355: Empowering Plant-Based Community Connections for a Healthier Lifestyle | Stephanie & Justin Schenck Willliams

Maya Acosta  00:00

So welcome back to another episode, my friends, I'm bringing you a bonus episode every Friday for the month of August and September. These are on location interviews that I did while I was at the National Health Association Conference in June. And so I'm introducing you every Friday to a new guests a new individual that I got to interview at the NHL conference. So I hope that you enjoy these conversations are very short. I filmed them on location, I didn't use a mic. I was just inspired to see why people went to the conference and what they were getting out of it. And I hope that you enjoy. 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. Stephanie, and Justin,

Stephanie Williams  01:00

how are you? Hi, Maya. Good, how are you?

Maya Acosta  01:03

Great. I was I'm so glad to connect with you. And you guys are pod leaders in your area. And I know you virtually but this is the first time that I meet you in person. So I'm excited. Being part of a community of like minded individuals can be incredibly empowering. How has connecting with others who share your values influence your journey?

01:25

I think that that's made the biggest difference. Honestly, I think we started this journey together. So having a built in community at home was wonderful. But then being able to find people outside of us online and then in person has really made it easier to stick to this lifestyle and then also to feel not so alone, because there aren't a lot of us in the world, they know that it's getting bigger and bigger. But we, you know, we have a ways to go. So having a place to go where you don't have to ask questions about the food. And when you walk in and people just like are automatically on the same wavelength is like the biggest gift.

Justin Williams  02:11

You have instant camaraderie with people here. And what I find is like in the community, like, like once you find more people, you get more ideas you build upon things become you've set yourself more goals in terms of like just Oh, I found some people, I got these ideas to try to move forward and try to like really inspire more people in the community. Even if it's a moderator moderate amount. I want to make sure that we're doing you know, we're taking our best practices home with us too.

Maya Acosta  02:48

Would you like to tell us about your group I you virtual Do you meet in

02:52

person. So we do a monthly potluck that's like our one well, well established activity that we do and macros every time we do it, which is really wonderful

03:04

do in person and a virtual thing every month. We figure if we have like at least two things a month that people can attend, then it's kind of keeping them connected. It's keeping keeping everyone like least like if they're if they're not accountable if they don't want like to go fully whole food plant based diet still in the back of their minds and still showing like, Oh, hey, you know, we're going to read this book and a book club, we're going to go, we'll go on a hike. We just want to find like different, interesting ways and aspects to incorporate people's daily lives into what being hopefully plant basis.

03:47

And we also want the mentioned book club. And this made me think that we actually started doing an international book club where we collaborate with a pod that's in Wales. And so we meet on like a quarterly basis to read and talk about one of the books that, you know, one of the whole food plant based diet books, like the last one we did was fiber fueled by Dr will also it so it's interesting to kind of get a perspective from the other side of the world as well. And, you know, to meet new people and people that are very passionate kind to hear the challenges of other areas and also what's worked in other areas and just make it the world feels smaller, you know, like we're all connected.

Maya Acosta  04:30

So that's such a wonderful idea to be able to share that with to connect like you said with other people in other areas of the world because you never know like how much access some people have to certain foods or resources or support. Do you guys want to share any like final message or social media links so people can follow you?

04:48

Sure, sure. Or website is plant based capital region.org. And we've got just a collection of a few few of our favorite recipes and links searched Social media.

05:00

We're on Instagram, we're on Facebook, we're on tick tock Justin's are tick tock master. So, yeah, so please, please reach out we do a monthly newsletter. So if you reach out to us on social media or on our website, you can give us your contact information, we can send out a monthly newsletter, so you don't have to be in our area to get that and we put recipes in there we focus on different topics.

Maya Acosta  05:30

Yeah, so

Stephanie Williams  05:31

that's a great way to connect with us.

Maya Acosta  05:33

Thank you, Stephanie. And Justin, thank you your mind 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.