McKel Hill, is one inspiring lady! She is the creator of Nutrition Stripped one of my all time favourite blogs, Nutrition Stripped is a fantastic plant-centric whole foods lifestyle and blog. I first came across it via instagram when I was first starting blogging which is where I seem to discover most of my favourite blogs and websites. Since my discovery of Nutrition Stripped I have been a huge fan, McKels website is just so beautiful her recipes always look delicious and I just love her mantra and whole perspective towards health and wellbeing!

So a little background on Mckel for you, she is a dietitian/nutritionist and as well as running her blog McKel also coaches privately with women all over the world bringing them to optimal wellness with her nutrition lifestyle protocol, support, and expertise. I decided I needed to find out a bit more about McKel and the wonderful lady behind Nutrition Stripped, so here you have it The Nutritionista chats to McKel about her journey into health, her goals, the services she offers and much much more. I hope you enjoy hearing about this mega talented lady as much as I did :)

Get social with McKel // Nutrition Stripped, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube.

1. Can you explain how the idea for Nutrition Stripped first came about? How did your journey into health and nutrition evolve?

I developed Nutrition Stripped as a way to share my passion with the world, create a business and lifestyle that I truly loved waking up to everyday, and as a way to connect with like-minded women by helping them achieve their goals and optimize their lifestyle. I also encourage, if you’re interested, to read the interviews on my Press page for more career focused questions and answers- I have some great material in those as well!

2. What do you aim to achieve through Nutrition Stripped?

My mission is to simply show how easy, delicious, and fruitful eating and adapting the Nutrition Stripped whole food lifestyle can be! It’s all about embracing foods from the earth, getting back to basics, cultivating balance in your life and truly LIVE-ing a lifestyle rather than jumping from one fad diet to another. Nutrition Stripped is simply my platform to share my lifestyle with everyone and also for people to view it as a helpful resource!

3. Can you describe some of the nutritional services you offer through Nutrition Stripped?

I work with clients all over the world spanning from different states in the US to New Zealand, Spain, Australia, the UK and more. I primarily work with women to help them optimize their health, whether it’s increasing their food intake to gain lean muscle mass, maintain a lean figure year round, help with transitioning to a whole foods lifestyle, food allergies, etc. We always talk about the whole picture of life and how it effects our eating habits- we take it to the next level with my nutrition protocol, making lifestyle changes, and addressing fitness which is so important.

Locally in Nashville, I offer private cooking lessons, grocery shopping tours, pantry makeovers and launching November 2014, Nutrition Stripped Supper Clubs– an amazing way to connect with fellow health foodies in the community over delicious foods.

Another resource and service I offer, are my downloadable nutrition tip sheets, which are great for individuals looking to take small steps to improve their health. These are tips I truthfully use myself!

4. What’s your favourite recipe (s)?

My favourite recipes hands down are ones that I share on the blog, those recipes are tried and true recipes from my kitchen. My all time favorites have to be the Dark Chocolate Avocado Mousse, which you can watch me make it here; the Massaged Kale Salad, I eat that all the time; and my Beachy Papaya Boats. It’s truly hard to pick favorites, but I’ve been lovin’ these ones lately.

5. What’s a typical day in the life of McKel Hill?

Every day is a bit different, but I try my best to have a routine and manage my time wisely- you almost have to when you’re running a business and writing a cookbook at the same time! I coach clients one-on-one weekly, another day of the week I solely focus on my blog/behind the scenes work, another day for cookbook writing and recipe testing, another day for my photography shoots, and misc. meetings, etc. I’m incredibly grateful to wake up every morning blessed to have created a career that’s far more than “work”, it’s my life and life’s calling. It’s also an added bonus living in my city, Nashville, which is an incredibly supportive and thriving community!

6 . Do you have any cooking tips and tricks?

My biggest tip and trick- don’t be too serious in the kitchen! The kitchen is my play ground, it’s a place of fun, creativity, and forgiveness. Trust me, I’ve messed up so many recipes I’ve lost count, but I’ve also learned more about cooking that I ever dreamt. I’m not formally trained culinary speaking, so cooking and baking have all been self-taught, a beautiful and messy process of trail and error.

7. What are your favourite healthy eating spots?

I have an entire page full of my favouritespots to eat here in Nashville, but am also launching an entirely new piece to my blog that’s been highly requested, a lifestyle section! There I’ll start doing more in depth reviews of my favorite restaurants and dining out options here in the city- all of which I’m really excited about!

8. How do you keep fit and healthy?

I make it a priority. Just as breathing is a necessity of life, I view eating healthy, nourishing my body, mind and spirit as essential as breathing. It’s also something I truly enjoy- I don’t view it as an obligation or a task therefore it’s integrated into my life, it’s truly a lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t always like this, I had to get real with myself in college and ask myself the “why” of exercising, eating well, and taking care of myself- at first being a young female it was all about vanity and looking a certain way- over the years I wised up and it’s far more than looking great, it’s about feeling great (looking great because of a healthy lifestyle is a total bonus)!

9. Do you have any advice for young career women who want to lead a healthy lifestyle?

Never give up. Recognize there will be struggles, challenges, and times where you want to give up, but if you truly want to achieve your dream and live out your passion you must follow your heart and your truth and keep going!

Also, the comparison game is toxic. There’s no need to compare yourself to others who have been established in the field for quite some time, they all started from the bottom at one point as well- if anything it should be a source of inspiration and encouragement for you to find your own unique voice and shout it to the roof tops.
One more note, balance! Create and manifest balance in your life- from the foods you eat, activities you do, relationships you have, and thoughts you entertain.