“Hi, I am back and I can’t wait to meet you!!”
Hi!
Welcome to the Practice The Basics. I have been thinking about this site and my hope for those here or who find their way to this page. While I do rationally and intuitively believe, based on the science and my lived experience, that a whole food plant-based diet is one of the easiest, most natural, and tangible ways to prevent, treat, and reverse diet-related disease and sickness, I still (more than ever) do not believe that food is where health begins.
While we want to share the people and organizations we trust who have given us the research, information, and practical ways to nourish our bodies with food, we do not want to be merely a food page or an endless endorsement or resource for plant-based eating.
And though we stand behind plant-based doctors like Dr. Greger, Dr. Esselytn, Dr. Collins Cambell, Dr. Neal Bernard, and Dr. McDougall (a few of my favorites), Jason and I don't believe that the health conversation we desperately need starts with plant-based doctors or eating whole food plant-based.
Funny enough, I didn't come to these conclusions after I went plant-based but before. It was after 15 years in the diet and fitness industry while I was still working in the industry, at the end of my 30s and in the best "shape" of my life, that I was forced to look at what and why I was eating and how I was using food, exercise, and my body as a means to my own ends. Reality opened my eyes to the truth. Then Truth showed me the reality of not only my own sickness and disease but a "health" culture that has not succeeded in preventing, treating, and reversing diet-related sickness and disease.
It has been almost nine years since I went whole food plant-based and walked away from a 15-year career in the fitness and diet industry and from eating a "cleaner version" of the standard American diet. In 2015, I set out to discover what "health" means, why most Americans suffer from diet-related sickness and disease, and why no one cares or talks about it except those positioned to make money.
My "forced" willingness to look at myself and search for truth led me away from the "health" formulas, information, advice, counting, measuring, programs, results, and experts towards a wide open and empty space where I could Breathe, Listen, Ask, Look, and Touch® Truth. Without a doubt, 2015 was a mysterious and magical time for me because I was willing to look at everything I said and did, the results my choices had produced, and the desires of my heart and ask questions about my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, actions, and relationships.
Not surprisingly, I came out of that season with deeper truths and new experiences that I wanted to share. My deepest desire was to set people free from an industry that would not and could not save us or give us what we desperately need to strengthen our health and nourish our spirits, hearts, minds, bodies, and relationships. So when I launched my restorative health process called Vive Alchemy in 2015, I went with the maxim: "Give Up!". My thought process was in a "Just Do It" culture that "Give Up" might be the one thing we most needed to hear to quit trying or pretending that we could just do it.
At the same time, I thought entering the diet and fitness conversation with the correct data, research, and information during an epidemic of chronic disease in youth and adults would be enough to create a space to have a conversation about what was causing our epidemic in Knoxville and Tennessee. As I was introduced to coalitions, initiatives, programs, and health organizations spending millions of dollars to "address" the diet-related disease and sickness epidemic in children and adults, I began to see that I was clearly at odds with a health industrial complex built on a formula and committed to making it work.
It did not take much time for me to realize that the overwhelming amount of conversations, commentary, studies, and information circulating in the “health” industry, are a ginormous waste of time, money, and energy. When I tell you that the absolute best information, programs, initiatives, and the best-intentioned organizations have not worked to reverse or stop the skyrocketing rates of diet-related disease and sickness- it doesn't take much to prove. Numerous studies reveal the increasing levels of sickness and disease that were happening decades before COVID-19 and are continuing to happen now.
Since 2015, Jason and I have spent a lot of time, money, and energy asking people to "Give Up" a consumer lifestyle that is killing us (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, stroke, and cancer are the top causes of death). Early on, we thought the most accessible entry points to a real "health" conversation would be using the data and the research on food and exercise. But nine years since we first began, I am confronted by the Truth again.
After watching the innumerable amounts of information, programs, pills, procedures, and popstars fail to stop the ever-increasing rates of sickness and disease, I realize none of this works, including my own and the programs, information, and popstars promoting plant-based diets (and not for the reason you probably think). In 2015, I was either arrogant or ignorant to believe that the "correct" information could somehow make its way through the muck and mire of confusion and fear.
It's strange to say, but the pandemic helped me tremendously. It forced me to forget about promoting plant-based diets and my restorative exercise class and instead focus on simply living my life. By breathing, listening, asking, looking, and touching the world around me, I changed and grew in ways I never expected. The last five years have given me a new perspective and also the courage and opportunity to understand myself and other human beings at a deeper level. Furthermore, it has led me back to Knoxville and here today to launch Practice The Basics on the same day Vive Alchemy was first launched eight years ago.
Groundhog Day is the day that I think should be celebrated as the National Day of Insanity. For me, Groundhog Day was and still is the perfect day to launch because it is the day we can stop listening to the rodents (the health industrial complex, not the cute groundhogs), and we can stop practicing insanity. Remember, insanity, according to Einstein, is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. If you have seen the movie Groundhog Day, then you can see why Groundhog Day is such a splendid visual for insanity. Not only is it precisely one month after we have (once again) made our New Year's Resolutions for the umpteenth time, but it is also when, according to research, most of us have given up our resolutions.
So whether Phil saw his shadow or not today, I am ready to stop participating in the insanity by sharing the truths we so desperately need to hear to set us free to remember who we are and how we are naturally designed to be healthy, whole, holy human beings.
In 2015, I launched Vive Alchemy by saying, "Give Up!" Today, I am launching Practice The Basics by saying “Hi, I am back and I can’t wait to meet you!!”
I hope you'll join Jason and me as we get ready to Celebrate Love on February 14th at St. James Episcopal Church. We are very excited to be back in Knoxville, and we are so ready to share our time, talent, and truths to cultivate the places we desperately need to be known, accepted, and loved.
