318: Flavors and Wisdom: Unveiling the Delights of Chef Julia's One-Day Retreat | Maya Acosta and Dr. Rizwan Bukhari

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  00:00

I was just really impressed. Every single person there was there to, to better their, their health. Yeah, when when they walked around the when we went around the room and everybody was talking, I was really impressed with how much people recognized this lifestyle and in this way of cooking isn't is important to them to improve their health.

Maya Acosta  00:19

This is the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast, and I'm your host Maya Acosta. If you're willing to go with me, together, we can discover how simple lifestyle choices can help improve our quality of life, and increase our longevity in a good way. Let's get started. All right, welcome back to another episode of the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast. And guess what today is Monday? And what do we have on Mondays? Dr. Risk, we have Dr. In the house, another episode with Dr. risk being the guest expert that shows up and joins us so much to share with all of you. I'm so excited, I thought I actually had notes with me, written down, we're going to talk about what we did this past Saturday as Chef Julius house, we're going to talk about what's coming up at the end of the month, the NHPA conference. So we're gonna go into detail about that. And then let's talk about a couple of recent trips that we have not shared with our audience. We went hiking, and then I went out of town to New York. So lots to talk about today. Instead of doing a health topic, I thought that we could tell our audience what we've been up to. And this is why we're doing this episode.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  01:34

I also did a couple of interviews. One was we did it dot health. And I also was on Dr. Laurie Marvis his podcast for more.

Maya Acosta  01:43

Yes, I'm so glad you bring it up. Because what I'll do is I'll add a link to those interviews in the show notes. So if you're new to our podcast, if you're listening for the first time, and you want to learn more about Dr. Risk, there are going to be two links in the show notes. And we'll talk to you about those in a minute. In terms of the interview that you did, and then the other one was was more of a discussion. But let's just say that you did two back to back online events recently, online interviews, I guess you can say I have these cards that are conversational cards. I've played with the other vegan ladies that I've had dinner with in the past. And then when we went camping with another couple, I took these conversation cards with us. And it's a wonderful way of getting to know people. So I thought we could start by drawing a card and just answering it for fun. Okay, so why did you draw the first card? If you don't like it? You can put it back and choose another?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  02:39

Okay. Do you offer good advice? I mean, I actually get asked all the time to give advice. I'm a physician. And I think I do give good advice. I pride myself on being very open minded and objective with what I give and very, you know, scientifically sound advice. I'm pretty good about saying if I don't know something I say I don't know, the advice I do offer is about stuff that I'm well prepared to take care of.

Maya Acosta  03:07

Okay, awesome. I like this cart. Anything else about that? No, that's good. I'm gonna draw one more. And I'll draw one. And then let's see if we want to keep going for a little bit. Okay. How do you tell the difference between your intuitions and your fears? Oh, my gosh, I'm still working on this. I feel like I can't answer this. Because I feel like Michelle helps me through this. What's the difference between what my intuition is telling me and my fear? Well, okay, I'll answer it. When fear is kicking in. I feel it in my body, I feel the what feels like anxiety and nervousness and the tension in my body fear. And I feel this resistance that I don't want to go forth. And I'm really talking about like, intuition tells me Don't do that. Or intuition tells me Yes, do that. So I know it's intuition because I stop. And I listened to my body. And when it's a yes, I feel I feel it. And when I stop, to listen to my intuition, I'm not thinking about it. I'm not telling stories about something. I'm it's like, I'm feeling for an answer about something. Should I go forth with something should I not? And then fear is more like, Oh my God, what's going to happen? And I flee forward. And I have all these concerns. And I tell stories, and I'm in my head and I feel the fear in my body. Does that answer? Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. We got another Yeah. Do another one for yourself.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  04:37

This is a good one. When the phone rings do you generally experience excitement or dread? Well, that's hilarious. I think that's a hilarious one because I I've grown up around the age of when phones went from something that was just some rotary thing in the house. To now here we are Fast forward several decades to the cell phone era and And I remember when I was younger, or you know, you had a phone and it wasn't, you know, phone calls weren't as pervasive as they were today. And when the phone rang, you picked it up. There was no dread behind it. And it was interesting. You wanted to see who was calling you, you know, there wasn't all these cold calls or other things like that. And so yeah, it's back then. You know, there was an excitement about getting a phone call. You are very interesting. Now fast forward today. I think the reality is, we don't like to talk as much on the phone. And but the the beauty of it for me is that there's caller ID. And so I mean, if it's somebody I know, well, then sure, I'm going to answer it and talk to them. But if it's somebody I don't know, who's not in my phonebook, well, then I have the opportunity to not talk to so I'm not I'm not as big of a talker on the phone as I used to. I like texting a lot. Absolutely. It allows me to just get my statement said and then I can move on because I, I lead a very busy lifestyle, and I don't spend a lot of time talking on the phone. Yeah. So that's a long answer. But yeah,

