A full life is a life lived mindfully, joyfully, and intentionally. We can only do this when we are healed and healthy.
Discover Melissa Ngui’s Personal Health Journey
For most of my life, I struggled with migraines, intense cravings, bingeing, and gut issues. By the time I was 30, I grappled with insomnia, chronic work-related stress, was constantly bloated, and had unexplained weight gain and puffiness in the face.
I’d go on a see-saw of eating everything, and then restrict myself to almost eating nothing. I mixed this with frantic high-intensity training in between. My body felt run down and I was constantly tired. I was afraid that I’d never be able to poop or sleep naturally again.
For most of my life, I struggled with intense cravings, bingeing, and gut issues. By the time I was 30, I grappled with insomnia, chronic work-related stress, was constantly bloated and had unexplained weight gain and puffiness in the face. I’d go on a see-saw of eating everything, and then restrict myself to almost eating nothing. I mixed this with frantic high-intensity training in between. My body felt run down and I was constantly tired. I was afraid that I’d never be able to poop or sleep naturally again.
Success must include living healthfully, so that we choose self-care over self-sabotage.
Choosing Self-Care Over Self-Sabotage
In the first years of running my business, I felt run-down.
I was living with gut dysbiosis, leaky gut, and adrenal fatigue.
Getting Sick From Stress
My body was sick of the long hours and demanding work commitments from running a startup, while I lived in China. I was living with insomnia and intense 12-hour days at the office. I had no choice but to slow down because my body resisted working any harder. I took stock of my life and began goal setting to improve the aspects of my life that I’d been neglecting – my mental health, my gut health, and rest.
Shifting to a Holistic Mindset
I embraced a holistic approach to my well-being. I committed to healing my gut with foods that worked with my body, quit eating processed junk, reduced my caffeine and alcohol intake, sat down to enjoy my meals, and cut back on my hours at work. I even swapped out toxic cleaning products for more natural safer alternatives in my home. Soon, I stopped relying on painkillers or caffeine supplements to get me through the day. I switched to relying on wholesome organic foods, nontoxic plant-based nutrients, yoga, meditation, and rest.
Overcoming Bingeing and Bloating
Changing my lifestyle and my relationship with food eventually healed my sleep issues, slowly eliminated my cravings, and most importantly healed my gut! Giving up gluten and sugar was the hardest part of the process because I craved them, but my body felt 100% better and cleaner without them. My skin and gut thanked me, and eventually the bingeing and bloating were gone.
Getting Community Support
Joining a wellness community really solidified the results because this combination of lifestyle change and community support allowed me to share the journey with others who were also making the change to live healthier. I found the courage to embrace self-acceptance, self-love, and self-nourishment. I really began honoring what my body needed. I ate when I was hungry, rested when I was tired, stopped depriving and food-shaming myself, and slowly began improving my self-talk. This transformed my relationship with food, and with my body, and it changed my life and eventually my business.
Looking Back with Joy
During my 8 years in Shanghai, I was living with heavy toxic overload. I was exposed to immense air pollution, heavy metals, and other environmental toxins. It was critical for me to embrace a healthier life and when I did, despite the environmental challenges, I only needed to see the doctor twice! My allergies cleared up, my poops became more regular, and food stopped being my enemy – it became healing. I lost weight, maintained a stable body mass index, and got into the best shape of my life as I approached my 40s.
Here's what most people don't know about us and why it matters.
We are who we are today, because of what we've lived through.
I’ve been a “closet” abuse survivor all my life. I never knew how damaging the feeling of shame would be to my self-confidence, my self-worth, my sense of self, and my choice of relationships. Looking back, it’s not the abuse that was so damaging, but the shame I held about it.
Shame tainted how I saw myself and my beliefs around what I was capable of accomplishing. I constantly compared myself to others who seemed “normal”, and who didn’t have “issues”. I just never seemed to measure up. How could I? This constant comparison distracted me from putting in the inner work needed to heal and become whole again.
Instead, I put junk into my body, overworked my body, and starved my body all in an effort to soothe myself. I had stopped loving myself and my bingeing helped to soothe the harsh reality of this truth. Changing the way I treated myself meant that I had to face the areas of my life that were driving my destructive behavior. I could no longer use food, relationships, or work to mask what I was uncomfortable facing.
