#360: Real 30, Real Food, Real Results: Meet Barbara Court - A Plant Strong Success Story
Barbara Court lost 15lbs in just 31 days!
Barbara Court is almost 75 years old, hilarious, honest, and living proof that it is never too late to get Plant Strong.
After joining Plant Strong’s free Real 30 Challenge, Barbara committed to eating at least 30 different whole plant-based foods each week and moving her body for 30 minutes a day. The results? She lost nearly 15 pounds, brought her A1C out of the pre-diabetic range, increased her weekly steps, expanded her plant diversity, and found renewed motivation to keep going.
In this joyful conversation with Rip, Barbara shares her lifelong weight struggles, her experience with arthritis and chronic pain, her practical approach to calorie density, her love of simple “throw-together” meals, and why she believes perseverance matters more than perfection.
She also brings plenty of humor — from plant-based jokes to marriage wisdom — and reminds us all that real change does not require complicated recipes, expensive ingredients, or getting it right 100% of the time.
It starts with one meal, one walk, one plant, one day.
Key Takeaways
The Real 30 Challenge helped her focus on what she could add — more plants, more movement, more variety — rather than obsessing over restriction.
Barbara uses calorie density as a practical guide, focusing on foods like potatoes, rice, oats, beans, greens, fruit, and vegetables.
She emphasizes that perfection is not the goal. When she eats something “above the red line,” she does not beat herself up — she simply keeps going.
Daily movement has become a cornerstone of her health. She aims for 10,000 steps a day or 70,000 steps a week and often exceeds that.
Community matters. Barbara finds encouragement, accountability, and recipe ideas through the Plant Strong and Real 30 communities.
Her biggest message: perseverance matters. You can still change your body and your life at any age.
Episode Resources
Barbara and her husband embrace plants — and humor!
Watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8NDEGt-Kqwg
Learn more about Real30: https://plantstrong.com/blogs/news/introducing-real30
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Episode Transcript via AI Transcription Service
I'm Rip Esselstyn, and you're listening to the Plant Strong Podcast.
[0:05] All right, Plant Strong family. Today, I am thrilled to introduce you to a woman who is an absolute firecracker of energy, humor, grit, and determination. Her name is Barbara Court. She is one of our incredible Real 30 Challenge success stories from January of this year. If you're new to Real30, the idea is really simple. You eat 30 different whole plant-based foods every week and you move your body for 30 minutes every day. That is it. This is not about perfection. It's not about deprivation. There's no complicated rules, just more plants, more movement, and more life. And Barbara took that challenge and she hit it out of the ballpark. starting January 1st. She weighed 155 pounds. By the time that we spoke, she was down to about 140 pounds. She brought down her A1C so that it was out of the pre-diabetic range. She was tracking somewhere between 30 to even 50 plus different plants a week. She was racking up all kinds of steps, moving every day, and proving that at almost 75 years young, you can still change your body, your health, and your life.
[1:31] I think what I love most about Barbara, it's not just the numbers. It is her spirit that is going to shine through for you. This woman is funny. She's honest, practical, resilient, and she will be the first to tell you that she is not perfect. She still navigates church breakfasts, birthday parties, and the occasional treat, but she does not give up. And that is what it's all about. She starts again. She keeps learning. She keeps moving. And as she says so eloquently, I'm retired now. I have time for me and I'm worth it. This episode is also worth it. So let's meet Barbara right after this message from PlanStrong.
Plant Strong Events Spotlight
[2:57] Before we indulge in today's conversation, I want to speak directly to the health care providers, clinicians, nurses, dieticians, health coaches, and medical professionals that are listening today.
[3:11] If you've learned recently about the updated cholesterol guidelines and you're thinking, yes, lifestyle comes first, but how do I actually help patients do this in the real world, then I want you to join us this year. We have two powerful opportunities for providers to go deeper with PlantStrong. The first one is our Sedona Immersion Retreat. It's September 28th through October 3rd. This is where providers can step away from, all the noise, experience the lifestyle firsthand, earn CME credits, and reconnect with the reason that you went into healthcare in the first place.
[3:49] Next, we have October 18th through the 20th. We're holding Vital Signs at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. This is, again, a CME-focused conference built specifically for providers who want practical tools for bringing food as medicine, lifestyle medicine, and behavior change into real clinical care. This is where the guidelines meet implementation. This is where belief becomes practice. And this is where we're building a network of providers who understand that food, movement, sleep, stress, connection, and prevention are not side conversations. They are central to the future of healthcare. So if you want to learn more about Sedona and Vital Signs, head on over to plantstrongevents.com.
[4:46] And for everyone listening, provider or not, I want you to remember this. The easiest way to live this message is to make the next good choice easier. And this is why we created the Plant Strong Food Line. You got chilies, stews, burgers, cereals, granolas, pancakes, pizza crust kits, all made with real ingredients, no oils, no junk, and no compromise. Stock your pantry with foods that support the lifestyle that we talk about on this show week after week. You can use the code PODCAST10. Go over to plantstrong.com and save 10%. And you'll notice that we have a whole new look and feel on our website. It is so user-friendly. It is so professional. I hope you absolutely love it. Now, let's get to my conversation with the one and only Dr. Kim Williams.
