When Grace Smith resolved to quit smoking in 2011, she began with the most common approaches: nicotine gum, the patch, going cold turkey (is there a vegan equivalent to that phrase?).
When a single hypnotherapy session led her to quit that same day, she turned from a skeptic into a avid promoter.
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Amy Baglan is both a Type A Entrepreneur and a committed mindful meditator. The founder of MeetMindful, an app and movement that connects spiritually engaged people for both dating and friendship, Amy drives hard for achievement, and also consciously aims for that “being OK in the moment” vibe that doesn’t depend on external success.
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Emily Fletcher is one of the new faces of an ancient practice. Former Broadway star and founder of Ziva Meditation, she talks funny, dirty, relatable, and wise about one of the simplest, cheapest, and most profound of wellness practices: going within ourselves.
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Michael Klaper, MD, is one of the world’s most eloquent, convincing, passionate, and persistent advocates of a plant-based diet. He’s studied the health effects, the environmental ramifications, and the psychological aspects of eating meat and junk food, and can put the most complex science in totally accessible terms.
Here’s how he explains the vast majority of chronic disease in the Western world: “We’re putting diesel fuel in a gas engine.”
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Jeff Stanford combines a scientist’s mind with a vegan’s heart and a mystic’s soul. He’s co-founder of the Stanford Inn by the Sea in Mendocino, California, an eco-resort complete with a fully vegan restaurant, The Ravens.
Sid Garza-Hillman, who’s the nutritionist at the Stanford Inn, suggested that Jeff would provide fascinating content for the podcast, and Jeff did not disappoint.
Jeff’s a longtime spiritual seeker, an old-school “back to the land” hippie, and a philosopher. And an advocate of a vegan diet, from all the usual perspectives as well as some that are uniquely his.
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Rob Greenfield has put the fun and friendly into environmental activism. Known for his eye-catching and media-worthy campaigns and adventures to wake people up to the destruction we’re causing to our planet, Rob brings a positivity and sense of humor and humility to what is too often a dreary scold-fest.
Rob was originally on track to live an opulent American dream, complete with nice stuff, fast car, big house, and enough money to do whatever he wanted. A life in which he never had to think about the downstream consequences of his actions, choices, and consumption.
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When Ken Lander disembarked from a plane on December 16, 2016, he lost his breath, stumbled, and couldn’t make to baggage claim. When the 430-pound Lander was examined in the emergency room, it was determined that it was a very sick heart that had nearly cost him his life that day.
Further tests revealed a 90% blockage in the left descending artery, and severely compromised heart efficiency (“ejection fraction” in cardio lingo).
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Lani Muelrath is a good friend of the podcast (on the show for the third time), and a prolific thinker, teacher, and writer.
Lani’s new book, The Mindful Vegan: A 30-Day Plan for Finding Health, Balance, Peace, and Happiness, covers the third of her three pillars of a healthy life: mastery over habits of thinking the first two being physical activity and a whole-food plant-based diet).
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Judson Brewer, author of The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love – Why We Get Hooked, & How We Can Break Bad Habits – kept his meditation practice and medical career separate for a decade. Luckily for us, it eventually dawned on him to inform his research and clinical practice with the 2500-year-old insights of Buddhism.
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Nalida Lacet Besson wasn’t so concerned about weighing 240 pounds or passing the occasional painful gallstone. What got her attention in the summer of 2013 was a physical malaise so complete and overwhelming, she believed she was dying.
Everything hurt, including her skin. It was as if her body were saying, “I’ve had enough of this. Time to rest.”
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