fresh rain on the soil below my bare feet, and in the smell of ozone generated by lightning, which is surely the hearty howling laughter of some unseen god remembering a good joke. My roots are in the earth.

I am still driven to find some answers and to feel better, but in the meantime, I am more driven to come back to what is real and true. To return to the essence that is my body as a reflection of the earth, which is, in this current time, also struggling. I am grateful for every step of the journey and I look forward to writing more about the many influences that have shaped my world view. This will surely be a process of coming home.

PS – This website has been a long time coming . . . a slow slog through the territory of googling how to do every little thing in WordPress. The writing is not difficult for me, but the technical aspects of building a WP site have been tedious at best and maddening at worst. And, here I am publishing my first blog post (once the google told me how to do it). Re-reading words I wrote back when I first published this site in 2015 has been a much needed reminder in my own personal journey. May it also be an offering to you in whatever journey you find yourself walking. Thank you for reading!

Welcome to my new site.  Over the next few months, I will be using this blog to build out the main ideas touched on in other places on this site.  There will be a post dedicated to each of the main influences on my “About Sara” page.  There will also be a more detailed description of each of the classes I have listed on the “Classes” page.  I also plan to post about some of the various symptom patterns listed on the “Functional Nutrition Basics” page.  Finally, I intend to do some in-depth writing here around the very taboo subject of money, charging for the work I do, making health and healing accessible, while also supporting the ability of a self-employed practitioner to serve their clients and take care of themselves.    I really look forward to being able to share here on all the listed topics and many others as time goes on.  Thank you for visiting and check back soon!