VJ Hamilton: The Autoimmunity Nutritionist

VJ Hamilton: The Autoimmunity Nutritionist I'm VJ, and I am a Nutritionist and Autoimmune Disease Expert.

For a long time, I thought my body had let me down.It started with alopecia when I was seven, then migraines, digestive ...
03/08/2026

For a long time, I thought my body had let me down.

It started with alopecia when I was seven, then migraines, digestive problems, psoriasis, chronic fatigue syndrome and countless other symptoms that seemed unrelated. Each one was treated separately, each one given a different explanation, yet no one ever stepped back and asked whether they might all be connected.

Looking back now, I see those years very differently.

My body wasn't failing me. It was adapting. Every symptom was telling me something about what it was dealing with beneath the surface. The problem wasn't that my body wasn't communicating. It was that neither I nor the healthcare system knew how to interpret the language it was using.

That realisation completely changed the direction of my life.

Instead of asking, "How do I get rid of this symptom?" I started asking, "Why is this tissue no longer able to do what it was designed to do?" That single shift in thinking eventually became the foundation of everything I do today.

This is the first essay I've written on Substack, where I'll be sharing longer pieces on health, chronic symptoms, science, resilience and the ideas that don't always fit into an Instagram caption.

If you've ever felt that your body was working against you, I hope it offers a different perspective.

Comment SUBSTACK below and I'll send you the first essay.

One of the questions I ask almost every client is, "What are you doing at the moment just for you? What brings you joy? ...
31/07/2026

One of the questions I ask almost every client is, "What are you doing at the moment just for you? What brings you joy? What are you excited about? What passion are you following?"

It always surprises me how often the answer is... nothing.

Or, "I don't really have one anymore."

I understand that answer because there was a point in my own life where I wasn't really living either.

I was working hard, socialising with work colleagues, exercising when my energy allowed, and then spending the rest of my time recovering so I could do it all again the next day. The weeks rolled into months and the months rolled into years. I was grateful for my career, but I wasn't lit up by my life.

Looking back now, I don't think that was separate from my health. I think it was part of it.

We naturally think about food, supplements, exercise, sleep and stress when we think about health. They're all important. But I don't think we spend enough time asking whether our lives contain the things that make us feel alive.

Years ago, I asked myself what I'd loved doing before life became so busy. The answer came back almost immediately: creative writing.

I'd loved writing stories as a little girl, but somewhere along the way I'd stopped making time for it. So I started again, and before long I'd written three quarters of a dystopian novel.

It wasn't about publishing it. It was about giving myself an outlet that made me feel like me again. Looking back, I genuinely think that became part of my recovery.

If you don't know what brings you joy, that's okay. Sometimes you have to rediscover it. Think back to what you loved as a child, or what makes you lose track of time today.

You don't need to change your whole life. Just start with fifteen minutes.

Because healing isn't only about removing what's making you unwell. Sometimes it's about adding back the things that make you feel alive.

What's one thing you could bring back into your life this weekend?

Have you ever noticed that some of your symptoms seem to improve when you're on holiday?Perhaps your digestion settles, ...
29/07/2026

Have you ever noticed that some of your symptoms seem to improve when you're on holiday?

Perhaps your digestion settles, your skin calms down, your energy returns or you finally sleep through the night. Then, a few days after you get home, everything starts creeping back again.

Most people assume it's simply because they're relaxing. Sometimes that's true. But holidays change far more than our stress levels.

Your environment changes. You're exposed to different light, different air, different routines, different foods and often a different pace of life. You may be walking more without thinking about it, spending more time outdoors, sleeping longer, laughing more and giving your nervous system the opportunity to slow down.

For some people, it may even mean a temporary break from everyday exposures such as mould, poor indoor air quality or other environmental triggers they didn't realise were affecting them.

This is why I encourage my clients not just to enjoy feeling better on holiday, but to become curious about it.

Ask yourself:

What changed?
Which symptoms improved?
What did you do differently?
Which of those changes could you bring home?

Your body is constantly giving you information. We often pay close attention when symptoms appear, but we don't always pay enough attention when they disappear.

Sometimes the weeks you feel your best can teach you just as much as the weeks you feel your worst.

If you come home from holiday feeling healthier than when you left, don't dismiss it as luck.

It might just be one of the biggest clues your body has given you.

If you'd like to learn more about recognising the patterns behind your symptoms, comment FORUM below and I'll send you an invitation to join my free community, where we'll soon be starting the Symptom Detective Challenge.

One of the biggest misconceptions about autoimmune disease is that it starts when symptoms appear.It doesn't.By the time...
28/07/2026

One of the biggest misconceptions about autoimmune disease is that it starts when symptoms appear.

It doesn't.

By the time you're experiencing fatigue, joint pain, brain fog, digestive problems, hair loss or skin flares, the immune system may have been changing for years.

Long before a diagnosis, it can begin to lose the ability to distinguish between what belongs in your body and what doesn't. Autoantibodies can develop years before symptoms. Inflammation quietly builds. Tissue function gradually changes. Then, eventually, the body can no longer compensate, and symptoms appear.

