120: How to Heal with Whole Plant Foods (part 2)

Anita: 0:58

Hey there, Sunshine. Welcome to the Power On Plants Podcast, where your host, Jarrod and Anita Roussel and we're absolutely head over heels for whole plant foods, and helping you navigate this incredible plant based journey. That's because our lives have been completely changed by plant based goodness, we used to struggle everyday with excess pounds and low energy, vascular disease, joint pain and lack of sleep, just to name a few. And even though we're medical professionals, we still weren't getting practical answers that actually worked. So we dug into the research, we started living what we learned. And now we both of our lives back. And that's what we want for you to the truth is you can do this, and it's not hard, you just need a way that will bring real and lasting change. And that path, it has to be simple and enjoyable. And it's got to be delicious, too. So are you ready to live your life to the fullest, then you're in the right place, because Living without limits. That's what power plants is all about. So pull up your chair, grab a matcha latte, and let's get started. Hey, sister, we love having you join us today for power plants. If this is your first time here, we want you to know that we are thrilled to have you joining us. And if you're regular, of course, we're glad you're hanging out with us. Again, this is part two and a two part series. If you have not heard part one, this is probably not going to make a whole lot of sense for you, and you're not going to get the same result. So you need to go back right now. And listen to the episode right before this one. And we are talking about in this two part series, How to move from surviving your life from just dreaming about all the things that you want to do, and just trying to barely get through the day. That's how you're surviving to move to thriving, how do you get to a place where you are doing those things that you dreamed about on a regular basis. And so we explored a lot of that and where we were and, and how it feels to be in that situation and just started revealing some of the steps of what to do to start getting out of that. And so today, we're launching into part two. And we were talking about at the end of the last episode, there was a point where we realized that food had some of the beginning answers was one of the big keys. And so we had started doing some research because we're big into research and we wanted to make sure that what we learned for ourselves, you know, at this point, we weren't thinking, hey, I want to start a business. And so I want to fix something in my life to be able to share it with people, we're just trying to get ourselves out of a hole, I'm just gonna be honest. I mean, we were in a bad situation, just

Jarrod: 3:29

wanted to see some sunlight, just see some some evidence of hope there.

Anita: 3:33

Yeah, just help us escape throw me around, throw me lad or something. And, and obviously, you know, we were looking for the diagnosis we were looking at first and we were looking for all these things, medicine things, we thought that were going to heal us or help us and in the end, really, those are just going to address the symptoms, they weren't going to pull us out of the hole we are in and so we needed a rope, something that was actually going to work, you know, we needed to address the root cause Yeah, and so there was a point when we realized that fate it was a big part of that. And so we had done some research again, we decided to take out oils or at least to start well we were changing

Jarrod: 4:12

them because the grapeseed oil that we were using actually ended up being one of the worst for causing inflammation I mean it had much higher omega sixes and we're not going to go into a lot of details here but a much higher level of omega sixes which can be pro inflammatory. And so

Anita: 4:28

but what we found is that we removed all the oils piece by piece we started noted that weren't in foods now feed naturally has helped royals and it for you that make your food taste amazing if you know how to get that out of your for

Jarrod: 4:41

your body does need a certain amount of the natural fats that are found in these foods but

Anita: 4:46

the pressed out oils pro inflammatory, very low nutrients, very high calorie. We talked about some of that in the last episode. But I want to get into what happened from that point. What did we actually do? Because that was the point we realized we saw and just our minds were blown. We got results from this. Nobody's telling us these this thing like how do we not eat oil? Now what do we do with that? I mean, now we know we don't want to eat it. It's causing this problem in my body. So how do I get it out? I mean, I grew up in the South. Look, I mean, oh, it's my middle. We fried everything we drink. We made homemade dressings we could make but we just started a bunch of it in our dressings you know, cuz you gotta have a way to make it stick. Nevermind you there's about 1020 30 other ways you can make dressing stick to your salad, but we didn't know well that's what we did.

