Using Food as Fuel to Achieve your Personal & Professional Goals - Kathy A Davis

Danielle Walden [00:00:00] Hey, everybody. Welcome to another awesome episode of the Headstrong podcast, I'm your favorite host, Danielle Mills Walden. I'm super excited because we have a very, very special guest today. She's going to talk about a lot of things that I'm really interested in because I'm trying to get my health and my food together. But we have the CEO of Veg. Inspired on her name is Kathy Davis. Kathy, welcome to the show. 

Kathy A Davis [00:00:25] Hi, Danielle, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here and I love that we're going to tackle topics that are going to help you really leverage the power of food. That's that's what I love to talk about. Some excited to be here. 

Danielle Walden [00:00:38] Yes, we are so excited. So before we kind of get started, would you mind just kind of giving us like an overview of kind of how you got to where you are today and then we'll kind of dove in from there? 

Kathy A Davis [00:00:50] Absolutely fun story. I was a huge resister to plant based eating about eight years ago. My husband brought it, brought it up in a dinner conversation and I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. Not giving up burgers and not giving up blue cheese dressing. I'm not giving up all my favorite things like You've lost your mind. And it took me about eight months to really make the transition from standard American diet, eating all the things I loved, all the things I grew up on to really focusing on a vegan way of living. And I always kind of emphasize that because for me, veganism wasn't just food. So when I talk about vegan, it's more about lifestyle. When I talk about plant based, it's more about food. And it took about eight weeks, eight months of trying plant centered meals, sauces made from cashew sauces made from my favorite vegetables, really leveraging potatoes and foods that I was familiar with. And the more of those food they eat, the easier it was for me to realize and embrace that I wasn't giving things up. It was more about exploring new options. So about eight months in, I'm like, All right, I'm ready, I'll go vegan. There was a pivotal moment and I just kind of adopted it overnight after an eight month transition, so nothing ever happened overnight. There's always that background of all the things that happened with any goal or any lifestyle, change or situation. It always is. You know, there's always something happening behind the scenes. And I loved it. I loved it. I mean, eight years ago, there were hardly there. Now there were hardly there were not nearly as many vegan products on the market, and now there's tons of them. So I really got sucked in to all those vegan foods and I found myself in. I went plant based for health and then found myself eating vegan jumpsuit for about two. A little over two years ago, I really had a wake up call with a I had stepped on the scale and had a wake up call that I was at my highest weight ever, even though I was eating a vegan diet and I realized I was eating a vegan diet of lots of processed food, lots of takeout, lots of dining out. And I felt terrible, terrible and I never really associated it with how I was eating. You know the things, but until you really start living it, you don't really accept it as a way of life. So I made a kind of drew a line in the sand and said, I'm cleaning up the way that I'm eating. I'm going to follow more of this whole food, plant based, mostly unprocessed way of eating. And within six months, I'd lost 40 pounds. I gained a tremendous amount of energy. I was excited to get back in the kitchen and cook. I was excited to film recipe videos. I was commissioned to write my first cookbook. I mean, things just started to happen because I was building a version of myself that made healthy foods a priority. And so that's kind of in a nutshell where we where we've gone, where I've gone like the last eight years. Like a nutshell story? 

Danielle Walden [00:03:59] Wow. No. I just love that you kind of talked about how you know when you, you know, we were vegan, you were adopting this lifestyle. But there was definitely a period of time where you were eating a lot of processed foods or what you call vegan. Like, that's like fast food. And I think that's a big misconception that's out there that when people say like, Oh, I'm going to go vegan or I'm going to go vegetarian, and they think that just by doing that, they're going to be healthy. What would you say are some of the examples of things that would be considered unhealthy vegan items? Because I'm sure a lot of our listeners think that they're being healthy by picking these items off the shelf at the grocery store or on the menu. But really, they're not the best for them. 

