Patty Lermer

Patty Burton Lermer was born in Seoul, Korea and was deserted by her biological mother around the age of one. She was discovered wandering the streets of Seoul and was placed in a state owned orphanage.  At age three, she was adopted by middle class American parents and grew up in Illinois.

 When she was fifteen, she showed a decided interest in physical fitness and started teaching aerobics at Women’s Workout World.  She graduated from Mother Guerin High School in River Grove, Illinois in 1988 and then attended Harper Community College.  She also received certifications from the ACE (American Council of Exercise) and the Paul Chek Institute in California. Later on she developed a deep interest in nutrition and was certified as a Metabolic Typing Advisor by Dodie Anderson in 2007.  In addition, she completed Dodie’s Popping the Food Bubble training in 2009.  

Her growing passion for nutrition had started with her second child having asthma and a peanut allergy. After successfully treating the asthma through organic whole foods, she practiced on her own health which improved tremendously.  She lost 35 lbs on a grain free, dairy free, low sugar diet.  She thought she had the answer to good health!

During her fourteen year marriage she had two children, Kiana and Kai.  Then in 2011, most likely due to marital discord, lack of support systems, change of income, isolation from old friends and stress from the day to day challenges of household maintenance, her health declined and she developed asthma. She had no history of asthma and all of her holistic attempts did not take the symptoms away. On Thursday, June 2, 2015, she had to go to the emergency room. The doctors diagnosed her as critically ill and decided to intubate and ventilate her until Sunday morning. This added another huge financial stress on top of everything else.  

During this time, Patty had been continuing her nutritional studies with Dodie, who was now teaching the work of Ray Peat, PhD.   Patty had been implementing some of Peat’s teachings prior to the asthma attack.  However, the one major thing she had not been doing, and was afraid of doing, was adding milk to her diet.  Being milk free all of her life due to suspected allergies had convinced her that she didn’t like or need milk.  But along with other important additions and subtractions in her diet, she slowly introduced milk into her diet.  However, she had some issues with it and stopped.

 Then on February 11, 2016, she had another asthma attack that she suspected might have been caused by an epinephrine shot given the day before. Once again she was intubated and ventilated. The doctors again had no clues about the cause of the attack.  Patty definitely felt different and stronger than after the first attack. Despite having ended up in the ICU again, she went back to work two days after her release from the hospital. 

Working with Dodie, she discovered she was drinking the wrong kind of milk which was the reason she couldn’t do the recommended amount. She then slowly added 1% ultra pasteurized milk to her diet. After trying three different brands she found the one that worked best for her.

After the second asthma attack, Patty certified as a TPI golf instructor in 2016 and completed an ELDOA L1 certification to enhance her personal training profession.

In 2019 Patty lost her sixteen year old son, Kai, to an undiagnosed congenital heart disease known as WPW.  She then accepted an opportunity to move to Massachusetts and study with Dodie Anderson on a daily basis.   At the same time, she enrolled at Mount Wachusett Community College and completed a writing course.

After all the emotional and psychological trauma she has been through, people always ask her how she was able to be so strong and not curl up into a ball and be paralyzed from going forward.  She feels that a lot of it was due to the foundation of good nutrition and lifestyle she had practiced for many years prior to and during the traumatic events of her life.  She believes Ray Peat’s program really works if you are patient and consistent!

Patty is currently an in-home Personal Trainer and nutritional coach.