69: Julieanna Hever, The Plant Based Dietitian

[00:00:41] Greg Mills: Our guest today has a BA in theater and an Ms. In nutrition bridging her biggest passions for food presenting and helping people. She's authored seven books, including the brand new choose you now diet the health span solution. Plant-based nutrition, idiots guides, and the ter Andean diet, and two peer reviewed journal articles on plant-based nutrition for healthcare professionals.

[00:01:05] Greg Mills: She's the host of the choose you now podcast. She was the host of what would Juliana do, gave a Ted talk and instructed for the E Cornell plant-based nutrition certification program. She's appeared on the Dr. OS show and the Steve Harvey show. She speaks in consults with clients around the globe.

[00:01:25] Greg Mills: Find her@plantbaseddietitian.com without further ado. Let me introduce you to the one and only Juliana. He.

[00:01:33] Julieanna Hever: Hello, Greg. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:36] Greg Mills: Thank you for being here now. Juliana, can take a few moments and bring us up to speed with what's going on in your world today?

[00:01:45] Julieanna Hever: Oh, let's see.

[00:01:46] Julieanna Hever: What's going on in my world every day is very different. I'm always of tackling different projects and have a different amount of clients every day and just, seeing what's next every day. Figuring it all out and having fun, trying to help teach people about eating healthy.

[00:02:00] Greg Mills: Did you come from an entrepreneurial background at all?

[00:02:03] Greg Mills: Well, that's

[00:02:03] Julieanna Hever: a good question. I suppose. Yes. My father is a CPA and he started his own firm with a partner while I was a young girl and I watched it, but he didn't really talk to me about the day to day or the details of how he went about doing that.

[00:02:16] Julieanna Hever: So I felt. Also cuz the world I was educated under, was in the arts and then I was in nutrition, which is very sciencey and most people end up just working at a hospital. So I didn't know what I was doing. And I had to of teach myself. I'm still teaching myself every day. What it's like to work for yourself and keep navigating new territory.

[00:02:34] Julieanna Hever: It's quite challenging. I think that's the most challenging thing because I was never taught it. Exactly. Have you ever

[00:02:40] Greg Mills: had a traditional job?

[00:02:42] Julieanna Hever: I've dabbled in traditional jobs, but it was definitely pretty obvious from the get go that it was not for me. I think I spent a few weeks working at a, as a clinical dietitian when I first got out of graduate school.

[00:02:54] Julieanna Hever: And actually before that I was a personal trainer and my first job was working for a company, but it was still very independent. Like I was still going to people's homes and I was still working independently, but I didn't like, following other people's rules or, doing what I was supposed to do.

[00:03:09] Julieanna Hever: I wanted to take it into my own direction. So, and then when I worked in a clinical situation, It was quite obvious that was not the place for me, because even what I teach in terms of nutrition doesn't fit into a traditional hospital model. So I was always challenging the status quo and I've come to realize that I'm very much happier doing my own thing and being on my own.

[00:03:30] Greg Mills: Okay. Sounds like maybe some of those first, jobs that you dabbled in gave you, a head start as far as, scheduling yourself and dealing with customers, client facing that sort of thing.

[00:03:43] Julieanna Hever: Yeah.

[00:03:43] Julieanna Hever: I feel like I've aggregated different little skills and it's always still coming together. Right. Even when this, the pandemic happened. And for about 10 years prior to that, I was trying to get clients to do. Calls online. Like I just figured it's so much more efficient. I don't need to be hands on like a physical therapist and people were very resistant to it.

[00:04:02] Julieanna Hever: And so now with whatever happened in the world and now people are much more comfortable doing online counseling and coaching it's changed that dynamic, but I always feel like I'm trying to just chase the next thing and try to figure out what works best. And then you just keep playing with all the variables and it's, I find it really exciting and challenging.

[00:04:19] Greg Mills: I've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs that say that while the pandemic was bad, it really helped their business with remote technologies and people becoming more comfortable and familiar with them and allowing them to be used. Now you were on the plant-based diet way before it became mainstream.

[00:04:36] Greg Mills: And one of the first authors to include it in a book title. How'd you become plant-based.

[00:04:42] Julieanna Hever: Well, this was quite a, another long journey that happened over a lifetime. So I grew up in Los Angeles. I'm still in Los Angeles, born and raised. And I danced before I could walk. And I was an actress. I was doing theater and a little TV and modeling and that kind of thing that a lot of people here in Los Angeles do.

[00:04:59] Julieanna Hever: And when I was in dance class one day and my teacher called out in front of all of my peers that I should cut out my. it changed the trajectory my entire life, like that just blew my mind. I was probably 10 or 11 years old. So I started to explore nutrition and diet and weight loss and body image and everything I can get my hands on.