Maya Acosta  06:06

okay. So these cards are called Do It Yourself therapy, Table Topics, questions to start great conversations. So that was a little bit, just just a little warm up a little way of you guys getting to know us as well. Let's start with telling our listeners about the recent hike we did. Since we're using these cards. We we went with another couple and we'll use the cards with them as well. So want to give everybody a recap, and then we'll move forward to what happened this weekend.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  06:36

Sure, I'll, I'll start that, you know, we went Maya and I do like to go camping and hiking and get out in nature. We really enjoy it. And we certainly don't get out as much as we'd like to. And so very recently, we went to Palo Duro Canyon State Park here in Texas and also Caprock. Canyon State Park in Texas. They're actually very close to each other up in Amarillo area. So in the panhandle of Texas, and it's a it was quite an eye opening trip for me. Because I didn't know this existed in Texas. These are these were beautiful. The canyons apparently Palo Duro is the second largest canyon in the United States behind the Grand Canyon. And no one talks about it. And it was gorgeous. It was beautiful. We had we were having some rain. So some of the trails were closed. And we had to deal with that. And our and our big hike was a lot of it was in a mosh pit of mud. But, you know, that kind of made it a better and more memorable experience. But anyway, so the beauty was extraordinary. And I I was joking around I keep saying it's almost like being in Utah, it's Utah in Texas, you know, these just big canyons and multicolored rocks. And it was just an eye opener for me.

Maya Acosta  07:58

Yeah, I loved it. You took care of most of the planning, which was really nice. And I took care of what was basically meal planning for four people in our van for three days just to kind of give everybody an idea of the distance. It was a six about a six hour drive or so from where we live in Dallas to that destination. And we went along with another couple. He is our friend. It has really made it a mission to travel throughout the country and see every national park, including state or just national parks,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  08:37

mostly national, this was his first State Park. I think he's seen 54 national parks in the last five years.

Maya Acosta  08:45

Incredible. I want to say like three years ago, when I started seeing all these posts that he was making on his social media, I would ask him, is there a chance that you know, maybe someday you can take us on a you know, like you can be our guide because we're not really fully experienced hikers, but we love the outdoors. And he would ask me, Well, you know, could you teach me how you cook pot and bass, he's vegan, but he was asking for healthier options. And I thought to myself, Wow, this is a wonderful way of collaborating and teaching one another. He given us tips on hiking. And then of course, we took our van, which meant that everything could be stored in the van because we do have a refrigerator and we have plenty of storage. But we also have everything that we need to cook full meals on board. And so it was great. Anyway, what I was saying is that you planned everything I just showed up with the food.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  09:39

Well, you know, so yeah, I reserved all the camping sites and got that all planned and our friends kind of planned like like the hiking because he's got such a good experience. He looked up all the trails ahead of time and then he has an app, which is very good for hiking. It's called all trails and he downloaded the maps for the different trails and So he was he was kind of our hiking guide. Yeah, yeah. So it was a team effort.

Maya Acosta  10:05

So the other thing that I wanted to add for all of you listeners, as a matter of fact, tomorrow, there's an episode that you really are going to want to listen to the more that I dive into lifestyle medicine, and the more that I bring experts from the American College of lifestyle medicine on the podcast, the more that I learned how important it is not only to support myself, and to educate and help educate all of you listeners about lifestyle medicine, but I'm learning how important it is to support our health care providers. So not just physicians, not just nurses and nurse practitioners, but anyone in the health care field. I recently had Dr. Tiger and Dr. Sunderman on the show speaking about physician burnout, and they talked about how important it is to spend time in nature using nature is medicine. And tomorrow, we're gonna hear from Dr. Svetlana Shimon, who also designed a program to support people in health care, who are experiencing you know, burnout, but also just mental health to support people in mental health. And so I was really happy to see you spend time outdoors because I know that your windows are very small, sometimes for vacationing or taking a break.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  11:18

Oh, yeah, I had a great time. In fact, I was kind of depressed coming back.

