Hi, I’m Stephanie Dalton. Welcome to Chia & Chocolate!

My passion: help you get your groove back

I’m a Certified Functional & Intregrative Nutrition practitioner dedicated to helping women like you heal — from root causes. I focus on using food as medicine, targeted supplementation and herbs, and lifestyle changes to start the healing process so you can come home to your body and live your best life. As a practitioner, I love to help women figure out how to make small changes that make a BIG impact. My favorite quote is, “Small hinges swing big doors!”.

My specialty is healing issues related to perimenopause and menopause, but I also help you plan simple, healthy meals, make healthy habits stick, and discover mind-body routines that’s just right for you and your unique lifestyle.

I help women feel vibrant and whole through small, actionable, daily steps that are attainable and measurable.

A bit about my past: In 2002 I founded Maya, a Seattle based whole health studio that integrated physical mind/body exercise with holistic wellness methods, including nutrition, acupuncture, and massage. After years of working in a software industry that didn’t bring much joy to my life, I pined to circle back to my first love of health, and was passionate about bringing people together under one roof to address all of their physical and spiritual wellness goals.

Ultimately, Maya won multiple People’s Choice Awards, and my Yoga/Pilates instructional videos were named “Best DVD Box Set” by the Seattle Times.

Running that business was wonderful, but I felt a longing to go deeper into women’s health, so I went back to school to become a health coach, then became certified as a holistic nutritionist. A couple years later I becamse a Certified Functional Nutrition & Medicine practitioner, learning from preeminent functional MD’s with a focus on hormones, digestive health, and much, much more.

As a practitioner, I look back at your life’s health history using a functional timeline to connect the dots of how you arrived where you currently are, and then provide you with regular doses of high-quality, research-backed information specific to your health issues, so you can begin your journey back to wellness.

On a more formal note, my credentials

Certified Functional Nutrition Coach (Functional Nutrition Alliance)
Functional & Integrative Medicine Professional Training Program (Dr. Aviva Romm, MD)
AADP Certified Health Coach (IIN)
Holistic Nutrition Professional Transformational Coaching Method practitioner (Health Coach Institute)
Pilates (Stott Pilates), Barre and Yoga Instructor (200 RYT)

the gut struggle

I struggled with digestion problems for 25 years. It started in my teens, but I didn’t realize it was a health issue — “normal” bathroom habits weren’t even discussed in my family (honestly, does any family?!). By my 20s, bloating and discomfort had become constant, and during my first pregnancy, it got worse (yes, I could go DAYS without a BM). Doctors prescribed laxatives for life, but I knew there had to be a better way.

Through studying the gut and functional nutrition, I healed most of my digestive issues — reclaiming my health and energy. That foundation became essential for everything that followed.

hormones & PMDD

After my second child, I faced PMDD — intense hormonal swings that felt frightening and out of control. While antidepressants are often recommended, I wanted to fix the root cause: hormone imbalance.

Through targeted nutrition, lifestyle shifts, and functional medicine strategies, I worked my way out of the challenging cycles and regained emotional steadiness. This experience taught me that with the right tools, balance is possible, even when it all feels overwhelming.

thriving through midlife

As I moved through perimenopause, I leaned fully into the practices I now teach: strength training, blood sugar support, gut healing, restorative sleep, and strategic supplementation. These adjustments strengthened me, and I came through feeling clear, strong, and resilient…not just surviving midlife, but thriving in it!

I still have the occasional indulgence or stressful week(s), but I always return to my foundation. I now know that vibrant, energetic, resilient health is possible — and it’s exactly what I help women create every day.

That’s why I love, love, love my job—working with people like YOU. I know that together we can create a plan to help you nourish your body, enjoy healthy foods, and choose a path to wellness and equanimity.

Fun Facts About Me

I like to get to know the personal side of my health counselors, so I thought you might want to know a bit more about me.

Fun Facts

In 2002, my son Aidan was born. He’s smart–as-a-whip, deeply sensitive and intuitive, imaginative, loves games, mazes, and anything involving strategy (he’s already better than me at pretty much any game!), and is showing an incredible talent for water-polo!

We welcomed our second baby boy, Roan, in 2005. He came out of the shoot singing and playing music on anything he could find, loves any sports he plays (and by that, I mean LOVES), is very funny, and has a crazy good head for numbers.

I’m extremely lucky because I’m married to Rob Dalton. He loves to play music, write poetry, play basketball, fly fish, create art, hike, ski, and is an incredible father. He also puts up with all of my ‘nutty’ ideas and is game to try absolutely anything I make for him. And usually likes it!

In college I was a psychology major and went on to work for children’s shelters and did a one year stint at the Crisis Clinic in Seattle. Doing that gave me great insight into much of humanity and I’m deeply honored to have had that experience.

I love teens! A friend/partner and I do a few retreats a year that focus on teaching compassionate listening, stress management skills and how to be a good friend (among other things). We always have a blast. Hoping to add boys to the work soon, too.

I love to dance. Love, love. I grew up dancing and took lots of contemporary and jazz classes. I was also in my college dance troupe and then went on to certify in pilates. I now take my choreography skills and put them to use in my BarreFusion classes.

Adventure travel is a deep passion of mine. I’ve trekked to Machu Picchu and through the Annapurna circuit in Nepal (got to 18,000 feet!), and also been to Thailand, Europe, Mexico, and more. In another life, I’d go on all kinds of expeditions to little corners of the world.

Claim to fame: my great, great, great grandfather is a man named Walter Camp. He is known at the “Father of American Football” (yep, it’s actually true. And weird.). I didn’t grow up loving football, but I’m embracing it more these days since I have a house full of boys.

I’m tall. 5’11” tall! I didn’t play basketball or volleyball but if I could go back and do it again, I’d go for it.

Although I was a psychology and pre-med major in college, I went on to work in the high tech business and landed my first professional job at Microsoft. I worked there for almost 5 years as a website producer for MSN and then as producer for an adventure travel magazine. It was a great experience, but it didn’t feed my soul. Hence…full circle back into the health and wellness realm!

Red is my favorite color. Always has been.

I secretly (well, I guess not too secretly) want to be in a rock band.