[00:05:18] Julieanna Hever: And this is of course before the Google machine and all of the little, just access to unlimited information. And so I was reading books, whatever I can get my hands on. And I stumbled upon a book when I was about 16 years old, called diet for a new America written by John Robin. And it was the first time I had learned about how food ended up on the plate and more about how the process, how the whole system worked.

[00:05:42] Julieanna Hever: And it was really shocking. And I didn't wanna contribute to that. I wanted to step out of that world and I didn't know what that looked like. And again, I couldn't look anything up. I didn't really, I didn't know anybody that was eating this way. And so I had one friend in elementary school, but I was already past that at this point.

[00:05:58] Julieanna Hever: And so I remember just trying it, I just. Decided I'm gonna cut out animal products. And, but I wasn't really cooking that much. And I was basically just surviving on side dishes and, granola bars and fruit rolls and whatever, you kinda throw together rice cakes. And my parents were worried about me.

[00:06:16] Julieanna Hever: And so they staged what I like to refer to as my intervention. And we went out to a steakhouse with our family friend who is a. Candra. And they had me order a teriyaki steak with a pineapple ring on top of it. And she proceeded to tell me how I was gonna be deficient in B12 and protein and iron and all of those things.

[00:06:36] Julieanna Hever: And as a young teenager, not knowing all of the facts and the science, I got scared. And I talk about in one of my books, I talk about the experience of biting into the first bite of a steak after. Knowing what I had learned, like once, you can't unknow and it was really hard to do, but I was scared enough where I did it.

[00:06:53] Julieanna Hever: And then of course I got socialized back into eating the standard traditional way that we all eat, but I still kept wondering in the back of my mind, like, The vegetarians aren't dying off, like, flies. We're not hearing these stories in the media about vegetarians dying of deficiency. So I just, I knew there had to be more to this story.

[00:07:09] Julieanna Hever: So I kept looking and reading and learning. And then because of my acting background, I became a personal trainer cuz another manager had told me to lose weight again. And so I fell in love with personal training and decided to do personal training while I was auditioning and doing the acting on the side.

[00:07:25] Julieanna Hever: And I'd also had some of a background in in pre-med during undergrad, but I ended up falling in love with personal training, and then people were asking me questions about nutrition. So I quickly got excited to learn more about nutrition because I didn't wanna just spit back the chapter.

[00:07:39] Julieanna Hever: Nutrition in the personal training handbook that I had studied to become a personal trainer. I wanted to know why and what I wanted to know what I was gonna say for what purpose and what was underneath it. And to have answers to those questions of where you get your B12 and protein and all that. So I signed up, I applied and got into grad school and proceeded to, I started my own business at the same time as a personal trainer.

[00:07:59] Julieanna Hever: So that was my first entrepreneurial experience where I was first knocking on people's doors and handing out flyers. And I quickly ended up with a waiting list of clients because it was just, I was so excited about it. I was so passionate about it. and I spent time in grad school, loved nutrition so much.

[00:08:13] Julieanna Hever: It was like the first time I got straight A's in school and just loved every minute of it. And then I was like, wait a second. After I was done, I could go back and look at this information with a different set of, tools and look at the statistics and look at the research and look at where you get all of your iron and iodine and all that stuff.

[00:08:29] Julieanna Hever: And it was amazing, like that opened up the whole world for me. And then I tried it. Finally. I finally went plant based when I first had my children. And it changed my health completely from, lifelong suffering of sinus infections and acne and GI problems. And everything was really resolved because of my diet change.

[00:08:49] Julieanna Hever: So then I'm like, wow, I'm gonna implement this with my clients. And then I started seeing incredible transformations. And so that was it. Like you couldn't unseat the plant based idea with me after that. Now 17 years later, and I continue to witness the most extraordinary transformations and people getting off medications and reversing chronic conditions and diseases diagnoses that they had been thought were supposed to be lifelong every single day.

[00:09:14] Julieanna Hever: I see this it's I always say results are typical. So it's been quite an extraordinary journey and now everyone knows what plant based is. It's become quite a thing.

[00:09:22] Greg Mills: Well, I'm gonna challenge you on that because there seems to be a lot of different variations to the words. Plant-based at least in my experience.

[00:09:29] Greg Mills: What is your definition of plant based?

[00:09:32] Julieanna Hever: Very good question. So I'm not the person who defined plant based originally that, that credit goes to Dr.

[00:09:37] Julieanna Hever: T Colin Campbell who coined the term whole food plant based. And I think words are very important. And I talk a lot about that in my work, but when I was first asked to write my very first book, it was a complete eighties guide to vegan nutrition. And when I got the job and started writing the book I petitioned and to the publishers, and I said, I don't wanna write about veganism.

[00:09:57] Julieanna Hever: I wanna write. A plant-based diet from a dietitian's perspective, cuz I'm not an ethicist or a moralist or someone. I could talk about all those other components that are associated with a vegan diet. And I look at the word vegan as an exclusive term, meaning I do not eat animal products. I do not use animal products.