Maya Acosta  11:22

I was oh, no, it didn't.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  11:24

If you got depressed, it didn't work. I wanted to spend more time there. So I was kind of bummed that we had to come back. Yeah, the

Maya Acosta  11:29

reason we ended up getting a van was even before the pandemic, we wanted to have a van to spend more time in nature, because we both really sometimes burn the candle at both ends were very busy. And fortunately last year, we were able to to find the right van for us to experience van life. And we did take advantage last year, we discovered we started discovering locations only about an hour and a half, maybe two hours away from Dallas, where we could count.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  11:59

Yeah, I mean, it's very surprising, but and we kind of had already before we got the camper van, we had already done some camping and excursions to Texas State Parks, but there's just a tremendous, a myriad of parks available to us. I think there's 70 parks and in the state of Texas. Wow. And so you know, I encourage everybody who you know, here, you know, our local listeners, you know, join the Texas State Park program, it's only $70 a year and then you get to go all over and get a discount these these parks are very well maintained. And you've got camping sites and all sorts of hiking available to you and and you can either glamp a little bit, you know, because you've got the RV sites with electric and water and there's even bathrooms with showers or you can do a little bit more primitive camping, you can camp in a tent, you can camp in your RV. So there's it's just, you know, we've we've really, I think we've probably you and I have probably hit 15 or 20 of these places over the last couple of years now.

Maya Acosta  13:03

Yeah, if you took training a while back on how to basically it was a survival course, wasn't it? Yeah,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  13:10

yeah, that was a little bit more than camping, it was more of a survival course. You know, starting fires and making shelters and finding water and foraging for food, which I really enjoyed too. So you know, it's just kind of an extension of the skill set. And it was just kind of fun to do

Maya Acosta  13:26

our friends. They stayed in their in their tent overnight, while they kept the entire time in their tent and so that you you set up camp. So I stayed in the van. i That was my choice. No, other than Hey, I was the cook the chef. So I am working on a van live cookbook, plant based. And so I have been working on something for two to three years where I collect all my recipes as I'm experimenting and testing and trying things out and it's called Van life. That's what I have the layout that I have digitally so far. But I mean I don't know when I'll when I'll publish this, but I think it would be a lot of fun for us to have stories in there. And it could be anything but it would be fun if it were more outdoorsy the stories and then some of the meals that we cook on site. Now, we do everything from basic cooking,

Maya Acosta  14:20

we've camped while I've cooked over the fire, that's a lot of fun.

Maya Acosta  14:24

And to cooking on gas using a propane stove to now use an induction stovetop. So we took a walk

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  14:35

ins to pot as well. I use a small three

Maya Acosta  14:37

quart in some pot and then when I say we took a walk I meant like one of the cooking walks not that we walked around, but we did that too. And you also took a crepe maker. I took a crate maker who mainly because we have the space but also because since we were entertaining our friends, I just wanted Riz to prepare some of the things that he specializes in in the kitchen which is a lot of fun. You make some great stir fry And you'd make a delicious crepe for for a dessert

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  15:03

now we've made pizza in the van to before.

Maya Acosta  15:06

Yeah, so there's so many different ways that we can talk about cooking and Van life but for me, it's van life because that's my kitchen, the van, what would you prepare? If you weren't solely relying on your tent and your backpack? Yeah, gear?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  15:21

Yeah, there's some, you know, I started as I've as I've become, you know, learn more about backpacking, you know, you've probably you've seen it, where I started to create these kind of easy to make meals when you're out backpacking because I have a little propane stove top that I can carry in my backpack, a single burner stove and, and then so I learned to carry with me the little containers of just you know what single use containers of plant milk along with my oatmeal and you know, dried fruits and nuts and things like that, that I can make some make an oatmeal or, you know, little pre prepared meals and freeze dried meals for like pasta with red sauce. And so yeah, there's a there's a whole skill set to this kind of cooking when you're backpacking. Yeah.

