In this Own It Podcast episode, host Nicole Hollar opens with a personal anecdote about preparing homemade dog food for her two small dogs, using fresh ingredients like blueberries, carrots, sweet potatoes, egg whites, and chicken. She uses this story to illustrate the mindset of treating food intentionally, both for pets and for ourselves. Nicole then critiques the prevalence of fad diets—low‑carb, keto, intermittent fasting, and other restrictive approaches—arguing that they often ignore the fundamental role of macronutrients, especially carbohydrates, which she likens to construction workers that fuel the body. She emphasizes that most people lack a true understanding of how food impacts health, leading to mindless eating and poor choices. The core message is that sustainable health hinges on food awareness: mindful eating, recognizing calorie balance, and appreciating the act of eating rather than consuming mindlessly. Nicole offers practical tips such as chewing slowly, portion awareness, and avoiding extreme restrictions. She promotes her Nutrition Essentials Course, a four‑part, 30‑minute video series, and provides a free promo code “OWNITDOG” for listeners. Finally, she shares contact information, mentions an upcoming anthology titled When Work Works, invites speaking and workshop bookings, and encourages listeners to follow her on social media.
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Welcome to the Own It Podcast with me, Nicole Hollar, where we're going to talk about stuff to help you get out of your way, take charge of your life, and, well, other stuff too. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Own It Podcast with me, Nicole Hollar. As you already know, I'm sure by now, most of the things that I talk about have been inspired as a topic. So yesterday I was making dog food, meaning I was actually making this Stew that I make for the dogs. It has blueberries and carrots and green beans and sweet potato, egg whites, chicken thigh. It has omegas, it has egg whites. And yeah, I think that's it, right? Oh, and a zucchini blend. The reason I do this is because I can and because our 2 dogs weigh 12 total pounds. You probably are thinking that I am insane. And there are times that I think so too. But the reason we do it is, well, we don't have human children, so they're kind of our, you know, kids, and we wanna take care of them in the way that we would take care of ourselves. And so we've decided we make their food. Well, I make their food mostly, but that's not really the relevant point here. The relevant point is we can, and it isn't cost prohibitive because I assure you, if we had much bigger dogs, we would be finding a nice high-quality, I dry dog food, and that is what we would be serving them. Now, even though you may think we're insane, like I said, we do it because we sort of treat them like ourselves. But I also recognize, because most people have told me that my dogs eat better than most people, and that's true. What I've often seen and what you may have seen as well, or maybe even you feel that way, is we kind of treat ourselves like trash compactors, just eating what's in front of us during the day. Sort of mindlessly without a lot of plan. And sometimes that is emotionally driven. Sometimes it's physiological, and sometimes it's really just a lack of food understanding. But here's what I've learned after all of my years working with people in wellness. It's that most people don't really know how food affects the body, but they have a sense. They have a sense, of course, that if they eat too much, they'll gain weight. If they eat less, they'll lose weight. But sometimes people take it to an extreme, and then on top of that you add bad diets. You have no carb, low carb, high fat, low fat, intermittent fasting, not eating, eating, water, don't water, alkaline, not alkaline, whatever it is, and that's fine. But at the end of the day, they all have some type of similarity, and that similarity is that they probably have told you To stop eating so much processed food, to stop eating as much refined food and starch, and to start to focus on and pay attention to what you're actually doing. So if you really want to make a change, especially in your physical body, know that the number one thing that you need to do is focus on your eating, the physical element is very important, the activity, but 90% of it is food. So take time to learn. Stop listening to your friend who heard a thing. It's like only reading the headlines. If you really want to make long-term impact to your health, then you've got to stop dieting and learn to live a healthy lifestyle. Please stop listening to your bestie Gail who keeps saying she doesn't eat carbs. I assure you, she's eating carbs. When people say they're not eating carbs, it probably means that they're not eating as much starch, or they're trying to avoid starch or grains, which is a kind of carbohydrate. It's important to understand the big picture of nutrition because using carbohydrates, which is one of the macronutrients— carbohydrates, Proteins and fats, meaning those are calorie-bearing nutrients. Carbohydrates are important. They're sort of like the construction workers, whereas proteins are like, they're the building blocks. So the amino acids, they are literally the bricks the construction workers are working with. So we do need carbohydrates because they're fuel. The key is understanding the kind of carbohydrate. And I'm picking on carbohydrates so much because I hear so much about it. We have a joke in my home that when people start to ask me or tell me how they are on a very restrictive diet or they're not eating this or that, she just walks away because it's definitely a hot button for me. And I own this. And the reason it is, is because I have no judgment about what you're doing. It's that my interest is that people really learn the big picture. Because like I said, if your bestie is not eating X, Y, and Z because they read a headline on a brief article, it's very likely that they don't have the big picture. So when I got into fitness many years ago, and since then over more