Inspiration comes in all shapes and forms but there's a lot of it to be had in places like this.

Hello and welcome. I’m glad you found your way here because I have a huge amount of information related to natural health and nutrition to share with you.

One thing before we get started: while I’ve been fascinated by this area for almost 30 years, know the online health field well, and am now actually studying for a degree in nutritional medicine, this site is not about promoting myself. I would much rather the focus stayed on the information.

So, why Natcom then? A whole host of reasons: it is excellent for exploring my ideas about health and the great mystery that is life and naturally I want to share what I know. If I can help just two people make positive changes and they can each help two more… I’m sure you can see the exponential power of this idea. So anything useful you find here, please pass it on.

I’ve definitely tried to make both the articles and site itself easy to navigate. There is an incredible amount of confusing and often purposefully misleading information on the Net and you shouldn’t have to sift through more of it. But there are also some people with real integrity out there and I’d like to help you find them.

That said, let me give you the highlights – and lowlights – leading to the creation of Natcom.

The early years
I first realized I was interested in nutrition while deciding my university program the first time around. But somehow, despite my better instincts, I ended up with an advanced degree in international marketing, which by various machinations of fate led me to Japan and work as a writer, editor and publisher.

Living in Japan, and Asia, has had a large impact on my health philosophies and you’ll probably notice a lot of local flavor on the site. This connection is important for many reasons – as I outline in different articles – but thanks to the modern wonders of the Internet, I can also easily stay up to date with all the cutting-edge developments around the world.

The other major influence on my health has been my work. This has been less positive, as spending far too much time at a desk has led to some major battles with fat. Happily, the last go-around helped me make some fairly key discoveries about this, health and life in general, and I’ll be sharing those with you on Natcom.

The dark times
Ironically, more success with my work seemed to mean less success with my health and I stacked on the fat. The first time it happened, I eventually got myself to a gym and basically powered off the lard by brute force. I’d been some type of vegetarian for around 15 years by then so I figured I had the diet part under control (not even close).

Things were good for a while but after a couple of years I’d gained everything back plus some extra. Sound familiar? This time I also had joint issues – basically my body had locked up from lack of activity and was also starting to round into that question mark shape developed by so many desk jockeys.

To sort things out, I started working with a doctor of physical therapy who was also a certified trainer. Although this was all online, it went well and after a year I was in the best shape of my life. I even started checking out personal trainer certifications myself.

A bit later, I made my first trip to the US for a health conference / holiday (highly recommended) and met up with the good doctor, who was also speaking at the event. He graciously introduced me around and short story short, I suddenly had a business creating content for fitness Web sites. Life was good. For a while…

The lessons learned
It didn’t really seem possible but over the next couple of years, I slowly gained back all that fat plus yet more. I ended up with a body fat index of around 40%. A classic fat-thin person with a hefty dose of metabolic syndrome. Not a good look.

On the surface, the reasons seemed simple. I skipped a couple of gym sessions for work… and then a few more… building a business felt like a perfectly good justification at the time. But the net result was basically a downward spiral of more fat and less energy, and I actually started turning down work and then just not answering e-mails.

I don’t want to overdramatize this but life got kind of, well, messy for a while. Eventually though I gained some insight into what was really going on behind the scenes and started to fix things. It’s a continuing journey but one of my key discoveries has been permanent results are possible with surprisingly little willpower. Yes, really! Looking forward to telling you all about it…

Yours in health,

The nutrition geek