Maya Acosta  16:11

Okay. So Dr. Ways that was camping, and there's so much more that we can talk about by basically, we enjoy this wonderful hike came back, I know that I benefited from it. And then two days later, I went from like having casual clothes and boots, hiking boots, on one trip to coming home and packing for a trip to New York. So I headed to New York, two days after for the vegan Women's Summit. And that was really just a an experience where I worked in the media room, interviewing some of the guest speakers. But what I do want to tell everyone is check out the interviews that I did from the vegan Women's Summit, because I have like nine interviews that are going to be releasing Wednesday through Friday. So for the rest of this month, every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, there is a new interview by a great and amazing female entrepreneurs, CEO, food product developer, you name it. They're going to be featured in the podcast. Let's talk about Saturday, we went to Chef Julia Dunaway is home. She's just on the outside of Fort Worth, I would say probably in terms of distance, about an hour and 15 minutes from where we live. Chef Julio has a background as a culinary chef and training in the blue zone living during the pandemic. As many of you remember, no one really had an idea of how long we would be in lockdown, or what the future was going to look like. And Julia is someone who I admire so much. She started going on Facebook Live every day, just cooking a recipe showing people for one hour how to prepare a meal. Yeah, she did 50 straight days, exactly. 50 straight days, from that experience. She started her business pretty much she just kept going. I mean, she already had business, she told us as a matter of fact, on Saturday how she used to host events in her home before the pandemic. And before going fully plant based. Those 50 days led to a cookbook, which then led to more classes as she offers to one on one coaching. And now she does these one day retreats and she's doing them I guess they're like quarterly, like for three or four times a year. And this is the second time that you have been invited to participate as a speaker.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  18:41

Yeah, well, it's kind of interesting. So she, you know, we all had to do make changes during the pandemic. And she kind of had to reinvent things, because, you know, it was not really reasonable to have in person events anymore, like she used to do. And I think I remember her saying she just decided to go ahead and she saw something on TV, like a Food Channel thing, where one of the stars was doing their own. They were just using their iPhone to record themselves and cooking at home. And she said, hey, I can do that. And so she did it one time. And then she just decided after that she could do it again and again. And she went ahead and did it for 50 straight days. So you kind of have to reinvent yourself during that time. And then that led to a strong, stronger online presence. And then she was able to do a start a whole lot of virtual cooking lessons and cooking classes. And now we're kind of emerging out the other side and she started up these in person day retreats now. Yeah, and yeah, she's invited, invited us to participate. And I've gotten to give lectures of these women I think we will get one more at the end of this year to take part Yeah,

Maya Acosta  19:53

I kind of wanted to share with our listeners what the day look like you know, paint a picture in case you're ever interested Anything coming out or finding out more about Julius retreats? It's an entire day of learning. And I would love to hear from you. What are three things that you really enjoyed about the entire retreat?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  20:15

Okay, so I have to narrow it down to three. Hmm. Well, I mean, it was a really, it was a fun day, overall. First off, I mean, just, that's number one, it was a great day, just being there with a lot of people who were very interested in learning to cook better for their to improve their health. It's nice to see people who are invested. I guess number two is I really enjoyed being able to sample so much good food. And, you know, we got there and the first thing was that she had a breakfast prepared for us, which, you know, that was that was lovely. And there was just so much to choose from, that you couldn't really eat at all. What I appreciated was that a lot of these people there were really grateful to learn these new cooking skills. Yeah, I was just really impressed. Every single person there was there to, to better their, their health. Yeah, when when they walked around the when we went around the room and everybody was talking, I was really impressed with how much people recognized this lifestyle, and in this way of cooking isn't is important to them to improve their health.

Maya Acosta  21:22

Yeah. All right. So I'm gonna tell you what I enjoyed the most three things that I enjoy the most. The first one was me sitting back, and just experiencing this as a student, because I love to learn. And I feel like I learned something new every single time I'm exposed to a new recipe, a new gadget, a new technique in the kitchen. Even hearing Julia's story, I wasn't as familiar with her story of her parents having chronic disease and all of that. So I enjoy just sitting back and learning. Without, you know, like, it was a day for me to rest. Because usually I'm working an event or I'm running an event or in preparing for an event, it seems like there's always something going on. I enjoy that. And I enjoyed seeing Julia in her element. Because I know Julia virtually, that's what I saw her doing before the pandemic and during the pandemic, you see her on YouTube, you see her on Facebook, she's actually doing really well on YouTube and making all these wonderful videos and to be in her space. And to hear from her how they expanded that kitchen and how she designed the kitchen that she now films and and teaches classes in was her idea that when they expanded their home, so she had a vision of how much window space she wanted, she wanted access to the beauty that immediately surrounds her her garden. Then there we saw deer. And you know, you just see you get this idea that you're just in at a retreat really when you're in her kitchen. So that was number two what I really loved number three, the food because I knew what she was going to prepare. And one of my favorite dishes of hers is the tofu scramble. Yeah, that was that was my favorite as well. Yeah, yeah, it's probably the best tofu scramble I've ever had. And then I you know, is how I am that I try not to serve myself too much because I don't like wasting food. So I only serve myself what I feel I'm going to eat, which means that I don't always get to taste everything. And I feel like I missed out.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  23:39

Yeah, no, I certainly also didn't get everything. Right. Although, although I went back and grabbed a few things from time to time throughout the course of the day, right?

