Speaker 1: 0:00

Do you have friends or family members who are genuinely concerned about your plant-based journey? They weren't worried about you at all when you were eating fast food or the standard American diet, but now you're eating plant-based. They're afraid you're missing out on nutrients. Sister, this is a real thing, jared, and I get it. I don't know how to deal with these people. I don't know what to say to them. How can I make them stop? How can I make them understand? We're going to share with you the top ways that we recommend answering this question, so that they no longer have to worry about you or how you're feeding your children. So if you don't know what to say to them, this is the perfect episode for you. Hey sister, welcome to the Power On Plants podcast. Are you tired of staring into the fridge wondering what to eat so you can just feel better? Do you want to avoid spending hours in the kitchen making complicated meals in the name of health? Would you love to leave fatigue behind and finally have the energy to do all the things you want to do? Hi, we're Jared and Anita Roussell, christ followers, healthcare professionals, parents of four and big fans of great tasting food. We, too, tried exercising more, eating natural and clean foods. But we still found ourselves struggling with what we thought were changes that come with age or bad genes, and we weren't finding answers to traditional routes. So we dug into the research and created our secret nutritional weapon sustainable plant-based living. The truth is, you can eat more whole plant foods and it's not hard. You just need the way. That's realistic and delicious so you never feel deprived. If you're ready to enjoy your meals, no longer be held back by your health struggles and actively live your life, then you're in the right place. So grab your favorite plant-based cup of happy pop in those earbuds and let's get started. So your relatives or friends Are they concerned about how you're eating now that you're trying to eat healthier, now that you're getting more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts and seeds in your life? I know it may sound crazy to you and you may think what have I lost my mind here? Because they weren't concerned about it before, when I was eating, the way I was eating, that was harming me. But now that I've lost 20 pounds, my diabetes is going away and my high blood pressure is almost gone, they're really worried about me. This is genuine. They're coming from a place of genuine concern. I don't think most of them are trying to sabotage you. So we want to come at this from a place of love when we answer. But we're going to give you three specific strategies today that you can use to help them understand. But before we get into the strategies, the one thing that I want to preface this with is to say it's not a time to argue or feel like you have to give them all 100 reasons why you know that you need to be healthy, plant-based, because it's just going to stir things up. It's going to worry them even more. They may not understand it. You want to take a more calm approach here and you do not have to give them every reason why.

Speaker 2: 2:53

I think sometimes what can happen is it becomes about the conflict of I'm right, no, I'm right, and then the whole reason for the conversation to begin with gets lost, and then there just ends up being tension and fighting or fussing or more worry. Which is really not what we want with this.

Speaker 1: 3:11

So the first step we want to keep it fun and kind of light. But let's say they're in your family. They're not just in your family, they're in your household, because that happens sometimes. Maybe it's a spouse, or maybe it's a grown child that spends a lot of time with you, or just someone in your house. Whoever it is, maybe it's an in-law. Have movie night. Pop some of your popcorn. You don't have to put oil on it. There's many ways to eat your popcorn. This isn't a popcorn episode, but make a treat that you'll all enjoy. That's healthy. Get down together with them and watch forks over knives or what the health Forks over knives are, what the health? Those are the two movies that we recommend highest. There are others that you can watch, but you don't want to bombard them with 20 different movies about whole food, plant based now and how eating the standard American diets harming the Environment and it's hurting the animals and it's all this other stuff that you just don't have to get into with them right now. If they're just genuinely concerned about your health, you want them to understand why this is the healthiest way that you can choose to eat. It might even inspire them to do the same, but at the very least it will get them to thinking so sit down and have a movie night, watch forks over knives or what the health? But what if they don't live there with you? Send them a link. You could get both of these movies online for free. Okay, so what the health? Search YouTube, you can find it on there forks over knives. It's on their website. It's the free screening of the movie. You just have to enter your email address to opt in. They'll give you the link and you can Watch the film. It's not hard. They're both free. Do it for them, and if you haven't watched them, watch them first. You won't believe how it is gonna spur you on in your journey. And if you have watched them and it's been a while watch them again, because then you'll have some talking points if they have questions afterwards too. It's just gonna make you more informed and even more adamant about these choices that you've made for yourself and why they're the best ones for you. Step number two Provide the proof. There's a lot of proof in the movies, but there are two references that, when we got this question recently, jared had shared, and I think this is just such a great idea Because you've got the scientific proof and a body of professionals that are backing up this way of living.

