Transparent qualifications
We publish background information so visitors can see what each founder does and does not offer.
The people who started this
Three people with related but distinct backgrounds. The mix is deliberate: movement, nutrition, and rest each needed someone who understood the topic deeply and could also explain it plainly.
No inflated authority
We do not present educational experience as clinical registration, and we do not blur the line between the two.
Local accountability
We work in a local setting, so trust matters. Contact details, policy pages, and clear scope statements are part of that.
Marcus studied exercise science at the University of Canterbury and spent several years working in public health, specifically on sedentary behaviour interventions for office-based workers. He came to the project from a conviction that the gym industry, while useful for some people, systematically ignores the much larger population that will never use a gym consistently.
His area of interest is habitual movement rather than structured exercise — the idea that what you do between workouts matters as much as the workouts themselves, and often more. He facilitates the movement-focused sessions and contributes to the combined programs.
Background
- BSc Exercise Science, University of Canterbury
- Postgraduate study in public health (sedentary behaviour)
- 6 years in community health education
Marcus does not provide personal training, physiotherapy, or clinical movement assessment. His role at Naturalflorarege is educational.
Priya has a background in applied nutrition and completed postgraduate research on eating behaviours and dietary pattern analysis. She worked as a nutrition educator for several years before co-founding Naturalflorarege, and has a particular interest in how people make food decisions under time pressure and competing priorities.
Her approach to nutrition education deliberately sidesteps diet culture. She's sceptical of elimination-based frameworks and more interested in what people are actually doing, and why, than in prescribing what they should do. She leads the nutrition sessions and contributes the nutritional content to all combined programs.
Background
- BSc Nutrition Science, Massey University
- PGDipSci Applied Nutrition
- Research background in dietary behaviour analysis
Priya is not a registered dietitian. She provides general nutritional education only. For individualised dietary advice, please consult a registered dietitian.
Tom came to sleep science through a broader interest in behavioural health coaching. He spent several years working with organisations on employee wellbeing programs, where sleep consistently emerged as the underfunded and undervalued variable in any conversation about performance or health. He found himself becoming the person people asked about sleep, and eventually decided to take that seriously.
He has completed formal training in sleep health education and runs the rest-focused sessions at Naturalflorarege. He's also the person most likely to push back on oversimplified sleep advice, which comes up more than you'd expect.
Background
- BA Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington
- Certificate in Sleep Health Education
- 8 years in workplace wellbeing and behavioural coaching
Tom does not diagnose or treat sleep disorders. For clinical sleep concerns, please speak to your GP or a registered sleep specialist.
How they work together
The three areas of focus were chosen partly because each founder had independent expertise in one of them, but also because the founders had spent enough time talking to each other to know that the interesting questions were always at the intersections. Marcus thinking about how movement patterns affect sleep. Priya thinking about how eating timing interacts with exercise recovery. Tom thinking about how poor sleep affects food decision-making the next day.
The programs are designed around those overlaps rather than siloing each topic. On the combined programs, all three contribute — which means sessions sometimes get argumentative in productive ways, which we think is a sign that the content is honest rather than scripted.