Plant Based Diet, WHAT, HOW & WHY

Join me, Kristin Peterson & my special guest, Sharon Lacey as we explain WHAT it means to eat a Plant Based Diet, HOW you can begin to incorporate this into your lifestyle & WHY you would want to.  Sharon & I are both Certified Holistic Health Coaches & are passionate about teaching people how to navigate this path of Plant Based Eating by giving you simple, easy to use ideas & encouragement on how to make this the normal all while giving grace for the occasional cheeseburger & beer! 

Stop Chasing Wellness is an online wellness coaching company founded by two Holistic Health Coaches, Gina and Kristin. Be sure to check out all of our offerings including our book, Stop Chasing Wellness; Create It, and our growing catalog of Hormone Specific coaching courses. All of our courses and offerings are designed to help you feel and live your best life in a simplified way that works for you. You can find Stop Chasing Wellness on Facebook and Instagram

Transcript

All right, well, welcome to the Common Sense Nutrition Podcast.
This podcast today is going to be all about helping you define what it means when we say
plant-based diet.
My name is Kristin Peterson, and I am here today with my friend, Sharon Lacy.
Sharon is a fellow health coach.
She's also a yoga instructor and a raw food chef, kind of jack of all trades.
We both went to the same nutrition school together, and we have a lot of the same thinking.
I asked Sharon to join me today so that we could help just break down the definition
of what it means when we say plant-based diet.
But before I get started, I just wanted to ask you to please go back to my website at
commonsensenutritionaz.com for more information on what I do as a health coach.
But let's go ahead and get rolling.
Welcome, Sharon.
Thanks for joining me.
Thanks for inviting me, Kristin.
I'm really happy to be here with you.
I know.
I think this is a really important topic.
I had a friend reach out to me the other day.
I think she heard something, maybe one of my past podcasts or something that I posted
on social media.
She said, what do you mean when you say plant-based diet?
It really struck me because I thought, probably for people like you and I, we throw that word
around like confetti.
It's so part of our language that we don't think that maybe people need to really understand
what that means.
I know when I was in nutrition school, I don't think I really knew what that meant until
they had started really defining that for us.
I thought that it would be a good topic for us to help break down and help people understand
a little bit better.
Yeah.
I think that some people when they hear a plant-based diet, they think vegetarian or
vegan, which as we know, you and I know that a lot of people who are vegan or vegetarian
aren't necessarily eating a whole heck of a lot of plants.
No.
They're just not eating animal.
They're not necessarily eating a lot of plants.
This is a really good topic and I'm glad you're addressing it because you forget sometimes
people just don't know.
I think it's simple.
So I hope that we can express that to people as we go through this here too.
So first, let me just start with the definition.
I looked this up on the computer, on the internet, Wikipedia.
The definition of a plant-based diet, a diet consisting mostly or entirely of foods derived
from plants, including veggies, nuts, seeds, grains, legumes, and fruits with few or no
animal products.
Simple enough, right?
And I think the thing is with people, they go, well, okay, aside from that, how do you
make that?
What does that mean?
Plant-based diet.
And I really think for me, it's more than just understanding what the foods are, but
the understanding that eating these foods, the vegetables, the fruits, the nuts, the
seeds, the grains, the berries, that is the basis of the diet.
That's the base.
It's not just plant-based, it's like this first.
Start with this first.
Right.
And I think that one of the things that we learned in school, Kristin, is the 80-20 rule.
80% of our plate is fruits, vegetables, berries, grains, stuff that comes from the earth, stuff
that has live food, live enzymes, live energy in it, that gives it life.
And then the other 20%, a little bit of meat, maybe a hot dog feel like it once in a while,
like me, or your cake or your beer or whatever it is that you want to fill in the blank with
the 20%, but I like the 80-20 amount.
I think that's a really good way to live.
I completely agree.
I think that, and I teach that just in coaching and talking to people, if you're striving
for perfection, so to say, plant-based eating, it doesn't mean that it has to be perfection
and that's all that you can eat.
