Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika
With her genuinely good heart and a wealth of experience behind her, Susannah works to connect local business and non-profit leaders to their neighbors. In a community like ours in which so many have invested their lives, there are fantastic stories all around us that motivate and inspire, often right next door. She hopes to share some of those here, on the Good Neighbor Podcast. Book an interview today at GNPAuburn.com
Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika
Ep #51: Empowering Women's Wellness: Laura Gillikin's Holistic Approach to Nutrition at Busy Gal Nutrition
Ready to revolutionize your approach to women's health and nutrition? Join us on the Good Neighbor Podcast as we sit down with Laura Gillikin, the inspiring founder of Busy Gal Nutrition. Laura gets candid about her holistic yet realistic methods for achieving sustainable weight loss, hormone balance, digestive health, and more. Discover how her team of dietitians helps women make small, impactful changes to their daily routines, leading to big improvements in their overall well-being.
Laura opens up about her personal journey, sharing her experiences growing up around dieting and how it fueled her passion for nutrition. Learn about her transition from pediatrics to focusing on women's health, and why she believes empowering women can create a ripple effect through entire communities. Laura also dispels common dieting myths and emphasizes the importance of self-care for women who often put everyone else first. Don't miss out on her valuable insights and practical advice for achieving optimal health and happiness.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Susanna Hodges.
Speaker 2:Welcome. My guest today is Laura Gilligan with Busy Gal Nutrition. Welcome, laura, I'm excited to have you on the show today. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. So tell me a little bit about Busy Gal Nutrition.
Speaker 3:Busy Gal Nutrition is my business that I created about five years ago. Now it's my online private practice. I do have a team of dietitians now, which is great, but we provide one-on-one nutrition coaching for mostly women. Occasionally, some men like to work with us here and there, but we mainly focus on what I like to call a holistic but realistic approach to a whole variety of women's health issues Sustainable weight loss without a diet, hormone health, digestive health, really focusing on improving energy and just building healthy habits and healthy relationship with food.
Speaker 2:Well, I think we all need advice in that area, especially as we grow older. I'm I'm a little bit older than you and definitely going through some of these life changes that really wrecks your hormones, so I I'm really interested in the hormonal part of what you just said. But it all goes, it all works together, right?
Speaker 3:Yes, and that's the thing we like to educate women on how their bodies work and how their habits play a role, how their nutrition plays a role. So, yeah, they can feel their absolute best.
Speaker 2:Well, tell me a little bit about how you got into this type of education and business, helping people with their nutrition.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so a lot of different reasons. I ended up where I am, you know, growing up, I you know my parents and my sister and my family and pretty much all adults at the time I was watching do the Atkins diet.
Speaker 2:Right, I did too. I think we all did it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, Early two thousands. And so growing up, I remember watching what felt like everyone around me that was an adult going on and off diets, um, and they would see some results and then stop doing what they're doing and then, you know, regress. And I remember at the time that just seemed so senseless to me and I just didn't understand it. I was a very picky eater as a kid and when I started to go to college and figure out what I wanted to do, I was really, really starting to get interested in nutrition, just to feel your best, to be your healthiest and all of that.
Speaker 3:So when I started studying nutrition, I started my career in pediatrics. I was really, really interested in having an impact on our next generation and helping kids. But when I was in pediatrics, oftentimes I would go into a hospital room and I would be talking to the parents and especially the mom instead of the child, right, because the mom was going to be the biggest influence in that child's life and what they were eating and all of that. And just over time I realized I was really, really interested in working with mainly women and being in the women's health space, because it felt so extremely impactful and rewarding not just to work with women, but also knowing that women would have a huge impact on their families, their friends, their coworkers.
Speaker 2:Right and the stresses that we, you know everybody, not just women but men too, really affects the way we eat.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely, and I've just found women, you know, tend to be very selfless. They tend to be passionate about helping others, and oftentimes I have found that that can come at the expense of taking care of yourself, and so what I'm here to promote is kind of what I wish my mom and my sister and other women in my life had had access to when I was younger watching them diet which is, if you just created very small, sustainable habits that make sense for you as an individual, then you could create your best energy, you could create your best productivity and you would be able to give more to those around you, which I know a lot of women love to do.
Speaker 2:So you've been in this industry for a while now. Tell me any kind of misconceptions that people have about dieting and nutrition that you might could clear up for us today. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I think the biggest misconception that, on a daily basis, all day, every day, I'm trying to squash is that you have to give up the foods you love or you have to stop doing some of the things that you like to do like going out to eat, having an occasional drink, things like that in order to be healthy.
