Exploring Life & Business with Liz McGregor

Today we’d like to introduce you to Liz McGregor.

Hi Liz, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
When thinking about how I got started, the roots go back to my earliest weeks of life, along with the culture and limited knowledge that was available at the time!

My mother was feeling very unsure of herself after I was born because I cried more than my brothers had and seemed uncomfortable. If I cried, she was told that it was because she ‘didn’t have enough milk’, even though I was obviously growing well.

My problems really began at six weeks old, when my mother developed mastitis and went to her doctor for help. His “solution” to her breastfeeding problem was to give her antibiotics, plus a drug to dry up her milk, and tell her to “put the baby on the bottle.” She did what she was told, and felt relieved, thinking that I would get more milk from a bottle, and stop crying from what she had been told was hunger.

As soon as my mother “put me on the bottle,” I immediately developed colic and reflux, along with asthma, a permanently runny nose, and frequent ear infections. To make it worse, I cried even harder than before, developed acute eczema, and scratched all the time. Soon she had to wrap me in bandages every day to stop me from tearing my skin to bits.

My mother was told by her doctor to “Just keep putting the creams on – she’ll grow out of it eventually.”
I didn’t. There was no going back – I had to live with this chronic sickness, tummy pain, eczema, and illness all through my childhood and adolescence, as did my mother and the rest of the family.

Finally, at the age of twenty, I discovered that this single piece of bad advice, to “put me on the bottle” was at the root of all my health issues. I learned that even if I was predisposed to colic, reflux, and atopic diseases – it was not inevitable that my children would develop them if I breastfed them exclusively and was careful about introducing certain foods.

I could dare to have children! This was a life-changing moment. I then set off on my first quest – to make sure I learned all I could about being able to breastfeed, and have happy, healthy babies. Shortly after this, I discovered my second quest – an article in the only health magazine at the time, “Here’s Health” suggesting that giving up eggs, milk and wheat could resolve eczema.

I was only 20, at university and acutely self-conscious of my red, itchy face and body. Filled with hope and joy I immediately ditched the dairy, eggs, and wheat and waited eagerly for the smooth skin to appear. Sadly, that turned out to be too simplistic. Eczema got very slightly better, but not much, and my food allergy symptoms returned with such a vengeance that I could no longer eat eggs, milk, and wheat.

The flame of hope would not die though, and in between the rest of my life, I carried on researching what else might help get rid of eczema. The rest of my life involved meeting my future husband (someone who loved me anyway, despite my itchy skin – decided he was a keeper!), getting my degree, getting married, working in Social Services with people with severe disabilities, and starting my longed-for family.

True to my first quest, I found out how to resolve most feeding difficulties and did not repeat the pattern of my mother when I too got mastitis at six weeks. I knew what to do and cleared the blockage, avoiding antibiotics and their consequences. I fed my babies for as long as they wanted and both had soft, smooth skin – I was thrilled.
I had succeeded in my first quest.

I studied and qualified first as a volunteer breastfeeding counselor helping other mothers and babies with feeding difficulties. After six years and hundreds of hours of voluntary work, I studied, even more, to become one of the first International Board-Certified Lactation Consultants in the UK. This is the highest qualification in breastfeeding support and management, worldwide.

When Lactation Consultants of Great Britain started, there were eleven women. When I qualified, our little group doubled that number – to twenty-two. In my naivete, I thought that our famous National Health Service would catch up with what we knew of the unsurpassable value of breastfeeding. I thought they would employ Lactation Consultants in every maternity hospital and community service, to optimize the health of all women and babies.

The research was unequivocal, after all. Even in twenty years, I thought? Nah. The NHS still couldn’t cure complex health issues, they could only treat me with drugs and creams to suppress some of my symptoms. While I continued researching a cure for eczema as my second quest, I learned a lot about just about every chronic, hard-to-treat condition out there.

It took fifteen years, and many unsuccessful attempts, from the age of 20 until 35 – until I finally hit on a potential but really difficult solution. After so many disappointments, I hesitated to take this final step it really was my very last hope, and it was going to be tough – what if I failed again? Finally, out of sheer desperation, I plucked up the courage to put the solution into practice.

But when I did… I fixed my own health problems in fifteen days!