[00:10:15] Julieanna Hever: That is what I would define V what most people would define a vegan perspective. Instead I wanted to call it whole food, plant faith. I'll Dr. TCO Campbell. Because it's more of an inclusive definition. It means I eat a diet based on whole plant foods. And I like to distill that into a diet based on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices in infinite tasty combinations.

[00:10:37] Julieanna Hever: Now, since that term has been coined and in the last ensuing. Decade. So many products have flourished on the marketplace because it's become so popular for health, for environmental reasons, for all these other different, wonderful reasons, cuz it's a win situation. But because of all of these products where you can get vegan ice cream and cookies and cakes and steaks and everything fried.

[00:11:01] Julieanna Hever: It's no longer like definitive of a healthy diet necessarily.

[00:11:05] Julieanna Hever: They stamp the term plant based on something, giving it this health halo, and then people just assume that it means it's healthy for you.

[00:11:13] Julieanna Hever: But for the first time in my career, in the last 5, 6, 7 years, I'm having clients actually come to me that have been vegan. but are still suffering with very similar health issues as the omnivores that come to me. And I, when I look at their food journals, it goes back to all these highly processed foods.

[00:11:30] Julieanna Hever: So I still advocate for a whole food. I emphasize the whole food plant based because that's where the amazing health benefits come to play.

[00:11:38] Greg Mills: Now, when you say whole foods, do you include, cooking them? Because I have seen people advocate, solely for raw whole foods.

[00:11:46] Julieanna Hever: So like you said, there's so many different pockets, like there's so many different types of subsets of a plant-based diet, one of which would be a raw food diet. And I have a lot of thoughts about raw food diets. There's a lot of different variations of raw food diets themselves. There's like the fruitarians that eat a lot of high fruit diet.

[00:12:03] Julieanna Hever: And then there's the people that are eating a lot of oils and, raw oils and all that kind of stuff. And so there's pitfalls to a raw diet. So I like to think of it more in a balanced approach. I think there's so many benefits of including. A majority, a big chunk, at least half of your diet from raw, fresh foods.

[00:12:19] Julieanna Hever: You're getting all these different nutrients that stay alive and can, defy going through the cooking process. So that's wonderful, but you don't need to eat exclusively raw and there's benefits to certain cooked foods. Like for example, When you cook like a tomato and make a tomato paste or tomato sauce, the PHY nutrients, the carotinoids are more potent and you have more of an anti-cancer effect and more of a cardiovascular benefit from having it cooked.

[00:12:44] Julieanna Hever: So it's good to incorporate both. And so I do advocate for including raw diet, but raw foods, but I don't think you need to eat exclusively raw to gain all of the.

[00:12:54] Greg Mills: Just for example, I'm outside of Charlotte fairly deep south. I know you can't tell that from my accent but I grew up eating grits.

[00:13:02] Greg Mills: Well, grits technically qualify as plant based, but I know that they're not very healthy. It's probably been about two or three months ago that I have tried to, incorporate broccoli for breakfast. And so far that's going well. What I typically do is I I've got a food processor.

[00:13:20] Greg Mills: I grind up the broccoli and then bake it, and then, pour it into a container and have it for breakfast in the morning. So whether that's helping or not remains to be seen, but at least it's one step.

[00:13:34] Julieanna Hever: Oh, it's all about taking one step at a. It's all about like adding into your life, things that are going to be health, promoting, trying them out, seeing what works for you and keeping the ones that work and getting rid of the ones that don't and just keep exploring.

[00:13:48] Julieanna Hever: And I always encourage people to go in there with a sense of wonder and curiosity and a positive attitude about what can you add to your diet? What can adjust that makes you feel better and works for your life. Okay.

[00:14:01] Greg Mills: Now, how should somebody that's new to a plant-based lifestyle shop for healthy food?

[00:14:05] Greg Mills: Because as we, mentioned before you can eat crap on a plant-based diet,

[00:14:10] Julieanna Hever: right. Well, I go back to the traditional ideas of shopping for, the perimeter of the store, rather than, know, all the stuff that's already packaged and processed a lot.

[00:14:19] Julieanna Hever: And you wanna like recognize the ingredients on the label, the fewer ingredients, the better usually. But I think the easiest way to do that rather than just go to the store and see what can you do? Although you could have fun at a, in the produce section, if you're like, oh, I've never tried. , a pomegranate before I've never tried.

[00:14:33] Julieanna Hever: A pair of whatever it is, that's new, right. Just to add more ingredients to your repertoire, that's really fun. But the easiest way to do this is to start looking and again, in this 17 years now, there's like, PA recipes available at your fingertips. And second, so let's say you love to eat grits.

[00:14:49] Julieanna Hever: So look up, you could look up whole food. Plant-based. And you can make a, find a healthy version of grit. So start with what you know, and is familiar. Like most of us have had oatmeal or a salad or, pasta Primavera, like things that have been traditionally plant-based we just didn't really think of it as plant-based pasta.