Speaker 3:I think oftentimes, you know, due to misinformation online or mindset or whatever, a lot of women think that in order to be healthy and be successful with their fitness goals, they have to stop doing the things that they love. So sometimes they might not even get started because they think they have to stop doing the things that they love. So sometimes they might not even get started because they think that they have to give up all of those aspects of their lifestyle that makes it unique to them, and that's not the case at all. I'm a foodie first, I love food and I'm a social person, and so with everyone that we work with, we really strive to make sure that they know how to have the foods that they enjoy and they know how to live their lives, so that way they're creating habits that actually coincide with that lifestyle, versus trying to change their entire lifestyle for their health and fitness goals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that can be a bit discouraging. If you have to completely change everything that you're doing, so that's encouraging. It doesn't have to completely change everything that you're doing, so that's encouraging. It doesn't have to be like a wholesale change in your diet, right.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, we've just found it a lot of times, probably 100% of the time. It's so much more about what we need to add versus what we need to subtract.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, let's turn our attention to you personally here for a minute. What do you like to do for fun when you're not working with people on their nutrition goals?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do love to cook. So a lot of my habits that I do for fun, I guess are still related to nutrition in some degree. But I do love to cook. I love to create new meals from home. We do love to go out to eat and try new foods as well. I'm a big reader, I love to read and I love to learn. That's a big one. And we moved into a new house a year and a half ago, so I'm still constantly doing house projects to kind of try to make it our own. So I do, lately this summer, love painting and wallpapering home decor stuff.
Speaker 2:That's always fun when you get a new house. It's really kind of blank and you can just make it your own. It's always fun.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, we're trying to make it a little bit less yeah yeah right, so tell me a little bit about your business journey.
Speaker 2:Part of the reason I do this podcast is to encourage other business owners and to encourage people that are thinking about going into business for themselves to give them some encouragement to do that. So is there anything in your business journey or maybe personally, a challenge that you overcame that made you a better person or made your business stronger?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, I can think of a number of things. You know, when I first went full time in my business, it was during 2020.
Speaker 3:It was during the height of COVID.
Speaker 3:But really I think one of the most impactful things that I had to overcome was when I was an undergrad at Auburn, working on my first nutrition degree.
Speaker 3:In order to graduate on time, I had to take 18 credit hours one semester and I was also having to really build my resume because at the time, getting into grad school and getting into a dietetic internship was really, really competitive. So I ended up having to take 18 credit hours plus do a lot of volunteer stuff and really be involved on campus. But as a business owner, that really taught me time management. But it also really taught me that you can overcome seasons of being really busy and being really overwhelmed as long as you have a strong enough. Why I think what really kept me going during that time is I knew that I needed to get through that time period so that way I could achieve my goals and I could have what I wanted. I wanted a certain internship, I wanted to get into grad school and I was really excited at the time about what I was learning and doing too, so that made it a little bit easier.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I think that translates into business with if you have a strong enough why and you have a strong enough goal, then you're going to do what needs to be done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if it's important enough to you, you tend to make things happen. It's amazing that that why you talk about is so critical to define so that you can achieve your goals. Yeah Well, what is one thing that you wish people knew about your business that they may not realize?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, I think that I wish everyone knew that. It is very personalized. We are lucky to work with women in all walks of life that have all types of different goals. A lot of people do come to us wanting help with weight loss, but a lot of women come to us just wanting to improve their relationship with food or just build really great habits that work well for them or just understand more about their bodies. So we really love to customize our entire approach and timelines working together, and our number one goal is to make sure, whatever your your goals are, you know how to maintain them for the rest of your life and feel confident with the information and education you receive to do it on your own.
Speaker 2:Well, how would people get in touch with you? What's the best way to reach you?
Speaker 3:A couple different ways. Our website busyallnutritioncom. At any time I do offer a free consult call so you can just go on there and schedule a call with me to talk one-on-one over the phone. But I also am very active on Instagram so I post a lot on there and you're always welcome to DM me there, ask me questions let me know what you're working on and whether that means we need to work together or you're just looking for a blog post or some tips and tricks. I like to send things people's way too.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, laura, for being my guest today. I've really enjoyed learning more about you and Busy Gal Nutrition.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks, so much for giving me the opportunity more about you and Busy Gal Nutrition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks so much for giving me the opportunity Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, auburn To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show. Go to gnpauburncom. That's gnpauburncom, or call 334-429-7404.