I discovered that the “unconventional” techniques I had used were part of the long history of Nutritional Therapy and Naturopathy traditions. (I stuck to eating just fruit and vegetables for a whole fortnight, along with loads of fish oil, a multivitamin, and mineral tablet, and an obscure spice, saffron that I made into a tea. All eczema disappeared, never to return).

Nowadays, my passion is not only to help other people avoid what I and my family went through but to help people heal themselves when they no longer thought it was possible.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road. I met my future husband when we were on a counseling training weekend at university, and eventually, he trained to become a psychotherapist.

We moved to a lovely county town and discovered that psychotherapy was not as valued as it is in some areas – one reason for the lack of competition at the time. He was very good, but back in the 1990s once he was finally established, there was a big recession. Just as he became more successful, so the interest rates went up and up on our mortgage, until at one point they hit 16%.

We hung on by a thread until our youngest was settled in school, then I went job hunting and found an amazing part-time job at a Child Development Research Unit, where I became the friendly face of psychological research. Our team was trying to prevent post-natal depression in vulnerable women and I was the main recruiter for the study, working with Ethics approval in the local hospital.

My job was to recruit pregnant women as they came in for their scans, and follow them up after they had had their babies. (Spoiler alert, no matter how lovely and skilled our specialist Health Visitors were at doing everything they knew to help prevent post-natal depression, we could not overcome the social deprivation, lack of supportive family ties, absent or indifferent partners, poverty, and poor housing that many of these vulnerable women faced on a daily basis).

I now know that inadequate nutrition also plays a huge part in vulnerability to both pre-natal and post-natal depression. This was never touched on. When the disappointing preliminary results were submitted, the research grants were reduced and it was cheaper to employ two Ph.D. students than I, so I was let go. Also, I’d finished recruiting nearly everyone they needed.

We were still really hard up because after I went back to work, there was no friendly voice to answer the phone for my husband’s practice while he was working. We couldn’t afford to employ anyone and there were no virtual assistants back then.

We learned the hard way that if people heard a voicemail, they didn’t phone back with their inquiries, so my husband’s income went down even further, canceling out the benefit of the reliable money I was bringing in. When the research work came to an end, I barely knew how to use a computer; my typing skills were slow to terrible and Excel spreadsheets were a mystery to me.

Nevertheless, with these rudimentary skills I managed to get a temp job, then a permanent job (not for my typing skills but my ability to organize scattered content into coherent reports). The irony was that it was in an IT department of a huge telecoms company – the very last place I thought I would ever end up!

A couple of years later, my slim, cycling, margarine-eating, saturated fat-avoiding husband had a stroke that stopped him from working. That was another spur to my needing to know more about health – how on earth did that happen? His cholesterol was barely raised at all. I had to step up and become the sole breadwinner. We had a little health insurance, but nothing like enough – we’d been too hard up to increase the cover.

We always thought he could work, even if physically disabled – the idea of a stroke affecting his brain never dawned on us. After getting caught in one of the regular waves of re-organizations and redundancies, I then used my very transferable project management skills to set up a clinical trial on Diabetes and Heart Disease for Oxford University. Once that was done, I tried to follow my heart once more and set up a community clinic to provide breastfeeding support.

There were warm words from my NHS senior colleagues in the community group but zero finances forthcoming from the NHS. It didn’t matter, even when I showed them the cast-iron research on the hundreds of thousands of pounds that they would be saving in reduced illness costs.

In desperation and in the face of our family’s once-more looming poverty, I went contracting to finally earn some decent money. Our eldest was going to university and the younger one was too. My old company had me back like a shot (they’d made too many skilled people redundant!) on nearly three times the money, for another four years – so that felt like a vindication and some justice!

Eventually, I became a Senior Service Management Consultant in a big IT consultancy. Service Management is about what needs to happen if things break in big companies that support the Services the company provides to customers. The teams need fast, effective, processes to fix the fault, anticipate and prevent future faults and manage risk and changes safely. I was very good at building those processes, but I was not truly happy.

I was happiest helping my teammates with their health conditions and supporting women with establishing breastfeeding. I was also learning even more about how to prevent illness, studying to become qualified in Nutritional Therapy every evening and every weekend for three years.

My company was asking women to “Be Bold! Ask for what you want – be the change you want to be – branch out in your career!” So with my Nutritional Therapy qualification, I put an entire Wellbeing Champion role and Program together, that would work worldwide in our international company. It would encourage folk to eat Real Food and also tackle their chronic health conditions, reducing sickness, improving productivity, and increasing loyalty and retention.