Kathy A Davis [00:04:39] Absolutely. One of the big realizations for me about vegan food is it is healthier than animal products, right? Low no cholesterol and in plant based foods, cholesterol is really found in animal based foods, low and lower inflammation. But what happens is in order to create a vegan market product or a fake vegan food, we process it right. Veggie burgers are loaded with processed ingredients, and if you think about it, it kind of is the same path for gluten free. Gluten free used to mean like eating more of the Whole Foods, eating more of the potatoes, the non gluten, non processed foods that those of us who eat gluten eat right pastas, breads, crackers, things like that. But then the gluten free products hit the market, and now they're processed gluten free, just like processed vegan. So some examples that I shifted away from are the really, really processed vegan foods. And I am always hesitant to say name because I don't want anybody to think I'm bashing these brands, like the fact that we have vegan products at Burger King is amazing. Like what? What a time to be alive that you can drive through a fast food restaurant and get a vegan burger that doesn't make it healthy. Just like we know, fast food in general is not healthy. So you know that uber processed cheeses and I always say if you read an ingredient label and you don't recognize ingredients, it's likely processed beyond what you recognized, right? There's a difference between processed, sliced vegan cheeses and a cheese sauce made from almonds and nutritional yeast and peppers, and maybe some spices. So considering the difference in the ingredients on the label, considering the level of processing. And don't get me wrong, I love those those burgers and I love all of that. But now I tend to turn more towards a vegetable based burger or a burger with ingredients that I can that I can pronounce and that I recognize. That's that's kind of my distinguishing factor. And I also cut out oil, which was a huge change, and I follow the research of Dr. MacDougall, Dr. Gregor, a lot of the plant based doctors that say oil is extremely damaging to our filial lining of our blood vessels, our heart. It's very, very detrimental. And the irony is they label those things heart healthy. But what we find is, I always say it's a healthier than situation. Olive oil is probably healthier than vegetable oil, which is probably healthier than bacon fat. But when you get down to the question, is this the healthiest option for me, I would much rather eat the whole avocado than use avocado oil or add some olives to my salad, then use olive oil. So I just consider oil is like a processed food. And so I've reduced that from my from my cooking at home. 

Danielle Walden [00:07:50] Wow, that really was eye opening to me because as you're saying, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I used so many different types of oils when I'm cooking, like, do you have any alternatives that somebody can use when, like, you know, cooking on the stove, starting like anything that we could use in place of oil, that would be better because you blew my mind open. I didn't even realize that that was super bad, definitely. 

Kathy A Davis [00:08:12] And it really take the process. I mean, it really takes some practice as opposed to to cook without oil because we're used to it, we're used to turn it on the pan, dropping in some oil, throwing those onions in and hearing them sizzle. And what I love to say is grab some onions and let's practice. So if you're listening to this and you're like, OK, I want to try this without oil, this is a step by step. You'll probably have to rewind and listen to it again. I tend to talk a little fast. We heat our pan to about medium high heat. We use, we use cast iron. So there is the seasoning with oil, but we don't cook in oil. But you can also use any nonstick skillet. Heated up to medium heat. Throw your onions and hear the sizzle, and then the goal here is a little bit of browning. A few splashes of water or vegetable broth. I use about a tablespoon at a time to release the onions from the pan, but still allow them to get brown a lot of recipes. Plant based recipes will say Add the water and onions at the same time and people will come to me and be like, That doesn't give me the flavor I want. And I'm like, Yes, it doesn't, because you're basically steaming them. We want to get that brown that sizzle and then release them from the pan so they don't burn. So it's a practice process, and I say use onions because they're fairly cheap. You can caramelize them up. You can get them, get a little brown. Add some veggies, add some veggie broth, make a soup. It's not like they'll go to waste, but if you do burn them, you start to learn and really give yourself time to practice because you'll start to notice that the flavor. Maybe you do the onions for a little bit and then you throw in some mushrooms and it gets that deep umami flavor and the onions. And now you've got this mushroom onion goodness. And there's no oil. And then my tips for roasting. So I love the crunch that veggies get in the oven. So I actually roast my veggies dry, usually four hundred four twenty five, but all the veggies on a nonstick baking sheet or on parchment paper and then roast them until they get the brown crispy. And then if you're like, but I need a little flavor, then toss them in. Maybe an oil free sauce, drizzle on a little barbecue, maybe some seasoned rice vinegar or some balsamic vinegar, leveraging more of the power of some plant centered sauces and spices and flavorings. Some people like to toss the the veggies in that you brought before they wrote them, but then you really have to pay attention to make sure they don't burn, right? Sometimes the vegetable broth burns a little. 

