New Normal Project

Are you unsure how to change to a plant-based diet?

Do you find healthy habits can be difficult to maintain?

There are lots of reasons why people choose to go plant-based. At the New Normal Project the profound health benefits, both from the scientific literature and from hearing powerful stories of transformation, convinced us it was the best course for a long life of great health. Our guest this week, Dr Ash Nayate, is a vegan first and foremost for ethical reasons. However her work as a clinical neuropsychologist, mostly with children and their families, allows her to observe the profound impact that food has on our children's behavior. As well as working with children and their families in hospitals she also has a private practice helping adults who are looking to incorporate change into their lives. Join us as we hear Ash's story of how she became vegan, her theories on changing behaviour, breaking bad habits and how best to approach and maintain habit change. Ash also tells us of her healthy vegan pregnancy and of her interest in the mental health of those in minority groups such as veganism. You can connect with Ash at www.revolutionme.com.au

Now that you are plant-based, what happens the first time you go out to dinner with friends or have a family Christmas dinner?

This week married couple, Andrew and Claire Davies, reveal their experiences and strategies for when your lifestyle and health choices are exposed to the world. They describe their path over the past 5 years using Christmas as an example and how strategies such as bringing your own delicious & enticing food, detaching from the choices that others make as well as being kind to yourself, can be incredibly useful. And what's more, the non-plant-based eaters are sometime pleasantly surprised.

They also talk about how some subgroups of the whole foods plant based movement advocate for an entirely oil free version and reveal their philosophy about this.

Can turmeric work to replace your pain killers?

How quickly can swapping animal foods for plant foods impact your health?

Are plant-based foods anti-inflammatory?

Our guest this week stopped eating all animal products 8 weeks ago and amazing things started to happen. His chronic pain resolved in days. He stopped taking his powerful anti-inflammatories and pain medications. He started feeling better both within himself and within the world around him. He became happier.

Paul is a 52 year old doctor, husband and father to 2 year old Stella. His Western medical training and previous mindset told him that he was destined for a life of pain and dependence on medication but one day he had a thought. "What if I don't accept this and just try something different?" A light bulb went off. He grabbed some turmeric from the pantry and stopped eating meat, eggs and dairy that day.

Claire and Andrew have a very honest and frank discussion with Paul about how this transition occurred and its rapid impact on his health and life in general. Paul has a vitality and vibrancy that is evident from the very beginning of this conversation. He is passionate about sharing his story and inspiring others to just consider trying another way. For him this was eating a plant based diet and he could not have predicted just how great the impact would be.

Do you get enough sleep? Are you waking in the middle of the night? Are you a shift-worker doing night duty? Could you be chronically sleep-deprived? Do you try to sleep like parents who care for their babies sleep?

In this episode, Claire and Andrew talk about sleep including some of the problems we face in modern society, like a culture of staying up late, thinking sleep is not important and the use of screens in the evening. Claire describes how working night duty as a shift-working nurse affected her and Andrew tells how he became chronically sleep-deprived from overwork particularly in the evenings. They also discuss some of the health issues that arise from inadequate sleep as well as the problems that sleeping tablets can cause.

To help you, they discuss some basic tips for improving your sleep including optimising bedroom conditions, following your breath whilst counting back from 100 to help getting to sleep, reducing idevice use as much as possible in the evening, trying to follow the sleep habits we use for babies and young children, and taking a 30 day challenge of going to bed earlier and at the same time every night.

None of this is rocket science but with some basic mindful attention to your sleep habits, hopefully you will get a better night's sleep.

Andrew Taylor ate nothing but potatoes for 2016. One simple but dramatic gesture he hoped would cure his self identified addiction to food. And it did. He also lost 53kgs, cured his clinical depression, his YouTube videos went viral and the whole world was talking about him. This week Claire and Andrew Davies talk to Andrew Taylor about so much more than how he ate spuds for a year. He describes the very moment when he came to the realisation that if he didn't change, his then 2 year old son Teddy was on the same path to obesity and depression. Andrew shares his views on moderation and how especially when it come to food, moderation can only bring moderate health benefits. And if you're a food addict, moderation is the most disastrous model of a dietary plan.

We also talk about Andrew's dedication to process rather than results because he chose to tick off the daily task of eating potatoes rather than make a specific outcome his goal. And his transformation has been phenomenal. This means that if weight loss is important to you, perhaps you should throw out the scales and focus on doing the work every day because in Andrew's experience that is the truest path to sustainable change. The benefits you might imagine and then some.

Andrew is a lovely person, an everyday guy, a teacher, husband and father who has much to give the world based on his own unique experience of eating potatoes for a year.

In this episode we discuss mindfulness. What does mindfulness mean to us? And how has meditation, and learning about it, helped us in our lives? Claire and Andrew Davies discuss how a healthy lifestyle is strengthened by adding mindfulness. Each of us describes how mindfulness and meditation recently came into our lives, how this has helped us with managing the simple fears and stresses of a regular life, the realisation that all cultures, religions and spiritual practices in history have had some technique for bringing people into the present, some of the other benefits we have noticed, including when mindfulness teaching has been offered at our workplaces, and some of the courses, people and other resources that have helped us become regular meditators to help us in our lives. We also discuss the difficulties we all face with being disciplined to meditate every day and how being kind to ourselves about this is helpful, especially as the benefits gradually accumulate to allow us to face this busy life with a greater feeling of being in the now.