than 2 decades, that's what's led me through the personal development route, I quickly learned that if people weren't eating well to sustain their fitness goal, they weren't going to reach the goal in the time or the way that they wanted or have it sustainable. So I started to do research and I learned a lot about food. I learned basically how food is fuel to the point where I created a seminar. So all of my clients really needed to go to this seminar. Like, it was a requirement. I'm like, if you want me to help you at all with food, and I'm not a nutritionist, but I've done a lot of research too. Create this sort of refined and simple way to understand it, then you had to watch a seminar. And COVID happened and the world shut down and I wasn't doing seminars or workshops or anything anymore like that. And so what I did was I created this course and I called it the Nutrition Essentials Seminar. So I made it the Nutrition Essentials Course and I have it on my website actually, if you are interested. And in fact, As I'm talking, I want to make it available to you for free. So let's— I'm going to, after I finish this recording, I'm going to put it on my podcast page so it is accessible to you and give it to you for free. So I'm going to give you a promo code and we are going to call that promo code OWNITDOG. So O-W-N-I-T-D-O-G, OWNITDOG. So if you're interested, I made this course. It's like 4 parts, about 30 minutes each. I recommend you watch it, not just listen to it, because I do have visuals as well. If you use OWNITDOG in the promo, you'll get it for free. It's not that expensive anyway, because like with everything, I just really want to give more access to people to learn stuff. Here's the thing, you know, without awareness, it's hard to make long-term change. So I would encourage all of y'all who are looking to make positive health and wellness changes to really research and let go of the excuses or the baggage or whatever it is that's holding you back. I was talking to somebody the other day who was telling me how she doesn't— she's like she would leave peanut butter, a teaspoon of peanut butter out of something because, you know, In her mind, this long-term— this woman's in her 60s— long-term program thing that says fat is bad. I'm like, it's a teaspoon of peanut butter. We're not talking about eating a jar of peanut butter with a teaspoon. That's totally different. And it's interesting to me because if you really think about it, you probably have all these really preconceived notions about what food is, how it works for us, what's good, what's bad. Food is not bad. The reason you make food choices is the problem. All the foods are not going to go away, but how is it and why is it that you're making the choices that you do? And what I also know is that most of us know that gaining weight is pretty easy and losing it is much harder because if the average person burns during activity, maybe 300 calories in an hour, You know very well you can consume 300 calories in nuts in seconds. So it's really important to be mindful when you're eating. It doesn't mean you're never going to eat popcorn again, but can you eat one by one? Can you eat one almond at a time and appreciate the act of chewing it and swallowing it versus just throwing them in your mouth? And that's— those little changes alone will help you. It's like watching people give their little Dachshund dogs like American cheese slices. Well, most people don't know, and I'm not faulting them. Most people don't realize how many calories we burn in a day through actual activity and how many calories we're consuming in a day through the foods that we're eating, let alone realizing that that Dachshund who you just gave maybe a 100-calorie slice of American cheese to, That's like maybe a quarter or a third of their caloric goal, if you will, every day. So if you wonder why, you know, your little dog is a little portly, well, that might be why. Table scraps really impact some— an animal that tiny tremendously. I mean, consider it, right? So whatever your goals are is fine. Just go learn the big picture on how to get there. And that's why I would definitely encourage you guys to go watch the course that I've created. I'm giving it to you access for free. You'll have it forever. Use promo code, what did we say? OwnItDog. They say knowledge is power. So if you have any specific fitness or wellness goals, again, learn the big picture. I'm pretty sure I've driven that home. Stop reading the headlines. Stop only looking at that one fad diet and focus on learning to live healthy instead of considering what you have to do in order to be so restrictive. If you can learn to live in this reasonably healthy place and knowing you're going to eat cake sometimes, occasionally you're going to go out to dinner, that's awesome versus being super restrictive and then losing it. It's like all the people I've heard on keto, and I'm not making fun or picking on keto at all, but I've seen plenty of people who are doing that, which means in theory you're really only eating 10% carbohydrates, which is unrealistic. And then they lose it on the weekend. They're eating like pizza and wings and cake. That's, that's not a cheat day. That's going off the deep end. If you want to Move here and there, be a little bit more clean, a little bit less clean, cool. But understand the big picture. So I'm going to leave that with you guys today. And again, go check out the website. I'm going to put it right on the podcast page to make it easy for you to access. If you have any questions, feel free to always reach out to me at hello@nicoleholler.com. You can go to the website, Check out any further books that I'm writing. I'm actually starting a new one this year. I have an anthology that I'm coming out with. It's me and 14 other authors called When Work Works. You can also book me for speaking events and workshops. And of course, submit any requests for topics or guests to the podcast. And follow me on most social media platforms @NicoleHollerCoaching. That is it for this episode. I hope you have an awesome day, and remember, This is your time.
