In this solo episode of the OWN IT Podcast, host Nicole Hollar shares a practical, incremental approach to overall wellness. She introduces a downloadable Wellness Commitment Checklist and calendar that split wellness into three pillars: activity & rest, nutrition, and daily energizing/mindfulness. For rest, she stresses 7–9 hours of sleep, using Do Not Disturb, and wearing a fitness watch to track sleep. Activity advice includes daily outdoor exposure for vitamin D, at least two 20‑minute cardio sessions per week that raise heart rate, and two full‑body strength sessions spaced no more than three days apart. Nutrition guidance recommends eating 5–6 smaller balanced meals daily to stabilize metabolism, drinking 2–4 quarts of water, prioritizing leafy greens, legumes, and limiting alcohol, sugary drinks, and processed foods, with flexibility for convenient options. Daily energizing and mindfulness tips cover 5‑minute meditation (using apps like Calm or Simply Being), moving every 50–75 minutes, using a sit‑stand desk, greeting strangers, and practicing gratitude. Throughout, Nicole emphasizes small, sustainable changes over quick fixes, and points listeners to additional resources on her website, including a nutrition course and hypnotherapy recordings.
Chapters
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 to another episode of the OWN IT Podcast with me, Nicole Hollar. Today, guys, I want to talk to you just about general wellness tips and tricks. Too often I have people ask me the trick, the wand, the magic pill, the magic program, the diet, whatever it is. That's going to get them where they need to be. And the answer is that there is not one. It's just— there's not. So I'm going to recommend to you that you focus on making incremental changes in your life. Now, I've decided I'm going to modify a section from my wellness tenet in Feeling Stuck. I'm going to put it on the podcast page for you guys. It's going to be the Wellness Commitment Checklist and calendar. So I'm going to put that on the podcast page for all of you who want to download it. And what that is, is I've divided this checklist into 3 basic areas. We've got activity and rest, we have nutrition, and then of course you have daily energizing and mindfulness. Now, the first one, I said activity and rest, but rest is the most important. You've got to sleep 7 to 9 hours. I know sometimes people have a really hard time. And I have a lot of tips and tricks using Do Not Disturb and whatnot in the book you can check out too. I can't emphasize how important getting sleep is. Turning off the TV, putting Do Not Disturb on your mobile device, not having the TV flicker, the noise, whatever it might be. But 7 to 9 hours is optimal. If you have a fitness watch, wear it to sleep. I've recently learned from a few Apple Watch wearers that it never occurred to them to sleep in their watch. They're like, but that's when I charge it. I'm like, well, could you charge it while you're sitting at work? They only take like an hour or 2 to charge, right? They kind of looked at me like, oh, 'cause I guess the watch only lasts for a day. I'm like, well, sleep in it. Notice the trends. I'm not saying that these are like absolutely dead-on medically approved devices, but you're gonna at least see some type of trends in them, whether it's a Fitbit, Galaxy, Apple, doesn't matter. In fact, when I got my fitness watch, the reason I got it was because I wanted to see my sleep. And I was like, oh, I'm pretty proud. There are nights I don't sleep a lot, but I do try to nap. Mm-hmm. because of the hour I wake up and I get home. But otherwise, I'm definitely more than happy to get 7 to 9 hours of actual sleep. That doesn't just mean in bed. So I hope I've driven home the importance of sleep. Also, we have activity. We'll summarize it. Go outside. Get outside. Outside is so good for you. Plus, we get vitamin D from the sun. I understand times of year make it more or less challenging. But it's really good to get up, get out, feel the fresh air, the nature. It does something for our body. It does something positive for the body. Even if you go outside and it's summer and it's so hot, it makes you grateful to go back inside at least, right? It's a really important thing to get up and move and get outside, even for 10 minutes. And then activity is as basic as do a minimum of 2 cardio sessions per week. Something that's heart rate elevating. And when I say cardio, I don't mean a leisurely stroll around the block, playing with your toddler, walking your dog. I mean, go do something that's gonna elevate your heart rate for at least 20 minutes. Strength training. Do that at least 2 days a week. Hit the whole body. If you're only gonna do it twice a week, do a full body both times, not back to back. Try to space it out no more than 3 days apart. If you did it Monday, do it on Thursday, do it on Sunday. Again, try to not be more than 3 days apart because our body, in order for it to not go backward, that muscle group has to be targeted at minimum of every 3 days. That's it for activity. If you want to make an incremental change, start there. If you download the checklist and the calendar, the calendar is there so that you can log some of these things, and it's more complete if you download that information. And the checklist is there to say, hey, pick 2 from each column. Because I have different activities as recommendations and rest obviously is, well, sleep. And then the other one is nutrition. What can you do to improve your eating? Too many people I know eat twice a day. Guys, you got to eat 5 to 6 times a day in order to maintain your metabolic rate, in order to maintain your glucose levels. You're far better off eating smaller, balanced meals more often than gorging a couple of times a day. And if you're going to tell me, but I'm not hungry for breakfast, I'm going to tell you, well, If you start eating breakfast, even if it's something little, your body will begin to get hungry. Part of the reason people are not hungry at breakfast is because they eat so much at night that they're so full. If you start to eat more during the day, you won't be as inclined to eat such giant meals at night. Actually, on the podcast page, I included my nutrition course. It's there for you