Maya Acosta  23:47

So I Oh, I feel like because it's like buffet style. So when you first arrive, I think it was like nine in the morning, you have an hour in at the beginning of the day to mingle to sample the food to just get to know each other and then she starts sharing her story. And so I kind of sat in a certain place behind all the other students because she you sit around her kitchen counter, which feels very personal. I just love that whole experience. So that was that. And if you wanted to focus a little bit more on the food, I will tell you that there was another thing that I enjoyed so tofu scramble was my number one. Number two was the polenta. And you know that before I went vegan, I never ate polenta. I didn't even know what it was. And polenta is the same thing as grits right? It's corn. It's corn. Okay, but maybe

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  24:43

ground corn or corn meal. Yeah.

Maya Acosta  24:45

Horse was really delicious. And then the third thing that I am comes to mind in terms of what I really enjoyed was that banana bread and I forgot what all this

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  24:55

will all the all the cookies and brownies and breads were Fanta Stick. Yeah. And we should add that brought a few home and I ate them all last night.

Maya Acosta  25:04

Yeah, I missed it. I missed out. I didn't, I brought a few things that I said, Oh, I haven't sample these and I didn't get to sample them again, for dessert, she had these delicious like pista, ocho almen, probably I don't remember what all is in it, like truffle like, snacks. And okay, and then

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  25:24

she did call them energy balls. Okay, next.

Maya Acosta  25:27

And finally, about the entire food. What I really want to emphasize is that Chef Julia cooks, Peridot, not predominantly, all her food is whole food, plant based, oil free. She shared with me in the past that in order to prefer to really provide that buffet style, breakfast, it takes weeks of planning and preparation. And oh my gosh, there's just so much that I can go into detail about but that was that. So we had breakfast chef Juliette shared her story, which again, I didn't know the full details, it was really nice to learn more about her. After chip Julia introduce herself. She had everybody, all the participants go around the room and share a little bit about why they were there. And what most impressed me about that is that some people came from out of state. Yeah, from a long ways off. Yeah. And they all shared a little bit about why they're there. And I actually took some notes, we can talk a little bit about this. And then because you and I hold events, we do a lot of different things. And we've had panel discussions and we've had testimonials at our events we've done so much and and it's nothing new. I guess that's my point is that there are some common reasons why people struggle to go whole food plant based diet. And I think even Julia said that it's not that the people need the message. It's not like they need to hear that going. Hopefully, plant base is the best thing for your health. It's more like what are the challenges that people are constantly facing? Kim Campbell came on the show. And she's married to Nelson Campbell. She's the daughter in law to T. Colin Campbell. And one of the things that she said is that keeps people from living this way is that the food doesn't taste good. At least they feel the Food is not tasty.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  27:21

Yeah, that's that seems to be a common theme is that a lot of people were there to find out how to cook this food and make it enjoyable. Yeah, because there is a common perception that, that it's not going to be tasty. Yeah. Or this lifestyle is not going to be tasty. And and I think that that's something that a myth that has to be broken down. And, and Chef Julia is out there teaching people that that's not the case.

Maya Acosta  27:45

Yes, it's a myth. And then it's also a reality, because not everybody knows how to cook. So that's one of the reasons why we as adults have to go back to the kitchen and learn the basics. I mean, I remember that I had to learn what I was supposed to have in the pantry, how to do groceries. And so when, you know, you can deep fry anything, and it'll taste good, we have these conversations that you can deep fry things, just throw some money in there and some garlic, and it'll be tasty. But when you remove the oil, and the added salt and the added sugar, food can taste bland, if you don't know how to properly steam, if you don't know how to properly roast, there are so many things that that we learn in this way of living. And so there we have been to some places where the food is not good.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  28:34

Yeah, well, I mean, I think that that makes sense. Because we kind of do live in an era where cooking at home is not as common as it used to be. So the cooking skills aren't necessarily a common thing that everybody knows, and just the general different, you know how to cook and, and, you know, the other thing that I think about the food that we eat is, it's important to learn that there's more to life than just salt and pepper. Yeah, you know, there's, there's so many more spices out there that we can use. You and I come from ethnic backgrounds where they do use a lot of different spices. And so it's we're pretty comfortable with that. Yeah, but the kind of the standard American approach has never been that, you know, in our fast food era, the way it is today. And with people eating out so much or ordering in so much. There's just not that those those cooking skills aren't there.