[00:15:07] Julieanna Hever: Marinna like, there's so many foods that we've eaten toast, peanut butter and jelly is plant based, so just like going back to stuff that's familiar and that, that you like, and then exploring different versions of it. And I love to. Recipes as a template. So if you find a recipe that you, that sounds good, then you have the ingredients you need.

[00:15:25] Julieanna Hever: You can make a list, take that list and go to the store, as opposed to just going in there and just seeing what's out there, it's a little bit more organized and more easier to navigate. And then what I did when I was starting is I would have a recipe that sounded good. And if I loved it, I would put a heart on it and I started a pile.

[00:15:41] Julieanna Hever: And if I didn't love it, I would either modify it or I would toss it if it just didn't work at all. And I just eventually had a nice repertoire of recipes that I love. And we are mostly creatures of habit. Most of us circulate between one or two different breakfast, three or four different lunches, maybe five or six different dinners in a week.

[00:15:59] Julieanna Hever: So if you think about that, all you need are about 10 recipes that you love. That are healthy and nutritious and delicious for you. And then you just go from there. It's super simple like that instead of being completely over.

[00:16:11] Greg Mills: You talked about the misconception that you can't get adequate nutrition on a plant-based diet, particularly with regards to protein, everybody points out, you can't get enough protein on a plant-based diet and yet people still live and, athletes do it.

[00:16:26] Greg Mills: So can you speak to that?

[00:16:29] Julieanna Hever: Yes. It's amazing how protein predominates everyone's concern and there's this. Persistent pursuit of protein. There is just, everyone is concerned about getting enough protein as if protein is some, magic nutrient. And it's not, it's just one of the three macronutrients.

[00:16:45] Julieanna Hever: We do need some, we need a few, we only need like nine essential amino acids and people forget the source of where you get those amino acids. So where do you think the cow got the amino acids and the protein in its body? It from eating the grass, all plants have all the amino acids. Definitely easy to come by.

[00:17:02] Julieanna Hever: So I have a pneumonic that I use called the six daily threes. It's a graphic I put together with six different food groups that have the most nutritional bang and like unique properties that you need to be aware of so that you, if you prioritize these foods, you're gonna make sure you're getting everything.

[00:17:17] Julieanna Hever: One of those are legumes. So, lentils beans, peas, hummus should be a food. Soy foods. Those are foods that will give you plenty of amino acids. The nuts and seeds are another one of the six daily threes and nuts and seeds also contain a high dose of amino acids. But the interesting thing that I love to think about now is just because something is good, doesn't mean more is better.

[00:17:39] Julieanna Hever: And if you look at the health span literature, the only way we've ever. Increased health span and longevity in every organism we've tested in the lab, mice and, our primate cousins is with dietary restriction without malnutrition. So actually restricting amino acid. So having less protein is what is ex has extended health, spin and longevity.

[00:18:01] Julieanna Hever: So that's a real. Twist on things, if you will. Right. So just because we need some amino acid doesn't mean we need to flood our system with as much protein as possible. That's not gonna make us healthier. And unfortunately, the in unintentional consequence of people pursuing protein to, with such vigor is that we're also getting it packaged with things that we know.

[00:18:22] Julieanna Hever: Cause and promote disease. So animal products also, you have your protein in there, but it also is packaged with the saturated fat and the heme iron and new 5g C and all these other compounds that we know promote disease. So you could also get the same amino acid from plants, which also contain our package together with.

[00:18:39] Julieanna Hever: Phytonutrients and fiber, which are the two most health promoting nutrients out there. And those are found exclusively in plants. So you have to look at the whole package. I always like to say pick proper packaging and in terms of protein, you can get enough protein. You can get enough protein package better when you try to emphasize plant foods.

[00:18:59] Greg Mills: Okay. Now backing up just a little bit, you mentioned macronutrients, and I think you mentioned the big three was that correct? Or did I misunderstand.

[00:19:08] Julieanna Hever: Well, I, there's two things I might, you might be referring to. One is there's three macronutrients that are required. There's carbohydrate, protein, and fat.

[00:19:16] Julieanna Hever: Okay. I dunno if that was what you meant or the six daily threes, which is the way I break up foods to prioritize for nutrition. That

[00:19:22] Greg Mills: was actually what I was referring to. But you know, it'd be interesting to hear about your six daily threes too. If we have.

[00:19:30] Julieanna Hever: These are three macronutrients that compose the diet and all whole foods contain some ratio of all of those. Right? If you look at anything, a bro broccoli has, we, you were talking about broccoli has carbohydrates in the form of fiber and some glucose and some, all these other different, wonderful compounds.

