Female Faces of the Brand: Phoebe Liebling

My name is Phoebe Liebling and I am a Nutritional Therapist and Health Entrepreneur. I have been in clinical practice now for over a decade, with an unrelenting passion for education within healthcare as I truly believe we all deserve to be the masters of our own wellbeing. The limitation within medicine so often being the lack of time to explain. I experienced this personally and have dedicated my professional life to ensuring that no one will ever feel as lost or alone with their health as I did. In addition to my clinical work, elements of which I share freely through social media, I have then founded 2 further businesses to make my professional guidance more available to everyone.

The first is Nutri Tailor, a supplement platform that purely sells clinical grade products. These are available individually or as pre-made therapeutic plans based around common health concerns including IBS, adrenal overwhelm/fatigue, sporting performance and hormone health. I became so frustrated with the swathe of poor quality products and heavily marketed and yet therapeutically ineffective/inaccurate advice I basically built a service that means anyone can have my specialist supplementation advice for free.

The second is The360 which is my opportunity to give people an immersive experience of what optimal health feels like. We are holistic retreats with a difference, yes we go to wonderfully beautiful locations around the world, practise yoga twice daily with my wonderful business partner TeriAnn, and shower our guests with delicious food. But I also give 1:1 sessions and workshops throughout the retreats to provide that level of understanding as to why we make certain choices and changes so that the time our guests spend with us is just the beginning of their new chapter.

I think Detox Kitchen and I have been knitted together for about 10 years too! The original deli was actually next to where I trained to become a Nutritional Therapist so their meals literally fuelled my training. And then I have had the absolute pleasure of working with them to create some of their meal plans and recipes, whilst also supporting and educating their community as a member of their expert panel.

What inspires you?

Seeing the impact that small, personalised changes can make. There is a real privilege to being part of someone’s journey with their health and there is a moment when you see that little switch flick inside them. I have always said my goal is to make myself redundant by teaching my clients or those who follow me on social media to not need me anymore, and when I get to see that happening it brings me the greatest joy.

What does your day usually look like?

Currently I am still in my more winter style routine but despite this I am a real morning person so my days start relatively early. I get up, scrape my tongue, brush my teeth and wash my face then turn on some music and dance around my kitchen having a glass of water with ionic minerals, liquid chlorophyll, raw propolis and raw bee pollen. I then take my dog out and whilst she potters around I do a short series of hip mobility exercises whilst staring at the sky to support my nervous system and hormone balance. This takes about 10-15 minutes and I do it come rain, shine, cold, very cold or warm weather! After this I make a ceremonial cacao or a coffee with organic soya milk and bone broth powder, enjoy that and then head off to the gym. I combine strength training with pilates, long distance swimming and weighted walking. In the summer I add more cardio if I fancy it. Breakfast is always savoury and centred around protein and fibre with slow burning carbs. My usual choices would be my homemade protein bread (made out of liver, oats and buckwheat) + braised red cabbage and steamed eggs, roast chicken, broccoli and potatoes, or the other morning I had beef stew! I ‘broke up’ with the idea of ‘breakfast food’ a long time ago and just aim to eat a really good quality meal to start my day. Work then ensues. It could be a busy clinic day where I’m seeing clients back to back via Zoom, or I might be jumping in and out of meetings with brands working on product development, coming up with mad new ways for Nutri Tailor to become even better, creating content for social media, or a mixture of all of these things. I will always break for a proper lunch which follows a similar theme to breakfast and then I walk the dog properly before starting up again for the afternoon. My lowest creative ebb is around 2pm so I am incredibly fortunate that I can tailor my routine to make this my outdoor brain break as I then return feeling rejuvenated and ready to crack on again.

What is your daily non-negotiable?

Time outdoors. Our body is a finely tuned machine that is inextricably linked to the environment in which it exists. It is constantly sensing around itself, picking up cues and stimuli as to how it should be working. We want those triggers to come from natural sources as these are calming and soothing as opposed to being hyper-stimulatory which things like electronic devices are. Chronic stress, fatigue, digestive dysfunction and hormone issues are all underlain by a body fighting with itself, and you can completely change how your system functions just by starting and ending your day outside.

3 wellness tips/habits you swear by...

Flexibility in health. I really really want to encourage people to step away from the concept that there is an ideal way to do anything. Chasing a goal whilst ignoring what your body is telling you it actually wants to be doing is the fastest way to fail long term. I encourage what I call habit potting instead. Which is basically to have 3-4 ways to achieve a health goal you have set yourself within your routine. For example, if you want to add morning movement that’s brilliant, but some days you will be tired, short on time, be in a different part of your menstrual cycle or just not fancy doing a workout. So what does that mean if you’ve said you want this as part of your schedule? You workout and hate it? You workout and feel exhausted afterwards? You don’t workout and feel like you’ve failed? Or you have options - you can workout, you could walk round the block, you can do 15-20 minutes of yoga/pilates in your pyjamas from YouTube. All count, you never get mental pushback from your routine and you always feel like you win.