So it's not about being a vegan or a vegetarian and having a super restrictive, like I'm
only eating these foods.
It's like if you make the basis, 80% or more of what you eat plant-based, the rest is kind
of just like the frosting on the cake.
Yeah, absolutely.
Because you know, you know, I love my beer and I love my cheeseburgers or pizza on a
Friday night or absolutely.
So I think we did a good job explaining the what, let's move on to the how.
And I think this was a big transition for me.
Like I said, when we first started nutrition school, I didn't necessarily know what plant-based
diet meant until it started to become more spelled out for us in school.
And I think it's important for people to understand that to say that you're going to move into
this, it doesn't have to be a jump in with both feet and do it today.
Because for me, it was a transition.
I had a family that I was taking along and I know when I was in nutrition school, my
husband, I remember he's like, well, you're not going to become one of those tree huggers,
are you?
Yes, he is.
Slowly, but they snuck it on them.
Yeah.
It was, it's not all about eating, you know, granola and, you know, giving up all of our,
you know, meat and beer, but just learning how to make those transitions so that it becomes
something that's comfortable for everybody in your household or in your life or for you.
And then just over time, you'll notice it just starts to become the habit, right?
Right.
So I thought that maybe we could give some tips on just helping people learn how to transition
into a plant-based diet or just making it more of what they eat.
You know, one of the things that I think was really helpful for me, I know when I was health
coaching people, the reason I went and got my raw food chef certification was because
I wanted to give people some creative options to add more, not that they necessarily had
to live that raw foods life, which is things that are cooked under 120 degrees and it's
all plant-based.
But also to just give variety because you can do so many fun things with fruits and
vegetables that we in our normal standard American diet would never even think of, but
it's delicious, nutritious, and actually really fun.
And I even think a really good tip for people who want to move more into a plant-based diet
is to look up vegan recipes because you don't have to be a vegan to make a vegan recipe.
You can make a vegan recipe because they're very creative and very exciting and very tasty.
And then you can add a little bit of your meat or a little bit of whatever it is you
want to add.
I love that.
And I always tell people that too.
I love using Pinterest as a search engine and to also keep track of recipes that I find
that I love because when I'm trying to make my weekly menu, I'll often refer back to that
for inspiration, like before I go grocery shopping.
But instead of searching even vegetarian, I search vegan recipes because you can add
in a little bit of dairy or cheese or you can add in a little bit of animal protein
if you want.
But I think the vegan is an easy way to just, that's the base.
That's the plant base because obviously that's how vegans eat, primarily plants.
So I also like, you know, for me, when I first started transitioning down this road, take
inventory of your pantry and your refrigerator and your freezer.
And it doesn't mean that you have to go and like throw away everything.
Don't go throw away all the ice cream and throw away all those steaks, but take inventory
of what you have and just start slowly like replacing them or as you know, these are things
that I know I don't want to buy again, or I want to stop bringing these things into
the house.
And then you like use them up, but add plants to it.
You know, like if you have a bag of popcorn shrimp in the freezer, what can you serve
with that?
That's going to put more plants in that meal and then just use those things up and, you
know, don't bring them back in.
You know, having the Tower Garden in this apartment, I've got this amazing 36 slots
for this lettuce and all kinds of beautiful produce.
And so it, just having that visual in front of me every day, like today I had some gluten-free,
I don't know, I had this biggest taste for some breaded fish and they were gluten-free
breaded fish and I made it and I went and grabbed the lettuce off of the tower, wrapped
the fish up in the lettuce and eat it like a taco.
So just finding different ways, creative ways to add it, add the vegetables or the fruits
into your everyday.
Yeah.
Just, I always look at any recipe, like what can I do to add more, even if I'm making tacos
with like ground Turkey or ground beef, like how can I, what can I add to that?
Like sometimes I'll mince up or even just shred like zucchini in there or throw some
spinach in that, in the taco meat just to add some more vegetables in there.
