Rethinking Women's Nutrition: The Power of the Unsexy Fundamentals

A STORY FROM THE LADIES OF CORDEZA

Projected to reach nearly $10 trillion by the end of the decade, the global wellness industry has been built on the promise of ‘self-optimisation’. Driven by an increasingly health-conscious audience, the industry holds real promise for improving wellbeing.

Yet paradoxically, that same industry, shaped by conflicting messages and commercial pressures can often create an overwhelming flood of information that can undermine our ability to thrive. Beyond the trends and excess, a smaller group of practitioners offer grounded approaches to health and nutrition, prioritising sustainable optimisation over constant escalation.

Meet Esther. A nutritional therapist who grew up in Geneva, Switzerland in a home that felt both intimate and oddly grown-up. Her father travelled often for work and her mother was confined to bed rest after a complicated pregnancy causing Placenta Praevia, leaving Esther and her older brother to run the household. And so, in a faint echo of what would later become her life’s work, responsibility was shared. 

Her maternal grandmother being a nurse and her mother having once planned the same path, there was a strong sense of lineage to her decision to pursue a career within the health and wellness space. After pursuing the sciences in her studies, working in corporate diagnostics for the NHS and then doing so along the demanding role of motherhood, Esther did what many women do, she continued to push through with an internal drive that refused to soften until the ambition that drove her forward began to take its toll.

“My hair was falling out and my energy was flat, but I kept pushing and showing up for everyone and everything except for myself.”

On paper, she was doing everything “right” but a pre-diabetic diagnosis was a moment of clarity sharp enough to stop her in her tracks. It became a turning point, prompting Esther to seek the support of a nutritional therapist.

In this interview, Esther confines an extremely complex industry with an overwhelming number of voices and opinions, into simple everyday mindsets and approaches we should be taking to optimise nutrition. She debunks wellness ideas that are often promoted without fully appreciating who they’re appropriate for, or the wider context of someone’s health. 

Instead of asking for strict rules, I invited Esther to begin by sharing three simple principles around nutrition which don't require restriction or perfection.

The three principles:

• Eat in a way that keeps you full and steady between meals.
• Let food support your day, not take over your headspace.
• Aim for consistency, not perfection.

As women, conversations about food often drift toward guilt about what we “shouldn’t” have eaten, or the moments we feel we’ve let ourselves slip. Esther challenges this narrative by reminding us that food isn’t moral. It isn’t good or bad, but rather just a form of information or a way for the body to communicate its needs.

“I often hear people say, ‘I’m being good today, I’m eating healthy,’ and I always pause at that. Being good? Because that immediately suggests the opposite: that there are ‘bad’ foods, and by extension, that we’re somehow bad for eating them.”

Esther argues that society’s fixation on labelling foods as “good” or “bad” can be deeply harmful to our mental health. Rather than moralising a bar of chocolate as “bad,” she encourages us to see it simply as something that doesn’t provide the minerals and nutrients needed to optimise bodily function.

“Over time, the body still tries to do everything it needs to do, just with fewer or less appropriate resources, that’s often when we start to see outcomes people don’t want, like digestive issues, weight changes, disrupted sleep, low energy or hormones feeling out of sync.”

By replacing the language of “bad” with “inadequate,” we shift the focus from guilt to nourishment, prioritising healthier choices while still allowing space for enjoyment, as long as both body and mind are ultimately given what they need to thrive. 

This aligns with the unglamorous importance of sleep, a habit everyone naturally engages in yet doesn’t appreciate the reality of its impacts. Esther swears by it. “I can’t overstate how powerful a consistent sleep routine is. In my experience, sleep is the foundation that everything else sits on: nutrition, movement, mood and even motivation.”

“Most of the time, people who feel stuck with their health are actually doing everything right with food and exercise, yet still feel tired or out of sync. Sleep is often the missing piece.”   

Photgraphed by @emilydicksphotography

Esther’s nutritional advice incurs no heavy financial costs, in contrast to a wellness industry that encourages investment in endless supplements, viral “superfoods” (like sea moss), and even cosmetic procedures.

Esther rejects the notion of following popular wellness trends very intentionally. “Trends, by definition, have a moment and then move on. Health and wellbeing don’t really work like that. They’re built through consistency and the everyday behaviours we repeat over time.”

The exponential growth of the wellness industry attracts a variety of voices, “some of which are well trained and genuinely understand the science behind what they’re sharing, others are enthusiastic but less researched, often promoting ideas without fully appreciating who they’re appropriate for, or the wider content of someone's health.”

“What makes me wince slightly isn’t any single trend, but the promise of a quick fix, often presented as universal solutions.”

Given the popularity of detoxes, cleanses, and intermittent fasting, I asked Esther to unpack their effects from a nutritional perspective. Esther evidences her favour of “gentle supportive practices,” like allowing breaks between meals to let the food fully digest. She highlights the ability for small detoxes and cleanses to allow our bodies to take a break from the toxic load found in food additives, pesticides and packaging. 

However, she warns that although “intermittent fasting, detoxes, and cleanses can sound compelling, when real-life physiology, stress levels, and emotional wellbeing aren’t considered, they can sometimes do more harm than good.”

A theme that surfaced repeatedly during our conversation was the importance of moderation rather than extremity in nutrition, a perspective that continues to resonate here.

“I’m sceptical of things like green juice cleanses. They’re often sold as a deep detox, but they don’t provide the nutrients the liver needs to do its work. The body already has built-in detoxification systems working every single day, most notably the liver. Our job isn’t to force those systems into overdrive, but to support them consistently with enough energy, protein, micronutrients, rest, and sleep.” 

“Sustainable support beats dramatic resets every time.”

@nutrition.wellness.lifestyle

Conversations surrounding the oversimplification of women’s health and body research has only recently begun to surface. Esther highlights the repercussions of nutritional research being modelled off of the male body, which is physiologically very different to women’s. 

“I once heard it described like this: if men’s hormones are a simple dashboard, women’s look more like the cockpit of a jumbo jet.”

“Many women actually need more rest, not less fuel and we tend to require more sleep than men as our bodies can be more sensitive to stress. The misunderstanding comes from trying to apply simple, one-size-fits-all solutions to a system that isn’t simple.”

“But the good news is that this is changing and there are more female voices in nutrition highlighting these differences and advocating for more tailored, woman-specific approaches and that’s very much the space I work in too.” 

So as women, if we want to improve our nutrition but don’t know where to start, what are the most impactful changes we can make?

“Start by coming back to the basics. The boring and non-shiny stuff are worth their weight in gold: eat regularly, prioritise meals that truly nourish you, and protect your sleep. You don’t need an overhaul, you need small and supportive changes you can live with. When your body feels safe from the predictability of your actions rather than stuck in fight-or-flight, nutrition can do its job properly, and building momentum becomes much easier.”

“What I love seeing now is women beginning to honour their bodies again. They’re recognising that fluctuations are normal, that energy isn’t meant to be constant, and that health isn’t a straight line.”

“Being part of the Ladies of Cordeza feels like being part of a space that genuinely values women’s stories, not just their achievements. What resonates most for me is the emphasis on growth, honesty, and supporting one another through different seasons of life, something that mirrors my own journey both personally and professionally. Community plays a big role in my day-to-day life. It’s a reminder that we don’t have to do everything alone and that there’s real strength in learning and evolving together.”

To finalise our January story, Esther finishes with a reminder that “your body isn’t broken, it’s giving you information. Learning how to respond to that information changes everything.” 

Find more from Esther's here