Danielle Walden [00:10:54] Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to try this, because are you basically saying like, if I get some veggie broth, I can start leveraging that instead of oil and using that to kind of cook food with? I'm definitely going to try that because I'm cooking a lot lately, and I've been using a lot of different oils and I'm thinking like, Wow, if I, you know, substitute that, what would that look like? Fun fact about me that you didn't know I actually was a vegan for almost a year back in. I want to say 2018. I did like a year, a year and a half of it. But back when I did it, I wasn't very creative and it was very basic, and I was eating like an entire frozen bag of vegetables and then like some rice since being like it was so boring. And I feel like now there's so many amazing recipes and creative things to do. So what advice would you give to somebody who's considering being vegan or trying more plant based and having options to keep it creative? 

Kathy A Davis [00:11:48] So I have a couple of pieces of advice for that one. Start with familiar food. So one of the I mentioned this in my in my intro story. One of the big things that helped win me over is we turned common ingredients that I already loved into plant based option. So we made potatoes as a taco filling. Mm-Hmm. So we take cubed white potatoes, simmer them in a little bit of that, you broth and taco spices and then use them as a taco filling. When you used foods that you're familiar with, there isn't a resistance or a fear of the foods that are vegan. You're not trying a vegan cheese or trying a vegan meat substitute or trying tofu or tempeh, which can be very frightening early on, right? I didn't like I was crazy. I didn't like beans when I started eating this way. I didn't like tofu. I didn't like tempeh. And I've come full circle in these eight years. But you have to give yourself grace. You have to give yourself time. So that was tip number one, start with familiar foods and then recreate them into something different. We've even gone as far as taking, taking sweet potatoes and cutting them into wedges, baking those, tossing them with a little bit of soy sauce, lime juice and taco seasoning, and using those as a taco filling. So looking at ways that you can take foods you already enjoy and turning them into something that you can add a different twist on, that's tip number one. Tip number two is don't overwhelm yourself with a dozen new recipes every week. Because I work with clients all the time, but say I can't meal plan like you, I can't. I get so distracted when I look at cookbooks and I said, Wait, I was the same way. What I want you to do is I want you to say, OK, tomorrow, I want a taco recipe. You'll hear me talk about tacos because they're my favorite. Go to the index. And look at the different taco recipes in your cookbook. Don't start at the beginning and go for breakfast when you're not looking for breakfast recipes. So really, look at ways that you can leverage the index of the book to find the ingredients. If you are a CSA member or you go to a farm market and you have a head of cauliflower or beets that you need to, you go to the back of the book and then look through and see what cauliflower recipes. For me, I love to roast cauliflower and funny. Use it in tacos. But I also like to make it as a filler for a bowl. So maybe I do brown rice or quinoa and some roasted cauliflower. Maybe some fresh spinach, some beans drizzle on a little barbecue sauce. Kind of toss it together and I have a nice barbecue bowl. Or, you know, maybe it's a sweet potato baked with black beans and some, maybe some peppers and onions sauteed in the veggie broth method that we talked about and some guacamole. So looking at ways that you can use foods that you already like, but adding a twist. So maybe it's like a stuffed potato with taco filling, or maybe it's chili served over brown rice or potatoes. So just looking at ways that you can use, you know, add some creativity without reinventing the wheel or getting distracted by all the recipes that you have to get to before you get to what you're actually looking looking for for inspiration. 

Danielle Walden [00:15:23] I really love that. And as you were talking, I was getting so hungry because everything you said sounded so good and I'm like, Wow, I didn't think of that. But to your point, it's so beneficial when you have a cookbook to look at. I didn't even think about to look at the back of the cookbook. See, you know, what items do you have in your fridge that may go bad if you don't use them and get them into a recipe? Because that's the fear with a lot of people of, oh my gosh, I would have so much fresh produce in my in my refrigerator. I have to eat that quickly. If not, it's going to go bad. And there's kind of like this. How do I kind of measure that? So I appreciate you kind of diving into that piece, but I kind of want to peel back the layers to find out what type of mindset did you have to have to go from, you know, eating the way you were eating to being vegan. And then, you know, you have this period of time where you lost a significant amount of weight. And a lot of people struggle when it comes to, you know, setting a goal for themselves and kind of following through with it. So can you talk about the kind of mindset you had to have to push through this being a mindset podcast? I'm really intrigued to hear kind of what what you went through, what that process was like. 