That was too bold, apparently – and would probably put the nose out of joint of the massive private health company with whom the company had ties, who were getting people fast-tracked to private doctors, pills, surgery, and addiction clinics. It was too radical.

Then the company realized that they were losing their intelligent and skilled women to the competition, and wanted to attract and keep them. Once more, they were asking for initiatives.

I put together a family-friendly support system for pregnant and breastfeeding women, (and information and support for their partners) as most women in the company were of childbearing age. It would increase company loyalty by offering something women cared about deeply – the health of their new family. It would also reduce unplanned absence to look after the children by about two-thirds, as families would be healthier.

Not only that, I showed how it was also part of the green initiative and reducing carbon and water use – there is no carbon footprint with mother’s milk. The cost to employees, plus the carbon and water footprint of substitutes for mother’s milk is colossal. (I have figures if anyone really wants to know). That was too radical too.

Then came Covid. I watched it grow from December 2019 and put together a “How to support you and your family’s immunity” information sheet for my own team in January 2020, whose children kept getting sick at nursery, requiring them to take time off to look after them, at short notice, which impacted the project we were on. I looked at the number of people around me with what was known even then the high-risk factors – high blood pressure, diabetes, overweight, working in windowless offices and eating canteen food. It was at least 1 in 3 of any team I had ever worked in.

In February 2020, I proposed a company-wide, internationally accessible plan to provide ways to support people’s immune systems and reduce their risks of catching the virus. I highlighted the risks to the senior management in the company of doing nothing; including the risks to those we employed overseas who had fewer resources at home than most of us in the UK and less access to any health care.

This would give them the information to help themselves and their families using ordinary food, vitamins, minerals, and kitchen herbs. This was seriously, far too radical. I was reprimanded, and told that the company would follow the government guidelines; and that we could not give out “medical” advice. (Interestingly, food is not medical advice – medics are not trained in using food as medicine – if they were, there would be a lot less illness).

Ironically, we had company forums on Wellbeing – people could post about walking, mindfulness, or yoga, and this was welcomed. If I posted about food and why food works to support the immune system – that was taken down.
Then, as contracts and work had slowed right down, we were given the opportunity to volunteer for our local communities. I leaped at the chance, as with lockdown, midwives and health visitors were not able to run clinics and rarely got out to help women with new babies in their own homes more than once or twice.

I volunteered for my hospital to help in the maternity wards to support breastfeeding, but even that potential help had been closed down, so I worked over Zoom or WhatsApp through a community Facebook group to support women in their own homes with breastfeeding issues, and that worked really well.

I had already moved to three days a week to be able to build my nutrition business in the other two days, then when the whiff of redundancies was in the air, I applied immediately and was accepted. My parting gift was a thank you and goodbye email, to as many departments’ distribution lists as I could access, with an updated, fully referenced attachment, suggesting multiple ways to support their own and their family’s immunity.

I hope it opened a few eyes, prevented a lot of people from catching a miserable illness, and potentially saved a few lives. Now it was time to step out and commit full-time to the work that I was passionate about, that people needed to know about, that changed lives.

I had built up some savings, and finally, when many people my age are thinking about retiring, I was embarking on an entirely new career.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I specialize in tackling the “tough stuff” – the conditions that standard medicine treats with drugs and that people are told they must simply learn to live with.

These include but are not limited to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, weight issues, chronic fatigue and long Covid, gut issues, skin issues, hormones, and auto-immune conditions. I am passionate about helping others regain their health from such misery-causing illnesses, and preventing future diseases.

My health-oriented qualifications begin with a degree in Psychology, then as a Lactation Consultant, Nutritional Therapist, and Naturopath. I reviewed and commented on medical research that goes into drafting government guidelines, for several years.

When it comes to what I do for infants and their mothers, I have often been known as “The Boob Lady”. This means I use my deep knowledge of breastfeeding techniques and lactation to help women feed their babies themselves. That is pretty special in itself, but I combine these skills with deep insights into gut health, the immune system, and food intolerances, to help mothers resolve colic and reflux in their babies.