A protein and fibre focused diet. But not just because ensuring you have enough of these macronutrients is critical for physical health, but actually because building your diet around these makes your life easier and more pleasant. It is a really sad fact but I can confidently tell you that the majority mindset towards food still remains one that uses what we eat as a bargaining chip of some kind. There is a battle with hunger, a fear of over consumption or being seen to eat too much, or existing in a cycle where foods are given a label and we then naturally pinball between ‘oh that was a good day’ and ‘oh but I shouldn’t have had that’. If however you consume a sufficient amount of protein + an appropriate amount of fibre, then finishing your meal with healthy fats and slow burning carbohydrates you will feel full from an adequate amount of food (and calories) to suit your needs. And that satiety will last for ~4 hours. This then negates the cycle of denying hunger or picking at snacks, your body uses stored fat as fuel between meals and your system naturally swings towards efficiency which = a lean, muscle mass centric physique (if you are also working those muscles through some kind of resistance exercise). And happiness and peace with food.

Giving yourself a rest from caffeine and alcohol periodically. Purely because they are often things that compromise our wellbeing but we don’t realise how until we take them out and then add them back in. I liken this to living in black and white versus living in the grey. Habitual reliance on caffeine actually means it is less useful to us, if used more cyclically it’s a brilliant performance enhancer, but our body becomes accustomed to it and it then loses that edge. It can also lead to fatigue, blood sugar irregularities and hormonal symptoms. I often encourage a swap to ceremonial cacao in the morning for 14 days then let people add coffee/matcha back in if they want to, often they do and then say how horrid they feel and go back to cacao! Similarly alcohol - even if you're drinking once or twice a week this will change your body’s internal chemistry. Alcohol really impacts how much REM sleep you’ll get so how mentally tired you feel, it’ll slow your recovery from exercise meaning you don’t progress as fast with any training you’re doing, and it is also a real kicker for our mood. I would never say you can’t ever have these things, I just like people to learn to understand the impacts on themselves so they can make an informed choice about when, if and how they choose to have them in future.

What is your favourite cuisine?

I am a foodie of all fancies but I do really love the freshness of Thai and Vietnamese dishes. There is also something incredibly soul enhancing to me about the food of the Mediterranean; I think it’s the fresh fish by the sea of Greek and Spanish dishes that immediately transports me to a warm summer evening somewhere lovely. Food is an incredibly emotive experience and so it’s not just the flavours that matter, it’s the feeling inspired too.

Your favourite DK meal?

Hmm there are too many! I think it would have to be a toss up between the raw pad thai with chicken or the red thai salmon curry!

Dish or recipe you make most often?

I really go through cycles depending on what’s in season as I only purchase my fresh produce at my local market. A few weeks ago I was in a real rotation of lots of roasted root vegetables, chestnuts, herb dressings and grilled fish, then as celeriac came in I ate celeriac and potato purée with my date and olive roasted chicken for about 2 weeks straight! Now I am living a life centred around bean minestrone with lots of fennel, fresh sorrel and little meatballs spiked with herbs and capers.

Death row dinner?

My mum makes a really simple minced beef dish with carrots, onions and mushrooms that we have with potatoes and peas. There’s nothing fancy about it at all but the nostalgia and comfort of it will always make it my favourite meal. Hilariously when I had to have ankle surgery a few years ago I had pre-planned my recovery to the minute detail with all kinds of therapeutic foods ready to go in my freezer. And for 3 weeks post op all I ended up eating was this mince.

What is your favourite form of movement?

So as a form of exercise I would choose reformer pilates or gym based weight training, both just make me feel so in tune with myself, powerful and both physically and mentally resilient. But I couldn’t not mention swimming as it is my access point for meditation. I know many class it as exercise but I literally find it the most effortless, soothing and soul enhancing thing. If I feel out of sync, stressed or in any way jangled I get into the water and just go. 2-3km later and I am renewed.

What is your favourite quote or mantra?

I have many but the one that has felt most resonant with me of late is actually a Viking BindRune that I have tattooed on my right ankle. It means ‘To create change, we must invite chaos”. I would class myself as an incredibly driven individual but being a little more grown up these days I have had the opportunity to reflect on the negative impacts that strict order and routine have on our wellbeing. My personal development ‘focus’ over the last few years has actually been to lean into allowing less rigidity in my life (a mildly terrifying concept when everything you do depends on your level of drive, motivation, and sheer unwillingness to give up!) and loosening those reigns has proved to be the best thing I could ever have done for myself personally and professionally. Fearing the unknown or the yet to happen is just a way to stress yourself out about something that may not happen….!

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More on Phoebe...

My instagram @_naturalnourishment

My website

Nutri Tailor website

The360 website