[00:19:47] Julieanna Hever: It also has a little bit of amino acids and it has a tiny amount. So we need some combination of them, but there's also this overuse of macros to determine an ideal diet. And I call this macro confusion because if you look at the literature consistently throughout time, That we've been studying it. It's only been what, a hundred, 150 years that we've really used macronutrients because of those are basically references for biochemistry they're terms used in biochemistry.

[00:20:15] Julieanna Hever: But there's no perfect diet when it comes to macros. There's no perfect diet period, but there is no perfect ratio, which is why you see in the literature. Like. The most healthiest, longest lived populations like, OK. Okinawa is like one of the top number one longest lived most centenarians. They are on a very high carbohydrate diet, but also in the blue zones, which are the highest lived populations is the Mediterranean diet.

[00:20:37] Julieanna Hever: And the Mediterranean diet is very high in fat. So how do you have both of those completely opposite types? Macro profiles. You can't say which one is better than the other. If you have optimal results with both. So what matters more is the food itself? And I have a passionate cause that I talk about often is to try to get the language back to food and away from the use of these biochemistry tools these terms of protein, carbs, and fat, cuz most people don't know what it means.

[00:21:04] Julieanna Hever: It doesn't help anyone from the lay person all the way to the healthcare professional and researcher and the perfect example of. It was in the 2018 Lancet journal. There was an article that published that showed that a low carb diet and a high carb diet increased mortality. So, first of all, what does that even mean?

[00:21:23] Julieanna Hever: How do you even navigate that? If you're like, what do you do? I was like throw in the towel and go to, fast food every day, who cares, but also it's so confusing. It's just so confusing. Like what is a carb? And the problem is that if you look at what is a carbohydrate, you could put cotton and crab shells.

[00:21:40] Julieanna Hever: In the same category as a sugary refined cereal, as sugar, as fiber as all of those things are carbohydrate. So that doesn't mean anything. And that's why everyone is so confused. But if we talk about eating a diet based on vegetables, fruit, whole grains, like mushrooms, nuts, seeds, ORs, and spices, people know what that means.

[00:21:57] Julieanna Hever: Like, you know what a lentil stew looks like, you know what a broccoli looks like, just, let's keep it more simple.

[00:22:02] Greg Mills: Are there plants that we should be avoiding poison Ivy, perhaps pickle beats? No, seriously,

[00:22:08] Julieanna Hever: definitely poison Ivy. Anything that's edible is great. You want, that's a big question that I don't even know how to start with.

[00:22:16] Julieanna Hever: That's a no one's ever asked me that. I don't think you need to avoid categories of plan. There's so many health promoting benefits and again, the only source. Phytonutrients and fiber are plants. So a wide variety of plants and, using, trying to prioritize the six daily threes will help get you that balance.

[00:22:34] Greg Mills: Okay. So another kind of weird or off ball question, but what in excess is worse for overall for your body salt or sugar?

[00:22:44] Julieanna Hever: That's a good question. I don't know if I could put it on a spectrum, cuz there's very different animals. One's a micronutrients and one's a mineral and sorry.

[00:22:53] Julieanna Hever: One's like actually not even a micronutrient sugar is a carbohydrate and there's all forms of sugar, but added sugar. We know promote chronic disease. There's no doubt about it. High amounts of refined sugar and really more than five to 10% of calories that the goal is to get it under five to 10% of calories.

[00:23:09] Julieanna Hever: Most people are consuming at least 20, 25% of their calories from added sugar. And so we know that it's linked to. Cognitive problems, cardiovascular disease, cancer, GI problems, acne allergies, diabetes. There's so many things. So definitely you wanna reduce your added sugar intake to less than five to 10% of total calories.

[00:23:32] Julieanna Hever: Salt is, it's a seasoning and it's, it makes everything taste better. So a lot of people eat more when they have a higher salt diet, it increases your risk for high blood pressure. It AFF. High blood pressure. And then you look at some communities like in Japan, where they have a very low, fat, healthy diet, but they use a lot of salt on their, like a lot of soy sauce and stuff like that.

[00:23:52] Julieanna Hever: So they have a greater incidence or pre prevalence of things like stomach cancer and stuff like that. So it's definitely something to be mindful of the salt, but it's definitely not as nefarious. You could definitely use some salt in your diet versus sugar where you really wanna keep it on the lower end of things.

[00:24:08] Julieanna Hever: And you wanna priorit. Getting your sugar from intact sources like fruit. It's a really healthy source. That's not an added sugar at all. That's a healthy food as a whole food. But I, when I use a sweetener to balance a recipe for my books, I will use like a maple syrup or date syrup or something like that, or dates to like use a whole food sweetener as a more, it's got more, also has some phytonutrients and a fiber intact is not just a refined sugar.

[00:24:34] Julieanna Hever: So both of our things to be mindful.

[00:24:37] Greg Mills: How much exercise should people be getting per week? From that standpoint and how does that all tie in together? Because I've seen some people say that, too much exercise, could interfere with weight loss.

