Annemarie de Vries-Postma

ANNEMARIE DE VRIES-POSTMA (1969) – International bestselling author | Advocate of evidence-based nutrition- and lifestyle interventions as preventive and curative primary care for chronically ill and disabled people | Entrepreneur | Speaker | Founder and director of AM Lifestyle Medicine Center | Co-founder and board member of the Dutch Society of Lifestyle Medicine Foundation | Co-author Comprehensive Lifestyle Intervention CLI-TOTAL | Creator and co-author Comprehensive Lifestyle Intervention CLI SIT SMART.

Good health doesn’t happen by chance, it happens by choice”. (Annemarie de Vries-Postma, a.k.a The Sitting Chef)

Annemarie is an experienced speaker. She gives inspiring lectures about her health journey, her work and vision, lifestyle medicine, chronic disease & nutrition and personal empowerment. (Here: Key note speech at Dutch Day of The Coach, 2014)

At the age of eleven, Annemarie became partially paralyzed as a result of an untreated tick bite, which left her bound to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. From that time on, Annemarie stayed in hospitals and various rehabilitation centers for almost 5 years in The Netherlands. Together with her parents she visited famous doctors in the world in vain hope that new therapies would be successful.

Annemarie’s first wheelchair in the hospital, 11 years old (1981).

Rapidly independant

Because of this, she was forced to grow up quickly, and  became rapidly independant. At the age of 16, she literally fled the rehabilitation center where she stayed internally for almost 5 years. She wanted to obtain a high school diploma, and study Law at the university of Amsterdam. This was very unusual at the time (the eighties); the education level at the rehab centre was low, as well were the expectations of children with a disability. Finding a fully-fledged, equal place in society with a disability was not seen as obvious  at that time.

Another family tragedy

After graduating from high school, at the age of 19, Annemarie moved to Amsterdam to study law at the University of Amsterdam.  After her propedeuse,  again another unexpected family tragedy takes place: Annemarie’s mother suddenly passes of a stroke at the age of 47. The experience both shattered and re-made Annemarie, which made her quit her study and redirecting her life.

Annemarie de Vries-Postma

First professional model with a visible handicap

Always challenging and breaking through barriers, Annemarie became the first professional model with a visible disability, after winning the pre-finals of The Look of the Year by the world-famous agency Elite. In 1996 she even graced the pages of Playboy magazine, and showed the world that real boundaries only exist in our mind. Since then, she became a source of inspiration, and role model, for many.

Of Annemarie’s first book, I Love me, over 200.000 printed copies were sold in The Netherlands.

Columnist and best-selling author

After her modeling, Annemarie was approached by a well-known publisher with the question if she wanted to write down her short – but very intensive-  life story. By then, Annemarie had never written before, but decided to give it her all; she did not accept a ghostwriter, and insisted on writing the book all by herself. And it paid off:  of her first book, Ik hou van mij (I Love me), over 200.000 printed copies were sold in The Netherlands.

Through her refined writing talent – authentic, direct and honest – her writing career quickly soared with appearances at the most renowned tv and radio shows, magazines, both in her native country The Netherlands, and abroad.  She became a journalist and was a weekly columnist for years, for a.o. the national newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.

At the same time, Annemarie wrote many more (international) bestsellers on self-development, transformation, nutrition and health, such as: The deeper secret, The deeper secret of loveThe Secret Within, The Power of acceptance, Het lichaam is perfect (The body is perfect), The Sitting Chef and The Sit Smart Diet.

Many of her books have been published in several countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Germany, Italy, India, Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary, South Korea and Belgium.

Growing up with her disability, Annemarie realized pills would never solve all health issues she had ahead of her as a woman in a wheelchair. There had to be another way.

Sitting Paradox

Annemarie is often called “The Sitting Paradox”. She overcame Lyme disease and the pitfalls of life as a paraplegic from the age of eleven. Although leading a 100% sedentary life ever since, Annemarie has managed to stay slim, vibrant and healthy.

Health promoters like Annemarie change the way they eat to save their own life. People with spinal cord injury (SCI) are at greater risk of obesity, diabetes type 2, heart failure, osteoporosis, chronic inflammation, depression, dementia and accelerated aging.

Growing up with her disability, Annemarie realized pills would never solve all health issues she had ahead of her as a woman in a wheelchair. There had to be another way –  and she found it in developing the Sedentary Food Pyramid and the evidence-based Sit Smart Diet (SSD-Nutrition Plan).

Healthcare entrepreneur and food visionary

Nowadays Annemarie is a successful, innovative healthcare entrepreneur and food visionary. From being the first Dutch author in writing about plant based nutrition and the power of food to prevent or reverse lifestyle related diseases, in the early 90’s, creating the evidence-based Sit Smart nutrition protocol for wheelchair users and people with chronic diseases, co-writing the comprehensive lifestyle interventions CLI-TOTAL and initiating and writing CLI-SITSMART, to the founding AM Lifestyle Medicine Center and The Dutch Society of Lifestyle Medicine, she has done more than anyone else in introducing evidence-based lifestyle medicine in The Netherlands, and in moving people with chronic conditions toward a healthier lifestyle.

Annemarie is a frequent guest on TV and radio talkshows (Here: The Six O Clock Show, TV3, in Dublin, Ireland, 2018).