Meet Vanessa Olsen, proud author residing in Waterloo, Ontario with her affectionate cat, Nellie. She graduated from Ryerson’s prestigious School of Nursing in the spring of 2010 and now works as a sports nutritionist. As a child, Vanessa was known in her hometown of Gilford, Ontario for growing her own veggies in the backyard and captaining many different sports teams. It is no wonder she grew up to be the health nut she is while helping others with her health nut knowledge.

Her job requires patience and a lot of research. Every work day, Vanessa educates athletes on different areas of diet, nutrition, and exercise. Each athlete is very unique, having distinct lifestyles, eating habits, training schedules, medications and supplements. All these elements need to be taken into consideration before an applicable action plan can be put together to better their health and performance. In a typical work week, Vanessa works with up to 30 different athletic clients.

When Vanessa isn’t teaching athletes how to up their game, she can be found at the gym upping her own. Her protein powder collection is impressive – it’s usually the first thing she shows off when guests come to visit. This goes without saying that her favorite room in the house is the kitchen. She has a passion for creating and preparing her very own home-grown, nutritious recipes – many of which can be found throughout her books!

Vanessa’s job allows for lots of vacation days that she puts towards her infamous solo trips. Vanessa almost always travels alone as she says it helps her clear her mind and get back to her roots. Her solo trips have seen the likes of Cuba, Florida, Germany, France, Spain, and Britain. She has recently become curious to see what her own backyard has to offer, and has spent the past couple years pulling out a map of Ontario and planning a couple days away whenever she gets the chance. She hopes to retire into an RV, as she wants to see all of the United States in the form of one big road trip one day.

Through her life, Vanessa hopes to make the world a better place through her small everyday actions. She is an avid recycler – her favorite type of recycling is picking up classic rock band tees from the thrift store and sewing them down to her size. The animal lover in her puts very special care and attention to making sure all of her beauty products do not test on animals and all meat she consumes is either game or brought-up by a responsible, free-run farmer. Her side projects include volunteering for her town’s litter pick-up day and putting money aside of organizations like Kiva and Avaaz. She hopes these tiny, everyday actions are creating a positive ripple effect that reaches all ends of the earth, and will continue to for many years after her departure from the world.