[00:24:51] Julieanna Hever: Oh, I actually, I do a lot of weight loss transformation. That's become like a. Predominant thing that I do on a daily basis, cuz it's such a, it's a big issue. And a lot of people have a really hard time with it. I have my clients get off of exercise during the weight loss process. So that's a whole story it's that it does interfere with it slows the rate of weight loss is what it does.

[00:25:11] Julieanna Hever: There's a million reasons to exercise. It's so healthy. It's crucial for. Every system in your body, it's crucial for health span and aging, healthfully, and muscle maintenance. And to reduce your risk for sarcopenia and osteoporosis. Everything. There's a million reasons to exercise what I do with my clients.

[00:25:31] Julieanna Hever: I take them through a process. I put a system in play where they lose 0.4 to 0.8 pounds a day. They rip off the bandaid. They just here's what we're gonna lose. It's very objective. We're just doing it for a short period of time. And then I bring back maintenance mode with bringing back more exercise.

[00:25:46] Julieanna Hever: Now you can do a little bit of, yoga, walking, very gentle stuff, but working out to lose weight, it doesn't help. It only interferes for most people. So it's a good question, but it depends on what stage you're at. It depends on your goals. Generally speaking exercise, I highly recommend you do it regularly.

[00:26:01] Julieanna Hever: I go with, of course, what the American college of sports medicine recommends, and that stuff changes a little bit, but you wanna get a balance. Cardiovascular exercise, strength, training, flexibility balance exercise, agility, all of the things to help you age well and stay healthy and fit and be able to handle all of life stressors.

[00:26:21] Julieanna Hever: It decreases a risk for chronic disease. It's very important and a healthy. Healthy diet supports exercise and vice versa but ultimately diet is the number one cause of early death and disability in the world. And so that's the most important thing when it comes to everything. But exercise is definitely important.

[00:26:38] Greg Mills: The whole reason I got into this was last year I ended up having heart bypass surgery at 51. Some of it's genetic, but had made some pretty bad choices too.

[00:26:48] Greg Mills: So trying to do better. Good

[00:26:50] Julieanna Hever: for you. You can reverse that with diet. It's true. I'm sure you've, that's why you're trying this. It's incredible. You could literally open up the arteries with your diet and it happens rather quickly. So it's a very powerful force.

[00:27:03] Greg Mills: Yeah. I'm looking forward to the next time.

[00:27:06] Greg Mills: I actually have to do blood work just to see what the changes have been. Do you think that people should even talk about, a plant-based lifestyle change at first?

[00:27:14] Greg Mills: Because it seems like you get a lot of anecdotal pushback when you do.

[00:27:19] Julieanna Hever: Yeah, that's a good question. One of my clients that I work with, I always encourage them to not have the conversation. I try so hard not to have the conversation.

[00:27:28] Julieanna Hever: It's almost impossible because everybody eats. So everybody has an opinion on food and everyone is an expert, especially now. Social media that dominates the conversation and anyone who looks good or whatever is a celebrity or read a book or read an article or Googled something, becomes an expert, a self-proclaimed expert, and then people don't know what to believe anymore.

[00:27:48] Julieanna Hever: And it's very confusing. So sometimes it's misinformation overload. This avalanche of misinformation being thrown everywhere is frustrating and misleading and confusing. and I think it's to the detriment of someone's success. So I recommend, getting your information from reliable sources and just talking about it as less as, as, as little as possible, it's very hard to avoid the conversation.

[00:28:12] Julieanna Hever: Like I always go into a meal thinking I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. And it always comes up, and then my clients who are like eating healthy or they're choosing to not have. It always become like they become the spotlight goes on them and it's a lot of pressure and I wanna protect my clients.

[00:28:26] Julieanna Hever: Like I want them just to feel like, they don't need to be defending their choices and they don't, because this is, I'm very passionate about this. Cause too. It's like when my dance teacher told me to lose weight in front of my class members, my fellow dancers. And it was like, that's my body, like, don't tell me what to do with my body.

[00:28:41] Julieanna Hever: Don't tell me I'm too thin or too fat or too this or too fat. I think, I feel like if

[00:28:44] Greg Mills: I had to be crushing, I

[00:28:45] Julieanna Hever: imagine. Yeah. Especially as a young girl going through like becoming a woman, like in front of crushing, but obviously it's something that it fueled something in me that needed to happen.

[00:28:55] Julieanna Hever: But I think that everyone has an opinion. I've had it myself. I've had I've. I've walked thousands of people through this journey and people just, well, meaning, well, intentioned, loved ones, but people are really confused about nutrition. And so it's ideal to just get your information from sources that you know are reliable.

[00:29:14] Julieanna Hever: You have to be determined to pursue this path or any path that's off the beat. It's again, when I was doing this, it was, I didn't have any plant-based friends.

[00:29:25] Julieanna Hever: I had to build a community and this was before social media. So it was challenging. And now it's challenging, but there's so many communities and there's social media where you could connect to people all around the world. And this concept of plant-based is now ubiquitous. It's really something that has taken off.