Be inspired by highlights from the recent Living The Plantpower Way events, held in Sydney and Melbourne, starring international wellness advocates Rich Roll and Julie Piatt. Included are key messages from Rich Roll, Andrew Davies and Andrew Taylor, the powerful Q&A session from the Melbourne event and beautiful music by Julie Piatt/SriMati.

Listen and connect with the unique dynamic of Rich and Julie as they use their knowledge, experience, wisdom and humour to answer questions such as:

Advice for starting out as an advocate of a plant-based lifestyle

Advice for couples where one is plant-based and the other is not

Definition of the word "ultra"

Advice for first time ultramarathon athlete and crew, with 8 weeks to go

How to deal with those who seem to want to improve their health but aren't prepared to go plant based?

List of books and resources referred to by Rich and Julie:

Autobiography of a Yogi (Pramahansa Yogananda)

Oneness (Rasha)

The Power of Now (Eckhart Tolle)

Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book

Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease (Caldwell Esselstyn)

Engine 2 Diet (Rip Esselstyn)

Thrive series (Brendan Brazier)

Finding God Through Sex (David Deida)

In this episode we discuss plant-based eating. What do we actually eat? If you think we changed overnight and that it is all mung beans and tofu then you'd be mistaken. In this episode Claire and Andrew Davies discuss what eating a whole foods plant based diet means to them and describe a typical 'day on a plate' at New Normal Project HQ. Lots of people have asked what a whole foods plant based diet is and for us it means eating plant foods in their most natural and least processed form. Lots of fruit & vegetables, legumes, beans, nuts, oats, grains and cereals. We do eat some processed foods such as bread and pasta but choose those made with whole grains, such as spelt, quinoa or wholegrains pasta and bread. You'll hear what we eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner in a typical day and also how our transition occurred; with lots of tips on ways to incorporate eating more plants into your diet. We discuss tofu and how it features in our life (spoiler alert- it doesn't) and recall a time when it was difficult to imagine planning dinner without meat as the main feature. Our recent road trip to Sydney was time to reflect on how far we've come in this journey and we outline our eating strategies while acknowledging that we aren't always perfect and that practicing kindness towards ourselves is a key part to transitioning to a healthier, plant powered life.

"If I could deliver one message to the researchers who are looking for the cause of diabetes and the cause of clogged arteries and the cause of high blood pressure and the cause of diabetes I would tell them the answer is in 3 words - it's the food".

These words were said by Dr Michael Klaper, an American physician who uses whole foods plant-based nutrition in his medical practice, and come straight from the movie 'What The Health'. This movie opened internationally this month and we were privileged to attend the Australian premiere screening in Melbourne this week. This extremely provacative and groundbreaking documentary movie made by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn, is the follow-up film from the creators of the award-winning documentary Cowspiracy. The film exposes the collusion and corruption in government and big business that is costing us trillions of healthcare dollars, and keeping us sick. It uncovers the secret to preventing and even reversing chronic diseases, which is essentially a whole foods plant-based diet, and seems to be something the world's leading health organizations don't want people to know about.

In this episode we discuss our impressions of the movie, play the trailer of the movie, and then play the audio from a medical panel discussion which was conducted in the cinema immediately following the movie screening. This panel included general practitioner Dr Malcolm Mackay, medical oncologist Dr Despina Handolias, lifestyle medicine trainee Dr Renae Thomas, neuropsychologist Dr Ash Nayate, and was moderated by intensive care physician Dr Andrew Davies. The panel members gave their impressions of the movie and discussed how they are using plant-based nutrition in their practice before answering questions from the audience. The many questions included how we can get more health care professionals to consider plant-based nutrition in their own lives and practice, what are the best resources for information to back up our dietary choices, what are the effects of pesticides on plant-based wholefoods, whether we should be concerned about significant soy consumption, the risk of iron deficiency for plant-based eaters, recommendations regarding vitamin B12 supplementation on a plant-based diet, whether backyard eggs might be better than commercially produced eggs, the struggles of challenging the status quo in health education, and thoughts on a high carbohydrate, low fat approach to diet. This was a really valuable panel discussion and we are very pleased to bring this to you courtesy of Raw Events Australia and Animal Liberation Victoria who arranged the movie screening and panel discussion. Hope you enjoy it.

Claire & Andrew, from the New Normal Project, discuss the recent Living The Plantpower Way events, held in Sydney and Melbourne on March 16 and 17, 2017. They describe the best aspects of these events, which were evening programs showcasing transformation and wellness advocates, Rich Roll and Julie Piatt (aka SriMati) from the USA. They discuss the high quality of and the impact Rich's keynote had on them and others, and also some of the other highlights, such as Julie's guided group meditation and musical performance, the transformation story of Andrew Taylor, and the Q&A session that Rich and Julie did together with questions from the audience. They talk about the sense of community that seems so necessary (and seemed to occur at the events) for those living a healthy lifestyle focused predominantly on plant-based eating, but also regular exercise, meditation and good sleep. Towards the end of the episode Claire & Andrew propose several ideas for how the New Normal Project can continue to inspire people to lead their healthiest and most authentic lives.