Identify the missing pieces
& create the health you deserve
I am your collaborative partner, guiding you from where you are to where you want to be.
Ashley Koch
Licensed Clinical Nutritionist
An investigative and root cause focused approach to achieving lasting results.
I am a licensed clinical nutritionist, a functional medicine specialist, Board Certified Nutrition Specialist, and an educator. I take the time to understand your full health history, previous diagnoses and review all of the body systems searching for dysfunction. I evaluate prior lab results and at times order evidence-based comprehensive labs to identify biochemical imbalances. In addition, I enjoy partnering with my client’s other providers to create a well-rounded approach to care.
My work is investigative, I help you identify and address digestive issues, inflammatory triggers, nutritional deficiencies, microbiome and immune health concerns and work to reverse chronic disease states and symptoms.
There is no one who knows your body better than you. Together we can explore symptoms and your personal goals. I will guide you to identifying the missing pieces and building the health you deserve.
Ashley Koch, MS, CNS
Licensed Clinical Nutritionist
Cookie-cutter wellness isn’t designed for individual problems.
My specialties include:
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Digestive wellness leads to balance in the body. Addressing digestive concerns reduces your risk for diseases, reverses conditions, and can resolve many of the symptoms you are experiencing. I have worked with countless clients to address pain, migraines, fatigue and many other symptoms by improving the gut and digestive health. Symptoms like nausea, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, bowel movement urgency, stomach pain, should not be ignored.
The digestive tract houses your gut microbiome, which consists of trillions of organisms. These organisms, including bacteria and fungi, play critical roles in various aspects of your health and how your body absorbs nutrients. You eat several times a day and the goal is to take in key nutrients and utilize them for metabolism, repair and growth. If you are not properly digesting and absorbing your food, this will impact your immune health, mental health, inflammation, pain, and so much more.
Whether you have been diagnosed with a digestive disorder or suffer from digestive symptoms, all of these are signals worth exploring and resolving. In our work, we can identify the lifestyle triggers that are creating digestive inflammation or dysfunction and work to bring resolution.
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Hormones are chemical messengers that regulate countless processes in the body, from metabolism and mood to reproductive health and beyond. When these hormones fall out of balance – whether due to diet, nutrient deficiencies, stress, environmental toxins, or other factors – it can lead to a range of symptoms that disrupt daily life. As the symptoms pile up and shift and change, it can feel like you are playing whack-a-mole. We should not normalize these symptoms, but instead utilize them as a guide to understanding what the body is asking of us. Creating and excreting hormones is a nutrient rich process that requires a dynamic diet coupled with a lifestyle and supplement approach to address what your body needs to properly create adequate hormones and properly eliminate excess hormones.
Hormone imbalance can present as fatigue, low libido, irregular cycles, heavy cycles, sleep disturbances, mood swings, hair loss, trouble gaining weight, rapid weight gain, brain fog, skin problems, digestive issues, cold sensitivity, dry skin, joint pain, anxiety, depression, breast tenderness, painful periods. These are symptoms of an underlying issue. So often in conventional healthcare, they provide a band-aid approach to addressing your hormonal symptoms. In our work together we will review the full range of symptoms and explore testing to evaluate hormone dysfunction. With this fix what we find, we create solutions by working with your body to address the underlying issues.
My experience helping men and women includes addressing low testosterone, insulin resistance, endometriosis, PCOS, fertility, infertility, symptoms of excess estrogen, PMS, PMDD, irregular cycles, perimenopause, menopause, adrenal issues, and thyroid conditions.
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I take a unique approach to enhancing athletic performance as the role of functional nutrition is to optimize the overall physical function of the body. This model compliments your current lifestyle efforts and takes into account your unique biochemistry, genetics, environmental influences, and lifestyle factors that can enhance performance, prevent injuries, improve recovery, and build long term health.
The framework for this approach includes improving gut health and assessing intracellular micronutrient status in order to improve energy absorption and production. Accessing biochemistry through a comprehensive medical panel to evaluate your metabolic health and your inflammatory profile. In addition, gut microbiome testing to address adequate digestion and absorption. With these tools, we can maximize cellular energy production and maximize performance.
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Healthy weight management is about more than calories in and how much we move our bodies. There are often unidentified factors that have been impacting your ability to achieve sustainable weight loss. The key factors I explore when working with clients include glucose metabolism, chronic inflammation, nutrient status, gut health, stress, hormones and environmental toxins. Many of my clients come to their first appointment telling me “I have tried everything!” We often find addressing their unique biochemistry and slowly building a lifestyle allows them to achieve the sustainable results they have been looking for.
My experience includes helping clients achieve their weight loss goals in sustainable ways, reversing diabetes and pre-diabetes, improving liver function, addressing joint pain, improving blood sugar, and improving lipid/cholesterol profiles.
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Perimenopause is a nutrient rich metabolically demanding time for women. This biologically programed event often starts as early as age 35 and can be a slow march towards menopause that can span 10+ years. During this time, the body can become at risk for many medical conditions and events. Therefore, it becomes even more imperative that we provide our bodies with the necessary nutrients and energy to support this neuroendocrine aging process.
Some women will notice obvious symptoms, although often women might not even realize they are in perimenopause. Often women think perimenopause is plagued with hot flashes, night sweats and sleep issues. Although true, there is so much more. Other common symptoms of perimenopause include fatigue, brain fog, memory loss, anxiety, digestive problems, joint pain, lack of focus or concentration, low libido, lack of patience, weight gain, and slowing metabolism. Each woman’s perimenopause experience is unique. While these symptoms are common, it does not mean they are normal. Lifestyle choices can eliminate and/or reduce the symptoms in this stage of life.