My life changed when I found the spiritual practice of yoga. Doing the inner work and meditation that comes with yoga, expanded my awareness of what was driving my bingeing, food shaming, and body issues. Yoga has also helped me get out of and overcome two domestic abusive relationships without losing myself. I’ve discovered courage and resilience that I never knew I had.
Developing the courage to face the things in my life that I was not proud of gave me the courage to go after what I wanted in life. I developed the strength to stop shaming and blaming myself. I also stopped comparing myself to others, and with that came self-control around food, alcohol, and other forms of escapism.
Are you eating your emotions and tired of feeling ashamed of it?
Are you eating your emotions and shaming yourself? Are you comparing yourself to people who seem “normal” and feeling worse about yourself? Are you running 5 miles a day because of the binge last night? I’ve been there - done it, too. This is our best-kept secret and it happens to the best of us regardless of whether we’ve been abused in our past, had terrible choices of relationship partners, or couldn’t seem to have the body we wanted. Shame can drive us to do crazy self-sabotaging things.
Do I believe you’re strong enough to develop the courage you need to face yourself? Hell yes! I’ve had to walk through hell to get here and it’s not easy. It will not be easy - let’s be okay with that. For women like us, this is our journey but it is not our destination. We can break the cycle of shame and feeling a loss of control over our bodies. You can and you will.
You won’t be alone. I’ll be right there with you. Just as I’ve had to lean on a few coaches on my journey, too. Women do not need to carry it all, although we can. Lessen your load so you can soar uphill. Trust me the view gets better as we get up there. Leave shame at the bottom and go up to where self-acceptance and self-love guide the way you treat yourself and how you allow others to treat you. Where is your journey leading to? Let me go with you and remind you of what’s possible.
Work With Me
I draw from the challenges of my own health journey, and Integrative Nutrition training,
to support you on your quest of feeling empowered on your personal health journey.
Now I help women feel more comfortable in their bodies, take control of their cravings, beat binge eating and drinking, and reconnect with the incredibly strong wholesome woman inside! We’ve all got our junk in the trunk and that’s part of life baby. We can’t always choose the circumstances that happened to us in our past, but we can choose how we move forward, and how we take care of ourselves. I challenge you to be curious and go searching for the answers that you’re looking for. Use my life as a guidebook of lessons I learned while falling forward. Learn how to get back up stronger and kinder to yourself every time. Take ownership of where you are and where you are going. I’m here to be your guide on the side so that you rekindle the passion and purpose within you, and create the life you want! You deserve it! The world needs the best of you - the healed, healthy, wholesome you!
Here's my scope of practice:
- Beating bingeing and emotional eating
- Managing and understanding your cravings
- Choosing the right foods for your body
- Managing weight loss sustainably
- Healing and restoring gut health
- Preventing and managing Type 2 Diabetes
- Improving self image and transforming self beliefs
- Creating and living a life aligned with your values
Life gives us experiences for growth even when they seem scary.
More on Melissa's personal journey of overcoming limiting beliefs and being intentional about living fulfilled
Click the image of her Tedx Talk to watch the video.
Personal Tidbits You Might Relate To
- Grew up as an only child raised by a single mom
- Was born on an island in the Caribbean and spent childhood summers on her grandmother's country farm
- Spent most of her teenage years and early twenties with low self-image, body dysmorphia, and bingeing
- Overcame two domestic violent relationships and now teaches women how to recognize signs of abuse
- Practices yoga and meditation as a spiritual practice as well as to develop compassion for self and for others
- Loves reading about personal development, psychology, farming, natural health, and business in her free time
- Gave a TEDx Youth talk on her journey of overcoming limiting beliefs and childhood sexual abuse
- Started coaching Chinese professionals in coffee shops to improve their personal self-image
- Spent 8 years living in Shanghai China and speaks Mandarin and English
- Got into education to become debt-free and fell in love with teaching
- Taught 500 Chinese kids to become fluent in English over a 3 year period
- Committed to growing her own organic food and creating community food gardens
- Is an INTJ Introverted Intuitive Thinker Judger - she loves to plan and goal set
- Believes in making a positive social impact in her work
- Loves fermented foods, spicy soups, and cacao bits!