Speaker 2: 5:21

This came up recently in one of our monthly coaching calls and one of our members had mentioned that a family member was concerned about Her, but also her young daughter, and so what I shared with her will give you a link in the show notes to this specific reference. But it's the Academy of Nutrition. Dietetics has said that a whole food, plant based lifestyle is Adequate, from birth to death, for women that are pregnant, nursing, infants, for the entire life spectrum, that this is an adequate diet. So this is right Academy of Nutrition. For all of the United States. That is saying that you will get all the nutrients you need.

Speaker 1: 5:58

The only caveat to that was B12, but that's a whole different subject and it's not just whole food, plant based people that are deficient in B12, and one and six Mediators is B12 deficient, but it has to do with how the source of our food is now compared to what it was just two or three hundred years ago.

Speaker 2: 6:14

So that was really the only thing they mentioned. Everything else, you will get adequate nutrition For the entire spectrum of your life.

Speaker 1: 6:22

I want to stop you right there, because Maybe they're thinking well, I don't know how to do that. How do I get B12? You can easily get a sublingual B12 tablet that will dissolve right into your tongue, go into your system and help you to have adequate levels of B12. You can easily find that, dr.

Speaker 2: 6:37

Gregor has.

Speaker 1: 6:38

Yeah, dr Michael Gregor has videos about that and how to get that and how much you should be taking and all that. So it's easy and it's deficient in most everyone's diets because of the way we've treated the earth today. That's as far as we'll go on that, because this episode is not about that. I just want you to understand, and Jared is adamant about I do not want to eat. In a way I mean he said this so many times like if I'm gonna eat, in a way I've got to understand that it is going to provide everything that I need. Because if this is the lifestyle, if this is the way of eating that the Creator created us for, then by nature it has to provide everything that we need. It just makes sense. Otherwise it's not how we were created, right?

Speaker 2: 7:19

and then, once we were convinced that, yes, this should meet every single bit of our nutrient requirements, then I was. I was sold like yep, this is what we're gonna do, absolutely, and it's just all the research.

Speaker 1: 7:30

And then you start digging into the research and you see people heal from this disease and that disease, all the common diseases today, the top diseases that kill people, yes, on a regular basis. People are healing from them on a daily basis and preventing them with whole plant foods.

Speaker 2: 7:45

So then it begs a question, and I won't elaborate Is it the food is healing those diseases, or the lack of those foods are causing the disease? Just a little food for thought there.

Speaker 1: 7:56

And I would say both. Yes, I would say both it is both.

Speaker 2: 8:00

but I start thinking okay, where did this originate, right? We deviated from the plan.

Speaker 1: 8:04

Yeah, absolutely yeah. We always get into trouble when we deviate from the plan.

Speaker 2: 8:08

And another website, too, would be lifestylemedicineorg. The American College of Lifestyle Medicine started 20 years ago, and it is a group dedicated to promoting lifestyle changes diet, exercise, you know all these things that we know we're supposed to do, but the key element is the food. The reason I mention this is because it is a growing body of professionals, not just doctors. It's PAs, nurse practitioners, nurses, dietitians. Whenever I got certified four years ago, that was the third time that they had administered the test to get certified.

Speaker 1: 8:43

It has grown exponentially.

Speaker 2: 8:44

Every year it grows more and more. So what that means for you is that there are other professionals educated medical providers, nursing providers, whomever, dietitians that are understanding the power of this message and they say I see that I want to do that too and I want to share that with my patient, with my client, with whomever. How do you think?

Speaker 1: 9:06

they're seeing it and understanding the power of it. I mean, I'm thinking of two ways specifically that I think they're seeing it. Number one, in the research. Like these, people are researching things and seeing what's been there and their minds are blown. And so, number two, they're prescribing it to their patients and starting to see patients that they've worked for tens of years a long time in their life they've been in these professions not getting the results, having to see their patients go on medications and more medications to manage the meds. And, like Jared and I said, we're not anti-medication. If you've been around here long, you know that these providers are just like Jared as a physician assistant, just like me as a nurse. We dug into the research when we started having our own issues and we're going why didn't we learn this in medical school? Why didn't we learn these things in nursing school? Why wasn't nutrition taught? Well, there's this body of evidence, nutritional evidence, scientific facts that are out there that show these things make changes. So these doctors, these health professionals, did what we did. They've dug into the research, seen the proof and they start prescribing it to their patients. So then they see them getting well and they're going wait a minute, they're getting well. We're not just managing symptoms. Now they're actually gaining freedom. They're getting their life back. They're coming off the medications. It blows your mind when you have that happen.

Speaker 2: 10:25

And it's very likely that they were like we were. We just felt, like deep in our gut and our spirit, that something was wrong, something was broken in the system, that there had to be a better way.

