Parents in Business featuring Angela Foster, My DNA Edge Ltd
Career

Parents in Business featuring Angela Foster, My DNA Edge Ltd

This week on my Parents in Business series I’m super excited to welcome Angela Foster who founded My DNA Edge Ltd to help individuals optimise their mind, body and lifestyle. This is a really interesting read and Angela has a huge understanding of the subject and how sleep, fitness and nutrition can help you. 

I am super impressed reading how Angela has managed to and built the business around her three young children, and I like how she has carved out time for her business and family time during the school term time and the holidays.

Do have a read of Angela’s story, it’s really interesting and could help your wellbeing just from reading it.

Tell me a little bit about you, your background, and your business?

My name is Angela Foster. I am a Nutritionist, Health and Lifestyle Performance Coach. I am also the host of the High Performance Health Podcast, where I interview top experts in the field of health and performance together with sharing some of my own content to give individuals the top tips, biohacks and health optimisation  strategies to optimise their mind, body and lifestyle.

Through my company, My DNA Edge Ltd, I run online health transformation programmes teaching individuals how to build a strong foundation of health, protect themselves against many of the modern chronic diseases and optimise their mind, body and lifestyle.  We have a range of programmes for people looking to just get started in improving one area of their health, such as sleep or nutrition through to more advanced biohacking programmes for people looking to get the edge in human performance.  One area we specialise in is in the area epigenetics and working with individuals’ unique DNA to personalise their nutrition, fitness, sleep and other healthy habits.  Our genes are not our destiny and we can positively influence them for the best health outcomes.  I also offer high end health and performance coaching to a range of individuals from CEOs and leadership teams to parents who want to optimise their health for higher performance.

What were your motivations for setting up your business?

In my 20s and early 30s, I was a hard charging Corporate lawyer in London before going on to make partnership in a large law firm. As a typical “Type A” personality working hard and playing hard, I was running on adrenaline.  This was ultimately not sustainable and after having my three children I suffered with clinical depression before my health took a a sharp downturn after a bout of flu, culminating in me fighting for my life with double viral and bacterial pneumonia.

After making a full recovery with little long term damage to my lungs, I went on a quest to discover how to combine high performance with optimal health.  I trained with some of the world’s top experts in the fields of mind body medicine and biohacking including Ben Greenfield, Dr Mark Hyman, Deepak Chopra, Dr Daniel Amen and Gabby Bernstein.  I realised that the mind and body are one and that for health, longevity and high performance we needed to optimise both.

As part of my own health transformation and working with my genetics to personalise my health including my nutrition, I not only transformed my energy and health, but also cured myself of my PCOS and insulin resistance.  By the time I was in my 20s I had had extensive surgery and prescribed metformin (a diabetic drug) to manage insulin resistance.  Solving my PCOS was a huge result for me as with a strong family history of diabetes and chronic kidney disease my health outcomes were initially looking very different.

This was the first step in me understanding how powerful working with our genetics can be.

Following this, I used more advanced biohacking and science backed health strategies to optimise every area of my physical and mental performance.  After 10 years of struggling with my mental health and a combination of advanced drug and cognitive behavioral therapy, I was eventually diagnosed with chronic clinical depression and told by a leading psychiatrist at the Priory Hospital that I would need to be on medication for the rest of my life or risk becoming bipolar.   Since working with mind body medicine and biohacking practices, I am pleased to say that I have now made a full recovery and no longer take any medication.

After curing my own health problems, I felt compelled to help others do the same and it is my mission to help as many people as possible to live a healthful, energetic and limitless life.

How do you balance the business around your family and childcare?

It is always a challenge running a business with three young children, but I have set up my business mostly online so that I can work from home around my family. After giving up my fast paced career as a lawyer, my priority was to make sure that I had time with my children and be there for them as they are growing up.

I have structured my business to be mostly online so that I can work from home and spend quality time with them.

Understanding my own genetics has enabled me to optimise my routine around my circadian rhythm.  Our sleep chronotype and circadian clock is  largely genetic and so as an “early morning type”, I usually start my day around 5am before my children are awake. The first hour upon waking is important for me to get my mindset right for the day ahead and so I very much focus on self care strategies including meditation, gratitude, movement and some reading.

My work schedule changes depending on whether the children are at school or on holidays.  During school term time, I work between 9am and 2pm while they are at school and during the holidays I work between 6am and 10.30am so that we can spend the rest of the day together.

Having good systems and structure in place with strong discipline have been key to my success.  I really believe that discipline creates freedom.

Since setting up your business what’s been your biggest success to date?

My biggest success to date is the transformations I see in my clients. It’s truly rewarding to see the breakthroughs they get when they work with their genetics to optimise their sleep, nutrition, fitness and lifestyle.  It proves to be a game changer in their performance, giving them more energy and time back.  It also vastly improves their health outcomes enabling them to live younger for longer.  Being healthy is a lifestyle choice and the effects compound over time.  Every action you take, every time you eat (healthily or unhealthily), move (or don’t move), sleep (well or badly) and think (positively or negatively) either creates a positive health credit or health debt. As with money the results compound over time and so taking positive steps consistently leads to the biggest transformations and outcomes over the long term.

What are your top tips for anyone who is thinking about setting up their own business?

My top tip is to choose something that you love.

Starting a business is fun and rewarding, but also it’s hugely challenging. So make sure that you love what you do as it will see you through in the times that you feel like giving up.  And work on yourself every day.  Prioritise your self care.  Your healthy habits, such as meditation, eating right and exercising daily are what will see you through the long term.  Treat yourself as if you were a world class athlete who had to fuel their body and mind in the most optimal way to perform at their best and this will pay the greatest dividends in your business, your relationships and your own health outcomes.

As Bill Gates has said, “Everyone needs a coach…” and it is the coaching and accountability that leads to transformation.  With so much information out there it is easy to feel overwhelmed but with the right coaching, mindset and energy you can achieve your wildest dreams.

Thank you so much Angela for taking part in my series it has been a pleasure to feature you. 

You can find out more about Angela by visiting her website, The DNA Edge Ltd website, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn

If you like what you’re reading and would love to be part of my Parents in Business series just drop me an email: thepramshedblog@gmail.com. Or have a nose at some of the other businesses I have featured in the series: Talented Ladies ClubThe Shoe Consultant, and Baba+Boo.

Claire 

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