One of absolute FAVE things about Instagram is how it connects us with other like-minded people.
I connected with Alysia Pope of Purely Pope on Instagram during my internship at F-Factor in NYC in the summer of 2018. Us Chicagoans bonded all things health and wellness — GG crackers INCLUDED!!
She has been in Chicago a couple times for Hello Wellness events — which she will get into — and i’ve has the pleasure of meeting her IRL! We’ve been IG besties every since. 💕
She is has a heart of gold, fabulous taste in workout outfits ( obv I asked where she shops 😉 ), and an awesome health and wellness journey.
Without further ado, here’s Alysia!
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Introduce yourself! Where are you from, what do you do?
Hi! I’m Alyisa Pope, I live in LA by way of Chicago, I’m a midwest gal at heart, but love the sunshine and fully believe weather affects your mood! I’m an Institute of Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. We focus on bio-individuality (everyone is different and needs something different) and all areas of your life, not just diet and fitness. I believe that wellness also encompasses your mental health, relationships, career, movement and more.
I’m also the Director of Events at a company called HelloWellness, and we’re dedicated crushing the stigma that wellness is only for the elite and creating an all encompassing, inclusive space for you to grow on your wellness journey, hosting in-person and online events and retreats. I believe in wellness that empowers you and lifts you up. You eat well to feel well and you feel well to live well. To me, living well means absolutely zero sacrifice. It means living a life filled with travel, adventure, love, family, daily movement, good food, better wine, lots of laughter and contagious positivity. Cultivating a lie filled with health, wealth & happiness is my daily mantra and purpose! Through all things that I do, I want to encourage women to be unapologetically themselves, allow themselves to enrich their lives with things that fuel their soul, and rid their life of anything that’s not serving them. Hint – that Coca Cola or that rude friend from high school are no longer serving you and definitely not pure!
I share my approach to this lifestyle through recipes, travel guides, workout regimes, healthy tips, wellness lifestyle tricks and more. My goal in my PurelyPope platform is to create a space for women to come that helps them and encourages them to create their best life, and ultimately live well and live pure!
When and how did you get into the health and wellness space?
I’ve always been super interested in health and wellness. I came from a household where my mom put a large emphasis on home cooking, buying organic and not too much junk or fast food. That being said, what we know now is sooo much more advanced than what we knew then. That being said, I learned a lot of my eating and fitness habits from my mom, and she’s the one that inspired me to cook all of the time. The lady can look at what I would view as an empty fridge and make a masterpiece!
However, as most of us do, when I got to college I definitely gained the freshman fifteen – or maybe 25?? LOL! From there, going into sophomore year I did so many things to ‘get skinny’ and thought this was the most important thing to get people to like you, to be cool, etc. I did the special K diet for crying out loud – cringe! I wasn’t focused on nutrients, but rather just calories. I was drinking way too much and this continued throughout college. Once I graduated, I moved to San Diego and the great state of California wore off of me with tons of healthy food options and outdoor activity options, etc. and my interest in truly learning about our health grew a ton.
During this time, I was a corporate event planner and did that for a majority of my career until I found HelloWellness. There was one particular ‘bad relationship’ that I was in and once I got out of it, I realized the importance of saying no to things that don’t serve me and the importance of self care, and putting yourself first. I think ultimate health is loving yourself, and getting out of this relationship made me realize that more than ever. From there, I started exploring more home cooking and fitness regimes I enjoyed, etc.
Enter my blog – I decided to start this because all of my friends and family would always ask me: what are you making for dinner? What’s your workout schedule this week? etc. My current boyfriend Nick encouraged me to do this, and I thought why not?! I’ve always loved writing and wellness is my passion, so it made sense. From there, I met Sarah &. Jenna (the co-founders of HelloWellness) on Instagram around the same time, and lucky for me I got to collide what I had my professional experience in (event planning) with my passion (wellness) and the rest is history! After about a year of doing my blog, I realized just how passionate I was about it and about helping people, and I wanted to add some more validity to my platform, so that’s when I made the decision to go back to school & become an IIN Health Coach.
