Gina Urlich gets radically honest about wellness

Following a confronting health wake-up call, nutritionist and mum of four Gina Urlich, reflects on how her journey with wellness has evolved.

When people ask me about wellness, I can’t give them a single neat definition. Wellness is not one thing. It’s not a trend, a product, or a weekend away, though, let’s be honest, I wouldn’t turn down the latter. Wellness, for me, is a living, breathing practice that has evolved with every season of my life: as a clinical nutritionist, as a mother of four, as someone who has faced horrific illness, and as a woman navigating the constant juggle between ambition and rest, chaos and calm, nourishment and indulgence.

I haven’t always had this perspective. In fact, I can say with full honesty that my own relationship with wellness has been messy, imperfect, and completely shaped by real-life experiences, many of them hard.

What I’ve learned is that wellness is deeply personal. It’s not found in rigid rules or elaborate routines, but in the small, consistent choices that help us feel anchored in a world that constantly pulls us off balance.

I want to share what wellness looks like for me these days, how it’s changed over the years and the little rituals that help me stay grounded as a busy, working mum that is still navigating a very big health challenge. I spend so much time creating nutrient-dense foods for little humans through my company, Odi Nutrition, but I’ve learned that wellness has to start with us first, the parents, the caregivers, the women holding it all together.

MY EARLY RELATIONSHIP WITH WELLNESS

I wasn’t always the 'wellness person' people might see today. Growing up, food was functional fuel, not philosophy. It wasn’t until I started my career in clinical nutrition and worked at the Mater Mothers’ Hospital that I truly understood the profound impact food and lifestyle have on health, not just in the physical sense but mentally, emotionally, and hormonally. 

Motherhood changed that for me in ways I couldn’t have predicted. With each baby (and I’ve had four), my body demanded a different kind of care. The early years of sleep deprivation, the hormonal shifts, the mental load, all of it forced me to reconsider what true wellness looked like. It was no longer about ticking off the boxes of a perfect routine. It was about survival some days, yes, but also about tuning into what my body and mind actually needed rather than what the latest book or podcast said I should be doing.

THE WAKE-UP CALL: ILLNESS AND PERSPECTIVE

A pivotal moment in my journey came when I faced my own health challenge. I’m not immune to the big stuff, being blindsided by a stage four cancer diagnosis was something I never thought would happen to me. I have no family history, and am someone who has always prioritised health, so to be the one suddenly staring down something so horrific head-on felt surreal and unfair. So unfair, ‘why me?’ I thought, but actually this can happen to anyone at any age. Suddenly, the abstract idea of 'self-care' became very real. I had to confront the fact that I was pouring from an empty cup giving to my family, my work, my community while quietly running on fumes myself. 

Illness has a way of stripping life back to its essentials. It makes you ask hard questions: What actually matters? What do I want my children to remember about me? What kind of energy do I want to bring into a room, into our home, into their childhood?

For me, it was a reset button. I realised wellness couldn’t just be about nutrition or fitness or any one pillar in isolation. It had to be about the whole ecosystem of my life, mental, emotional, spiritual, physical and how all those pieces interacted. It had to be sustainable, not performative. It had to fit into the reality of school lunches, deadlines, and kids basketball practices.

REDEFINING WELLNESS: FROM PERFECTION TO PRESENCE

Today, wellness for me looks nothing like it did in my twenties. It’s softer now, less rigid, more human. I no longer see wellness as a destination but as a rhythm that flexes with the seasons of my life, rather than fighting against them.

Some weeks, that rhythm feels beautifully balanced: early morning meditation, nourishing meals, long walks, laughter around the dinner table. Other weeks, it’s messy: scrambled eggs for dinner, skipped workouts, nights up with a sick child. The difference is, I don’t see those messy weeks as failures anymore. I see them as part of the whole picture. Because wellness isn’t the absence of chaos, it’s how we care for ourselves inside the chaos. For me, that care comes back to a few key principles…

Whole foods over numbers

I care less about calories or macros now and more about nutrient density, food quality, and how meals make me feel. I want energy, stable moods, good digestion, and joy from my food, not anxiety.

Nervous system care

Wellness isn’t just what we eat or how we move, it’s also how often we slow down. Breathwork, meditation, even five minutes of stillness in the car before picking up the kids, these moments matter. Our nervous system is the foundation of health.