Jarrod: 5:35

And I would say initially too, we were thinking okay, certain oils may still be healthy. So we need to avoid the bad ones and use the good ones and we did get some results but not to the level of what we have. Now once we realize guess you don't want the processed oils. There's really not any health benefit to that right. And I want to say one thing here too that I think about because you here get this feed out this thing you Why can you think I don't know how I'm going to do that. There are ways that are simple, that are easy. And that can be enjoyable with your life

Anita: 6:04

that will work as a busy woman, I'm telling you, I'm a busy woman, I have four kids, we homeschool them all. We're busy, we run a business full time. And there's a lot else going on in our lives. I'm not going to hold you around here listening to you today. But I just want you to know, this is real life, press two. And we're not going to tell you to do something that's impossible. It's really hard. You know, we joke about it, I cook less now as far as timelines in the kitchen, than I ever had before. And people talk about, oh, eating whole plant food and doing all this, it's hard and hours of preparation takes a long time. And it's just not true. It's just not true. But you just got to know how to do it. And that's what we're on the quest to find out. How do you do this, we were on a quest. And we were gonna find it out or we were going to die try and because we were at a point where we were dying. I mean, we were not doing well at all. So what do you do when you need to heal when you need results you don't want to do and you feel overwhelmed, and you don't even know where to start.

Jarrod: 7:02

I feel like Indiana Jones in his first movie, you know, we're going for whatever that golden little head was, and we've got this big rock looming about to crush us.

Anita: 7:12

Quest, it's sure that it felt like that, though. I mean, if you can feel that situation you were in and you knew it was very serious. Well, and the truth is, if you're in that situation, and you're on the same path, and nothing changes, what's going to happen down the road, I mean, you're gonna be on the same path, you're just going to be further down that same path, things aren't just gonna change. I mean, the truth is, you got to do something. But what you need is a path that isn't miserable. And that's actually you know, is gonna work and give you some improvement. Give you some hope. You know, and there is hope. And it can be done. Yes, we just didn't know. And so we had to dig and figure it out and piece it together on our own. It took us a lot longer than it had to, because we had to do that on our own. Oh, absolutely. And I'm thankful

Jarrod: 7:55

that in the very beginning, we had known then what we know now we would have made all those changes. And what has taken us years probably would have only been a few weeks.

Anita: 8:04

And I think that's why we're getting me to tears when we see friends who come to us. And we just share one or two things and they start getting these results and these improvements. And it makes me tear up because I remember what that was like, Yeah, and you start seeing that line and you start saying, seeing, hey, I can do this one thing, I can do these two things. And before long of doing that, you've got this whole big amount plethora is the word that comes to mind. You know, that's a good word plethora of things that you're doing that are just now your new habits. And it's just what you do, and you love it. And you never dream of going back. I mean, we have people tell us this all the time, you now found food freedom. That's how Brenda likes to say I have found food freedom. And Anita, I would never dream of going back. I love this way of living even better than I was living before the food tastes better. But now I'm free. Because the food loves me back. And it gives me the power I need to do the things I need to do power on plants.

Jarrod: 8:55

And I'm actually getting goosebumps now thinking about that. Also in that scenario where they do one or two things, they see it works. That's when you see that spark of hope in their eyes. And they light up and they realize, wait a minute, this isn't just another empty promise of a hard. I don't know hard program or like a diet program where it's disgusting, I'll suffer through it for the results. But then they don't last.

Anita: 9:18

Keep up with all these unnatural ways of doing things that you'd never do to begin with. And you're keeping up with like we talked about all the dieting math, calories, the points, the macros, the grams, the portions, I'm a word portions, I don't even go there. I mean, I've got to have some food, I've got to have enough to satisfy. I've got to have an amount of it on my plate that's going to make me fall. And I've got to have the foods that are going to make me feel full and fill. Fill my body. Well, I'm fuel it. Because the whole point is getting fueled, right? So you can be well enough to do the things that you want to do that you just again, like we're talking about you sit and dream about Jim before

Jarrod: 9:55

which that is what makes life worth living. Absolutely. If you feel great, you don't hurt you have this energy. Are you going to do that all to just sit around and say, Hey, I feel great. No, you're going to do it. Because you have dreams. Like we say maybe you want to run a business, but you just didn't have the energy and the mental clarity to do so. Or maybe you want to go hike the Appalachian Trail that's always been a dream of yours, or you want to go do it with your kids and take a month, whatever. Maybe you want to take a three month Trek and an RV across the United States and go see some some sites like the Grand Canyon, right. And we thought that'd be pretty cool. But you don't have the energy. And you certainly don't want to be behind the wheel of an RV if you feel that bad. Right? So what is it that you want to do? What is it that making your body feel good and energized going to do for you? Right? And

Anita: 10:42

maybe you're just at a point where I was where I kind of lost hope and all those dreams. All I was thinking about was just surviving. I mean, you hit survival mode where you just think I just got to survive this day. And I've reached the point where you come home and I'd look at you and go if you got any hope of having dinner. I mean If we're going to eat anything tonight, please. And he knew, I mean, he's gotten the routine where you pull the stool over to the, to the stove. So I could sit there and try to muster up the energy to stir a pot of stuff while you tried to get the kids ready for bed. And it was just it was chaos. But even more than just the physical situation. It was emotional. Okay.

