A girl who knows how to use herbs and spices in her cooking & who shares how with others - is a girl you can trust 😂 Nat McCauley (or some of you may know her from @NatsHealthyHacks) is one of my foodie and career girl idols. I had the pleasure of first meeting Nat on a creative YouTube project I worked on for a past client which involved an initial filmed interview. Nat brought everyone a homemade green juice in a cute keep up, proceeded being her bubbly self. Not only was the juice delicious, she insisted we kept the keep cup for future smoothies - I knew right then she was a soul sister of mine! A fellow marketing gal and wellness advocate, this interview is filled with so many nuggets of wisdom.
Could you tell me a little summary of who you are, what you do and what you’re truly passionate about?
My names Nat and I’m the Sales and Marketing Manager for a National Trade Printers, co-owner of my own event hire company ‘Autumn Grove Events’ and chick behind the camera on ‘Nats Healthy Hacks’. As a marketer I absolutely love creating content, and as a big foodie, I’m so passionate about showing others how easy it can be to make healthier choices. I’m a big believer that eating healthy doesn’t have to be hard, time consuming, or boring, you just need the inspiration. I’m also super passionate about women’s health and self care, as I’ve experienced first hand the physical and emotional effects of ‘taking too much on’ and there’s certainly a way to have the best of both worlds.
Why did you start your Instagram @natshealthyhacks?
I was lucky enough to be chosen to be a part of Ashy Bines ‘squad project’, a 12 week YouTube series on our own health journeys. I was always health conscious, and always loved cooking, but I never really had the balance right. Squad project taught me my health was more than just a number on the scales and gave me the kick start I needed for a healthier routine that stuck. Having grown up with a mum that loved cooking, I learnt young, and until this experience, naively thought everyone else kind of knew the same. It was from sharing the meals I was cooking (and how to cook them) that my insta grew. I realised people didn’t have the same knowledge that I took for granted (Like why you cook an onion by itself till translucent first and ONLY use fresh garlic). These little basics for me, were game changes in others cooking. I took the time to explain and film each step, unedited, just real, raw cooking with all the mistakes. Nats Healthy Hacks became a place for women to learn how to cook and get inspiration for what to cook for dinner.
Tell us a little bit about your health and wellness journey. Where did your love for it begin?
I’m half Greek and half Australian so growing up in a wog household I always loved food and cooked with my mum from a really young age. I’ve always been pretty health conscious and had a holistic approach to wellness but it wasn’t until I took part in the squad project that my thinking really changed. Realising that health and happiness was about more than just a number on the scales meant it wasn’t just another ‘fad diet’ and I set myself up with some pretty killer habits around moving my body regularly and nourishing it from the inside out.
Like myself, you are a massive foodie and love to cook delicious meals. What does a typical day on the plate look like for your working week? My working week is very busy, so to set myself up for success I always do some form of food prep on the weekend (I’m a bit OCD so it screws my brain up a little if I don’t do this on a Saturday or Sunday haha). I usually prep my breakfasts and snacks in advance and then I always cook for 4 at dinner time so my husband and I can take a nice lunch. My day starts with some hot Chinese herbs first thing, to help balance my hormones. Then I usually take overnight oats to work to eat for breakfast (oats, chia, cinnamon, dates, coconut flakes and a pinch of salt , just soaked in water), if I’m hungry for morning tea I generally snack on nuts, cut up vegetables or a boiled egg. Lunch for me is always left overs, usually roast veggies and protein, a big salad, curry and cauliflower rice, burrito bowls etc.. I always crave something sweet around 3pm, so I make sure I’ve always prepared a healthy sweet snack for the afternoon. This is usually either full fat plain Greek yoghurt and berries, homemade banana and cocoa ice cream, a protein ball or paleo bar, and I generally have a cup of tea now too.
Could you talk to us a little bit about your transition from #unistudentlife to #fulltimecareer and what your position entails?
In my last year at uni I undertook an internship as a marketing assistant for a small web and marketing consultancy. After my internship was up, I was lucky enough to be offered a full time position with the company. I worked hard, and quickly got a pay rise, a promotion, and then a redundancy... unfortunately no matter how well I was performing, they just didn’t have the money. At the time, it was a pretty big blow. I was doing so well, I’d been promoted, rewarded for my efforts, and as quickly as it came, it went. I cried for a whole day and then went straight to work looking for a new position. Two weeks later I was employed as a Marketing Coordinator with the company I’m still with today. It was a big step up, as I was now the only person in marketing or sales for a multi million dollar company, but I knew this was the best opportunity I could give myself to grow. I’m now the Sales and Marketing Manager and have a team of designers and marketing staff that help me execute our marketing strategy. Sales, promotions, media, product launches, client engagement, client education, customer service, it’s all part of the my day. Im a big believer that Sales and Marketing is more than just a creative campaign, it should be about the complete customer journey from start to finish.
If you could pin point one time in your working career where you were made to feel empowered for the work you were doing – what would it be?
Coming into the role as the only person in sales and marketing, I had a lot of freedom from the start. I worked hard to prove myself, and quickly became a manager, employing a team of people to help me execute the strategy. It’s empowering to be given the freedom to create your own plan, and then the ability to actually execute it. Pretty rare in a workplace but the reason I chose to work for small business when everyone else in my graduating class chose giant multi-nationals.
What are some daily rituals/thoughts you perform to promote happiness and wellness within your life?
I spend a lot of hours working, and I’m not very good at relaxing so I’ve been working very hard on self care and consciously trying to slow down. I always start the morning with some form of exercise as I find it puts be in the best headspace for the day, I’m up at 5am for either a sunrise beach walk (which I find very relaxing), or a low intensity weight session. I’m horrible at drinking water, so I’ve been setting myself a goal to drink my entire water bottle in the car on my way to work (yes it means I need to pee as soon as I get there but it also means I’m hydrated for the busiest hours of my day) before I get out of the car at work, and once I get back in, I try to remember to take 10 deep breathes into my diaphragm to make sure I’m starting and ending the day with a sense of calm. When I get home from work I try and cook dinner straight away and then answer emails for my own business so I can wind down from technology as early as I can before bed. I’ve been loving doing some meditation before bed, just to clear my thoughts and help me relax. And finally I put my phone on flight mode so I’m not disturbed throughout the night or have unnecessary radio frequency in our room (also good for your hormones). I want to get back to leaving my phone in the kitchen over night as I found it was not only good for my sleep, but better for my relationship, and even made me less stressed (weird l know, but as I use technology all day every day, I can admit I have an addiction to it, and I’m slowly working on letting go).
I’m currently seeing a Chinese natural therapist for help with my hormones and find our fortnightly acupuncture sessions one of the few things that truly relaxes my central nervous system. For the second half of the year I’ve set myself a goal to start yoga as another form of ‘me’ time and to help stretch out and relax my body.
As a busy little bee, there’s certainly time for it all, but if you don’t prioritise self care, you won’t be doing it all effectively and it won’t be long before you see it take some sort of toll on your health. There’s only one you, and you only have one life, so dream big, work hard, and push the boundaries because you can do ANYTHING you put your mind to, but take time to relax, nourish your body from the inside out, and move your body regularly and you’ll soon find things just flow.
Where can we find you #socials?
Follow my journey to living a healthy and balanced life @NatsHealthyHacks on insta.