Meet Trailblazer Erin Holt

Today we’d like to introduce you to Erin Holt.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up as a chunky kid and when I hit adolescence I leaned out. This was met with a fair amount of positive feedback, and so at the age of 13 I learned that being thin is “good” and losing weight is worthy of praise. Of course this message was reinforced every single day of my life by our food and diet culture. I struggled with disordered eating for well over a decade, which overlapped many health issues that went largely unchecked by doctors.

In my early 20s I went back to college to study nutrition in the hopes of “fixing” myself once and for all. While I graduated on the Dean’s List, I was not fixed. Not even close. My eating disorder and health struggles blossomed.
I realized that conventional nutrition didn’t hold the answers to my recovery; I had to find those myself. I turned to alternative healing modalities like yoga, meditation, and a whole foods diet in order to recover.

Four years ago, after having my daughter, I got super sick. I spent a year listening to doctors tell me “nothing was wrong” and that it was “all in my head”. I continued to fight for my own health and eventually received a diagnosis of systemic sclerosis, an autoimmune disease. Conventional medicine had no answers for me, I once again had to turn to alternative health and holistic medicine in order to heal.

Due to my own health struggles, I relentlessly studied the field of wellness. In addition to a B.S. in Nutrition & Dietetics, I am also a board certified integrative & functional nutritionist, certified health coach, and yoga teacher. I have built my business with a fire in my belly; my goal is to free women from the shackles of diet culture, self-hate and chronic disease.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Back in college, I remember speaking with a professor about what I wanted to do with my work and she told me, “That career doesn’t exist”. Right in that moment I decided, “Well then, I guess I will create it myself”. And so I have.

It’s been a slow burn. It’s not a situation where “if you build it, they will come”. It never is. You need to earn people’s trust, and that can take a lot of time. Our society is so primed for immediate gratification, and there’s very little of that in business. You have to be okay with failing. You have to be okay with hard work. I worked in a local health food store, I taught yoga for years, I integrated myself into the local community. I said yes to every opportunity that came my way. Every. Single. One. I’m not trying to glorify busy, but you can’t knock the hustle.

Recently someone said to me that entrepreneurship is like being punched in the face every day. It’s the truth! You are forced to evaluate your self-worth on a daily basis. That’s not for the faint of heart. You have to love what you do SO much, that you’re okay with standing up for yourself over and over again. You have to love it so much that it doesn’t feel like work.

My advice to other awesome ladies starting out is to worry less about what everyone else is doing, and just get to work. In the age of social media where we hold up every aspect of our lives to something else we see played out on a screen, where we question our choices in relation to them, where every thumb swipe feels like a punch in the face to our self-worth…I want to remind you is that social media platforms are a stage. And we rarely (if ever) get to see the behind-the-scenes action.

Entrepreneurship looks a lot less like the sleek, well-groomed poolside #hustle Instagram photos we see, and a lot more like a Kathy comic. It’s crazy chaos. But it’s YOUR crazy chaos. So love it up.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Erin Holt Health – what should we know?
I’ve been called a “voice piece” and a “guerrilla”. I wasn’t put on this planet to be nice and make everyone happy; I was put here to create change. If you stand for everything you stand for nothing. When people read my blog or listen to my Funk’tional Nutrition Podcast, they know that I stand up against a $66 billion industry that tries to sell us self-worth through diets.

I work primarily with women struggling with low energy, including adrenal, thyroid, gut and immune dysfunction. I dive deep with my clients to unearth the root causes of symptoms, and help them find real health without restriction. By ending the war on ourselves, women become reenergized and unstoppable. “When sleeping women wake, mountains move.”

My own health struggles dramatically affect the way I work with clients. I learned that I couldn’t Type-A my way out of an eating disorder or autoimmune disease; I had to discover my sacred self. That’s what I hope to bring to my clients. I see you. You’re not crazy. It’s not all in your head. I understand what you’re going through because I’ve been there. I’ve been in the trenches, and I’ve also experienced the light at the end of the tunnel. I know it’s possible. And that’s what I hope to show you.

My education, degrees and certifications are deeply steeped in science, but I pair that with alternative and holistic training; I have studied intuition and meditation for a decade and I also have a spiritual coaching certification.

Do you recommend any apps, books or podcasts that have been helpful to you?
I have to shout out my own podcast here, the Funk’tional Nutrition Podcast. My goal is to cut through the noise of mainstream wellness to inform and empower others. We share insight into relevant hot topics in health and nutrition through radically honest conversations and interviews.

I also must share the book “The Loving Diet”, written by my mentor and teacher, Jessica Flanigan.

And I wouldn’t be doing the work that I’m doing now without my original meditation teacher, Elizabeth Guilbeault of meditate2heal.com based out of Andover, MA.

Pricing:

• Monthly Membership for Private Nutrition $179
• Fueled+Fit Online Foundational Nutrition Program $129
• Carb Compatibility Project Online Nutrition Program $149

Contact Info:

• Website: ErinHoltHealth.com
• Phone: 6039186369
• Email: erin@erinholthealth.com
• Instagram: @erinholthealth
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ErinHoltHealth/

Image Credit:
Scott Holt

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