Building What Didn’t Exist

Building community

When I decided to sit for the Lifestyle Medicine board exam, I assumed there would be a community here in Singapore. There wasn’t.

Before applying, I contacted the International Board of Lifestyle Medicine to ask where I could sit the exam from Singapore. That’s when I learned something surprising: There was no local society. No college. No formal community.

I started looking across Asia. Malaysia had one. The Philippines had one. Korea. Australia. Brazil — back home — had a thriving community.

But not Singapore.

Which raised a question that wouldn’t leave me alone: How can such an advanced healthcare system not be discussing one of the most evidence-based preventive frameworks in modern medicine?

The Five-Year Plan

The truth is, this idea didn’t start there.

Years earlier, when I first heard the term lifestyle medicine during my health coaching training, something clicked. This was what had been missing in my own patient experience. At the time, I was working with a business and leadership coach. She asked me to map out a five-year vision. At the top of the list, I wrote:

Start a Lifestyle Medicine Society in Singapore.

It felt ambitious. Slightly unrealistic.

But I reverse-engineered it:

• Earn a formal health degree.

• Become board-certified.

• Find other certified professionals.

• Build a community.

• Learn how to register and run a nonprofit.

It became a quiet roadmap in the background of everything I did.

Cold Emails and Coffee Meetings

In 2023, I started looking for the handful of certified lifestyle medicine professionals in Singapore.

There were about nine or ten at the time.

I searched LinkedIn.

I sent cold messages.

I invited them for coffee.

I asked them: Why don’t we have a society here? So we decided to create one.

From Idea to Infrastructure

As we began discussing what a society could look like, I did what engineers do.

I researched nonprofit registration.

I studied the requirements of the Lifestyle Medicine Global Alliance.

I contacted international leaders.

I mapped the workflows.

And because I am also a communicator and designer, I built the brand:

The logo.

The website.

The typography.

The voice.

The newsletters.

The event materials.

The backend systems.

What began as coffee conversations became a formal organization.

We registered the Singaporean Society of Lifestyle Medicine.

We organized our first in-person events.

We were fortunate to host respected speakers, including Dr. Beth Frates and Professor Luigi Fontana.

Growth

For the first two years, I served as Executive Director.

I managed the technological systems, communications, workflows, and nonprofit operations — alongside my own professional work.

It was deeply fulfilling. And deeply time-consuming.

Eventually, I stepped down from the director role to focus on my businesses and career.

But the society continues to grow.

We now have over 70 members.

We have quadrupled the number of certified professionals locally.

Events and webinars continue.

Lifestyle medicine is gaining visibility in Singapore.

There is now even a Master’s program in Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine at the National University of Singapore.

Why This Matters

This chapter of my journey taught me something important.

If you believe in a framework strongly enough, and it does not exist where you are, you may have to build it.

My path has never been linear.

Engineer.

Patient.

Coach.

Psychological Medicine graduate.

Lifestyle Medicine diplomate.

Nonprofit founder.

But the throughline has always been the same:

Connecting the dots between science, behavior, and systems of care — and building structures where they are missing.