Maya Acosta  29:22

Right. And this is why we offer these classes. I mean, this is why we're part of this community, we're learning to familiarize ourselves with the kitchen again. So that was one one thing that really stood out is that people kind of sad and they probably have had experiences of the food not being tasty.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  29:40

So yeah, I was there to talk about kind of the, the medical and health aspects, you know, kind of from a scientific standpoint about why it's good to live this lifestyle. But then that's all well and good but the practical skills are another thing altogether, which you know, not only includes the cook During that shift Julia was teaching, but you know, maybe even what to have in your pantry, how to go shopping? Those are important skills to learn as well.

Maya Acosta  30:07

Yeah, absolutely. That's great stuff. Um, the other thing that came to mind as we're talking about tasty food is that I remember telling you that in the past, what typically happens when you buy a cookbook, just say off a bookshelf in the bookstore. And you've never tasted the recipes, but you go and make the recipe, you don't know if you're actually going to like the food. And the advantage that we have when we taste Julius food is, if we like something, we say, Okay, I want the recipe, right. And that's a huge, huge advantage. That's also an advantage to having a potluck, plant based potluck is you teach, taste each other's foods, and then decide if you want the recipe. The other thing that I've noticed, there were a couple of vegans that were there. So people that have chosen to be vegan for ethical reasons, and now have decided that they want to eat healthier for, for obvious reasons to prevent chronic disease and all that. And I often share on the podcast that I went vegan, my first year, and then I gain weight, because I was eating a lot of processed foods from the frozen food section that what we call convenience foods, they might not have animal products, but they have a whole bunch of other ingredients that are not healthy for me. And so it was really nice to see people wanting to not only care for animals by not eating animals, but also eating the healthier foods for their for their own health.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  31:33

I agree. I agree. And so

Maya Acosta  31:35

also, there was another component that really stood out and about what Chef Julia was saying, not everybody suffers with food addiction, but there was a woman where she talked about how, if you have an addictive personality, being told, Hey, you can eat all the food you want nonstop, as long as there's whole food plant based diet may not be the best approach. And so she was just, she was giving some advice as to you know, eat until you're satisfied, which is what we teach. And that's one of the blue BlueZone principles is eat until you're no longer hungry or eat until you're satisfied instead of eating until you're full. And so she spoke a little bit about that as well. Okay. Okay, so I'm going to wrap up this portion by moving on to the fact that we want to address Blue Zone living. And so the the next four segments or so for Dr. In the house, is we're going to go deep dive into what Blue Zone living is and how you can blues on your life.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  32:44

Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. As you know, we're not going to make the United States a Blue Zone. Maybe that's a nice goal. But you can create your own Blue Zone in the way you live your life. Yeah, it's a really nice way to put it.

Maya Acosta  32:57

Yes, so stay tuned. The next episode after this next Monday, we will introduce you to the Blue Zones. Also the areas in the world where people live the longest without having advanced chronic disease. Just a couple of other things before we wrap up, we have an event coming up on July 16. And I didn't, I'm just going to encourage you to email me if you want more details if you're in the area, because I haven't created a Facebook event for this yet. But you can email me at plant based maya@gmail.com If you're interested. So this is going to be an event in Frisco at the Frisco library. I'm going to show a documentary and I'm going to have a physician assistant talk about the film, we might try to do a potluck with it. Dr. Riz will be there as well, we may have a couple of other doctors, physicians that we may invite, this will be one of our first in person not related to our walk our monthly walk, but in person collaboration with another group in Frisco. And I'm really excited about coming together and creating events. You know, I love to create events. I'm an event planner and a collaborator.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  34:08

Yeah, it's nice to see people in person. You know, and we've, we've gone years without that kind of consistent stuff. So it's gonna be nice to have an event in person.

