Whether you’re curious about veganism or ready to enhance your overall wellness, certified holistic nutritionist and certified yoga instructor Whitney Miner’s story is sure to captivate and inspire. In this interview, she shares invaluable tips and advice for those seeking to improve their health through veganism and holistic living. She takes us through her transformative journey of embracing a vegan lifestyle, and shares the profound influence and impact her plant-based philosophy on mind, body, and spirit has helped change the lives of her clients.
Tell us about the importance of the Daniel Fast and the role it has played in inspiring you to adopt a vegan lifestyle.
The Daniel Fast was the thing that really let me know I could pursue this. A church in Atlanta I attended in 2006, was doing the fast. I never tried it before or even heard of it. I did it for the first year and then I started to make it a yearly practice. But every year, when it was over, I would go back to my normal eating habits. There was one year I was in the McDonald’s line for some fries at 12:01 am.
I knew I had to make some changes. I kept going back to getting sick. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. In 2018 I got the flu and a sinus infection back to back for about five weeks. I said “I cannot do this anymore.” I was the person that was always sick. I used to joke that I had an immune system like a newborn. I knew I couldn’t live like this anymore. I started researching how to get healthy holistically without antibiotics and without the help of doctors.
Everything I was reading kept saying a plant-based diet was the way to go and how to heal your gut. I didn’t know if a plant-based diet was for me. I love to eat. I like meat and dairy. I grew up eating that stuff. So I tried another Daniel Fast for twenty-one days and then went completely plant-based for ninety-days. If I didn’t get sick, then I knew I needed to make a change. Well, I didn’t get sick. The Daniel Fast was instrumental because it was the foundation for me knowing I could make the transition. It became the foundation for my brand as well, because it’s about wanting people to be healthy mind, body, and spirit. The Daniel Fast encompasses that for me.
What have been the most challenging as well as rewarding aspects of being a vegan?
Knowing where to start was a challenge. I had been eating the same way for thirty-something years. It was the deprogramming of it’s not a meal if there is no meat on my plate. I didn’t know how to actually eat. Plus, having a family and cooking was a challenge. I was married at the time and I have two daughters. I couldn’t be a short-order cook making different meals. It was not just about it being vegan or plant-based. The food had to taste good and that learning curve was steep. I started veganizing dishes that I grew up eating, and that was the basis for creating a lot of recipes. Now I realize how valuable those recipes are and I share them on my blog, so people can have access to things that taste delicious to them but are plant-based. It’s this transitioning phase of learning what to do, how to eat, how to structure a plate, when you go out to a restaurant what do you eat? That was the biggest challenge deprogramming myself on what proper nutrition is supposed to look like, but the rewards are massive!
I’m much healthier and I lost a lot of weight. I sleep better, I have better energy, and my mood is elevated. I have become more of a conscious being. You start becoming more aware of the carbon footprint you are leaving on the earth and being aware of how animals are treated at factory farming. You start becoming more of a compassionate human being. My blood pressure is at a really good place and my health numbers are good. My anxiety and stress have subsided a lot. I have more clarity and less brain fog. Healing myself physically helped me heal myself mentally and spiritually. There are a lot of unlimited benefits.
Think about how modern Western medicine is. You see a cardiologist for your heart, a gynecologist for women’s health, if you have rheumatoid arthritis you see a rheumatologist, it’s like your body is in pieces. When you heal yourself on any one level, you are giving yourself the ability to receive healing emotionally and spiritually as well. The benefits are massive. That’s why I want to share with as many people as possible, especially women. I know when I’m reaching the women I am also reaching the males.
How do you incorporate cultural traditions and foods into your meals?
I grew up eating very well because my mom is a phenomenal cook. My first thing was go to some of her recipes and figure out how to make vegan meals. Collard greens was one of the first things. Bringing in smoked paprika and liquid smoke will give you that smoky flavor without the fat of the meat and all the negative things the meat tends to bring. I started to perfect those recipes.
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My family who still eat meat, ask me to bring my greens for the holidays. Everyone is eating my greens with no meat. When your family tells you to bring your greens, that means a lot. I started to learn how to use substitutes. For fried chicken I use fried oyster mushrooms. It has that meat texture and pull away texture. Just playing around with plants and getting them to mimic the foods that I grew up eating has become been my specialty and that’s what I pride myself on. I have a lot of recipes on my website that help other people in the same boat so they don’t have to struggle. It’s kind of like, I went through this so you don’t have to go through that. I took one for the team, I figured it out, and here are some great recipes.
Tell me about some of the feedback you have received from customers who completed one of your programs.
I’m always amazed at how physical changes bring about changes in the spiritual, mental, and emotional. I have had clients dealing with a lot of anxiety and stress. You know things that were very challenging. Once they started to heal themselves on a physical level, they were able to create the capacity to move on to healing things they have been plagued with for a long time. Clients that deal with illnesses such as super high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, and for them to get themselves healthy enough to where their doctors recommend removing the medication is such a rewarding experience. I cry every time.
People come in the program feeling lost and not knowing where to start. Then they are able to master things like creating recipes on their own and adopt this lifestyle. That feedback from them helping and influencing their husbands, kids, mothers, and other family members based on what we have done together; I feel like this is why God gave me this purpose. I’m so grateful for it.
What advice would you give to other Black women interested in veganism or desiring a healthier lifestyle but don’t know where to begin? Which one of your programs do you recommend they start with?
I always recommend the Daniel Fast. The Daniel Fast incorporates your complete. I feel like, I’m just going to say it, that we as Black women are the most spiritual beings. Now you can call me biased on that, but I wholeheartedly believe that. When you start approaching yourself from the aspect, that I’m getting myself in alignment mind body and spirit it’s life changing. For that three weeks you are dedicated to it and you see the benefits in how good you feel. You are eating well and paying attention to your body. You are spending intentional time in meditation, prayer, reading devotionals, and uplifting you in a way that you need.
When you are done with the Daniel fast, because that is not something you do forever, it’s a fast, you can start incorporating some of the things back into your diet that you were eating before. You feel kind of set free because you were on restrictions from the fast. It kind of supersedes you into something so you don’t feel like you are sacrificing anything, because you are able to incorporate some things back in. I think it’s a very good jump start to being healthy and gives you an advantage when you are eating so much better and how that elevates you.
For someone trying to start, I recommend you don’t go cold turkey. Now if that is your ministry, kudos to you. That wasn’t mine. It took me fifteen months to get myself together. Just take one step. It could be with a meatless Monday or one meatless meal a day. Breakfast is one of the easiest things to make meatless. Then from there you can start to increase the meatless days. Just take whatever one next step you can to help elevate your health and start from there. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. That mentality never gets people to start.
To learn more about the programs Whitney offers at Eat Plants & Prosper, as well as access to great healthy recipes and additional resources, visit eatplantsandprosper.com.