Jarrod: 11:18

And the irony, though, is that in the beginning, you were making the foods that was causing our problem. Yeah.

Anita: 11:26

So I'm sitting there cooking. Because I'm cooking, I'm homemade. And we were doing better. I mean, we'd already been on that journey of doing better we were eating, the better meats were eating organic, we were buying grass fed things, were buying the no hormones added types of stuff, right? We had started doing special today, some of that already cage free eggs, things like that. And we started doing more of it. As we discovered the whole thing. We started trying to clean that up even more. But we just didn't know that. Again, that wasn't the full answer. But we were we didn't know that we needed more fruits and veggies, we knew that those were things that would heal our bodies, and we ate vegetables at most every meal. But we had a lot of other stuff in there a lot of needed to get out of dairy. And if I'd known how I could have replaced some of those things with even more vegetables. And we would have enjoyed it just as much. Right? Like, how do you eat a barbecue sandwich? If you've loved barbecue? And if you're just eating whole plant fades? You know, these are the things we've got to know. I mean, how do I get the things I love? How do I get a burrito waffle? Or how do I eat creamy things? I mean, for me it was cheese. Like how do I eat a grilled cheese sandwich? How do I get some cheese on that pizza. So I'm not just eating bread with some veg on it. Which by the way, you get to a point eating this way where that really satisfying that crave. That's what you want. That's what you enjoy. But sometimes I do like cheese on my pizza. And the other day I thought you know what, I want a pot pie. I haven't had pot time for it. Why did we not make pot pie? How do I get? How do I make this? Oh, I know exactly how to make it creamy, I know exactly what I can do and get those flavors in there. And I learned the flavor profiles, and boom, it's done. And I mean, I had a pot pie in the oven in probably 30 minutes. And that was, you know, one of my longer meals really is it's crazy, easy times,

Jarrod: 13:16

five minutes to prepare, throw things into an instant pot, turn it on. And of course, you got to wait for it to cook. But it doesn't take nearly as long as when it's just on the stove.

Anita: 13:24

But then you're free. I'm telling you how busy women are like, where do we get our time back, you get your time back by learning these, these systems and these ways of doing things that will do the work for you. You know, it's like what I think about like when we were younger, and how our views on these things have changed because we used to just think about the money instead of the time. And so we would think about, we got to paint this house. And so what I need is I need to figure out how to do it myself. And I've got to buy the paint and do all this, but I'm gonna save so much money on the labor. But if our time would have been freed up, we could have done so much more, we could have accomplished so much more. You know, there's a thing where your time becomes more valuable. And you understand the value of that time you can't get time back. There's ways to figure out how to bring in more money, but how are you going to get your time back. So you've got to learn how to make the most of your time, that's super, super important, especially if you're wanting to make the memories and do all these things we're talking about. So we've got to power our bodies, right. So you're eating all these foods on a regular basis burger some of these things I've mentioned cheesy things I love chowders How do I get that creaminess without heavy cream in my feed? You know, I like sweet things. I gotta have my dessert. So my sweet treats or drinks, you know, I like chocolate drinks. I like things like that. How do I get those things? And heal my body? Well, that's just not possible. Because you and you gotta have, you know, that's just not healthy. You just can't do that. Yes, you can.

Jarrod: 14:54

And right now you're employing one of the things that we teach. Right now, you're not saying I can't have you're saying how can I have

Anita: 15:02

that? That's a game changer right there. Yes, that's the thing, you got to start asking and figuring out how to answer. Because once you do that, that key unlocks a whole round. It's gonna blow everything. We won't go into that right now. But I got an unlock that I felt like I had pointed out, we do talk about that, and the four part series that we have coming up and y'all got to get into that because it's free. And it's again, it's only going to be available for a short time. When we announce it get in there and get that video series we'll send it directly to you send it directly to your email changer. It's a game changer. But but we're just talking about the intro to that here. We're talking about how do I get more fruits and vegetables on a regular basis. So what do you do? Well, you start thinking I need new recipes. I mean, as a woman, you're going I gotta have recipes, but you know, I wanted them to taste good. I didn't want them to have a bazillion ingredients I didn't know understand or couldn't pronounce. That happens a lot of times you start eating Vegan or healthy plant based start trying to get more fruits and vegetables, and you will enter a land of foreign lingo

Jarrod: 16:38

with that, but honestly, I feel like what happens more often than that is that you get this recipe and you taste and you think this is bland, it has no flavor. Where's the satisfaction there? And then it's when you give up you think, Well, yeah, this is good for me. But if it tastes crappy, pardon my English there, but well, your rice crappy, I don't want to do it.