Maya Acosta  34:19

That's right. And by the way, feel free to like, share in the comments, these ideas, you know, give me ideas because one of my greatest limitations is finding a location to do events. If I could have an event in a play a stable place every month, I would have a an event every month. But anyway, we're going to do it at the library. And I'll start to put out more information on social media and on Eventbrite and Facebook events and all of that. But our goal is to bring the community together watch a film, which always impacts everyone. I mean, you and I watch plantpure nation at least once a year. I At least I do, because it impacts me so much. But, you know, we're, it's along the lines of health. So that's going to be July 16. And then the other thing I wanted to share with listeners is at the end of this month, we're going to Cleveland, Ohio.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  35:15

Yeah, we're gonna go to the NH a conference in Cleveland, you know, the NHL has been on our radar for a long time. And probably, you know, the, the pandemic, impaired our ability to participate. Because we weren't traveling as much. But, you know, we're finally getting to our first NHL conference. And we're very excited to participate. And we've been asked to lead a walk at the Vitamix factory, which is going to be fun. All Walker morning, kind of almost like a Walk With A Doc, but I'm gonna take my Walk With A Doc shirt. So I guess we can call it that. So

Maya Acosta  35:54

for those of you who may not know what the FHA is, it's a national health association. They used to go by another name back in the day, but the National Health Association is celebrating 75 years.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  36:08

Yeah, they're the oldest plant based organization in the United States, or maybe in the world? I don't know ever. Yes, yeah. So this is their 75th anniversary. That's

Maya Acosta  36:17

right. And so Mark Huberman, who was one of the original founders, I mean, he was a teenager when he joined that organization. He was on the show last year, his wife was on the show this year, Wanda Huberman, and one of their producers of not only the virtual conference, but the podcast, Kathleen Gage was recently on the podcast as well. So I'm going to add all those links below because you want to learn about individuals who are the real in many ways, the real pioneers in the whole food plant based diet, lifestyle. And so they are putting on this amazing presentation, we're going to have Dr. Kim Williams, who's the cardiologist will be there, Dr. Furman, who else is gonna have Joel Fuhrman is

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  37:02

going to be there. I know that

Maya Acosta  37:03

anyway, the tickets are sold out. And also Wanda, when you listen to the episode, you'll hear that she never wants to have a gathering larger than 350 people, because she loves the intimacy of coming together. And that's probably one of the things if not the main thing that I'm looking forward to Riz is us coming together with like minded people who some, we've met virtually, but never in person.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  37:29

Yeah, I think it's nice, I kind of feel like I get lost in the crowd in the very, very large conferences. And so I like the idea of it being smaller in size. And they've already they already make you feel, you know, kind of it's very personal, very personalized, and the communication has been great. So I'm looking forward to it, it's going to be like more like getting together with a large group of friends. It is. But you know, despite the fact that it's sold out, you know, don't don't worry, because you have the opportunity to attend virtually if you'd like to. That's right.

Maya Acosta  38:02

And as a matter of fact, now that you say that, I want to say that they're still running their early bird price. And so everything we're going to have access to, you're going to have access to virtually so you for a lot cheaper to That's right, I want to say only $97, the price will go up in a few days, but you still have time. So check out now we do have an affiliate link full disclosure, and affiliate link with no ha. But if you want the discount, use our affiliate link. So it's bit bi T dot L Y, forward slash, and H A Dr. Riz, and that's where Dr is. And if you sign up with using our affiliate link, either use the link or just make sure to tell them doctor is in Maya sent you, you're going to have access to us at the same time that the whole conference is happening. They they're going to give us a private virtual room to connect with you guys so that we can you can ask us questions we can connect. And so also you're going to be able to ask questions live, because like I said, it's all going to happen at the same time where we'll be sitting in the lectures, and you'll be watching from the comfort of your home. And you can ask any question that you want. And then like I said, you'll be able to meet with us online.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  39:24

If you haven't been able to sign up to go in person, you can still attend virtually.

Maya Acosta  39:27

The other fun thing about the NHK we just became century level members and maybe you can speak a little bit more about that they're going to feature us in there. I want to say summary addition magazine. Yeah,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  39:38

apparently so they just asked for a picture of us. So we sent that in and yeah, yeah, it's a nice group to be a part of, and I'm very excited. There's something that I've known about that they do is like their their excursions, you know, and they have, they have cruises that they do, which are plant based cruises and this is a little bit nicer because it's more of a leisure cruises. smaller. We're going on one to Tahiti in 2025. That's right. And I think the boat in the only carries 350 people. But so I'm looking forward to it because it's going to be a leisure cruise.

Maya Acosta  40:11

That's right. Chef Julia also said that she's already signed up and some other people that we know are going, it'll be in February 2025, where we're actually going to be island hopping. And we're exactly.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  40:23

It's the Islands of Tahiti. So yeah, several stops and TV.

