I Was a Women's Health Coach Before I Was a Baker. Here's What That Changed.
The question that wouldn't go away
For years, I worked with women on their health. Hormones, energy, digestion, weight — the complicated, interconnected things that affect how women feel in their bodies. And one of the patterns I kept seeing, over and over, was this: take out bread, feel better. Add back real bread — properly made, slowly fermented — feel fine again.
I couldn't ignore it. It kept showing up in my practice regardless of everything else. And eventually it led me somewhere I hadn't expected: standing in my kitchen at 6am, covered in flour, talking to a jar of starter.
Lockdown, a starter, and a grandmother
During the first lockdown, like a lot of people, I started baking sourdough. What I didn't expect was how seriously I would take it. I followed Nancy Silverton's method to create my starter — a process that takes ten days and demands patience and attention. I named her Ooma, after my grandmother and my father. She's been with me ever since.
That first year was a steep learning curve. I read everything I could find. I enrolled in Dr Vanessa Kimbell's BALM Diploma at The Sourdough School — a two-year deep dive into the science, craft, and nutrition of sourdough. I baked badly, then less badly, then — eventually — well.
What I was discovering in the oven confirmed everything I'd suspected as a health coach. The fermentation process, the grain quality, the time given to the dough — all of it made a measurable difference to what bread does inside the body. This wasn't just craft. It was the overlap of everything I knew.
Why The Considered Loaf exists
The name came from a simple observation: most people never consider their bread. It's bought on autopilot, eaten without thought, and assumed to be a neutral backdrop to the rest of the meal. But bread is made somewhere, from something, by someone. The choices made at each of those stages have consequences.
The Considered Loaf is my attempt to make those choices well — and to make them visible. Every loaf uses stoneground heritage flour from Bruern Farms. Every loaf is fermented for at least 24 hours with Ooma. Everything is made in small batches, to order, in Wraysbury. Because that's what considered actually means.
What I want for the people who eat my bread
I want the same thing I wanted when I was a health coach: for people to feel better. Not dramatically, not magically — just the quiet satisfaction of eating food that's been made properly. Bread that nourishes rather than drains. A loaf that someone has genuinely thought about.
That's still the job. The flour just got more interesting.