Tracy Wilmot had been suffering unbearable pain for years following a devastating accident in a school gym hall when, at aged 14, she broke her neck.
Tracy, 40, cites the transformative power of natural products as being instrumental to her amazing recovery.
“It was a complete accident,” she said. “I was doing a headstand and someone pushed me over at the wrong time and my full weight came down on my neck. It was literally hanging by a thread.”
She wore a steel brace for a year at school, but it had healed incorrectly and she ended up with a curved, S-shaped spine and with one leg shorter than the other.
Her school years came and went and doctors were no closer to offering any hope and she began to accept that she would always be in considerable pain.
“My spine was a mess and consultants at a private hospital in Glasgow said there was nothing they could do.
“Major problems were ahead and they said there was a good chance I could end up quadriplegic. My life was suddenly dramatically restricted.”
Despite this she built a successful career, firstly in the hotel and catering sector and then as a sales executive with a nationwide health organisation, but she was in and out of hospital as doctors tried in vain to cure her.
“Over the years I tried loads of different things until I stumbled on Collagen by chance and then Power Greens. They completely changed my life. I suddenly had no pain and now am an award-winning cheerleader – I recently won my first two medals.”
Collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body and is the substance that holds the whole body together. It is found in the bones, muscles and tendons where it forms a scaffold to provide strength and structure. Supplemental collagen is increasingly used for medical and cosmetic purposes, including to help with healing and repair of the body’s tissues.
Power Greens are a revolutionary product that blends 17 of the world’s most effective and nutritious super foods into one serving and includes an excellent source of vitamins and minerals including folate, Vitamin C and potassium.
Tracy, who now lives in East Kilbride, was so impressed with the Collagen and PowerBoost treatments she was using that she sought out the company which produced the products and spoke to the founder Annette Heard.
“I was just so impressed by what Annette was doing that I decided I had to talk to her and now I want to tell everybody about it. I have gone from one end of the scale when I was in so much pain – where life is so bleak – to a happy, normal one today. It is so life changing for me. I now feel so fresh and energised.
“Hopefully it will help other people who were suffering in the way that I was.”
Annette was inspired to launch the company herself after ‘a moment of clarity’ when she was a high-flying city executive.
Six years ago she was operations director of a large multi-national utilities company and responsible for 350 staff. She loved her job which saw her working 11-hour days, often away from home.
But after seeing a photograph of herself she realised she had to turn her back on corporate life before it consumed her.
She said: “I knew then that the job was killing me and that I had to get back to the woman I used to be. My diet was terrible and I felt ill all the time. Seeing the photograph was an epiphany and I pretty much resigned on the spot.”
Annette nursed herself back to health with rest, relaxation and good nutrition. She then spent four years studying healing plants, natural food supplements and dermalogical formulae, had stints studying at Bath University and at a college of nutrition and spent time with two mentors – a specialist dermatologist and a formulation scientist who have worked in the industry for over 30 years.
The result was a business based on ethical choices and only organic products, including the health supplements the energy superfood Powergreens, Liquid Collagen and Marine Collagen capsules.
“Tracy’s story is so inspiring and I’m really proud that my products have helped restore her to the amazing woman she is.”
Indeed, the parallels between the two women are striking – both were holding down high-powered jobs but the corrosive lifestyle demanded too much of them and now both work in the alternative medicine field, going back to nature to attempt to find solutions for 21st Century ailments.
“In many ways we are representative of a lot of people today who find that there is more to life than climbing the corporate ladder.” said Tracy. “And more and more people are turning to completely natural methods of living their life. The truth is that these products have existed in one form or other for as long as man has. We have just forgotten how to use them properly.
“In a lot of respects technological and medical advances have been wonderful, but the best and most health-giving benefits are invariably completely natural. ”
Find out more information at www.thenakedbrands.co.uk