[00:29:40] Julieanna Hever: It's no longer a trend. It's a way of life. And so having social support is helpful if you can. But you have to want it and you have to have a lot of information. So that you can arm yourself to protect yourself in the face of everyone's opinions, cuz they will happen that you will be faced with that again and again.

[00:29:58] Julieanna Hever: And so it's all about, knowing what you're doing and why you're doing it. And then choosing to take care of you. That's the name of my book choosing you now is choosing to take care of you. So you could be a better mom, sister, friend, whatever worker entrepreneur, because you're taking care of you first.

[00:30:14] Julieanna Hever: Like the whole oxygen mask. When you get on an airplane, you have to take care of you before you can take care of everyone around.

[00:30:19] Greg Mills: Let's talk about your business. How are you helping people with the plant-based dietician.com?

[00:30:27] Julieanna Hever: Well, I offer nutrition services. So I do my one on one coaching, my individualized coaching and consulting.

[00:30:33] Julieanna Hever: And so that's like, it's basically a hub for all of my services and my books and my podcast. And, have ABL why my blog is not so active right now, but I need to reactivate that. Cause I got busy writing books and other things, but I think the blog is probably a good thing to keep. And the social media took over blogging, right?

[00:30:48] Julieanna Hever: Like we post. More consistently on social media. So that's, everything's evolving again, everything is constantly evolving, but plant-based dietician.com is my hub where you could find me. It's like my business card. It's got my media kid and my, all of that stuff. But I, when I teach classes and everything's centered right there and you can find out more about my services, you can contact me.

[00:31:07] Julieanna Hever: It's basically just like the, my out my calling card.

[00:31:12] Greg Mills: Okay. And most of your classes, if not, all of them are online.

[00:31:16] Julieanna Hever: Now they really are. I was touring the world's teaching and lecturing and doing culinary demonstrations up until the pandemic. And I have, I don't think I've done one thing that hasn't been online since.

[00:31:29] Julieanna Hever: So now we do them. I've been doing cooking demos in my kitchen back there on here on, on these different online platforms. I've been doing my one on one clients. I work with clients around the world. Like I have clients in all sorts of different countries that we just meet up here and it's pretty extraordinary that we could do.

[00:31:44] Greg Mills: It's great because not only can you interface with your clients, you could also repurpose that content, at least your side of it, I would imagine.

[00:31:52] Julieanna Hever: Ah, I haven't done that. I feel very protective because of, HIPAA and trying to be really cautious about right. We gotta record sessions and stuff like that, but I do record a bunch of videos to have for answer.

[00:32:02] Julieanna Hever: Cuz people ask me the same questions every day, like from all over on my emails and social media and people always asking the same things. So I've bundled those things into like blog posts with recipe I've curated recipe. Roundups and I, and answers to those most common questions.

[00:32:16] Julieanna Hever: Like what about salt? What about sugar? Like all those things. So I could literally just send a video now and that just makes it easier for that to, or a blog post. So yeah it's that's good point though.

[00:32:26] Greg Mills: I imagine, you could always offer, Either a reduced rate on a class, or if they were willing to allow you to tape at least your side, but you know, just something to think about.

[00:32:36] Julieanna Hever: Thank you. That's a good

[00:32:37] Greg Mills: idea. What types of opportunities do you think that are out there for other entrepreneurs that are interested in promoting a plant-based lifestyle? Oh, it's

[00:32:47] Julieanna Hever: so interesting. I there's so many opportunities. So if you're coming, there's so many different angles, right? If you're looking at it from, in the food world, all, look at what's happened over the last decade.

[00:32:56] Julieanna Hever: There's just so many new product lines. I remember when there was just a handful and there just every day, there's new. Every time I go to the store, there's a whole new section of plant based foods. So the food space is very rich. Restaurants are opening up, up, popping up everywhere that are plant based, especially now that restaurants are coming back again and healing and recovering.

[00:33:15] Julieanna Hever: So there's the food industry and then there's healthcare, there's, people doing retreats. And talks and demonstrations and wellness retreat type of things, classes online classes. I think whatever anyone would do in any other space it's an opportunity to, you could go from the nutrition angle or the culinary angle or selling products.

[00:33:39] Julieanna Hever: There's a lot. There's a lot of room for every everything. There's just tech space. There's so many apps popping up. So anyone looking in the tech space or that's in that world, there's so many opportunities to create different experiences for people. I think it'll be very interesting to see what happens with AI and all of the all of the new technology.

[00:33:57] Julieanna Hever: That's really exponentially quickly coming on the market and coming out. And I think it'll be interesting to see what happens and how that unfolds as well. It's constantly evolving now with the lab grown meat is becoming a potential reality. Like it looks like it might really be a thing. Yeah.