And then, you know, if you think that like keep a food journal too, if you want to like
really look at what you are eating and how you can change that, if you keep a food journal,
it'll really help you be real about what, what you are eating that's not plant-based
and then that'll give you an opportunity to think, okay, how can I change that?
How can I take that, that dish or that meal or that recipe and change that up, add more
plants into it.
And then like I said, with like when I do my weekly meal planning or even if it's just
I'm going to the grocery store to buy two or three days worth of food, I look up recipes
beforehand.
I often refer back to my Pinterest board and then intentionally just increasing the amount
of plant foods that I have in each recipe.
Super simple.
I think it's easy.
And it's a way to do it where it's almost like you can, if you have those picky eaters
at home, because I know when we started this journey, my youngest son who's now in college,
he was in elementary school and he was the kid that would eat, like it was, his diet
was all white.
So just to get plants in him was stuff that I, you know, I had to be diligent and I had
to find creative ways to do it, but it pays off.
I mean, like I look back and think the first time or two that I, I served quinoa, that
before nobody knew what it was and nobody could pronounce it, it was like he would die,
you know, and you know how tiny quinoa is, he would see, I would put it in things.
I remember making a turkey quinoa meatloaf one night thinking he'll never know it's in
here.
And he was like, is there quinoa in here?
And I almost fell out of my chair.
I'm like, how does he even see that in here?
It's in the meat and he was refusing it.
But over time, it's just like, you keep introducing those things and keep, you know, keep trying
and it just, you know, then you don't have to keep fighting it because people, they'll
start to like it.
And you know, it's really, it's kind of fun to be a part of a group, like we run the shred
program and it, and there's so many people post different things that they're doing.
Like for me, I love like a taco or a roll and I learned that you can take a big celery
root and cut it really thin and cook it a little bit and use that as your wrap.
So you don't even, and not even know that they're missing your tortilla or, you know,
people that really are addicted to pasta, they, you know, we got the idea of the spiralizing
your zucchini or spiralizing your sweet potato.
And you know, when I was introducing that to my children and you put a good sauce on
there, they don't even realize they're missing their, their empty, you know, no nutrition
pasta.
What other kinds of things did you kind of, did you like replace Kristen, like something
that you replaced that was, you know, something that was not healthy and then found a way
to maybe introduce a different, a best fruit or vegetable to make it?
Well, you know what comes to mind actually is with my, cause my youngest son was my pickiest
and he was like addicted to breakfast cereal and it was my own fault cause I was giving
it to him and I'm still not a huge, you know, I don't love breakfast cereal, but I just,
just with stuff like that where I knew I'd started to become aware, like this is not,
this is not healthy.
This is doing nothing but like, you know, you're starting out your day spiking blood
sugar and starting that roller coaster first thing in the morning, I need to get this kid
away from this.
So I just started, you know, buying cereals that were, that were more grain forward so
that they had, you know, the whole grain in them and then just really like transitioning
completely away from breakfast cereal and having like just oatmeal, like whole rolled
oats and even buying the oats and buying like some small mason jars and doing refrigerator
like overnight oatmeal and keeping those in the refrigerator so that, you know, breakfast
cereal, you know, corn pops was a thing of the past and then now it's just the grab and
go a little jar of, and even still he's a college kid and if I keep those in the, in
the refrigerator for him, he still eats them.
He loves it.
And you can make whatever you want in there.
You can put the whole, I put whole berries, strawberries, blueberries, chunks of banana.
I put nuts in there.
So you're putting, like you're putting, you know, plant foods in that jar of cereal.
So, and that was a good point you made too, that you, you didn't just say, okay, you can't
have your cereal anymore.
You're done.
You took your family and you took, you just step by step, um, transition and, and in that
transition their taste buds started to change and you would be like, you're not wanting
cereal anymore.
No.
And sometimes it's funny because when you think that you do and then you eat that way,
whether it's just like a memory or like, you know, like we were talking a minute ago
before we got on here about just emotional eating, especially with the stresses of things
that we're going through right now in the world.