Anita: 16:59

I don't want to eat that. So you go back and you think now like we're talking about before all that time I spent. It's not just that it tastes bad. It tastes bad. How am I gonna do this for life. But then you got to think I just spent all that time preparing this thing, buying the food, getting it all together, and we sit down to eat it and nobody touches their meal. Because I'm just gonna be on it. It's honest, is straight up gross. I mean, it's gross. And so I'm not touching that if the

Jarrod: 17:25

people are eating it, the expressions on their faces are priceless may or they're secretly

Anita: 17:31

scraping it off the table to the dog, you know,

Jarrod: 17:34

you hear the dog ate his dinner tonight. Why not?

Anita: 17:37

That's exactly and say anything, you know, you know that you need food that tastes great, that tastes amazing. It's got to be easy. I mean, we love great food, it had to work with our lifestyle. So you know, you go to these websites, and you want to learn how to heal, how to get better. So you can get all these things in life that we're talking about. But all you find or what what you find when you go to those websites, all you're finding is recipes, you went in search for recipes, all you found recipes, many of them don't work. Yeah, you absolutely need recipes in the beginning. That's why we provide people with recipes and solder membership, that's one of the first things we give is our cookbook, if necessary, you've got to have that in place, they've got to be simple. The ingredients you've got to be able to pronounce and know what they are. And it's the fates kind of not be something that's totally foreign to you when it lands on your plate. I mean, if you like burgers, you need to know how to make burgers again, you know, if you like, whatever, like we talked about before, you got to know how to replace all those things you love. So, but the thing is, it's not just about the recipes, that's never going to bring you healing. And so you go and you search out how to heal your body. And all you find are recipes. Okay, they were the recipes were okay. Finally, we found some we picked out and we found some when we started getting some changes, but we knew we needed more than just recipes. And over time, we pieced it all together, we went back and figured out what did we do? What were the big needle movers the big game changers and what order did we do those? When we were we started getting results, what was the order of doing these things? So we figured it all step by step from where we were once we got healed, we went back and looked at like, yeah, what did we do what worked. So we took it took some time to weave together, right exactly what we did. But then we wrote it out. And we put it in the strategic system. And that's how we healed our bodies from the inside out. And it's how it works. Because again, it's research based, that's how we've had friends do it, you know, and ask us and they've done the same thing. And it worked. And we have clients that have done and it works. And the research shows it works. And then we call, we've made it a seven step system that's simple to follow, we called it and we still call it the power on plant success path. So if you ever hear us talk about the success path, this is a path that's going to get you from where you are, to where you want to be in your life. So you have all those opportunities open up for you. And so over the next seven episodes, what we're gonna do is we're going to start sharing this system with you, we're going to start opening up to you what do you mean, besides recipes? What are the seven things that are that are going to unlock opportunity for you, and open up the realm of possibility that's waiting for you on the other side of all this?

Jarrod: 20:27

And in developing the Success Path? Like you said, we looked back at what did we do that brought us from where we were to where we are now. But we all say the exact process, right? We also wanted to look at how would it do it more efficiently? So like we say, Turn on decades into days, what took our years and turn it into days, maybe only just a few weeks for you.

Anita: 20:49

Yeah. And we looked at and we said, okay, how can we make this more actionable? We know we're busy, that people are coming to us are busy. I mean, this is a busy time in life. We're not just dealing with the usual stuff anymore. There are new challenges that we're all facing. So what are the actionable steps that we took? Or that people could take what might even get there, get them there easier and more simply than we did even? And so that's what we're looking at what are those simple strategies that would address those root issues of the health struggles. And for that reason, that wouldn't move the needle in your life because the whole point again, is not just to get you out of that health situation. To make the pain go away to give your energy back, right?

Jarrod: 21:34

Very good first step.

Anita: 21:36

Exactly. Yeah, that's what we're looking at. But getting rid of those extra pounds, you know, stopping that sound and my carotid artery that was getting clogged up, by the way as I was doing things, stopping that from warm. So I didn't need that needed to be roto rooter down, right. We didn't need that. Yes, that surgery. We wanted to fix things. No,

Jarrod: 21:56

we did actually, on your side have a family member that had to go through that surgery? Absolutely. So that was a very real thing for us. We had seen it firsthand, being held professionals, we knew what that sound meant, what was going on. And then in your mind, you're all already thinking, in 20 years, I'm going to have to have surgery on the major vessel going to my head, right? I mean, that's, I don't know, I want to say daunting. But I mean, that's it's kind of scary. Maybe that's the best word to say scary.