[00:34:12] Julieanna Hever: So yeah, so tech sci-fi research is fascinating. Yeah. If you're into the science part.

[00:34:18] Greg Mills: What's new and exciting on the horizon for Juliana.

[00:34:21] Julieanna Hever: Well, I'm working on my next book proposal right now.

[00:34:25] Julieanna Hever: I'm constantly wanting to do more books for some reason, even though every time I'm doing it, I'm like, I'll never do this again. I tell all my friends and family don't let me do this again, but it's like having a kid, you forget after you have the kid, you're like, ah, the feel good hormones come back.

[00:34:35] Julieanna Hever: And you're like, Ooh, I wanna do that again. So I'm working on that. I'm going to be doing a couple groups. So I did a January. Well, my book launched. End of December of last year. So gosh, it's been almost like nine months now. And so I did like a January choose you challenge like a, choose you in 2022 and had tremendous results with the people that participated and that everyone's been requesting to do another one this year.

[00:34:59] Julieanna Hever: So I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do another one in January. And I think I decided today, I'm gonna do a like a helping each other get through the holidays, like a handling the holidays together type of. Or five week course as well. So that'll be like online talks and discussions and a Facebook group and stuff like that.

[00:35:14] Julieanna Hever: And just nice to have that community again, it's just nice to have a community of like-minded individuals with the same or similar goals. And and having that built in that we, we have this like this touchstone, so that's gonna be coming up very soon. I'm continuing to explore social media opportunities, like.

[00:35:31] Julieanna Hever: Making videos on things and reaching out to my audience. I love that I could just talk to my audience every day and that's been exciting and evolving. It's always evolving and yeah, taking on some clients. I only take on a few clients at a time, just so I could really, they have my phone number and their text mail time, and I get really intimately involved with my clients.

[00:35:49] Julieanna Hever: So constantly seeing what's.

[00:35:52] Greg Mills: Okay. Now you mentioned book proposal. What can you talk just generally about what the next book might be and why aren't you just publishing it on your own in, in 20, 22?

[00:36:05] Julieanna Hever: Good question. I don't, I can't say yet, cuz I'm still in the throes of it, but okay.

[00:36:10] Julieanna Hever: And I might. So I'm thinking about it, but I really liked my publishers. I've done two books with them now, so I'm gonna give it to them first. And then we'll, we're gonna have to have all those conversations, so I haven't decided yet, but I'm earing on trying to get it published with the same publisher.

[00:36:22] Julieanna Hever: Cause I really enjoyed working with them the last two times and I love the whole team. So that's what we're trying to do right now. Well, fair enough.

[00:36:29] Greg Mills: You enjoyed the process then that they've got.

[00:36:33] Julieanna Hever: I enjoy the team. It's a tough process to write a book, but yes, I love this process.

[00:36:37] Julieanna Hever: The team and the way they work and their output, like the way it comes together is very exciting. I think they did a really beautiful job with my last two books.

[00:36:45] Greg Mills: Let's get right and wrap this up. Is there anything that I haven't asked that you would like to go over?

[00:36:49] Julieanna Hever: I would just say back to what you said about anyone that's plant curious that, it doesn't matter about being perfect.

[00:36:56] Julieanna Hever: No one is perfect. No diet is perfect. And I would just encourage people to explore this. World, because there's so many amazing things that can come out of eating more plants and to look at it more of like an exploration and just remember that every decision matters and you could choose you again and again.

[00:37:13] Julieanna Hever: And I think that diet is tremendously powerful. So I encourage everyone to explore a little bit of that plant world a little bit more. Okay.

[00:37:22] Greg Mills: Now what piece of software or app do you find indispensable in your business?

[00:37:29] Julieanna Hever: Zoom . Yeah. Or, and I have the, I love Calendly for scheduling and all that. That's been a beautiful blessing for me. I use chronometer nutrition, software myself. But yeah, those are the ones I use the most.

[00:37:42] Greg Mills: Now what's the best way for our listeners to find you online and to contact you? Well, thank

[00:37:48] Julieanna Hever: you. Yes. Everything is at plant-based dietician.com, including all of my social media handles I'm on pretty much every social media platform I'm on Instagram as Juliana, he and TikTok.

[00:37:56] Julieanna Hever: And I'm. Facebook is my big, biggest audience is a plant-based dietician. You can find me there on Twitter as plant dietician. So I'm out there and you can find everything at plant-based dietician.com. Perfect.

[00:38:09] Greg Mills: And lastly, what's your number one piece of advice for our listeners

[00:38:14] Julieanna Hever: my biggest piece of advice is to tune into what feels right for you. And to only say yes to the things that feel very resonant for you and to avoid doing things that you feel like you should do, because if you do what you love to do, everything seems to fall into place.

[00:38:35] Greg Mills: Thank you Julianna for being a guest on entrepreneurs over 40.

[00:38:39] Julieanna Hever: Thank you so much for having me.