This is why I'm so passionate about helping people understand their bodies.

Symptoms aren't random. They're not your body "turning against you." They're often the final chapter of a story that has been unfolding for a long time.

The exciting part is that while we can't change our genetics, we can influence many of the things that affect immune regulation. Gut health, nutrition, sleep, stress, infections, environmental exposures and metabolic health all play a role in the bigger picture.

That's why I don't just ask, "What autoimmune disease do you have?"

I ask, "Why did your immune system lose tolerance in the first place?"

Because that's where meaningful change begins.

If you'd like to understand autoimmune disease on a much deeper level, and learn how to identify and address the factors that may be driving inflammation, I'd love you to join us inside The Autoimmune Forum.

Comment FORUM below and I'll send you all the details.

Because the more you understand your body, the better equipped you are to support it.

Looking back at my health, I realise it wasn’t just the symptoms I had that were telling me something was wrong.It was a...
27/07/2026

Looking back at my health, I realise it wasn’t just the symptoms I had that were telling me something was wrong.

It was also the functions I’d lost.

For over 10 years, I hardly sweated. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it, but sweating is an important part of how the autonomic nervous system regulates the body.

I also wasn’t coping well with stress. My resilience was low, I felt permanently overwhelmed, and looking back, my body struggled to switch into that rest-and-repair state where healing happens.

My digestion wasn’t what it should have been. I didn’t recover well from exercise. I rarely woke up feeling refreshed.

The interesting thing is that I didn’t know these things were a problem because they’d become my normal.

It was only as I started addressing the root causes of my health that these functions gradually came back. I started sweating again. My body became more resilient. I had more energy, recovered more quickly, and realised there was a whole level of health I’d never expected to experience.

That’s why I’m so passionate about helping people understand their symptoms.

So many people tell me, “I actually feel okay.”

But what if “okay” isn’t actually your normal?

What if you’ve simply adapted to feeling less well than your body is capable of?

Your body isn’t just trying to get rid of symptoms. It’s trying to restore function.

Next week, inside The Autoimmune Forum, I’ll be running a free 7-Day Symptom Detective Challenge to help you recognise the subtle clues your body may have been giving you for years.

Because the earlier you spot these signs, the easier it is to make meaningful changes.

Comment FORUM below and I’ll send you all the details.

Inflammation often gets a bad reputation, but it's actually a normal and essential part of the immune response. The prob...
24/07/2026

Inflammation often gets a bad reputation, but it's actually a normal and essential part of the immune response. The problem is when it becomes chronic and your body struggles to switch it off.

One of the challenges is that chronic inflammation doesn't always look the way people expect. It isn't just swollen joints or obvious pain. It can present as fatigue, brain fog, hair loss, skin problems, digestive symptoms, poor recovery after exercise or simply feeling like you're not functioning at your best.

These symptoms don't necessarily mean you have chronic inflammation, but they are signs that your body may be asking for attention. Spotting them early gives you the opportunity to investigate why they're happening before they develop into something more significant.

In clinic, I rarely focus on inflammation itself. Instead, I ask what's driving it.

Is it your gut? A food sensitivity? Blood sugar imbalances? Chronic stress? A nutrient deficiency? A lingering infection? Hormone imbalances? Environmental factors?

Inflammation is often the consequence, not the root cause.

When you identify and address those underlying imbalances, inflammation can begin to settle naturally, and that's often when people notice improvements in their energy, skin, digestion, hair, mood and overall health.

If you're ready to understand what your symptoms might be trying to tell you, my free guide, The Autoimmunity Recovery Plan, is a step-by-step guide to help you start making positive changes to your health and begin addressing some of the common root causes that can contribute to chronic inflammation.

Comment AUTOIMMUNITY below and I'll send you the details.

One of the books that had the biggest impact on my own recovery was The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks.I read it at a point i...
21/07/2026

One of the books that had the biggest impact on my own recovery was The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks.

I read it at a point in my life when I was making a lot of changes, but there was still a part of me that struggled to believe I could truly get better. I wanted to recover, I was doing the work, but deep down there was a belief that perhaps this was just who I was.

One of the concepts Gay Hendricks talks about is the Upper Limit Problem. It is the idea that we all have an internal limit for how much success, happiness, love or health we believe we deserve. When we move beyond that limit, we unconsciously pull ourselves back.

There are several reasons this can happen, but one that really resonated with me was the belief that we are somehow fundamentally flawed.

As I reflected on my own life, I realised I had carried that belief for years. A series of childhood experiences, combined with developing an autoimmune condition at such a young age, left me believing there was something fundamentally wrong with me. I didn't consciously think that every day, but it had quietly become part of how I saw myself.

When I started to challenge that belief and realised it wasn't true, everything began to change. I stopped seeing my body as broken and started seeing it as capable of healing.

From there, my health went from strength to strength. I was able to run a half marathon, work a full week without crashing, enjoy weekends again, leave a career I'd outgrown and retrain as a nutritionist. None of that happened overnight, but it started with changing what I believed was possible.