When working on nutrition and lifestyle, I partner with clients to protect their brains (decreasing their risk of dementia), to protect their bones (preventing low bone density and fracture), and to protect their muscle to improve long-term outcomes.
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Fertility
Creating healthy eggs, successful ovulation, healthy sperm, a healthy endometrium lining, and quality implantation are nutrient rich processes that can be impacted by diet and lifestyle factors. Maybe you are considering conceiving sometime in the future and you have found your way here as you are interested in preparing your body to optimize your personal fertility outcomes and improve the outcomes of your child. Maybe you have been on this fertility journey for sometime, struggling to conceive and exhausted from the process and you are hoping to feel empowered and in control of your body and the outcome. Maybe you have experienced the heartbreaking process and you are hoping to not wait for more disappointments before getting the support you need.
Diet and lifestyle are modifiable factors that can improve fertility outcomes for both men and women and together we can work to address these to increase your ability to be successful. In our work together, we will explore evidence-based testing to address root causes that could be contributing to your fertility, we identify gut microbiome factors that could be impacting your vaginal microbiome, improve nutrition and overall diet, increase your body’s natural ability to detox, address nutrient deficiencies, utilize targeted supplements based on symptoms and laboratory testing, and improve lifestyle factors that impact outcomes.
If I am thinking about fertility, when should I start working with a clinical nutritionist or functional medicine provider? As soon as possible, but it’s never too late to get started. When possible, having six to twelve months to prepare your body to conceive can be useful.
Pregnancy
There are so many demands on a woman’s body when growing a baby. My primary goal while supporting mothers in pregnancy is to utilize diet and lifestyle to ensure a nutrient rich environment during this critical period.
Postpartum
The hormonal shifts women experience post birth are equivalent to those encountered in menopause, and yet little support or guidance is provided to mothers during this time. So often in this time, the community wraps their arms around the baby, and yet as a mother you can be left feeling depleted, lonely and exhausted. Our work together in postpartum is to provide nutrients and supplementations to support the physical, mental and emotional shifts you 4re experiencing in the 4th trimester. This is a time for great replenishment for you, so that you can support your new baby. Together we can create a roadmap to improve your fatigue, sleep, brain and body function.
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Brain fog, fatigue, trouble sleeping, word finding issues, trouble focusing, trouble concentrating, mood swings, anxiety, depression, difficulty making decisions, and memory problems can get in the way of daily life. You are not alone in these experiences and many of my clients have found a less tumultuous path forward by leveraging the tools of functional nutrition and lifestyle medicine. Many of my clients have reported a reduction in their anxiety, elimination of their brain fog, having more energy than they have in their entire lives, restoring their sleep and feeling more equipped to handle their inedible stressors. Just because these conditions and symptoms are common, doesn’t mean they are normal.
Our work on brain and mental health starts by addressing your digestive health and gut microbiome health. The gut microbiome communicates with your central nervous system through neuroendocrine and metabolic pathways. The gut is where neurotransmitters are created that send messages to your brain about how you want to feel. Improving gut health can greatly improve cognitive function, energy and motivation. There is a unique interplay between the gut and the brain and our work together aims to improve the inflammatory factors that are crossing the blood brain barrier and increasing your symptoms.
In addition, addressing metabolic health and function can improve your ability to take in food and nutrients and produce the energy required to support your brain. Prioritizing a lifestyle that addresses oxidative dress, reduces inflammation, and creates a healthy lipid profile can improve cognitive health outcomes.
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The teen years are a beautiful time of rapid growth and development. This rapid growth and development requires nourishment and healthy digestion. Many factors are impacting teen’s ability to successfully meet the demands of their bodies.
Are you interested in a collaborative healthcare partner for your teen? This is an incredible time to set the foundation of helping your teen understand that the conditions and symptoms happening to them can be influenced by the choices they make everyday about what is as the end of their fork, how they spend their time, prioritizing quality sleep, who they spend their time with, and how they recharge their personal battery matters. It is exciting to help them understand how the choices they make impact the symptoms they are experiencing in their body.
I have been lucky to work with many teens who want to engage in this work one-on-one and feel empowered with the knowledge to make better choices. While they might not be ready for the full range of tools I offer, this can be a transformative time to plant seeds in their mind for creating a foundation of lifetime health. I work with teens to identify their biggest concerns and motivations and utilize this to inform their care plans. My goal is education and empowerment.
Many of the teens I encounter make diet and lifestyle changes that have a profound impact on their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
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Are you suffering from eczema, acne, psoriasis or an inflammatory skin condition? Healthy skin starts inside the body. Addressing underlying issues can help resolve your irritating skin. The digestive tract houses your gut microbiome, which consists of trillions of organisms.These organisms, including bacteria and fungi, play critical roles in various aspects of your health, including inflammation. Improving the gut microbiome can lead to immune balance and a reduction in inflammation that is contributing to your acne, eczema, psoriasis and rosacea.
The foundation to healthy skin begins with healthy cells. Cells require adequate nutrients, sleep that is restorative to allow for cellular turnover, and balanced hormones. Together we can create a roadmap that allows you to restore balance in your skin and in your health.
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Positive immune health is vital for wellbeing. Immune health, inflammation and autoimmunity are driven by the relationship between what is happening inside of the body and how it responds to the external environment. The lifestyle choices made everyday can fuel chronic inflammation, immune dysregulation and increase autoimmune events or it can positively feed the innate ability to respond to inflammatory events.
In my practice, I help clients identify factors that are contributing to their chronic inflammation or increasing autoimmune events. We explore nutrition, lifestyle, infections, personal inflammatory foods, and environmental exposures to calm the inflammatory reactions within the body. In addition, we utilize evidence-based labs and a full lifestyle review to identify the missing pieces that are allowing your body to activate its natural immune response.