Kathy A Davis [00:16:32] This is probably my favorite question I've ever been asked on a podcast because mindset was everything. Going vegan, it was really about reframing the way that I look at foods. I really had to take a step back and say I grew up in a meat potatoes household. My dad was a hunter. I mean, I am the anomaly anomaly in my family, and I really had to start reframing my the way I thought about food. What does that look like? But going from the vegan junk food and I wasn't always junk food like I did try to eat healthy, healthy some of the time. But that shift two and a half to a little over two years ago, really to follow that weight loss path after the encounter with the scale. Was really a change in mindset from the I want to lose weight, this is a diet too. I want to be the person who chooses Whole Foods. I want to be the person who makes the choice to eat the foods that are going to make me feel the best, the foods that are going to help me with weight management, the foods that I know where the healthiest and I'll tell you there was fortunately for my for me, my husband and I are on the same page and he was super supportive and he was like, Heck, yeah, let's let's eat healthier. Let's let's make this a way of life. But there was a moment in time where my old mindset came back and we were we were a week into eating this way. We'd made the decision at the end of November. We went to Whole Foods, which now we can shop at any grocery store because we eat potatoes, beans, rice, veggies, fruit that's accessible at any grocery store. But early on, we thought the only way to eat healthy was to eat at these the gourmet, the gourmet shops and the health food store. But we were all stocked up. We were headed to Key West. And I said, you know, maybe we should start after Key West. And he said, I bet you can find a reason to start next week, every week. He said this isn't about being perfect. This is about a lifestyle where we choose to eat the foods that make us the best. And in that moment, that was the shift. That was the mindset shift that I needed. I needed to stop worrying about the next event the diet, the the restriction, the calories, all of that. And I needed to just focus on making eating whole plant foods. Most of the time, my daily habit and that's been the shift. I've been a yo yo diet or my entire life. I struggled with my weight. I was the one that would plan in, you know, eat all the zero point foods and then binge like crazy at night. None of that's sustainable. And that one shift that one piece of information about making it the daily habit versus. That the diet, the start again, Monday, the fall, the all. That's what I need it and I know how relatable that is because I talk about it with so many clients that they're like, Oh, I failed this week, and I'll just start again Monday, and I'm like, No, you won't. You're going to pick yourself back up and we're going to start right now. What's the next meal that you can eat that aligns with your goals? And they're always like, Thank you so much, because I would have gone down that slippery slope, I would have continued to allow myself. And that's the shift. That's the mindset shift that we need. And honestly, that's the mindset shift a lot of us need when we're changing our lifestyle or any major change in our life is how can I make this a way of life versus how can I do this just until I reach that goal? 

Danielle Walden [00:20:21] Oh, I love that answer, and I can totally relate to so many of your clients who when they feel like, Oh, I fell off, I'm just going to start again next week when with this type of, you know, industry, it's literally just like, what's the next meal? Literally, your very next meal can be the chef that you needed to get you back on track. And I think that that's awesome, that you're kind of putting that framework in place for them because it's so easy for people to just, Oh, I'll do it next month or I'll do it in six months. And it's like, Oh, then you go for these longer periods of time with a bad habit, it's that much harder to break that habit. So I think that it's so cool that you've been able to really change in and change a lot of people's mindset around that. Is this something that you do all the time with your company? Kind of talk a little bit more about veg inspired and how we can learn more about about what you guys do on the day to day. 

