The Raw Food Health Empowerment Podcast · RawFoodMealPlanner.com

Overcoming the 3 Fears Holding You Back: My Interview with Chef AJ

·27 min·1 clip

Samantha names social isolation, being different, and failure as the three fears blocking consistency.

1. The Raw Food Health Empowerment Podcast episode features Chef AJ interviewing Samantha Salmon about the 2025 vegan health bundle and a course on beating stress eating. 2. Chef AJ introduces Samantha Salmon as a first-time guest, a health coach, and the creator of a bundle course focused on consistency and the three fears. 3. The episode asks how people stay consistent with healthy eating when family pressure, habit, and emotional eating keep pulling them back. 4. Salmon says her vegan shift began in 2004 after watching her grandmother die a slow death from complications of type 2 diabetes. 5. She says Dr. Neal Barnard’s book on reversing diabetes changed her thinking, and she also read Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s Eat to Live and Dr. Doug Graham’s 80-10-10. 6. Salmon says she gained 20 pounds after becoming vegan because she disliked vegetables and relied on bread and pasta. 7. She says raw foods helped her lose 25 pounds and feel better, and that Cafe Gratitude showed her vegetables could be used in appealing ways. 8. Salmon and her husband opened Earth’s Healing Cafe in Chicago in January 2011 and kept it open until December 2016. 9. She says she became a coach in 2015 through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition and is now board certified. 10. Salmon says she works remotely with people who are dealing with obesity and want to improve metabolic health. 11. Her course opens with the three fears because her community said consistency was the main struggle. 12. She names fear of social isolation as the first fear and says people worry about missing family dinners or not belonging. 13. She says people can bring their own food to family meals and still stay connected without trying to force everyone else to change. 14. She names fear of being different as another fear and says “Most Americans are eating themselves into death and destruction.” 15. She says change means becoming a model for family and children, who learn more from what adults do than what they say. 16. She names fear of failure as the third fear and rejects all-or-nothing thinking by saying “you either win or you learn.” 17. Salmon describes the episode and her coaching style as practical, personal, and centered on mindset plus neuroscience. 18. She says the course uses a biopsychosocial spiritual approach and then moves into the neuroscience behind unhealthy food addiction. 19. People interested in vegan transition, raw food, and stress eating will get the most from this episode. 20. People looking for a purely culinary episode with no mindset discussion may skip it. 21. She says the bundle also includes raw recipes from Chris Kendall, Melissa Maris, Amanda Sic, and Courtney Soma. 22. Chef AJ and Salmon also discuss walking, strength training, and progressive overload as part of Salmon’s routine. 23. Salmon says she drinks smoothies with bananas, apples, maca, ashwagandha, and moringa powder when stress is high. 24. She closes by saying consistency makes people strong ambassadors for the lifestyle and a model for their community.

As heard by us

A grounded look at why healthy eating can be harder than it sounds.

This episode stays close to fear, grief, and the daily work of changing how people eat. Chef AJ opens with a memory of losing her grandmother to type 2 diabetes in 2004, and that gives the conversation its edge.

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Why you'd press play

Hear how three fears can keep you stuck even when you already want to change.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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