Episode 184

Nourishing Choices & 4 Categories of Food (feat. Hally Brooke)

Published on: 8th February, 2023

The Salad With a Side of Fries podcast is hosted by Jenn Trepeck, discussing wellness and weight loss for real life, clearing up the myths, misinformation, bad science & marketing surrounding our nutrition knowledge and the food industry. Let’s dive into wellness and weight loss for real life, including drinking, eating out, and skipping the grocery store. 

Today we are joined by Hally Brooke, the Founder & CEO of Live Nourished. Hally works with her clients to heal their relationship with food and their bodies, teach them how to use food as medicine, and live a well-rounded life. She provides some incredible tips on how to shift our focus to living a nourished life in every aspect - food, water, play, joy, prayer, etc. and then dives into her four categories of food. Hally explains how our body uses food as medicine and how elimination diets are not an end-all-be-all. She also talks about how our body reacts to food that we are eating and what information it is getting from the food we are fueling it with. Tune into this empowering episode to better understand how to live a nourished life.

IN THIS EPISODE:

●   [6:08] Hally shares her background and how she got to where she is today. 

●   [10:30] What does Hally mean when she says “Live Nourished”?

●   [12:28] How does Hally help clients learn that eating a burger can actually be more nourishing than a salad?

●   [18:25] Overview of the four categories of food.

●   [20:57] How do we think about the energy of foods?

●   [27:56] How does our food inform the body what actions to take? 

●   [35:05] How do we use food as medicine? 

●   [41:55] How do we manage the relationship with food and connection?

●   [53:11] New Year's Resolutions are typically given up by Mid-February. What tips would Hally give to people ready to throw their goals away?  

●   [53:45] What is the right way to approach goals?

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

●   When you are making food decisions, use insourcing! The apps and diets out there are not the rules; listening to your body is the only rule and guideline that you need to follow. Sometimes we need to use food as medicine, but it is not a long-term plan; elimination should be used as healing. 

●   Our brains are hardwired to avoid failure. It's safer for our brain to have us quit than to see the potential of failure.  

●   Take a step back and get curious about your habits. Are you eating ice cream every night because you want it, and it's a nourishing behavior with your family and brings joy? Or are you eating it because it’s just something you do? The goal is to make a nourishing choice 100% of the time.  

●   If your goals and values are not in alignment, the goal will not become a reality. Understanding why your goals and values are important to you is when the magic happens and what keeps you going.

QUOTES: 

“To live nourished is to treat me like I love me, to eat vegetables, to drink water, to move, to play, to pray, to rest, to refresh, to enjoy, to have fun, to laugh, basically living nourished is a holistic, whole person, encompassing well being. It's mental, emotional, and physical. It's nutrition, exercise, relationship health, health, and the way we think about ourselves, and it's the idea that sometimes actually eating a burger and fries is a more nourishing meal than eating a salad. Sometimes taking a nap is a more nourishing choice than going for a run or doing a workout.” - Hally Brooke

“Living Nourished is this beautiful way to honor our bodies as these incredible, miraculous things that they are and say we’re actually really complex. Doing a diet is not living nourished; eating good whole foods is living nourished, honoring my friends’ birthday party, and having a piece of cake at that birthday party is actually living nourished.” - Hally Brooke  

“Food is the fastest way to heal ourselves or the slowest way to kill ourselves.” - Hally Brooke

“We can shift our perspective from my fat is bad, and I hate it, and I hate my body, to actually, I’m really grateful for my fat because my fat is storing energy for when I need it most. And I can let my body know that I’m safe and that I don't need that extra energy right now because I’m going to give it the energy that it needs when it needs it. And so we can thank that fat, and we can release it from its job, and we can let it go.” - Hally Brooke 

“This is where the culture of wellness is doing everybody such a disservice because we’re taught that this is the antithesis of health, that food as connection…is such a problem.” - Jenn Trepeck

RESOURCES:

Become A Member of Salad with a Side of Fries

Jenn’s Free Menu Plan

A Salad With a Side of Fries

A Salad With a Side of Fries Instagram

GUEST RESOURCES: 

Live Nourished Coaching Website --> Schedule a free consult

Hally Brooke Instagram 

Live Nourished Coaching Instagram 

Live Nourished Coaching Facebook Group

Live Nourished Coaching Facebook

GUEST BIO:

Hally Brooke is the Founder & CEO of Live Nourished; she is a Certified Functional Medicine Nutrition Counselor, Nationally Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach, Fox 21 Fitness & Nutrition Expert, and fierce industry advocate.