What’s your food philosophy —has it changed during your health and wellness journey?
My food philosophy is that all things fit! No food is inherently good or bad. I believe in eating a primarily plant centric diet. To me, that means 75-90% of my diet is going to be from whole, real, plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes and the other percentage will be things like fish, eggs, and the fun stuff (chocolate, dessert, healthy snacks, etc.)! Because what’s life without chocolate? No food is off limits for me. If I want something, I have it. The thing is, the more time that passes by, the less I crave things like french fries or regular ice cream. We live in such a cool time where there are “better for you” alternatives to almost every food, so why not be kind to your body and fuel it with things that will love you back?
What’s a day in the life (morning rituals, workout, meals/snacks, work schedule, etc.)?
Ohhh I love a good morning ritual! My mornings typically start with my five minute gratitude journal, where I write down 3 things I’m grateful for, 3 things that would make the day great and a daily affirmation. This has truly been a game changer for me and has honestly changed my life. My mornings are slow, being in event planning – it’s a stressful, fast paced job so I prefer to start the day as calm as possible to balance that out. After my gratitude journal, I read a passage from the Daily Stoic. Stoicism has been huge for me with managing relationships in my life, unplanned scenarios and so much more. It really continues to teach you that the only thing you can control in life is your mind, and if you have power over your mindset, you can get through and accomplish anything, which I love.
From there, I do a 5-10 minute meditation on my Ten Percent Happier app. I used to be someone who thought meditation was too ‘woo woo’ for me, but this app is such a great one- I would encourage anyone to check it out. Following, I do all of the self care type things, brush my teeth, hydrate my face, tongue scrape and then get into my movement. Most mornings this would be a walk combined with either a Melissa Wood Health flow or a BBFIT Flow for ~30 minutes. I’m a big believer that daily movement is important, no matter how much time you can squeeze in.
After that, around 9am, my work day begins. I work from home, which is nice – but it takes dedication and motivation! I always have a very organized to-do list and plan my calendar to a tee. In terms of food from there, I Intermittent Fast most days, so I will start off with 32 oz lemon water, then move on to coffee with almond milk, monk fruit & cinnamon and then to 8 oz celery juice. Around 11:30 I typically make my “brunch” which ranges a ton. Typically it looks like 3/4 of my plate some sort of roasted veggies and the other 1/4 some sort of complex carb (I love Base Culture Paleo Bread & Unbun Foods Bread, as well as Mikey’s English Muffins), with some vegan cream cheese, avocado and protein. My protein ranges from eggs to lupini beans to fish. I currently don’t eat meat right now, so that’s where my protein comes from most days.
Around 4pm I usually have a ‘snack’ but really it’s like a second lunch. Even though I intermittent Fast, I try to get in the same amount of calories within my 8 hour eating window as I would normally with 3 meals. My snack could be probiotic coconut yogurt with chia, nut butter, cacao nibs and marine collagen or a big salad with protein. It depends on what I had for my first meal and I try to supplement that.
Around 6pm I typically finish up work and start whipping up dinner! This ranges a ton because I love to get creative in the kitchen and use as many veggies as possible, but some of my go-to’s are explore cuisine edamame pasta with lots of veggies or a zucchini or palmini noodle pad thai with tempeh.
From there, I typically enjoy some sort of sweet treat whether it’s a homemade dessert I have on hand, smart sweets or Lily’s chocolate. And I usually have a glass of red wine like 3-4 nights a week :). After that, I’m typically working on my blog/health coaching until bed. Before bed I LOVE to read, so I’ll read and get in bed by 10pm and asleep by 11!
What are your pantry staples? Fridge staples? Kitchen essentials?