guys too. I teach you the basics of food as fuel. I'm not trying to sell you a book, a program, or whatever. It's like 4 30-minute courses so you can really understand what food does for the body. So check it out. If you don't, that's fine too, but consult with somebody. Learn how to eat more frequently and in the right kind of balance. Drink 2 to 4 quarts of water. So you want to drink no less than 4 regular-sized bottles of water per day. If you were to sit in bed all day reading, Drink at least that much. And when I say water, I mean water. I don't mean iced tea. I don't mean soda. I mean water. I'm going to give you a little room if you have to add a little bit of a flavor, like, uh, you know, one of those sugar-free drink mix type things. Just a little bit, some lemon, some lime, that'd be great. Make it spa water, add some cucumber, some mint, some pineapple. So anything like that, if it gets you to drink it. I'd also encourage you to eat more leafy greens and less starch. It's easy to make rice. It's easy to have pasta. It's easy to buy anything that's already pre-made in a box. So eat more leafy greens, even if it's not leafy. How about some peppers? How about some spinach? How about some zucchini? Those are really great things for you. Like I said, eat those in favor of more starch, but consider eating some legumes as well. It's sort of like if starch and a green vegetable had a baby. It's a complex carbohydrate. I'd also encourage you to limit alcohol. your sugary drinks, and of course, processed food. If you don't need to eat deli meat and bread all day, don't. But if it's convenient and it gets you to eat something, then I would say do it. I mean, I've gotten grief by other fitness professionals over the years who are like, oh, you tell your people to eat a frozen TV dinner? I'm like, if it's that or they plow through the entire thing of Oreos on the desk next to them, yes, yes I do. Because not all of those are created equal either. Some are much lower sodium Have a decent value of protein and an okay amount of carbohydrates. Is it ideal? No. Is it better than eating nothing and then the next time you see food, eating like you've never seen food? Yes. So we have to pick our battles. That's some of the small tips I would recommend for nutrition. And then of course we have our daily energizing and mindfulness. Meditate for 5 minutes a day. I often recommend to people The Calm or Simply Being app. I know Simply Being is not available on some phones, but I've always loved it. Just something nice and quieting. There's so many things on YouTube, a 5-minute meditation or hypnotherapy. In fact, on my website, I have 4 different hypnotherapies that I wrote that are me talking that you can download. And those are about 20 minutes. So a minimum of 5 minutes a day just to put yourself in a good space. Maybe it's in the morning, maybe it's midday, maybe it's in the night, whatever it is that works best for you. I also encourage people to move every 50 to 75 minutes. If I'm hosting a workshop, every hour and 15 minutes I have the people get up because your mind goes into this natural trance anyway. So we've got to get up and moving around, stretch the body. So get up every 50 to 75 minutes, give yourself 5 to 15 minutes to walk around. If you're in a work setting, yeah, you're probably not going to take a leisurely 15-minute walk. If I'm doing a workshop, that's the break they get. But get up, take your 5 minutes, go refill your water, use the restroom, whatever it is you need. In fact, if you're drinking enough water, your body should be telling you to get up and go use the restroom, which ironically is one of the reasons people tell me they don't want to drink water is because they don't want to have to use the bathroom. And I don't understand the hesitation with using the bathroom, but that's a sidebar. I'd also encourage those of you who work in an office To use a stand-up and a sit-down desk. You wanna stand up and sit down. I have a client, she kills it. She walks 4 to 6 miles 3 times a week. The other 4 days, if she gets 1,000 steps, it would be a big deal. That move reminder of 250 steps an hour, totally ignored. Doesn't move all day. She's either fully on or fully off. And that's what I was saying, like, guys, we wanna have something in between. I'm totally on board with the 4 to 6 miles of walking because that's how she can do her fitness outside. But you got to move during the day too. So you want to get a stand-up and sit-down desk if you can. If you can't, then intentionally stand up or sit down whenever you can. Another thing you can do for daily energizing and mindfulness is be pleasant. Say hello. Be perky. When you're at the grocery store, don't just sit on your cell phone at the cashier. Basically, you wouldn't even know if there was a human or an animal as your cashier. Look at them, say hello, smile, be friendly, be polite. It really changes our attitude for the day, plus it springsboards it back and forth because it brightens them up too, generally speaking. You might notice if you don't normally say hi to the cashier and you go ahead and you do it, that they might be pleasantly surprised and respond well to that. Another thing is just even say hello to strangers. I laugh that when I visited New York before, and I understand it's a very bustling city, that And when I've smiled and said hello, people tend to look down and walk faster. But in general, you know, it's never gonna take anything away from you to be pleasant. And I do believe in the butterfly effect because you might impact somebody's day more than you've ever realized it. And the final thing is find something to be grateful for, whatever it is. It could be an absolutely shitty day, but I bet you could find something to be grateful for. I don't care if that means you love the birds chirping today. That's one of my favorites. The birds in the morning. And with that said, I'm going to leave that for today. Go ahead and check out the podcast page on my website at nicoleholler.com, and you can go ahead and download that wellness commitment checklist and calendar. You can follow me on social media at Nicole Holler Coaching, and of course, check out the other elements on the website as well. This is your time. Have a great day.