Community and connection

I’ve realised that real community and connection are non-negotiable for my wellbeing. The irony is, the more time we spend on social media chasing connection, the less connected we actually feel. It can be so isolating and unsocial, all those perfectly curated lives scrolling past, when what we really need is real, face-to-face time with people who fill our cup. The belly laughs over dinner, the honest chats with a friend who just gets it, the messy, real-life moments that’s the stuff that keeps me grounded and reminds me I’m not doing life alone.

Rest as medicine

I used to glorify busy. Now, I see rest as the most underrated health practice of all time.

THE NON-NEGOTIABLE RITUALS

People often ask me what my 'must-do' wellness rituals are as a working mum. The truth? I keep them simple. I’ve learned that elaborate routines collapse the moment life throws a curveball which, with four kids, is most days. Instead, I focus on small, repeatable habits that create a foundation of wellbeing no matter how full life gets.

EVOLVING WITH EACH SEASON AND SURRENDER

The biggest lesson I’ve learned along the way? Wellness sometimes isn’t a choice. At 39, I was thrown headfirst into medical menopause, which felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. One day I was juggling kids and work, the next my body was in a season I never expected this early. It forced me to surrender to something completely outside of my control, to stop fighting what was happening and learn how to live with the hand I’d been dealt. Navigating HRT, finding ways to support my body naturally alongside western medicine, and accepting that what I need now is completely different from pre diagnosis. This has been one of the hardest but most important lessons of my life. It’s taught me to stop resisting and start working with my body, not against it.

WHAT I WANT OTHER WOMEN TO KNOW

If there’s one message I hope women take from my story, it’s this: you are allowed to make wellness work for you. Not the other way around.

You don’t need the perfect morning routine to be healthy. You don’t need to follow the latest wellness trend to be worthy. You don’t have to choose between being ambitious and being well, you just have to get clear on what actually supports you versus what drains you.

And please, let go of the guilt. Some days your wellness will look like green smoothies and yoga. Other days it will look like laughing over fish and chips with your kids at the beach. Both matter. Both count.

THE HEART OF IT ALL

When I zoom out, wellness for me comes down to one thing – how I feel in my own life. Not how it looks on Instagram. Not how it measures up
to someone else’s routine. But how I actually feel, in my body, in my mind, in my relationships, in my work, in my motherhood.

I want to feel present. I want to feel strong enough to do the things I love and calm enough to enjoy them. I want energy for my kids, creativity for my work, and quiet moments just for me.

That, to me, is wellness. Not a finish line, not a checklist. Just a way of living that keeps me anchored in what matters most.

GINA'S TOP FIVE NON-NEGOTIABLE RITUALS

#1 Morning sunlight and movement

Before I touch my phone or open my laptop, I step outside. Even if it’s just for five minutes with my coffee, that morning sunlight sets my circadian rhythm, boosts my mood, and wakes up my body naturally. On good days, I’ll walk or do some gentle stretching. On crazy mornings, I just breathe the fresh air and call it a win.

#2 Whole-food breakfasts

Protein, healthy fats, and whole-food carbs – something that will actually sustain me, not spike and crash my blood sugar. Think eggs with avocado, a smoothie with collagen and greens, or overnight oats with chia seeds.

#3 The non-negotiable coffee ritual

Yes, I drink coffee. No, I don’t feel bad about it. That quiet moment with my coffee before the house explodes with school runs and emails? That’s meditation in a mug.

#4 Evening wind-down

I guard my evenings fiercely now. Screens go off, lights dim, sometimes I journal or read, but mostly I focus on slowing down. As a mum, my nervous system spends all day in 'go mode'.  Evenings are about telling my body – it’s safe to rest. 

#5 Supplementing smartly

I believe in a food-first approach, but I’m also a realist. Modern soils are depleted, stress depletes nutrients too. Magnesium, vitamin D, functional foods in therapeutic dosages, these are staples in my house, for me and the kids.

Gina is the founder and owner of successful clinic and online platform @gina.urlich, founder of odinutrition.co.nz, and mum of four. Gina holds a BHSc in Nutritional Medicine and has a background in nursing. To work with Gina and her team visit ginaurlich.co.nz.

PHOTOGRAPHY: RACHEL BURT