Kathy A Davis [00:21:13] Absolutely. So Belgian Fired was designed to be a platform to inspire people to eat more plants even way back in 2015. The first post I wrote, it was really about changing the way that we looked at food and really looking at how we can add more plants to our meals. It's expanded right over the last six and a half seven years. I've I've shared all these recipes, I've shared all these content, I've spoken, I've authored cookbooks, but I found my true passion in coaching. And as a former school teacher, I knew that I wanted to serve people. I just didn't know that. I didn't know then that it would evolve into adults and really that empowerment and inspiration to eat more plant. So on a day to day basis, we're really looking at ways that we can help others leverage the power of food to reach their personal and professional goals, whether it's weight management or honestly, energy to run their business. Because the Cathy two years ago when I started didn't even want to get up and shoot a recipe. VIDEO And now I run an international coaching business, authored three cookbooks, all while traveling the United States in an RV. So think about when you plan your vacation, right? It's a lot of planning. I do that day in and day out to to travel the United States, living my dream life. But. You know, one of the big things that we talk a lot about in in the academy and a lot of really my philosophy around all of this is it really is about intention and going back to the whole mindset piece like what's your intention for eating more plant for me early on, like my sole intention was to become the person who could walk at the national parks that we see, who could lose the weight and build the confidence. And so when I was faced with the decision, I had to say which of these foods aligns with my goal? Which one am I intentionally choosing to eat? And a lot of times we don't take that. We don't pause long enough to ask ourselves. We're like two Oreos. They're big and I'll have some of those and we don't eat them. Think, Does that align with my goal? The other thing I see a lot of people do that that we work on a lot in the academy is the like moderation. And I'm all for. And again, I'm not about perfection, but what I found with moderation is it creates the habit. So if you say to me, I love Oreos, I'm going to eat Oreos, I'm just going to buy a pack not only two every day at the end of the pack, you've now created a habit of eating two Oreos every day. But if you're like, I love Oreos, but I don't need them every day. But when I go on my next road trip, I'm going to grab one of those four packs or six packs from the gas station. And I know they're going to cost a little bit more, but I'm going to intentionally eat that. I'm going to enjoy it, and then I'm going to pivot back to the way that the foods that align. And it really is that shift because that moderation creates habits. And what happens is we get sucked into that, and the only way to rewrite that is to retrain the way we think. So we do a lot of that in the academy. I talk a lot about that even in even just on Instagram and in my posts. I really want to teach people about habit development, but also about intention and really moving past the fear right to the cookbooks, all but one of the plant based myths, time, difficulty and budget. And so each of the cookbooks kind of addresses that. And that's really what we've what we've designed with veg inspired is a place to inspire people to take that next step to take that action. So we aren't really like the Go Vegan, the Go Vegan company. We're like the Eat More Plants company. 

Danielle Walden [00:24:52] I love that because you can reach such a wide array of people because, you know, there's so many influencers and companies out there that are really pushing like go vegan, go vegan or even go raw vegan, which is another level of intensity. And it's like people can look at that and see the results, and it's admirable. But for somebody to really completely change their life and do it to that extent is a lot. So I love the fact that your whole company's motto is just, you know, how can we eat more vegetables? How can we get more of that into our diet? And that meets anybody where there are where they are right now, which I think is really, really awesome. Talk a little bit more about these cookbooks. Well, let's let's go back. What was it like writing a cookbook? What was the hardest thing that you experienced in that process? I'm an author myself, and I just remember, you know, all the work all the time. But I can't imagine like what the cookbook having to like align the writing piece. But then also the recipes. I'm really curious, and this is my own fun question of just what was that like and kind of any obstacles that you had to overcome. 

