We’re not lazy.
We’re not broken.
We’re just done pretending that pushing through is a plan.
We’re smart. Capable. Probably used to carrying more than our fair share — and still getting it all done.
But somewhere along the way, business started draining us instead of fuelling us. We hit that familiar wall — the one made of fatigue, brain fog, pain, hormone chaos, or just the kind of deep-down exhaustion no productivity hack can fix.
If you’ve landed here, maybe you’ve realised what I did too:
We can’t keep grinding it out up to and even past our limits, ignoring our bodies and our needs, and calling it “resilience”.
We can’t keep on running on empty, using caffeine and sugar to push past exhaustion, brain fog, and the pressure to be everything to everyone all at the same time.
We can’t keep hustling – pushing through and swallowing the lie that this is how success works.
We need a new way to do things that actively supports our choices to step-up and lead in this world.
About Nikola
Hi! I’m Nikola Howard, Life Alchemist
Award-winning author, coach, mentor, polymath, and a woman building her businesses while living with chronic conditions.
I help women in business redefine success, without burnout, overwhelm, or sacrificing our health.
Because the usual hustle-culture advice? For women it falls flat. Our bodies simply don’t have the amount of testosterone needed to support it. So it’s Irrelevant at best, dangerous at worst.
Especially when we’re also navigating a chronic condition – mine are endometriosis, PCOS, perimenopause & chronic pain – and just the relentless demands and emotional labour of life while also trying to run a business.
It’s time we built something that works with our bodies, its hormones and our energy levels, not against them.
This work changes lives. It changes me, too.
Every woman I work with adds another layer to this work. We evolve together.
How I got here
(and why it matters to us)
My “day-job” was a long career in IT infrastructure and leadership, where I honed my knowledge and love for systems, strategy, and people-first ways of working.
1999
Discovered Low Carb Eating
I started to share what I’d learned with others, interpreting the information from the USA into a UK perspective.
2016
The UK's Leading Low Carb Lifestyle Expert
I’ve been the UK’s leading low-carbohydrate and ketogenic lifestyle expert since 2016
2018
The HOPE Protocol was created
My signature system, The HOPE Protocol created in 2018, is award winning 6 times over in its own right, delivering sustainable results to hundreds of people via my 3rd book “How to do Low Carb, UK Style” and my eCourses.
2019
Award Winner
Since 2019 I have won 21 awards for my 1:1 and group ketogenic lifestyle coaching
The Pivot
When you coach....
You literally can’t stay on topic.
Most of the women that wanted to go deeper, and came to me for 1:1 health mentoring, were also running businesses, had some form of chronic condition, or both!
The client gets the best from a coach and mentor when we also look at “life” in a holistic manner.
So we weren’t only talking about being fat and how that makes us feel, how to make more optimal choices when it comes to food to gain a more optimal body and ensuring we have firm boundaries in place to decrease fatigue/pain and increase health…
We were also unpacking marketing and launch plans, working through money mindset blocks and talking about using SOPs, automations and delegation to grow sustainably and avoid overwhelm and burnout.
Something clicked for me.
To put it plainly, we were mostly talking about the structures I’d put in place in my business to ensure it supported me, my needs and my life.
Our health, our habits, our hormones, our business, our life: It’s all connected.
So I’ve pivoted.
Whilst “health” will always be part of what I give the world and my clients, after all, it is the bedrock on which everything is built, I’m focusing now on assisting women to create sustainable businesses that support their needs.
The women who, like me, are tired of the standard business building advice to “Push hard, do more, call everyone you know and be everywhere on social media” and who simply want an aligned and graceful way to work, live and lead.
I live with chronic conditions.
So I’ve built a business that lets me thrive with them.
I have PCOS and all the insulin resistance that comes along with it. I’ve never had a regular period in my life either, and so hormonal birth control from 16 was the NHS way to control the bleed without actually doing more investigations… That also gave me massive mood swings and fat gain.
During investigations to see if I had PCOS in 2003, I was also diagnosed with endometriosis and was given a 3-month drug-induced menopause for that, from which I’m not sure I ever fully recovered hormonally.
I’ve also got a gently degenerating lumbar vertebrae and disc pair that are very well managed with hydration and exercise, yet cause constant low-level chronic pain.
And I reckon I’ve just moved fully into menopause after around five years of perimenopausal mood swings and the tightening-up of hip and shoulder ligaments (and so more pain) that comes with the decrease in oestrogen.
I’ve had some form of “side-hustle” since my mid-twenties – I’ve sold essential oils via the “At home party” model, created an on-line shop in 2001 (well before the tech existed to make that easy!) for self-made Low Carb baked goods and and imported US products as well as in-person selling and an on-line shop for hand-dyed “exotic” fibre and Indian sari-silk yarns and fibres, and even for a couple of years helped other small businesses build their own WordPress websites before settling into where I am now, writing books and offering coaching, mentioning and creating courses.
So I know what it’s like to feel full of ideas and ambition — and yet have your body feel like it’s working against you.
I’ve had to learn how to manage energy as well as my time. How to honour my capacity, not just my calendar. How to build rhythms and structures that support me, not break me.
Low-carb, animal-based eating gave me the foundation — no more brain fog or blood sugar crashes. That at least made perimenopause very easy for me to go through, although the mood swings, they are an interesting story, as I also lost my mum in 2022 after caring for her for 2 years whilst going through it all. As I said to the grief counsellor, I was never really sure if it was my grief, the exhaustion of trying to get her help or my hormones making me cry…
The real shift happened when I simply stopped trying to fit into testosterone driven structures that weren’t made for me… and started building something that actually worked with me.
And now? I help other women do the same.
HOPE. FLOW. PATH. This is the blueprint.
Everything I teach — and live — is rooted in these three pillars.
HOPE
The HOPE Protocol
(Healthy, Optimal, Purposeful Eating).
The award-winning protocol that gave me back my physical foundation. It’s about nourishment, not self-punishment.
FLOW
The FLOW Formula
(Focused, Leveraged, Optimised Work).
How we plan and run our days, our businesses and our lives, in alignment with our energy and cycle, so we’re not constantly running uphill and can instead get stuff done with grace and ease, leading to a successful business and life.
PATH
Your PATH
(Purpose, Alignment, Transformation and Harmony).
Originally built as part of the HOPE Protocol to unlock our relationship with food and how we view it and others, now expanded to rewire our thinking about money, self-worth and business success.
These aren’t quick fixes or cookie-cutter formulas.
They’re compassionate, body-aware strategies that create space for real change.
Forged via 25 years of work and self-discovery, they helped me set my life and work on firm foundations, and they can do the same for you.
What She Said
“Not only is she a badass with the actual food stuff - she is also a fantastic coach, and will deal with the mindfuckery of change, so it's easy peasy and you actually get to change, and REALLY shift your mindset, once and for all. I recommend that you have a call with her, like yesterday!”
MARISKA A
And just so you know… I’m a bit of a nerd.
Let’s be honest: I’m a full-blown polymath.
A Woman In STEM
So “the tech of business” is never scary to me!
I Love Formula 1
Loud engines = joy.
Succulents & Orchids
I grow them (yes, even the fiddly ones).
Magic is Real
I unwind with fantasy and sci-fi worlds where women have dragons, complicated destinies and the answer is 42.
Grounding Creativity
I knit quirky hats with chunky yarns, sew clothes on a Bernina sewing machine with natural fibres (because plastic fast fashion is simply urgh), and create acrylic flow art in bright colours. I
Zero Tolerance
I have zero tolerance for dishonesty or people who do a sloppy job. It disgusts me that people can be this way to their fellow humans.