We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Natalie Aul a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Natalie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Innovation comes in all shapes, sizes and across all industries, so we’d love to hear about something you’ve done that you feel was particularly innovative.
When my mom, sister and I started our weight loss journey there were no resources out there to make cooking without sugar and flour easy and sustainable. There was one cookbook, but it was complicated, and the ingredients were hard to find where I lived. Around day 100 of no sugar and no flour, I almost gave up again to gain all the weight back and add another failed diet to my list. I watched a recipe video on social media of chickpea blondies, and I thought “I could make that without sugar or flour”, So I started experimenting, formulating, calculating, and putting together recipes that were easy, tasted good, and had simple easy to find ingredients (I have been called an evil genius in the kitchen a couple of times). I started sharing these recipes on social media and many others loved the recipes too.
My sister, being a self-published author herself, had mentioned to me that she would help me write a cookbook with some of the recipes I created. I went to work and put together my first cookbook, and it was a hit! People raved about how simple and delicious the recipes were and how they made their weight loss journey easy and sustainable. After publishing my first cookbook I was hooked, I have now published 28 other cookbooks and I have more in the making. I was a trend setter as I saw a need in my community of sugar and flour free eating, and I had the creativity to put together recipes that not only I loved and were easy to make, but others loved also. These cookbooks have opened a whole new world of flavor without sugar and flour. You can have cake for breakfast, cookies for lunch, and pizza for dinner, and still lose weight! Now there have been others that have started to create their own sugar and flour free cookbooks.
Being the first to create a simple sugar and flour free cookbook was the scariest and most exciting thing I have done in my life. It wasn’t all easy going, I had gotten emails from people saying I was stealing content, hoping I would get sued, etc. It has been a learning experience with customer service, creating content, and figuring out the right marketing strategies that work for me. My cookbooks, recipes, and design of my cookbooks have changed and become better as I have gone. Don’t wait until you have everything absolutely perfect before you start, everyone starts a novice. As you keep going, you will grow, and your content will grow with you.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Hi, my name is Natalie, and I am from small town in Minnesota. Growing up I struggled with my weight, I was always the “big girl”. I tried every diet in the book and failed every single one of them! Organic, shakes, intuitive eating, small meals, keto, working out, etc. I was hopeless, and even tried excepting that being overweight was all I could ever be. Until I found a whole new world of weight loss freedom! It was my rescue boat. I found a plan that was 3 simple steps:
1. no sugar,
2. no flour, and
3. 3 weighed meals a day.
After the initial shock of change and detoxing from sugar, there was so much peace in my brain and body that I never knew existed before. My brain wasn’t constantly hounding and begging me for treats all day long, (which I didn’t know was abnormal) I didn’t suffer from headaches, stomach aches, anxiety, achy joints, and inflammation anymore. Around day 100 of no sugar and no flour I was about to quit. I could not eat another boring meal of baked chicken and steamed broccoli again!! One day I saw a recipe on Facebook for chickpea blondies, but it contained sugar and flour. Inspiration hit at that moment, I thought “I could make that without sugar and flour!” So, I started experimenting, formulating, and calculating the food math. I had created my first recipe, and it was DELICIOUS and easy to make! My sister started a Facebook group called “Recipe ideas. No sugar, no flour, made easy” which now has over 50,000 members. I shared the recipe on the Facebook group and others loved it too. After that recipe I was hooked! I started creating more and more and more recipes and sharing them on Facebook. Then one day my mom and sister suggested I should put my recipes together into a cookbook. My sister who is a self-published author said she would help me publish my own cookbook. I wrote and published my first cookbook “Weight Loss Recipes Cookbook Volume 1” and it was a hit!! Thousands of others who were struggling like I was, with trying to make cooking without sugar and flour easy and still taste good said the cookbook I wrote inspired and helped them make their own weight loss journey easy, fun, and delicious. These cookbooks have opened a whole new world of flavors and spices without sugar and flour. Each recipe has a picture, with simple ingredients you can find at your local grocery store, simple recipes you don’t need an interpreter to understand, and packed with delicious flavors to make sugar and flour free meals fun and delicious.
About a month later I wrote and published another cookbook, and another and another, and I have now published 28 cookbooks with more in the making that have been shipped and sold all over the world while inspiring and helping others attain their own weight loss freedom.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
Starting out I knew nothing about creating recipes, I have no culinary background except for following directions from a box meal. I knew nothing about putting together cookbooks or publishing a book. But thankfully my sister wrote and self-published her own novels and volunteered to help me also. The great thing about self-publishing is it doesn’t have to be perfect, and you don’t have to compromise or spend a fortune to get a publisher to notice and accept your work. There is so much freedom with self-publishing, you can correct, update, and change your books even after they have been published. My cookbooks, recipes, and style of the books have really grown with me as I have kept publishing and creating new cookbooks. I have even gone back to older volumes and updated them. So, it doesn’t have to be perfect to take action, everyone starts out messy and a novice, but don’t let that hold you back from starting something and taking a chance. The simplest things that you might think no one will like or enjoy can become your number one bestseller.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Marketing, social media, and people change as time goes on, and we must change with it. For 2 years I did Livestream cooking shows, and I loved them. I had a consistent following and viewers. But at that same time there came a pivotal point in my life and business. My uncle Timmy was diagnosed with Prader-Willi as a child and my dad (his bother) is his legal guardian. His health started declining rapidly 2 years ago. He had fainted and broken his arm, after that he was in the ER almost every weekend with breathing and health issues. The doctors told us to pretty much say our last goodbyes to Tim and there was nothing they could do. They said he would need a tracheotomy and surgery to lose weight, and without that he would never be able lose weight or breathe easily again. One morning God asked me some questions. “What if Timmy would stop eating sugar and flour and lost weight like you had”. I thought that would be amazing! Then He asked me “would you meal prep for Tim?”. I said yes. I talked to my dad, and the home Timmy lived in, and they all agreed. I started meal prepping for Timmy, his health started to improve immensely. He had been taken off oxygen and most of his medications
He has now lost 30+lbs. His mental health and clarity have improved immensely also. With meal prepping for Timmy I discovered a whole new world of batch cooking (cooking meals in bulk). With these new batch recipe I put together a cookbook just for batch cooking. I was becoming too stressed with meal prepping, life, and the livestreams and something had to change. So, I decided to stop live streaming, but the batch cookbook I created from meal prepping for Timmy has now become my number one best seller. If I wouldn’t have been willing to change with the flow of life, I would have missed out on brand new opportunities for not only me, but others who are enjoying meal prepping/batch cooking to make their life even easier!
Contact Info:
- Website: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/weightlossrecipescookbook
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/WeightLossRecipesCookbook
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@WeightLossRecipesCookbook
- Other: TikTok
tiktok.com/@weightlossrecipescook?lang=enPinterest
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