What started as pure personal training has morphed over the years into a full functional medicine wellness and nutrition practice. Hally has built a thriving Functional Medicine Coaching practice that works with clients in ALL the key areas of wellness, including movement, nutrition, mindset, resilience, relationships, and self-care.

Her life mission is to encourage, empower and free both men and women by teaching healing. Whether as clients, through speaking events, or personally with the people she encounters, she lives this mission day in and day out.

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About the Podcast

Salad With a Side of Fries Nutrition, Wellness & Weight Loss
Nutrition tips that actually work. Real-life healthy eating, balanced diet tools, and weight loss tips you can use today with coach Jenn Trepeck.*

If you have searched for nutrition tips, tried to keep a healthy lifestyle, or felt stuck following popular weight loss tips, this podcast is for you. Get straightforward wellness advice that works in real life, plus strategies for a balanced diet, sustainable healthy eating, and a smarter approach to fitness and nutrition. Is your diet making you hungrier, crankier, or less healthy? Tune in and find out.*

Free gift: Schedule a 15-minute curiosity call with Jenn to explore what is possible for you. https://asaladwithasideoffries.com/contact/

Welcome to Salad with a Side of Fries, where wellness meets real life. Award-winning host Jenn Trepeck, health and lifestyle coach and author of Uncomplicating Wellness, cuts through the noise with clear answers you can trust. Ranked in the top 1.5% of podcasts worldwide, the show won Ear Worthy’s Best Health Podcast in 2024 and 2025 and was nominated for Best Independent Podcast both years. Jenn also won Women Who Podcast’s Stellar Interview award in 2025 after being named one of Podcast Magazine’s 40 under 40 in 2022.

Jenn’s motto is “wellness without the weirdness.” With more than 17 years coaching after solving her own food struggles, she knows how confusing the industry can be. Each week you get the foundations of a balanced diet, sustainable healthy eating, metabolism basics, and long-term holistic health, plus straight talk on fad diets and supplements.

What you will get by listening:
✅How to eat and how to cheat, guilt-free
✅Nutrition tips that work in the real world
✅Weight loss tips that are effective, never restrictive
✅How to build a balanced plate at home, on the road, and eating out
✅Smart strategies for sustainable habits that include your favorite foods
✅Evidence-based insights on fitness and nutrition
✅Conversations about holistic health that go beyond food
✅Wellness advice you can use right away


About Jenn Trepeck:
Jenn is a health coach, speaker, and consultant who blends humor with practical science. She has helped thousands improve energy, metabolism, and confidence in their choices through one-on-one coaching, group programs, her book, and this podcast.

Connect with Jenn and the show:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenntrepeck/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saladwithasideoffriespod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jenntrepeck
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferTrepeck/
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/425796548337541/
Website: https://asaladwithasideoffries.com/

If you are ready to trade guilt for freedom, confusion for clarity, and boring salads for fries on the side, press play. Health gets doable here.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This podcast and its guests are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

About your host

Profile picture for Jennifer Trepeck

Jennifer Trepeck

“My passion for nutrition and helping others stems from “kicking my food issues” with my own weight management saga.” ~ Jenn

I believe that the greatest accountability is paying it forward! That’s why I teach the nutrition education we are all supposed to know but no one ever taught us, along with the science behind food, fitness, and health.

After I graduated from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, I founded Better Life Now LLC while working full-time in hedge funds. In 2019, I took my practice from side-hustle to full-time self-employment and launched my podcast, Salad With a Side of Fries. On the show, we offer science-based tips and tricks for how to achieve wellness and weight loss for real life – because who wants a life without fries or dessert?!

Topics we tackle on the podcast include debunking fad diets, food myths, misinformation in marketing, bad science, and general nutrition. I encourage guests whose expertise is different from my own focus on weight management to bring their unique, fact-based perspectives to talk about subjects they are educated in and passionate about.

Due to my decade-long experience of working with clients, I have gained insight into the health and food industry and the how-tos of building a business.

Some specific health and wellness topics I can speak to include debunking fad diets, exposing the BS we are fed by the food and diet industry, how the people around us can positively and negatively impact our health journey, and shifting mindsets in order to overcome inappropriate barometers of success to instead achieve happy, healthy, and meaningful change.

On the subject of business, I can help you by teaching my critical pieces every entrepreneur should know, how to make your side-hustle into your full-time job, ways to sustainably achieve success without burning out, contemporary networking, and how to prioritize wellness while pursuing your projects.

When I find some free time, I’m typically working out at Physique57, discovering hidden gem restaurants in NYC, or traveling to spend time with friends and family.

I’d love to have an in-depth conversation with you, whether it’s leveling up in business or debunking food myths!