We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Renee Belz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Renee below.

Renee, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My parents always set an excellent example of living a healthy lifestyle. They never pushed it on me but always had healthy food options at home and led by role modeling. When I went off to college, I became very sick as I started eating more unhealthy foods, not prioritizing sleep and living a high-stress lifestyle. A few years later, I was still overcoming health challenges and I was unhappy with my current job in international business. I went to my parents for advice and they asked, “What is your friday night essence?” This saying means what you find yourself naturally doing for pure enjoyment and excitement. I quickly responded, “reading nutrition books!” I had stacks of books on my nightstand that I absolutely loved diving into. It was in that moment that I realized, it was time to go back to school to study nutrition, which led me to get my Master’s degree in Holistic Nutrition. I’m forever grateful for the guidance from my parents because I’ve now been working in the holistic health and nutrition field for 15 years. I also started a podcast with my older sister all about biohacking and health optimization, called The Biohacker Babes. We’ve even had our parents on as guests a few times!

Renee, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Most of my passion and inspiration originated from my father, Gene Sambataro. He was a true pioneer in the world of Biological Dentistry back in the 1980’s, always educating himself on the most cutting edge ideas and implementing them into his practice before anyone else. Through watching and learning from him, I have been surrounded by holistic medicine for most of my life. However, while this did provide me with a strong foundation and valuable knowledge about holistic health and nutrition, the real fire was ignited for me to turn this into my career as I battled through my own personal journey and challenges to achieve a state of optimal health. Spending many hours of my youth in a ballet studio provided incredible experiences, professional training and friendships that will last forever. However, along with those positive elements were also extreme pressures to reach and maintain a certain body image. I took those strict requirements and the pressure to follow them very seriously, and also too far. As a result, I became very malnourished, and unable to keep the proper physical strength and fuel that a ballet dancer needs. At the age of only 14, I injured myself with two stress fractures in my lower spine. As I continued to push it and dance through the injury over the years, I would continue to make things worse, sometimes knocking me out of dance for weeks and even months at a time. Due to this injury, my dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer was gone forever. My only choice was to find some way to turn this experience into something positive. As I bounced between different jobs, I became more interested in nutrition and learning how to properly fuel my body. It was this personal venture that I started realizing my true calling, and how genuinely passionate I was about nutrition. After a couple more years of researching, studying, reading every nutrition book I could get my hands on, as well as some basic trial-and-error, I finally discovered what type of nutrition my body actually needed. I learned that I could eat in a healthy and nourishing way that would make me not only feel amazing, but would also fuel my body, all without restricting myself to purely counting calories. However this wasn’t the end of the difficult road for me to reach optimal health. I had challenges with adrenal dysfunction, chronic fatigue, mercury toxicity and even a 10-year battle with the Epstein-Barr virus. No single practitioner could help me, and I went to discuss these issues with countless experts. I had no choice at that point but to educate myself through any means necessary and to learn as rapidly as possible about all of these personal health issues I was dealing with. Although it was extremely difficult, I eventually healed myself, and this personal journey empowered me to build my career helping others overcome similar challenges. There has been absolutely nothing more rewarding to me than seeing someone else get to feel the relief that I did, and watching them completely transform their life and health by simply eating the way their body actually needs. It is why I do what I do, every single day.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When I was a junior in high school I decided to study International Business in college. I got into my dream school and graduated with a B.S. in International Business with a minor in Business Management. Immediately after graduation, I was hired at an International Trade Firm that I had my eye on through college. Very early on in my career, I realized this wasn’t the job for me. I couldn’t believe that after all of the years with this goal, it wasn’t what I expected. I left my “dream job” and went back to school to study nutrition, which I quickly realized was my true passion. It was an extremely hard decision to make at the time but I am so grateful I made the jump because I truly believe my purpose on this planet is to help others achieve optimal health.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

As a Certified Nutritional Consultant and Holistic Lifestyle Coach, I discovered the quickest way to grow my clientele was by joining forces with other holistic health practitioners. I connected with MDs, NDs, Chiropractors, Acupuncturists, etc. and offered my services to their patients. They all understood the importance of eating a healthy diet and following a healthy lifestyle but didn’t have time to coach their patients on this. It has been an amazing partnership!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://reneebelz.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reneebelz/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/biohackerbabes
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-belz-660b8b13/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeYR0ygEpYFls119HggVuxA
• Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/renee-belz-lauren-sambataro/id1470189843

Image Credits
Anna Arpasi Photography