My Health Journey

I’ve always been fascinated by the human body—how it heals, adapts, and tries to find balance no matter what we throw at it. But my understanding of that didn’t come easily; it came from living through years of imbalance and learning how to rebuild from the inside out.

I was born by C-section during an overly stressful period in my mother’s life. She later told me that she felt her stress during pregnancy was most likely the start of my health journey. I spent the first 3 years of my life surrounded by cigarette smoke which lead to 7 consecutive ear infections all treated with harsh antibiotics. After the seventh round, my ear infections stopped but only to be replaced by severe allergies that would last for the next 25 years of my life.

My nose ran year-round, my eyes itched, and each season change made me sick. I carried tissues everywhere and cycled through inhalers, antihistamines, and allergy shots. In hindsight, my digestion was never quite right either, though at the time I thought that was just “normal.” Only later I discovered that I technically had IBS. Looking back, I can see how my immune system, gut, and environment were all working against each other from the very start.

Despite that, I grew up in a very athletic family. My mom was a swimmer and weightlifter, my grandfather ran marathons, and I found my outlet in trampoline and tumbling gymnastics. Movement became my safe-haven. I realized the power of moving my body and how it diminished my allergies and chronic sickness more than any antihistamine or doctor's visit ever did. I had to go to the gym to feel better. By the time I was 15 I started getting what I refer to as traumatic acne which lasted for about ten years. Horrible skin, debilitating allergies, and terrible digestion, I would cry to my mom asking what I did to deserve all this... In defiance and not to be defined by my health, I made gymnastics my life. By seventeen, I had won a national championship in power tumbling. It was a huge personal victory and an early sign that I'm not a quitter and I will be successful. This helped enormously with my self-confidence and was my first step to reclaiming my power, my body, and my health. That medal around my next was so powerfully symbolic. I can do this.

After high school, I went to pastry school, drawn to the creativity of food. But in those kitchens, surrounded by sugar and butter, my health took a dip and I had a wake up call. "Matthew, do you want to be overweight like your teachers and classmates or do you want to associate yourself with your healthy friends at gymnastics?" The answer was easy. I switched majors to Nutrition and French (I started learning French with pastry schooling, and loved it). Even after switching to academic nutrition, which I now refer to as 'government nutrition' I still struggled with my health. Seasonal sickness lingered, and I relied on workouts to “sweat it out” and detoxify because it seemed like the only thing that helped.

In 2015, I studied abroad in Besançon, France. I fell in love with French food culture, the respect for ingredients, the connection to the land but when I later moved to Lyon in 2016 to complete my degree in dietetics, I hit a wall. Following the standard nutrition guidelines didn’t work for me. My energy dipped, I lost muscle, my skin was still horrible, and I could feel inflammation simmering underneath everything. It was confusing to be studying nutrition while feeling worse than before.

That’s when I stumbled across Dr. Jason Fung’s work on intermittent fasting and the Lean Gains approach back in 2016. The science behind it made sense to me, but more importantly, the testimonials were what convinced me. So naturally, I got started with intermittent fasting. For the first four weeks, my body adapted slowly. Then something amazing happened: my skin cleared completely for the first time since I was 15. The cystic acne and mountainous pimples that had followed me for a decade were FINALLY gone. I wasn’t constantly hungry anymore. I finally felt calm in my own body. This was my wake up call to the power of nutrition.

From there, my curiosity took off. I experimented with low-carb eating, extended fasting, keto, then the GAPS diet. All with the goal of helping me address my allergies. Each approach taught me something: keto stabilized my energy; GAPS taught me how to cook nourishing broths and slow-simmered meats; and when I reached the carnivore diet, my lifelong allergies had finally and officially disappeared. I’ll never forget walking outside one spring morning during the COVID lockdowns and realizing for the first time in my life... my nose wasn’t running! That moment felt miraculous. I knew something fundamental in my gut had shifted.

After years of chasing protocols, I began to understand that no single diet holds all the answers. Healing required flexibility, self-awareness, and a genuine relationship with food. Around that time, I also discovered fermentation. Making sauerkraut, kefir, and yogurt opened another door for me that food could literally be alive, that I shouldn't only be eating 'dead' foods, and that when I back up and look at food cultures around the world, I see great success and longevity in populations that regularly consume fermented foods.

Around the same time, I began to read voraciously. Nourishing Traditions, Sacred Cow, The Obesity Code, The Mood Cure, are a few examples each book expanded my perspective. And then I found Louise Hay and Abraham Hicks. Through them, I learned something that none of my textbooks had ever explained: that healing also requires kindness toward yourself. I began to see health not as a checklist, but as alignment between nutrition, mindset, and the energy we bring to our lives. I'm well aware that this won't resonate with everyone, but fixing my attitude towards myself and shifting my perspective from victim mentality to 'student of the universe' is what made the biggest quality of life change for me.

I describe my approach to nutrition and healing as this mix between modern nutrition science, traditional food wisdom, and aligning with positive food relationships.

What began as my search for health became my calling help others rebuild their own health through the power of nutrition and lifestyle.

If my story resonates with you, feel free to explore what else I have to offer here at Cress Dietetics. If you would like to work with me you can reach me at matt@cressdietetics.com

Thanks for reading,
Matthew Cress
Dietitian Nutritionist – Founder of Cress Dietetics, Lyon France