Anita: 22:25

And the other thing you think about is you start thinking I will my family member had it. So it must be genetic. And I'm not even going there. No, no, no, no, no. As we have, again, we're going to be talking about that in the series. But I want you guys to know that's natural, if you've ever thought that. That's okay. But it's not a right thought process. And there's a reason for that. Because that can keep you stuck. And we don't want you to stay stuck. No, our hearts are for you. We care about you. We're in your corner, and we want to see you move forward and get the results that you're after and not keep being stuck by these mindsets of things that you've just been told by a health provider who just didn't know any better because they weren't trained in it. It's not because they don't care about you, they just don't know.

Jarrod: 23:07

Or maybe you just look at your family. And you see all your family members have this this handful of things. And you just assume, okay, the doctor didn't say I was condemned to it. But this is my reality of everyone around me. So this must obviously be my date, my fate or my destiny.

Anita: 23:23

Exactly. And so like you were saying, the first thing you think of is how do I escape these things. But it's not really those things that are the main issue, right? The real issue is that the struggles you're having, are holding you back from experiencing all that there is in life, all the memories, you want to make that impact you were placed to make here as a woman of purpose in this world. But that's what's really at stake here. And that's why we're super passionate about whole food, plant based living and natural healing. It's changed everything for us. And we love living this way so much, we wouldn't even consider going back to our old ways of doing things.

Jarrod: 24:02

If you hadn't found that we wouldn't be here talking to you i True, I wouldn't be here sharing this message of hope and healing to you know,

Anita: 24:10

if we had not, not only would we not be sharing this, I honestly believe I wouldn't even be here on this earth. I mean, I really don't. That's how strongly I believe in it. I know it saved my life. I know it did. And I know it can make big changes. For a lot of people in this world, it can make changes for you, things are going to get better. I'm not telling you, if you have this disease, you're absolutely 100% going to get healing. I don't know your body. I don't know your exact circumstance. But what I do know, is the way that most of us live today and the way that we're taught, there are specific keys that can turn things around for you, that can give you much more of what you're looking for than what you have right now. And you got to ask yourself, what I've done up until this point, because if you're like most women, you've tried a lot of different things. You're not just hearing this for the first time and going oh, you know, this is the first thing I want to try. You probably tried a lot of things and you've grown frustrated and overwhelmed at the feeling of are things always gonna be this way. Am I ever gonna? I mean, those are the things I used to lay awake at night and think about how am I going to get out of this situation? I guess I'm just going to have to learn to deal with it. I'm getting older, my body's not functioning like it's supposed to. And yeah, no, I could eat a little better. But you know, like the food I'm eating, I had no idea. I could like a different way if somebody would just show me how to do it. But I liked what I was doing. And it's hard when you start thinking about making changes, and especially if you don't know what to make, what to do that can start moving the needle for you. This actually been shown for years and years and years and the research. Yes. And no one told us. Why didn't they tell us? That's why we're passionate about this. Because we want you to know, we're not some dictator out there going. This is the only way and you've got to do it or else you know, we know this works. We knows know that this is the way but we also know that you have we want you to have choice in your life. Why would I want to control somebody else's life? I don't want somebody coming in and controlling man. But what I do want for you and what Jarrod does want for you what our passion is, and our greatest heart's desire is for you to have a choice. Because when you don't know and you're stuck, you don't have a choice. Don't have

Jarrod: 26:20

the choice. You're just stuck. And like we say before, you don't know what you don't know. And so right passion is to get this message out and then you can do as little or as much as you want this our hope and our prayer for you is that you jump into this with both feet and get the the life change, like what we've experienced.

Anita: 26:36

This is what lights us, because we know it works. We've seen it work time. And again, we've lived it. We've seen it with close friends, with family, with clients, with other people around the world who discovered the joy of this way of living. And that is why we love sharing it with you. We look forward to seeing you again sunshine in the upcoming podcast episodes, where you're going to get to know even more about the strategic system that we put in place. And you're going to hear all about the different steps and what you can actually do about this. We look forward to hearing your incredible testimonials too. I mean, that just we've talked about that in these two episodes that just lights us up. Have a great day. We cannot wait to hang out with you more on power on plants.