Sometimes the biggest barrier to recovery isn't a supplement, a diet or another test. Sometimes it's the story you've unknowingly been telling yourself for years.

If you're on your own healing journey, I'd really recommend reading The Big Leap. It might just help you uncover the belief that's quietly keeping you stuck.

I'd love to know... have you read it? And if not, after reading this, what do you think your own "Upper Limit Problem" might be? 💛

20/07/2026

One of the things I have come to realise, both through my own health journey and from working with people living with chronic symptoms every day, is that healing is rarely just about food, supplements or finding the "missing piece". Often, the biggest changes happen when we start looking at the life around those symptoms.

When we decide that we want to feel better, it can mean making some really difficult decisions. It might be changing the way we work, setting boundaries with people we love, saying no more often, prioritising sleep over productivity, or spending less time in environments that leave us feeling drained. Sometimes it even means letting go of friendships, changing jobs or creating a completely different version of the life we've always known.

The difficult part is that, even when we know those changes are right for us, they can still feel incredibly uncomfortable. Our brains are wired to seek familiarity, so staying where we are often feels safer than stepping into something new, even when our current situation is no longer serving us.

This is something Wendy Valentine and I spoke about in tlast week's episode of The Autoimmune Podcast. Wendy shared how, after experiencing debt, divorce, depression and chronic illness, she realised that healing wasn't just about moving away from the darkness; it was about having the courage to step into the life she truly wanted, even though that required asking much more of herself.

I think that's something many of us can relate to. We often know what needs to change long before we feel ready to make that change, but if we want a different outcome, there usually comes a point where we have to choose ourselves.

If this resonates with you, comment CHANGE below and I'll send you the episode. I have a feeling it might be exactly the conversation you need to hear today.

15/07/2026

I sometimes wonder what I would say to my younger self if I had the chance.

I wish I could tell my 18-year-old self that she wasn't lazy because she couldn't get through a day without needing a nap, or because she couldn't keep up with her friends when she ran cross-country, no matter how hard she tried.

I wish I could tell my 25-year-old self that feeling exhausted every afternoon, struggling with tendonitis, living with constant aches and pains, and feeling dizzy wasn't something she simply had to accept.

And I wish I could tell my early-30s self that the anxiety, skin rashes, swelling, digestive issues and growing list of seemingly unrelated symptoms weren't "just stress" or simply part of getting older.

For years, I thought my body was letting me down. What I understand now is that it was doing exactly what it was designed to do.

It was communicating.

Every symptom was a message. Every flare-up was my body asking me to pay attention. Not because it was broken, but because something deeper needed addressing.

I spent years trying to silence those messages instead of understanding them.

That perspective changed everything.

One of the greatest privileges of the work I do today is helping people stop seeing their symptoms as the enemy and start understanding what their body is trying to tell them. Because when you stop fighting your body and begin listening to it, healing becomes a very different journey.

This clip is from my conversation with Rachel Feldman on The Healthy Hustle Podcast. The episode is now live, and we dive into what it really means to reconnect with your body, why we've become so disconnected from its signals, and why symptoms are rarely random.

I often say that your body isn't working against you.

It's working for you.

Sometimes it just speaks in a language we've never been taught to understand.

I'd love to know... if you could say one thing to your younger self about your health, what would it be?

14/07/2026

For so many people living with autoimmune disease or chronic illness, life can become centred around symptoms.

We wake up wondering how much energy we'll have today. We plan our lives around flare-ups. We begin to identify ourselves by our diagnosis, our limitations or the things we can no longer do.

That is why this conversation with Wendy Valentine really resonated with me.

She shared some advice from her 93-year-old Aunt Annie that has stayed with me ever since we recorded this episode:

"Just act like the woman you want to become."

The more I thought about it, the more powerful it became.

If you imagined the healthiest version of yourself, what would she be thinking about today? How would she nourish herself? How would she move her body, speak to herself, protect her energy and respond to life's challenges?

This doesn't mean pretending you're not struggling or ignoring very real symptoms. As someone who has lived through alopecia, psoriasis and chronic fatigue syndrome myself, I know healing requires understanding the science, uncovering root causes and supporting the body with the right nutrition, lifestyle and functional medicine approach.

But healing is not just physical.

At some point, we have to stop allowing our illness to define who we are and start creating space for the person we are becoming.

Every choice we make becomes a vote for that future version of ourselves. Choosing nourishing foods. Going for a walk. Prioritising sleep. Setting healthier boundaries. Speaking to ourselves with kindness. These small decisions may seem insignificant, but over time they shape our identity, and our identity shapes our future.

I loved this conversation because it reminds us that healing isn't simply about recovering from illness. It's about becoming the healthiest, happiest and most fulfilled version of yourself.

🎙️ My conversation with Wendy Valentine is now live on The Autoimmune RESET Podcast. We explore reinvention, resilience, mindset and why changing the way we see ourselves can become one of the most powerful parts of the healing journey.

I'd love to know...

What is one thing your future healthy self would choose to do today?

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