Around 1 baby in every 9 worldwide develops colic and/or reflux to some extent and some have it very severely.
There can be a lot of yelling and screaming, and it’s not always just the babies. It can be exhausting and demoralizing when no matter what you try, your much-loved baby is crying inconsolably and in obvious pain for several hours a day. Even the most balanced mother in the best of circumstances can feel like screaming.

Many mothers are not in the best of circumstances, and having a hard-to-soothe baby can compound their distress and vulnerability, as we confirmed in our research at the Child Development Unit. I spent so long advising mothers on colic and reflux in the community, that I put a course together. This uses everything I know that helps to identify the causes of colic and reflux and provides the solutions that mothers can put in place themselves.

It is, to the best of my knowledge, the most comprehensive course out there. It includes basics on good positioning at the breast, what to do about a fast “let-down” reflex, and information on tongue-tie. It also includes information on finding a cranial osteopath, in case some of the nerve pathways to and from digestive organs have been affected during birth; gut health in the mother, and gut health in the infant.

It covers allergies and food intolerances in mother and baby, and their impact on the baby’s developing immune system. There are foods to suspect and foods to include, along with an assessment of the impact of delivery method and antibiotics on the baby’s microbiome (gut bugs). The course also includes ways to reduce the baby’s symptoms while working out the underlying root causes, using infant massage, homeopathy, and even reflexology. After all, who doesn’t love playing with a baby’s feet?!

I help mothers finally achieve a happier baby with healthy digestion, using natural methods and without using suppressive drugs. After all, 1 in 3 adults have issues with their digestion. Many of those started off with colic and reflux and probably eczema when they were babies. If I help their mothers tackle and resolve the issues in their babies, they are likely to grow up into much healthier adults who have more fun in life and are happier in their own skin.

For adults, I work in a health partnership with people to get to the root of those “tough-to-treat” chronic illnesses.
Even if we cannot alter some root causes, like an accident or predispositions, by using an integrative, holistic approach, we can help the body bring itself back into balance. The tools of the trade are real foods, supplements, herbs, and other complementary medicines. I also address sleep and life-load management, often using wellbeing coaching to help resolve areas of significant stress that contribute to any illness.

What sets me apart from others is that you can ask me just about anything about disease and health and I’ll know how to help. Most people specialize in just one area, such as gut health or menopause, and sure, it makes their life easier, but I specialize in helping the people with the really tough conditions where they have a load of complex interactions going on. It’s a challenge I relish.

An example I am particularly proud of is working with someone with a rare auto-immune condition, associated heart condition, gut issues, pre-diabetes, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). After only three months of working with me, this person’s auto-immune symptoms vanished; their heart valve mended itself, their gut issues resolved and their energy returned. Even better, they came off long-term sick leave and got back to the work they loved.

On top of that, their blood sugars normalized, and they were better able to control their impulses. Even their relationships improved! That was the ultimate fulfillment for me. It is wonderful to be able to say to people, “That’s my job! It’s what I do…”

What are your plans for the future?
When it comes to my plans for the future, I am now building evergreen programs that people with tough health conditions can join at any time.

They will all get an individualized plan and can receive live weekly support, start to make small, bite-sized changes (pun intended), and follow at their own pace. They will also be able to join a community of people in similar circumstances to themselves and find support, tips, and encouragement from folk further along the path to recovery.

After seven years of almost constant working, learning, and developing, I have gone as far as I can using only the one-to-one model, and am looking forward to working smarter, not harder. One-to-one is wonderful – but I want to reach more people.

The intention is to enable me to provide a great service to even more people at a lower cost to themselves, while finally regaining some time for my favorite hobbies! These include designing and making stained glass windows and lampshades, making herbal tinctures, gardening, cycling, dancing, making hand-dipped beeswax candles produced by my friend’s bees, wood carving, pastels, and fine art.

A big change that will be happening soon, will be moving to be nearer one of our children and to live in the countryside, near to Bath and Somerset. There is a village hall down the road – I also have dreams about running community drop-in sessions, joining local groups, going for walks along the local canal, and even cycling into Bath.

It’s not so much rest, but certainly a change!

Pricing:

• Initial consultation – 1.5 hours – £125
• Follow-up consultations 1 hour £95
• Online course on Colic & Reflux – Causes and Solutions – £47 + tax

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.lizmcgregorhealth.com

Image Credits
Laura Dewilde, Unsplash Neon, Val-vesa, Blue Berries Close Up Photography, and Pexels Canva Pro