This month we sat down with the lovely Jass Stupak, founder of @nourishwithjass, to find out her insights on health and wellness as a Holistic Nutritionist and successful IG influencer. She runs her business both here in Toronto and out in Kelowna, BC. We caught up with her over some Chai at Whole Foods discussing everything from her goals, philosophy and even guilty pleasures!
Jass graduated last October 2018 from IHN Missasauga. She is a CNP and has been running her own blog since she started school back in 2017. After graduation she began building her own private practice and working super hard to grow her blog and following.
Jass wasn’t always a health nut, her inspiration for studying holistic health came from frustration. After dealing with migraines from early on in life, she realized that the allopathic model was doing absolutely nothing to help her despite prescribing more medication. Its then when she decided to take matters into her own hands and research all the remedies and holistic healing methods the internet and books could offer. She learned to try magnesium, cut artificial sugars and dairy, realizing how big of a difference it really made in her mental and physical health. She also started to realize the ability food has to heal us and the properties of nutrients, returning back to her European holistic roots.
Her philosophy on health and wellness is that; it goes beyond mental and emotional well-being. “Your mental health is the strongest part of what health means, once body mind and soul are balanced that’s the true picture of health for me”. Her number one goal with clients is to make living health a habit that goes beyond the end of the protocol. Being able to inspire people to want to live healthy, and not just feel like they have to, is really her motivation with followers and clients.
We asked her “Why would someone choose to see a holistic nutritionist rather than a doctor or dietician”.
Her response was :
“For most people, coming to see a holistic health care practioner is often a last resort after they’ve tried everything western medicine has to offer. Holistic nutrition your dealing with the root cause and digging a lot deeper than just the symptoms and this is often a much longer process. Often doctors are just dealing with the surface level symptomatology and things could become much worse. For example, someone with psoriasis might be prescribed a medication or cream. A holistic nutritionist would take the same patient and deal with the gut, liver and more, so that through herbs and supplements, medicine can be avoided.”
Currently Jass is not following any specific protocol or dietary restrictions herself. She avoids processed sugar and gluten/dairy as much as possible but her diet is mainly a modified paleo style. She aims to exercise every single day whether its a 15-minute walk or a workout. She loves lifting weights 5x/week at her gym and often does spin classes or occasionally yoga. She loves her solo workouts and strength training as it feels like very personal time and feeds her soul! Keep inspiring us Jass, you are crushing it.
Her regular eating habits include a 12-hour fast and a few simple meals in rotation. She usually has a smoothie or chia pudding for breakfast. Lunch is often a loaded salad with sweet potato, tuna or chicken, chickpeas or lentils and tons of leafy greens and veggies. Dinner is often the same or a protein with veggies on the side and some sweet potato. Batch cooking helps her keep it simple and save time. Love the minimalist tips! She takes magnesium daily and probiotics on and off. She also uses high quality spirulina powder and protein in her smoothies. She loves Seroyal brand supplements for her clients and self.
Her non-negotiable when it comes to health is first and foremost always drinking water, she doesn’t go anywhere without her water bottle. (We can verify said water bottle) Her other non-negotiable include a proper bed-time and and avoiding screen time as much as she can. She also finds the time every day for movement no matter how long it might be. Her self care includes putting work on hold for a day, meaning no phone or laptop time, and spending time with family and friends. Her guilty pleasures include fries and unplanned travels. We feel you on these girl!
We asked Jass, IG’s digestion queen and beat the bloat specialist, her Top 5 Tips to Improve Digestion:
Overall drinking more water
Chewing food slowly and completely
Eating without distraction
Cutting out processed food
Avoiding common allergens (dairy, gluten, soy, corn etc.)
Her mantra to live by is “Start before your ready.” During our interview she shared some advice for aspiring nutritionists-to-be. Her advice for anyone in this field is:
“Start right now with building your brand and social media. Whether its writing a daily blog post that you may never publish or posting a photo to IG, starting while your in-school helped h34 grow her following so that once she graduated she was ready to start launching a variety of services to an audience that knew and trusted her. She felt like posting and reiterating what she was learning during the course was a way to learn by making it digestible for the average reader. This field is tough and mostly self-led so trying to make it as an entrepreneur won’t work unless your willing to work hard at it. Love this advice Jass! You heard her dreamers, start NOW.
That being said, her brand @nourishedbyjass and business went through a major shift with her semi-spontaneous move to beautiful BC. A dream to live there but starting from scratch was very challenging and much harder than she could’ve imagined. The time change alone made it difficult for viewers to find her posts from her Toronto based audience. Although she was able to focus much more in Kelowna, by being distant from most family and friends, she had to make all new habits including waking up at 5am to send emails and write content. One dedicated gal! This move helped her grow in ways she never considered, including getting out of her comfort zone to meet an entirely new community and by doing so, building that ability to be fearless in the pursuit of anything else.
Hope you guys enjoyed this awesome interview with Jass as much as we did! Follow along with her health and wellness tips, recipes and 1:1 client work on IG: @nourishedwithjass
