You don’t need to be a celebrity to get a lesson from a celebrity health coach… because the expert is right here! This entire episode is dedicated to teaching YOU how you can eat healthy, find time for yourself, and live your most-nourished life EVEN when you are doing allllll the boss things.

Kelly LeVeque is a celebrity health coach, holistic nutritionist and best-selling author with a high-profile client list boasting names like Jessica Alba, Jennifer Garner, Sophia Bush, Molly Sims, and Chelsea Handler. Today she’s spilling her best-kept secrets and giving us a lesson in getting healthy!

Today, you will learn Kelly’s super simple and super easy way to transform your diet with healthy options that DON’T take all day to prepare, her methods for sneaking in mini moments of self-care, and her advice for living a healthy, nourished life. If you’ve been looking for answers, you’ll find them here.

Her Story

Kelly followed in her father’s footsteps and attended the University of Southern California to earn a degree in finance, but she also pursued courses in nature of human health and disease. Kelly always loved health and nutrition but never thought it could be a career. Senior year she realized that her studies in business and finance were challenging. However, she was succeeding without much effort in her nutrition and human health courses. It came so natural to her. After graduating she jumped into a very corporate job while still researching medicine programs and Registered Dietician schools.

One night after a talk with a pal who basically told her to put her big girl pants on and go back to school for nutrition, she signed up for classes. Nutrition coaching became Kelly’s side hustle for nearly three years. Her finance career funded her passion project until finally she pushed back from the corporate world and dove head first into her business full time.

Kelly had regular clients but was an hourly employee, so she knew she needed other ways to share her message beyond Instagram and one-on-one coaching. The idea of writing a book came from her views of nutrition and healthy living and how they contrasted with diet culture. “Everyone is following diets… [I promote] everything in moderation, but understand the science,” she explained.

Now she sees six to eight clients a day with her business Be Well by Kelly . She works with major celebrities and the forward of her book was written by none other than Jessica Alba. Kelly has grown her business from side hustle to full blown career, but it was not without hurdles along the way.

Building Her Business

Kelly faced a struggle that many entrepreneurs encounter when they’re just starting out: Imposter Syndrome. Have you asked yourself, “Who am I to charge for this?” Kelly asked herself the same question, even though she loved what she was doing, and knew she wanted to help people. She just didn’t know how to charge people for it because she didn’t know her worth. Kelly scaled that mountain and conquered those feelings of being a “fraud” over time. She knew that what she was offering and creating for her clients had value, and she was worthy of getting paid to do what she loves.

You’ve heard me talk about boundaries with my business before, and I love Kelly’s perspective on the topic. Although she welcomes text messages from clients throughout her workday, she learned to create boundaries around what exactly “workday” meant. These boundaries didn’t exist when she first started. She was rearranging her schedule to see clients, she worked weekends and nights to accommodate her growing client list. But with time, Kelly learned to move past the fear that her business wasn’t going to fail if she didn’t work six days a week. She put it best, “That is so much about being an entrepreneur. Knowing the boat is still going to float if you aren’t rowing.”

Kelly’s Pregnancy Journey

When Kelly and I spoke for this episode, we were both very pregnant. It was so interesting to hear how Kelly managed her role as a wellness coach while dealing with the changes her body faced growing a little human. Many of Kelly’s clients are actors and she is responsible for maintaining their body composition for movies. She had a complex that if her clients saw her body changing and didn’t know she was pregnant, they might not trust her or think she wasn’t taking care of herself. Once the news was out, she felt more confident knowing that her clients knew she was pregnant and not just losing sight of her own health and wellness.

Lucky for Kelly, the typical symptoms of pregnancy didn’t really impact her. When she first started to feel nauseous, she knew it usually came from a deficiency of the B6 vitamin. With careful supplements Kelly eliminated her nausea and was able to carry on serving her clients without issue. For more about Kelly’s balance of health and wellness through pregnancy, press the play button above to hear the full episode.

Taking Control of Your Nutrition

The basis of Kelly’s teachings can be summed up in one phrase: The Fab Four. Kelly’s Fab Four smoothie formula was created based on science. It’s not the smoothie you might find at the local smoothie shop loaded with bananas, dates, agave, and coconut water (Kelly said: “Why don’t you just have a cupcake!”) Instead, her smoothie helps you turn off hunger hormones and feel full. The four: Protein, fat, fiber, and leafy greens. The specific ingredients are up to you — and Kelly dives into greater detail in this episode — but at its core this Fab Four smoothie can power you for four to six hours. Try making it ahead and keeping it in the fridge. As you’re powering through your day and those hunger pains start creeping in, you’ve got something easy to grab that won’t spike your blood sugar, only to let you crash down a few hours later.

Biggest Health Misconception

Calories are Kelly’s biggest frustration, but they seem to be the number we pay attention to when choosing foods. It gives us a sense of control. However, counting calories is not supportive of weight loss if you check the science. Kelly’s example: 1700 calories of pretzels is not the same as 1700 calories of salmon, avocado, leafy greens, chia seeds, and other whole foods. The body releases different hormones and chemicals to process and store the energy from those foods. The body of the person who eats 1700 calories of pretzels releases almost a constant level of insulin which prevents fat burn. Kelly’s super simple, yet richly scientific explanation of how different foods can power or limit our bodies is so interesting. You’ve got to listen to the episode for more.

Tools Not Diets

When you know the science behind the different “tools” out there in the nutrition world, you learn how to incorporate those tools into your health and wellness routines when you need them. It’s not drinking a smoothie every day, or making Bulletproof coffee a daily habit. Instead, it’s knowing that a little butter in your coffee incorporates a fat into your morning beverage. Fat doesn’t release insulin. It slows the absorption of caffeine. You won’t spike your blood sugar, and you give your body a break. This tool, and many other science backed tools that Kelly teaches her clients, can help you avoid the food drama. It’s about building a lifestyle and not a diet. Stop shortcutting yourself.

Kelly’s book Body Love and her next book Body Love: Every Day (release date April 2, 2019) are amazing resources of science-backed health and wellness tools that her celebrity clients love. You don’t have to be Jessica Alba to get the details on Kelly’s nutrition philosophies… Just pour yourself a cup of coffee (Bulletproof or not) and tune into this episode with the player above.

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