Maya Acosta  40:27

Oh, my God, like, how long is it going to take us to get there? It's in the middle of nowhere.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  40:31

Yeah, it's a long trip, it's gonna it's about a, I've already checked out the flights, the quickest you can get there as a two hopper. And I think that if you're just if you're lucky, you can get there in 15 hours, I saw some that were 20 to 26 hours. So it just depends on how you route yourself. And you know, which airlines you take, etc.

Maya Acosta  40:52

It's crazy. We've never done anything like this where we make plans two years ahead of time, you know, maybe a year ahead of time, we don't do that we planned two or three months ahead of time. And that's about it.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  41:05

It's pretty hard for me to plan that two years ahead of time, right, exactly by this so

Maya Acosta  41:09

you can still find out about the cruise if you're interested. But we've become very fond of the National Health Association. And so they have this beautiful quarterly magazine that you've been invited to write an article for the magazine,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  41:22

hoping to contribute to the next edition, not the summer one, but hopefully the fall. Yeah,

Maya Acosta  41:25

yeah. So so much content. In today's episode, we just you know, because we're so busy recording a lot of times and releasing episodes that we forget to touch base and just tell you what's been going on with us. So we talked about chef Julius retreat, we talked about the upcoming na che Conference, which will be June 22. Through the 25th or so you were interviewed for wedidit.health Did you want to talk anything about that? I'm gonna put links in the show notes. And you were interviewed by Dr. Laurie Marvis? Yeah,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  41:57

it was nice. I think it was. I don't know if you want to call them podcasts that we did. We did it not health was a a live event. Interviewed by Dr. Marvis was a podcast.

Maya Acosta  42:07

Yeah, Dr. Laurie Marvis is in the documentary that we are going to show July 16. So you're going to start to see a connection as to the event that we're doing. And so again, send me an email if you have questions. As always, you know that Dr. Riz has his social media, especially he's most active on Instagram. That's Dr. Dr. underscore r i z underscore B. UK h a r i, is there anything else that we'd like to add that we're we might be forgetting?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  42:37

No, I think we've covered a lot of stuff. We're getting busy. Again, I call it the we're kind of emerging from the pandemic shutdown. And it is nice, although it is keeping us on our toes.

Maya Acosta  42:50

It really is. And by the that reminds me, the lifestyle medicine conference is coming up in the fall, we'll be there as well. This year, it's going to be in Denver, Colorado.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  43:00

I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, if you have not

Maya Acosta  43:02

signed up for our newsletter, let me give you the link real quick. It's Bitly bi T dot L y forward slash join Dr risks. And that's Dr. R i z. So join Dr risks. And what we'd like to do is just share updates and things that are going on and tell you about episodes and all of that in the newsletter. So that's what you'll be signing up for. So the other thing Dr. Risk, if you want to tell listeners about your monthly walk, the next one is June 17. And so far, we're still sticking with 12pm the afternoon, but I will tell you, we have a private Whatsapp group for our walkers. And this is a way that we can stay in communication with our walkers. If you're the most active. If you're showing up for our walks. You're in our WhatsApp group. And this is where you can help us decide whether we should change the time because it's getting hot at noon.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  43:57

Yeah, I mean, it's going. We are that's four days from the summer solstice. So yeah, our next walk is June 17. It'll be at noon, at our normal place. And we will probably I think it probably be a good idea to pull our walkers and see if it's okay to move the time to maybe a little bit earlier in the morning. So it's not quite so hot.

Maya Acosta  44:21

That's right. So Walk With A Doc. What you do with that is about an hour or so event. People show up you give about a 15 minute talk. We walk one mile, depending on the group, we do a second mile and then many times we say afterwards and really talk it's really about community make connections. This is where you can learn meet other potential walking partners. So we've been doing really well with that.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  44:46

Yeah, it's it's been well attended. I'm really happy that it's picking up steam again. Now that we've restarted this year, and we've had very good turnouts. Yeah, I mean, I think that people have made friends, new friends in the walk. So We oftentimes hang out for quite a while afterwards and talk and we've even gotten together and gone and get gotten some lunch.

Maya Acosta  45:07

That's right. And we also have a podiatrist that wants to join the next walk. And so that's gotten us to think about like other specialists that can just come and support us and help answer questions that people may have. Basically that's it for today's episode of Doctor in the house with Dr. Rizwan Bukhari, and your host Maya. So thank you. Once again, you've been listening to the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast with your host Maya Acosta. If you've enjoyed this content, please share with one friend who can benefit. You can also leave us a five star review at rate this podcast.com forward slash H L S. This helps us to spread our message. As always, thank you for being a listener.