Kathy A Davis [00:25:54] It was really intense, so cookbook number one is the 30 minute whole food plant based cookbook, and I wrote that during the pandemic, so we were parked in one campground, thankfully for seven months. So it was through the duration of that whole cookbook. And I'll say that being in one place was extremely helpful because the next two cookbooks I was moving and so I was at different grocery stores, which really changes the availability and your knowledge of a grocery store. The the cookbook process is pretty intense. These were written in with with six to eight week deadlines. So that means it's 13 to 18 recipes a week. A lot of them had to be obviously tested multiple times. So they go they go to the editor in segments and then they get retested. My recipe testers tested it and I had to make edit. It was very intense and we ate a lot. I would never forget the one like the one day that stands out to me as I. I was actually working at the campground for about five hours a day, four days a week just to kind of try something new while I wrote a cookbook. I agreed to work at the campground before the cookbook, so it was an interesting process. So I got home at 5:00 and I was like, OK, I got 10 recipes I need to test today, which sounds like a lot, because how many of you want to cook 10 recipes in a day? But most of them are soup, so I could just. I could just cook it. Move it into a pan, add the next one, and the last one I cooked was a French onion soup, which did not meet the 30 minute timeline. It took me for over forty five minutes just to get the onions to the to the where I wanted them before I added the rest of the ingredients. It actually ends up in a later cookbook because it didn't have the time, the time, regulation or parameter. But it was 1:15 in the morning when I finished that recipe. So I was eating French onion soup at about 1:30 in the morning and I'm thinking this is like real life cooking cookbooks. My favorite part, I would say, was the creativity and being able to dig into different ways to use vegetables, different ways to make things taste differently. And also, I really tried to blend both recipes that used nuts, but also not free recipes because there's so many people that have allergies and maybe they're allergic to soy. They're not allergic to nuts. Maybe they're allergic to nuts, nut soy. So I always have different options in the books, and that really helped me learn how to flavor and bring in those other ingredients that would would help people, you know, meet those all those nostalgic recipes that that they were used to. And that was also fun as the tapping into my own history, my own childhood and pulling up some recipes. So all of the recipes and all three cookbooks are exclusive to their to their cookbook, there's no duplicates for me. There's also no duplicates from veg inspired to any of the books, so. That's it allows people to have an actual like three three resources with different recipes, which is what I was as one of the things I wanted, but also the fact that they bust the myths because we get so sucked into why we can't do something. But gosh, if you can throw together a recipe in 30 minutes because you're not cooking meat that has to reach a certain temperature or you're able to buy some produce that's already prepared or some canned beans, or leveraging dried organic spices that really gives them the flavor without the time component. And that that was a huge win with that book. So the second book was the super easy plant based cookbook, and that was where I fell in love with sheet pan meals. What's that? My sheet pan, my sheet pan and my parchment paper became my best friend. Because I could throw the I could put them in the oven, they would cook for 30, 40 whatever minutes, and then I could check them and then I would have a meal. Everything could be put together, everything could be roasted, some things would go in first, and then you'd pull it out, flip it over. Add some other ingredients, but it takes the constant monitoring out of the equation. So I always say that's great for busy people who have access to an oven who could maybe work at the kitchen table or help kids with homework while there while they are cooking dinner but not having to stand over the stove and stir, stir, stir. So I love the there's there's a heater recipe and also a taco recipe, because again, I love tacos. Both of those are sheet pan, and I just I just love them. They're exciting for me. 

Danielle Walden [00:30:49] Oh, my gosh, I love that. I love the idea of being able to like, build on something like where you put something in the oven and then pull it out, you get to put, add some more stuff to it. And then at the end you have like a complete meal, like you said. And I think that that's going to be huge for so many listeners who are super busy on the move don't have time to be monitoring, like you said. You mentioned a couple of times and I'm really intrigued that you are, you know, in a campground and on the move. You talk to me a little bit about like, I guess you're living in an RV, living your dream life, you said. What is that like? And it's really interesting. So I'm intrigued to hear about this. 

Kathy A Davis [00:31:24] Well, that's not the whole mindset conversation that we could have two, so three years ago, pre-pandemic, twenty eighteen early, twenty eighteen, my husband and I got the wild idea that maybe we wanted to one to redo our kitchen in our house. And that ended up evolving into why don't we just buy a kitchen on wheels and travel to the United States? Definitely a longer journey than that. But in twenty eighteen October of twenty eighteen, we sold our house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and hit the road in a fifth wheel RV with our cat. We have been from Pennsylvania to Key West to New York, all the way to Montana and twenty seven states in between and all of those travels over the past three years. And. People think it's wild, right, like, holy cow. Two grown adults working great jobs living in there. We literally lived in our dream house, had everything we wanted. You know, first floor bedroom walk, our basement, second floor balcony. I mean, it had everything big kitchen, big island. We loved it in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. We had great jobs. Their cars were released like we were living the quote unquote American dream. Something was missing and we really had to tap into that and vacation time and being able to explore the United States, that was that was what was missing. We wanted to be able to go to places like national parks, cities with vegan restaurants and really explore them with intention and integrity. And that wasn't that wasn't working with our nine to five jobs at the time. And my husband still works for the same company in Pittsburgh. They were amazing and allowed him to work remotely. Now the whole company is remote and I worked. I did some transition work from full time to part time and then transitioned my job over to an existing employee. And so I've been able to run that inspired full time for about about two years. And I love it. It. Right now, I'm so into the picture, it's a beautiful, sunny Florida. We're back in in this little campground on the Gulf Coast with a waterfront view or the sunsets every day and under the shade of a palm tree. I mean, it's it's a dream life. Not every place is going to be perfect. RV life isn't perfect. It's definitely not cheaper than living in a house, but it gives us the flexibility and freedom to explore the United States in in a way that we can thrive with our cats, not having to take vacation time and really do the things we love, which is biking and hiking. And we've picked up kayaking when we were in Montana, and I'm really just exploring. 

