YALDA T ALAOUI'S EAT SLEEP BURN CAPSTONE
”From extreme sickness to helping doctors heal: Yalda Alaoui turned her health journey around, now helping thousands around the world”
In our regular feature for the Mayfair Times, Charly Massey, Partner at Wingman spoke with Yalda Alaoui, the founder of Eat Burn Sleep, an online educational health platform focused on teaching people how to achieve optimal health by living an anti-inflammatory lifestyle. After two near-death experiences, Yalda found meaning and fulfillment from her Capstone: becoming a gut health and inflammation expert to assist others to adopt easy, enjoyable, and sustainable practices around their wellness.
CM: So Yalda, firstly tell us more about you.
Yalda: I’ve always enjoyed being in Mayfair- whether that’s living and/or working. Mayfair feels like one of the places in London that has a healthy balance between work and life. Health has always been a passion of mine. In 2007, I started suffering from an auto-immune disease, Ulcerative Colitis, and in 2012 from Auto-Immune Haemolytic Anaemia. It is my own health journey that made me begin to extensively research nutrition and health. A ten-year period of research and recovery led me to share my knowledge and make a full career switch (my background is in finance). I have learned how to live my life to the fullest without compromising my health, and that is what I am teaching others now on my online educational platform.
CM: Let’s look back at what we call the cornerstone phase of a career. The formative years of life and defining moments growing that led you to where you are today… tell us more about your early years…
Yalda: I am half-Moroccan, half-Persian and I was born in Morocco. We moved to France when I was 12. At 15, I was interested in economics, which led to me studying accounting and finance at the London School of Economics and EDHEC Business School. I don’t look back and think I have always been aware when it comes to health and wellness. My father is a very health-oriented man who set a great example when it comes to diet and exercise. He is a pharmacist and I remember him always trying to avoid giving us medication when possible. My maternal grandfather was a great believer in natural herbs as remedies. I remember him making all sorts of potions and teas using various medicinal herbs to try and alleviate my grandmother’s physical pain. She indeed suffered from a rare autoimmune disease (systemic scleroderma) and my mother suffers from a thyroid-related autoimmune disease too. My grandmother did lifestyle changes which extended her life expectancy but my mother is happy taking the medication without addressing her chronic inflammation. It made me think a lot about the different paths to healing as a child. It also made me feel helpless towards people I love. Being able to actually make a difference in people’s health now means a lot to me.
CM: We move onto your keystone phase, we consider this the period of life when you make your mark, the time where you make a dent in the world and/or major events take place that helps define the path to your passion project:
Yalda:
The keystone phase in my life is definitely the time when I developed my 2 auto-immune diseases, in 2008 and 2012. Over nearly a decade I visited a great number of specialists for my two autoimmune conditions, as well as nutritionists, naturopaths, and holistic doctors in the US, Europe, and Asia. I spent a lot of time, money, and energy trying to find a solution to begin to feel healthy again and although doctors have saved my life twice, which I am very grateful for, no one could help me find a way to live my life to the fullest again.
CM: Sounds like a scary and often desperate time for you?
Yalda: Certainly. I was in and out of hospitals trying to figure out a way to survive and to have enough energy for my two children (2 boys that are now aged 10 and 12). They were my biggest motivation to fix my own health. I understood early on that the link between my two conditions was chronic inflammation and I set myself on a path to healing myself as no one could help me do so. I went through heavy courses of medication - corticosteroids, immunosuppressants, and biological drugs, with little positive effect. At some point, I had to be kept alive with blood transfusions. After years of trial and error, I have created a low inflammation lifestyle which keeps me in remission, out of hospital stays, and medication-free.
CM: So onto our focus, the Capstone phase. We like to look at what someone does after a life jolt. What did you do next?
Yalda: A friend of mine made me realize that I had comprehensive learnings, research, and experience from the near-death events and pushed me to share it on social media. I started it as a charity venture and subsequently decided to widen it to a broader business for anyone who wants a more health-centric lifestyle. I firmly believe in setting up a business-like structure in order to accurately measure results. If people pay for the product and the company is profitable, then I know this isn’t a self-indulging venture but a platform that actually makes a difference in people’s lives. My friend provided a desk in his office, a graphic designer, and the website was accelerated. So in 2018, out of the darkness came my Capstone: Eat Burn Sleep.
CM: Tell us more about the Eat Burn Sleep lifestyle
Yalda: On my online education health platform Eat Burn Sleep, I teach people how to lower their inflammation and improve their gut health. Inflammation is a very serious and highly underestimated health issue that triggers the offset of various non--communicable diseases, such as PCOS, IBS, psoriasis, arthritis, and many more. Whereas the processes of inflammation are complex, the solution is very simple and it is my mission to spread my knowledge far and wide to help other people become the best version of themselves by lowering their inflammation while enjoying their lives to the fullest.
The three pillars of an anti-inflammatory lifestyle are food, movement, and mental wellness. These three things have to be in balance as they are equally important. On my platform, I share movement (exercise) routines in a video format, as well as guided meditation, food lists, and recipes. The Eat Burn Sleep platform is a complete source of information where everything that is needed to lower inflammation is included.
CM: Seems like your career in finance and trading floor environments also helps with your no frills advice with your Capstone…
Yalda: I am passing on the knowledge I have accumulated over the past 12 years when it comes to gut health, inflammation, and healthy weight-loss to as many people as possible. I know it worked for me. Now helping others is a great source of satisfaction. It makes me feel that my years of hardship in and out of hospitals battling with ulcerative colitis and auto-immune haemolytic anaemia weren’t in vain”. I am also a believer in people taking control and making themselves accountable for their health. You can’t outsource health. A doctor can’t sleep for you. No machine can eat or exercise for you. It’s only when we are at our worst that we look for solutions to a problem, I’m teaching people that prevention is a much better approach.
For more information about Eat Burn Sleep visit www.eatburnsleep.com or
Instagram:@eatburnsleep
YouTube: Eat Burn Sleep
Facebook: Eat Burn Sleep
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