Speaker 1: 10:36

And then we found it, yeah, and we feel like the body is created to heal, and it is. Your body is created to be able to heal when it has the nutrients and the things that it needs and it doesn't have, what's sabotaging it coming in all the time?

Speaker 2: 10:50

So I mentioned this so that you know that there is an actual medical body out there that believes this, that they believe it wholeheartedly and understand the power that this has to transform lives.

Speaker 1: 11:04

Because this way of living is life changing, it is disease reversing, it is health beneficial. This is how you gain optimal health and the people that love you in your life. They need to understand that you're not just making this up or listening to something woo-woo, that's out there.

Speaker 2: 11:21

This wasn't just a TikTok video that you saw.

Speaker 1: 11:24

Right and decided, hey, I'm going to go plant-based.

Speaker 2: 11:27

The American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Like I said, they've been around for 20 years. It's science-backed, it's extremely solid.

Speaker 1: 11:34

And number three be the proof, live the proof. It's like one of our members said recently. She said to her spouse stop trying to convince people, stop trying to tell people with your words. Just live it out before them and let them see the results. And it is amazing when you do this, because people are all of a sudden switched from hey, what are you doing? How can you? What are you doing? I want to learn more about that. And it becomes the proof, you become the living testimony, and that's what all of our lives are supposed to be about.

Speaker 2: 12:06

You lose weight, but you gain energy.

Speaker 1: 12:09

Right.

Speaker 2: 12:09

You're more mobile, you're more active, you're going and doing things that you could not before. Your skin looks more rosy and younger. Right, they see all these positive changes. Now they may not recognize it immediately, but the longer you're there in front of them with these positive changes, they'll eventually see it and then hopefully come around to what your message is.

Speaker 1: 12:30

So if your relatives are genuinely concerned, you don't want to come at them with aggravation or in defense with your hundred points of why I'm now whole the way paste. Okay, what you want to do is sit down with them and have a movie night, or send them a link to what the health or forks over knives that they can easily view the movie to understand a little bit about where you're coming from. Step number two provide the proof. Hey, and just in case you're wondering, here are two reliable references that you can use to see that what I'm doing and the choices that I'm making has great merit, and maybe you'll want to look into it too.

Speaker 2: 13:04

And those two references are Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Again, we'll put the links in the description.

Speaker 1: 13:12

And then, third and finally, be the proof. Sister brother, get out there, live the proof. Be the shining example of what you know is true and right and good in this world. Let your energy show it. Let your decreasing weight show it. Let your glowing skin show it. Let your lack of taking diabetic medications or high blood pressure meds show it. Share with them the results you're getting. People can't argue with your results. I went to my doctor. My A1C went down from 11 to 7. You know I'm talking about. You just wrote me an email. All right, it's one of my brothers, okay, and he's waiting. He's going back. He's lost more weight. He's doubled the weight he lost since the last blood draw. He has, and I imagine that his A1C has probably come back down. He said I don't want to manage symptoms, I want to be well, I want to live my life, I want to enjoy it. Brother, we are so here for it. We are so here for it and for all of you that are listening. We are here for you too. We're so excited for you to share these things with your friends and family members. Look, they just want to feel comfortable, to understand and know that you've given this a little thought. You put some research into it. If they're not happy with these references when you give them to them, odds are they're not going to be happy with anything you say. So you have to then decide what am I going to do with my life? How am I going to set myself up for success and set future generations to come? We've been given the opportunity to steward the next generation, to set our children up for the future that we know is possible for them when their bodies are fueled. Well, how do you do it? You eat and teach them to eat more whole plant foods by the example you're setting in your life every single day. It doesn't matter what age they are. Oh Anita, they're already teenagers. They won't. Yes, they will. Yes, they will start taking them shopping with you. Start having some bonding moments in the kitchen where you get them to help you pick out the recipes. Go back and listen to episode number 236, the simple language and mindset shift that can help you and your children eat more healthy whole plant foods and actually enjoy it. And episode 237, use these seven strategies to make healthy, plant-based eating exciting and enjoyable for children, and that's children of any age, that includes teens. We share some examples in there of teenagers who have taken this on even after their moms discovered it later in life. Start living and being the example that you want to be, and find ways to make it exciting and understandable to those around you, and you may be surprised of the harvest that the seeds you plant are going to reap for future generations to come. As always, it's been a joy and an honor hanging out with you today. We cannot wait to see you again next time and before you go, take a moment to leave a review and let us know what you're most excited about from this episode today to share with your family. We can't wait to hear all about it and we'll see you next time on Power On Plans. Thank you.