It's making us emotionally eat plus, you know, really being forced indoors and not having
that socialization.
It's like, you think nobody's looking right, so I can eat anything I want.
And then you feel the difference where, so like if you think that you're like, Ooh, Doritos
sound really good.
If you haven't had that in a long time or you haven't had your diet Coke or the junk
foods and then you go back to thinking that you can eat that way or you want it, it's,
you notice how you feel.
Yes, absolutely.
Yep.
And it's, and it's not good.
And that's a good thing when you realize that it doesn't feel good to eat that way and it
makes you want to stick with it more and more, I think.
So good reminders.
So let's, um, can we talk a little bit about just some of the health benefits for people
as to why they would want to transition into this type of, you know, plant based eating?
Well, you know, one of the things that hits me right away when you say that is, you know,
our human body, it's a, it's a self healing and self rejuvenating organism.
And if you give it the proper tools like fruits and vegetables, which we are meant to be really
truly eating, it has the ability to just thrive.
And we don't want to have this life that's just mediocre.
We want to be thriving.
We want our brains to work well, we want our energy to be high, we want our emotions to
be stable and we want to keep ourselves free from disease.
So I just think that, um, just the body being that self healing organism that we don't have
to be sick.
We don't have to be uncomfortable.
And I think the fruits and vegetables is, that's the biggest why you need to be adding
more fruits and vegetables.
Yeah.
And you know what?
It's amazing when you look back and you realize, Oh my gosh, I can't believe I ate that way
for like this majority of my life and my body still functioned.
You know, you see a lot of really unhealthy people that you know, really eat a very poor
diet like nutritionally deprived and they're, they're alive, like they're functioning,
their heart is still beating and they're still moving.
It's just, it's a testament.
But you know, they think it's just also proof that that's, this is what your body wants
because you don't know how good you can feel until, you know, you know how good you feel
now, but how good will you feel if you do this, if you increase this and, and really,
you know, if you do the, you know, there may be diseases that you never know that you didn't
get.
Right.
You know, like things like, you know, a plant-based diet really helps us stay away from things
like heart disease, obesity, cancers, and well, and inflammation, inflammation is the
root of disease.
So when we, when our system's inflamed, it's, you know, one thing leads into another and,
and that's even the topic we could have on another podcast, but a whole other, we could
go on and on about that.
What I think is really important, especially right now is that plants contain the phytonutrients
that our, that our bodies need.
So they have the phytonutrients, the antioxidants, vitamins and minerals that our bodies, our
cells at the cellular level, the things that we need to help keep our body and our immune
system in balance.
And right now everybody's really thinking about the strength of their immune system
and how important that is.
And it's at the top of everybody's mind.
And if there's one reason why a plant-based diet is of supreme importance, it's for immune
health right now.
Right.
Yeah, absolutely.
And, and making sure in that, that you're not only, I mean, a lot of people seem to
think they're eating a lot of fruits and vegetables when they eat the same, you know, banana or
apple for breakfast, a little bit of steamed broccoli and maybe a salad for dinner.
And there's not a huge variety.
So I think one other thing important about a plant-based diet is to have that variety,
have a rainbow full of colors.
And you know another tip, just I thought about this is when you're at the grocery store,
you don't like some of the things you kind of look over, you don't really even think
about them.
But I challenge people, and this has been a challenge that I've heard many times is
pick something up that you've never ever bought before, never even heard of before, and then
go bring it home, go home and Google, you know, look up what recipes you can make with
it and learn about it and maybe create something that you love that you never would have loved
if you didn't try.
Yeah, I love that.
I used to tell people that when I would take coaching clients to the grocery store, like
try something new.
Like what do I do with this?
I don't know.
Buy it.
See what you can do.
I love it.
I love it.
And you know what I love?
I think the, oh my gosh, the resource and stumbling over my words, Forks Over Knives
is a great resource for people that are trying to figure out how to start.
So you know, the movie, there's the Forks Over Knives movie, which is a great place
to start just watching that and seeing, I love that movie where they showed these people
that were really in poor health and how they transitioned them in a very short period of
time.
