Women In Wellness: Lauren Hubert on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

Tracking your calories and food choices. I find for so many women wanting to lose weight, we often have the impulse to start a program and follow a plan blindly! We don’t sit down and actually honestly look at how we eat now. Tracking calories or even just writing out a couple day’s worth of eating can give you major insight into your habits and how to tweak the way you eat now to be more healthful and align with your goals. It’s not about following a perfect plan to see results, it’s about making small tweaks to how you currently live your life!

As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lauren Hubert MS, RD.

Lauren Hubert MS, RD is the Registered Dietitian and Weight Loss Expert behind The Sorority Nutritionist, a brand that has taught thousands of women around the world to lose weight while having fun. Lauren’s goal in the weight loss space is to not only inspire women to lose weight in a balanced and fun way, but to also make sure no woman feels guilty about wanting to be HOT, healthy and successful. She is a graduate of Florida State University and also holds a Master’s degree in Nutrition from Boston University.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

Absolutely! My story began back when I was a freshman at Florida State University. I left competitive sports, moved across the country and joined a sorority which led me to gaining nearly 20 pounds my first semester at school. With all these body changes, I soon realized how dissatisfied I was in how I felt in my clothes and honestly my overall confidence also took a hit.

Determined to lose the weight, I began what was normal for any sorority girl and young woman to do… run a lot and restrict my food intake. Only problem is this led me to being super restrictive with my food choices and obsessed with being thin when in reality at my lowest weight I was scared of food and not confident one bit.

It was these experiences that made me so passionate to create The Sorority Nutritionist and dedicate my career as a Registered Dietitian to helping overcome the same struggles. My goal with TSN is to help ALL women no matter their shape, size, background or goals feel confident, HOT and sexy without making the same mistakes I once made… which makes my work extremely gratifying!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?

The most interesting thing that has happened to me since beginning my career is honestly my perspective on mindset and life. In a space filled with quick fads, gimmicks and so much inauthenticity… I feel so authentic, aligned and REAL for the first time ever. Most importantly, working in the weight loss space and specifically with women has really helped me recognize confidence and feeling good about yourself may be associated with your weight (which I can help with) but honestly comes down to how you feel. Being hot, confident and beautiful is a mindset and goes much deeper than one number on the scale. I now preach this daily for women out there on social media because although weight loss used to be about being the skinniest, being strong, feeling beautiful and confident has no one weight.

Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I first started my career, the biggest mistake I made was not listening enough. Don’t get me wrong, I always tried to listen to my clients and hear them but truly putting myself in their shoes and hyper-personalizing my responses to each woman I worked with increased their success, satisfaction and confidence in their plan. It benefits all relationships in life… but especially coaching relationships with your clients!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I am so incredibly grateful for my first mentor and colleague Libby Rothschild. She was so integral to my journey and honestly believed in me at my weakest, most confusing entrepreneurial points on my journey. There are so many journeys during the 1.5 years I worked with her, but the biggest story that comes to mind was the day I decided to start TSN. I had shared my story with her about dieting after being a Registered Dietitian for some time, and she helped me align my story with the type of women I want to work with. At the time I wasn’t sure where I was going to go with my business and brand, but she gave me the motivation to pursue The Sorority Nutritionist and unapologetically align my nutritional beliefs, outspoken personality and strong passion to help women feel and look like their hottest selves. I will forever be grateful to her!

Ok perfect. Now let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?

Not going to lie, it feels weird to sit here and say how much my work is helping women around the world because I am truly just sharing my truth, but I think why TSN has been so disruptive in the nutrition/weight loss space when it comes to how women like me approach eating because it literally cuts through the BS on social media and gives it real. Most importantly, I am so grateful for the impact my approach and method has on women’s relationship with food. Dieting may give you short term results, but it long-term really impacts your mindset towards eating and what foods are good vs bad. At TSN, we are breaking the norm about what is considered healthy and helping women achieve their dream body by actually using food at fuel, being strategic around how many calories and food sources you eat, and doing it in a way from day 1 allows FUN foods.

Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.

1. Tracking your calories and food choices. I find for so many women wanting to lose weight, we often have the impulse to start a program and follow a plan blindly! We don’t sit down and actually honestly look at how we eat now. Tracking calories or even just writing out a couple day’s worth of eating can give you major insight into your habits and how to tweak the way you eat now to be more healthful and align with your goals. It’s not about following a perfect plan to see results, it’s about making small tweaks to how you currently live your life!
2. Protein every meal. No matter what your goals are, making it non-negotiable to eat protein rich foods like chicken, turkey, fish and greek yogurt (to name a few) are great ways to get satisfied in your meals, optimize your muscle/bone health and prevent overeating.
3. Focusing on quality over quantity with workouts. Instead of going to the gym 5, 6 or even 7 days per week… scale back your workouts and focus on quality over how many you do. That means strategically working out in a way that aligns with your goal and making your workouts count instead of doing a lot of quick but very easy sessions.
4. Water. When talking about weight loss and health we put the spotlight on food and exercise, but never spend time talking about good ole H2O. Aim to drink ½ your body weight at minimum in ounces per day and have a water bottle with you at all times. That helps me so much!
5. Taking breaks. Taking a break means being mindful, intentional and thoughtful with your food choices and how you live your life! Instead of rushing, acting out of impulse and eating mindlessly… imagine how much progress you’d make if you didn’t stress yourself out constantly and over-work yourself. Taking breaks and pauses to be strategic with your goals will help you live a healthier, more balanced lifestyle.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?

Shamelessly, I feel like TSN has done just that. I recently have switched from private coaching to a Membership with the intention not just to help more women but create a community for women to go to that was real women trying to lose weight.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?

1. Remember who you do this for. At times when I felt burnt out doing the not so fun business stuff, it was easy to get tired and frustrated, and even want to give up. I wish I knew sooner to think about the people I serve and what lights a fire in me… that gets me up any day and helps me re-align when inevitable burnout happens.
2. Don’t let your ego get the best of you. When you put yourself out there on social media with a controversial topic, it’s easy to get caught up with the few people that disagree with your point of view, interpretation of science or even what you do. Don’t let your ego to win the fight get the best of you, you win by using your platform and voice to share what you find is true. And many people don’t want to hear you, they just want to fight.
3. It’s okay not to be perfect. As long as you have the best intentions to make what you do the best it can be, you have to be okay with it not being perfect the first time you create something new like a product, offer or coaching service… but know that you are doing your best and that’s all anyone can do.
4. Boundaries! Boundaries make you a better coach and make your clients better so they can show up the best way possible to see results.
5. Be yourself. I wish I knew even earlier on than I knew now that being your truest, most authentic self will take you the farthest in any career.

Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?

If you asked me a month ago, I would have said mental health… but if I’m being honest sustainability is really important to me right now along with environmental changes. The more I learn about the world and the systems we have in place, I am really recognizing how things we sometimes think are sustainable are not truly sustainable and it makes me really wonder how we can get us out of the situation the world is faced with right now… and how we can educate people who may not understand the gravity of the situation before it’s too late.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

You can find me on instagram at @sorority.nutritionist and my website: www.thesororitynutritionist.com