Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Mowbray.
Hi Ashley, 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?
I’m a Dietitian specializing in women’s health and digestive issues. Currently I manage my own private practice, where I help women gain confidence through food. Some women come to me for sustainable weight loss and healthy eating to prevent disease, while others are trying to get to the root cause of their digestive issues- like IBS, bloating, and bowel irregularity. An important part of my practice is helping women to let go of the toxic dieting strategies we grew up with and instead start to use food as self care.
I’ve been interested in nutrition ever since I can remember- I can recall pestering my mom with questions about food and how it benefits my body. I also LOVED reading Women’s Health and Shape for the nutrition and fitness content. Majoring in nutrition in college was an easy decision, but as I learned more about how our food choices interact with our body and the countless ways that food can either improve or hinder our body as a whole- I started to realize my previous understanding of nutrition was far too narrow. Before college I learned about nutrition the same way everyone else does- through magazines, friends, and following our mom’s example. We viewed food simply in terms of calories. It was either causing weight gain or weight loss and food choices were almost always motivated by a desire to be thin. I call this “diet culture”. I understood that food had calories and protein, but had never heard about the phytonutrients, minerals, and bioactive compounds in our food. Never how food could turn genes on or off, how food could interact with our hormonal system, how food choices affect the microbiome, or how food could fuel or dampen inflammation (and what that actually means!). Sometimes health magazines emphasized the mineral content of our food (yay!)- but usually under the guise of how those minerals could speed up workout recovery….so we could get back in the gym and lose more weight (ahh, so close!).
I realized I had been subtly abusing my body for years by only viewing food as calories. I had missed the bigger picture by thinking I could eat “whatever I wanted” as long as it fell within my calorie budget and as long as I was thin. Because in our culture thin = healthy. But this is hardly the case.
Leaving college I was ecstatic to get my career started and help people improve their health through nutrition. My first job as a dietitian was in a hospital system. I was quickly disapointed by our healthcare system and my role in the patient’s health journey. It’s no secret that our health care system is largely reactive (not preventative) and as eager as I was to be a part of our patient’s health care team, the reality is that I had very little impact during their hospital stay and the medical team didn’t always value nutrition recommendations as important. Meanwhile, I developed debilitating digestive issues that my GI doctor couldn’t solve. I wasted a lot of money on testing that repeatedly came back negative and I was ultimately given a prescription that only gave me a 30% reduction in my symptoms. It was frustrating not to have answers or any path to healing that didn’t include lifelong prescription meds. It wasn’t until way later that I’d realize that years of stress, subtle under eating (which many people would view as “healthy”), and gut bacteria dysbiosis were what had caused my symptoms. It all came back to diet culture and how we’d totally missed the mark on nutrition.
My frustrations with conventional healthcare and the constant chatter women hear about “how to diet” led me to start my own practice. I love helping women resolve stubborn symptoms that might have been dismissed by their doctor. And I’m passionate about helping women find confidence and joy through food.
I make a point to [really] listen to my clients. I’m a true partner in their health journey because I know how frustrating it is to feel like you’re doing “everything right” and not experiencing the results you want.
Ultimately I just want women to appreciate food for more than calories- because good food is self care.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
In my own health journey the challenge has always been quieting the inner voice that encourages thinness over health and allowing myself to rest when I was raised in a house that encouraged constant productivity.
But in business, the biggest challenge has been marketing my services. many people feel like they already know nutrition or know “what to do” they just “can’t stick to it” -so they put off asking for help. But a big part of what I do is to help clients actually implement healthy eating into their busy schedule, plus overcome the thoughts and patterns that keep us from making positive changes.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
(I might have covered this somewhat already). I specialize in women’s hormones and gut health. I help women overcome digestive issues like IBS, bloating, and bowel irregularities without restrictive diets. Most people think that they need to avoid foods that “trigger” digestive symptoms. But it’s actually quite the opposite. The path to healing is actually through diet diversity and often eating more, not less. I take a root cause approach to healing digestive issues through functional medicine testing and manipulation of gut bacteria that can cause digestive symptoms. The goal is to rebalance gut bacteria- increasing good bacteria and minimizing bad bacteria in order to improve digestive function. This way my clients can tolerate more foods without suffering symptoms like bloating or IBS.
What most people don’t realize is the way our gut is in constant communication with our immune system, skin barrier, hormonal system, and even our brain. This means that gut health can have a far reaching impact beyond just “gut symptoms”. Gut dysfunction can also show up as hormone dysfunction, acne, rosacea, or anxiety/depression. Therefore, we can improve many of these symptoms through gut health work.
What are your plans for the future?
I had my first baby in September of 2025, so this year has been tough in terms of business growth! Learning how to balance being a mom who’s exclusively breastfeeding and owning your own business is tough! But I have big plans to grow my food blog and focus more on recipe creation in the future because that’s a big passion of mine as well.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.theselfcaredietitian.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theselfcaredietitian/