People with, you know, like type two diabetes and heart disease and obese people and put
them on a very restrictive plant-based diet for just what I think they did it for two
weeks and how it dramatically impacted their health.
But Forks Over Knives, it's a company, it's a business, right, Dr. Esselstyn and his son
they we have the opportunity to hear him speak at that, at that conference, that time
that was amazing.
At the Nutraceuticals Conference, that was great.
That was a highlight for me hearing him speak, but they're the whole, that's a great resource
because they have recipes, a blog.
So if people are struggling with how or like what to do, like how do you make a meal that's
plant-based, I think that's a great resource to have.
And even, you know, like when you are planning your weekly calendar, if this seems new or
foreign to you, you know, meet with Mondays, pick one or two meals each week that you specifically
make that doesn't have any, you know, animal or dairy and, you know, and just try to challenge
yourself like that.
And then we can find some recipes that you love.
And everyone will be okay.
They won't die if they don't have their meat or dairy this day.
It's going to be okay.
If you're hungry when you're done, I think people think like that, like, but what, there's
no meat.
Am I going to be able to survive?
I'm going to make it till tomorrow.
I'm going to be hungry.
Like, you know, it's okay.
There's another meal after this one, you'll get another meal real quick.
I want to say this.
When I would have my raw food classes, I'd have like people like sign up for it and come
and kind of like be grumbling going, okay, great.
And they would have little, just samples of the things that I made and they left full
because as a society, we are overfed and undernourished.
The nutrition that you're going to get from fruits and vegetables won't leave you hungry.
And it's, it's, it's satisfying.
And I feel like, so like, I love to eat, I've never been a small plate person.
I like to put the food on the plate.
I think one thing I love the most about plants, it's, it's like the, the one food category
eat all you want, right?
It's okay.
Like I had a huge salad, like I, when I have salad, usually at lunch, cause that's, I love
to just put whatever I want in it.
I don't serve salad in a little, like, you know, a little bowl.
Like I go get like the serving bowl and I put all the salad in it and I eat it all.
It's okay.
It's your unlimited food category.
You can't say that about ice cream or pizza.
There's a limit to that about those things.
Right.
Yeah.
But plants, hooray for plants, eat all you want.
That's good news for the people that like to chew.
And Sharon's even been known to throw her produce in the Vitamix and blend it up and
drink it down.
Absolutely.
I love a salad occasionally, but, and I do eat them.
I usually throw like a fried egg on top of it or mix it in with stuff, but I just feel
better about getting in my body and just throw it in a blender and drink it.
Make a salad smoothie.
Okay, well, I'm not there yet.
I still like to chew my salad, but I'll drink my smoothies for the breakfast.
Usually with fruit, not salad stuff, not lunch stuff.
Well thank you so much, Sharon, for doing this with me and I think that I hope that
we shared some really good information with people to help clear up what this is and give
them some good compelling reasons why they would want to do it.
So I'm going to go ahead and wrap things up here for us today, but first off, I just want
to give you guys a huge thank you and thank you to Sharon for joining me today and thanks
everybody for listening.
And I hope you found this content to be of value.
And if you like what you hear, I do hope that you'll share this podcast with a friend and
be sure to check out my website, commonsensenutritionaz.com and while you're in there, feel free to shoot
me a message and let me know what you'd like me to touch on for future podcasts.
And while you're in there, also be sure to click on the programs button to learn a little
bit more about the clean eating program.
Sharon mentioned a little bit about it that I lead each month and I've taken my knowledge
of holistic nutrition, health coaching, and preventive health and I combine that with
my knowledge of different dietary theories and I use this to help coach you through this
lifestyle program with a 10 day monthly jumpstart and I'm really excited for you to check it
out.
So the website once again is commonsensenutritionaz.com to get started and until then, until next time,
this is Kristen Peterson with my friend Sharon Lacey.
Stay healthy, eat clean, and thank you for listening to my Common Sense Nutrition podcast.