Ohhh this is a fun one! I always try to buy seasonal produce, but some things you’ll always find in my fridge are spinach, kale, zucchini, avocado, tomato, berries and eggplant. You’ll also always see eggs, my unsweetened nut milk, vegan cream cheese & butter, as well as all of my dressings/seasonings I use like coconut aminos, kite hill vegan dips and primal kitchen condiment products.
In the freezer I always have some healthy sweet treats like so delicious ice cream, as well as Mikey’s Muffins, Food for Life Baking Bread & Muffins, Base Culture Bread, and some healthy pizza crusts like Capello’s or Cali’Flour. Also – I ALWAYS have some cauliflower gnocchi on hand too!
For pantry, I always like to have black beans, lupini beans, nuts/seeds and wild caught canned tuna for some protein. Also in the protein section would be chickpea and edamame pasta. Then, I’ll always be stocked with the alternative pastas as well such as Palmini, kelp & miracle noodles. Then, I always am stocking up on some healthy snacks. I love the Lesser Evil Brand paleo puffs & popcorn, as well as Simple Mills almond flour crackers. I’ll also typically have some coconut wraps too! OH and chocolate, I ALWAYS have chocolate and my baking staples like almond flour, coconut flour, chia seeds, flax seeds and monk fruit.
My personal fave Purely Pope recipe is your F-Factor bagel recipe ( LOL I packed two bagels in my fanny pack for my senior bar crawl )… What other Purely Pope recipes are a must try?!
Aww yay! I think that’s a crowd favorite for sure!! I’m a HUGE fan of my high fiber seed crackers, vegan chili and almond butter chocolate chunk cookies!
You’re always sharing your simple – yet TOUGH!! – workouts on IG stories… What type of workouts do you enjoy?
Ahh yes I’m a big fan of streaming workouts and love anything pilates related. I’m a big fan of daily movement, no matter how long I have to actually workout – I think consistency is key for me. I do Melissa Wood Health pilates, as well as Bailey Brown’s BBFIT Pilates. They’re both so fun and you can do them from literally anywhere which I love!
You also look cute AF during your workouts…!! What are your go-to workout clothes/brands?!
Thank you! I’m a big believer that a cute workout outfit is motivation enough to get moving, am I right?! I’m a big fan of Onzie, Year of Ours, Athleta, and Morgan Stewart Sport!
What are you are fave podcasts/books?
Such a good question! My favorite podcast on the daily is the TSC Him & Her Podcast, and I’m also a huge fan of the Ed Mylett show and Jay Shetty On Purpose.
As far as books go, I have SUCH a long list. For non fiction – The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger (CEO of Disney), I Forgot to Die by Khalil Raffati (Founder of SunLife Organics), Open Book by Jessica Simpson, & When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead by Jerry Weintraub and What I Know for Sure by Oprah. For fiction: The Husband’s Secret, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing, and The Couple Next Door.
What are the coffee shops/bars/restaurants we MUST go to on our next trip to LA?
Ohhhh LOVE this one! I have so many, so I’ll give my #1 in each category for the sake of time, LOL and definitely check out this blog post where I really break down all of my favorite things to do and go in depth. My favorite restaurant in LA is Malibu Farm. Do yourself a favor and get the raw brussel sprout omelete or salad with salmon. It’s to die for! Coffee shop: Coffee Dose in WeHo which is also connected to Bandier is a VIBE – and very instagrammable. Best smoothie ever is SunLife Organics Mint Chocolate Chip Smoothie, they also have a KILLER matcha. If you want to go out, checkout CATCH in WeHO, a definite scene but such great food too. Gracias Madre is another favorite of mine too. Finally, EREWHON because it’s a literal Disneyland if you’re into healthy eating.
Fill in the blank! On the weekend, you can find Alysia ____.
Making a new recipe, with family or at Malibu Farm, LOL!
Where can we connect with you?!!
Yay! www.purelypope.com, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook
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Thank you SO MUCH, Alysia!
xx hails