Danielle Walden [00:34:10] I think that's just so awesome, because there's so many people that are so tied to their location or they're so tied because of their job, and I think with the pandemic happening and kind of the world shifting, so many companies are now allowing a more remote way of doing things. And I think it's cool. You guys are able to do that before it became a thing. But now there's so many ways to be remote or to live with certain jobs, you know, to live anywhere. And I think it's so cool that you're able to kind of travel the whole U.S. and see everything and you know who drives it. Like, do you guys take turns? 

Kathy A Davis [00:34:44] Now we have the we have a big, huge truck and then we tow the camper behind it. My husband does all the driving. I'm the navigator. I'm the one that climbs in the back of the cats are crying. You know, I'm the one preparing the snack. We need to eat. But it's it's amazing. Like I said, it's not. It's not perfect. It was never about being perfect. It was about being free and that it was about writing our own American dream. And that's really what we've done. 

Danielle Walden [00:35:13] Now, I think that's so awesome that, you know, with this company you've created, you're able to live your dream life and inspire so many other people. Is there any last words of inspiration that you'd like to leave our listeners before we we close the show? 

Kathy A Davis [00:35:28] I, you know, Danielle, I always like to tell people to to listen to their heart a lot of times we get so caught up in the practicality and the logic in the well, this is how it's always been done. But there's something in your heart that says, maybe it says eat more plants. Maybe it says travel more. Maybe it says, write a book. Maybe it does sell my house and get an RV. I don't know, but there's something in your heart that you're the that's whispering to you, and I always tell people they take a step back and listen. Don't worry about the logic, right? It wasn't logical for me to do any of the things I did. I was a daughter of a hunter meeting, you know, working great jobs with the white picket fence dream. And I've stepped out of that and really looked at what my heart wanted. And I would I would never turn back. Everything that's happened has been a perfect step next step to the next, the next logical step that that works out wonderfully. So if I can leave them with anything from an inspiration standpoint is listen and be willing to take the risk on yourself because nine times out of 10, it is the most amazing, amazing leap of faith ever. 

Danielle Walden [00:36:48] Oh my goodness, I love that so much. OK, so where can people find you? Find veg inspired, get connected with you, work with you, buy your books. All of that. 

Kathy A Davis [00:36:58] Oh, my gosh. I'm a I'm a hugely social I love to be social, I because I travel full time. I love connecting online. Definitely connect with me on Instagram. I also have a free Facebook community that inspired healthy habits for high achievers. I can get you the link, but it's inspired dot com slash foodies get you right there and I have. I've share recipes, tips and tricks on eating more plants healthy habits for high achievers like really, really digging into what it takes to both be healthy, but also live that life of your dreams and leverage the power of food. So that's Vegemite, Viacom slash foodies. All the cookbooks are there. You could access me. I moderate both my own Instagram and the group. So do you have a question or want to want to connect and learn more? And I offer complimentary calls as well. 

Danielle Walden [00:37:50] Well, I know I'm excited. I'm definitely going to be checking out these cookbooks because as I'm cooking dinner every night, I'm always thinking of, you know, unique ways that I'm the type of cook or chef that I have to follow a recipe in order for it to come out, right? So I'm excited. You have step by steps of what I need to do and what I need to get because I'm not the type I can. Just like, Oh, let me just wing it. It always doesn't come out the way I need it to. So I'm excited to follow your recipes and check out your cookbooks. But Cathy, thank you so much for being on our show and have a great day. 

Kathy A Davis [00:38:19] Thank you so much for having me, Danielle, you have a great little 

Danielle Walden [00:38:22] awesome, thank you.