[5:50] All right, everyone. I need to welcome Barbara Court to the Plant Strong Podcast. And I'm telling you right now, this woman is an absolute fireplug. She is so spirited and so wonderful. And she, to me, epitomizes what the Plant Strong lifestyle can gift you when you kind of embrace it. And And Barbara, you know, obviously you reached, I don't know if you reached out to me, but somehow or another, my team informed me about the amazing Barbara Court and some of the results that you were getting in January, on the Real 30 Challenge. And, you know, you kind of stepped up to the plate and you didn't just swing. You didn't just get a, you know, a single or a double or a triple. You got a grand slam home run over the course of those 30 days. And so I want to talk about your results over the course of the 30 or 31 days that were in January. I want to talk about where you are today. And I want to talk about what makes Barbara Court tick. Like, where do you get all your energy and vitality and positive optimism. So where do you want to start, Barbara?
[7:17] Oh, I have struggled on and off of my weight most of my life, up and down.
[7:24] I did lose a bunch of weight the year I was 29 and 30 and kept it off about 18 months from Weight Watchers. And then I finally got pregnant after trying for over six years and being married for 11 years. And I had child, my only, and kept it, carried baby weight for years after that. So it's just been up and down.
[7:42] But I started sometime in like 2019 or 2020 because of pain. I have arthritis. I'm almost 75 now, but I have pain pretty much kind of everywhere. And I've had like a couple of knee surgeries and a couple of shoulders out of the socket. And so I'm doing what I can to feel better, to be more energetic and to be healthier. And so now that I'm retired, I have all this time for me and I'm worth it. And I just don't give up. I keep doing everything I can to get better, to learn more, and to keep going. I weighed 155.2 January 1st when we started Real 30. And it's sad that I knew about Real 30 a couple of years ago. I remember seeing that it said it was self-directed and you could start it on your own whenever. Just let us know. And I wasn't ready. I should have been, but I didn't. But I'm glad I found it and I was ready when I was. And right now this morning I weighed 140.4 oh wow great great and I really wanted to be at 140 when I met you Rip but I'm four tenths up sorry you know Easter happened and, a little chocolate bunny rabbit well no he's still in the cabinet I was going to wait till after I saw you.
[8:59] But you know we had Easter breakfast at church and we had a volunteer appreciation luncheon at the church and, you know, things happen and, you know, it's my body, my choice. Sometimes I eat above the red line, so to speak, the higher calorie things. And mostly I try to eat, you know, according to the calorie density chart. Yeah. Super smart.
[9:18] So, so January 1st, you decided that you were ready and you were worth it and you were going to start the, the, the real 30 challenge. Why, why at this point in your life, did you feel you were ready to start it? Well, I lost 32 pounds two years ago with a thing called the Red Line Challenge. And it was a five-day internet thing. It only cost $7. And Vince and Rollin really pumped me up. And even before that, I've had Chef AJ's calorie density chart for a couple of years. Hers was you eat to the left of the Red Line. And I got those categories in my head.
[10:01] But I didn't know how to cook. I'm kind of a throw-together cook like my mother was, and I don't plan. It's like, how do I know what I'm going to have to eat? I do a little bit of food prep. I do mostly brown rice, and I prep that. And I have stuff here, but I just kind of throw things together. And a lot of the recipe books, just about everybody has so many things that I don't know what it tastes like. I don't know how to use it up. I don't know if I'll like it. Like, I bought Nooch two different times, and I don't care for it. So I don't have cheese sauce in my house and I don't really miss it that much. But so I struggled with getting going, even though I knew what what to eat, what not to eat kind of thing. And so this red line challenge really pumped me up. But in the first eight and a half months of that year, I kept marking on the calendar as I was weaning off of animal products and how many times I was eating them for the month. And so I'd gotten it down to about 15 percent that I was eating animal products. And in eight and a half months, I lost a whopping 6.6 pounds, which is better than nothing. But then I did the Redline Challenge, and in five months, I lost another 25.8. So a total of 13 months, I lost 32.4 pounds.
[11:18] You keep very accurate records, don't you? Yeah, I'm kind of a nerd, an OCD, okay? And so that keeps me going when I see, you know, every day I would get on the scale, and I'd be happy, and I'd clap my hands when I lost weight. And if I didn't, I didn't get upset or beat myself up. You know, you can't lose four tenths of a pound every day. Pretty soon you'll waste away. But anyhow, it was good. And then I got down. I was wanting to get to 135. First, I wanted 140, and I made that in January of 24. But then I wanted to get to 135, and I got down to 135.2. And then I heard it was National Burrito Day.
[11:59] And I went to Moe's, and I've never been there since, to Moe's or the 137.2. And so last year, our birthdays are six days apart in May. And between May and December, all I did was yo-yo up and down, up and down. And I regained 16 of the 32 pounds. And now I've lost 14.8 of those. This year. Yeah. I'm going to keep going. I'm not stopping. I don't stop. I'm the energizer bunny. I don't give up. I'm always looking for something free, something that works. Yeah. And when I saw the real 30, it was different because I knew the calorie density chart. I knew the eating below the red line or to the left of the red line. Or I really like forks over knives the best. Theirs is eat above the green line because the part's slightly bigger. And I really like theirs the best. And that's what I use. But the categories are in my head. So I knew how to choose. And I knew when I chose to eat the higher calorie food said, I'm slowing my weight loss down. But you got to live. You got to enjoy life as you go along. So when I saw this, I've never actually started a weight loss thing in January. But many people do. And it fails. It's like I don't make resolutions either. So I saw it. I said, it's free. I've read some of your books back then. I've read them all again since. I read your dad's book. I've read the Pleasure Trap book this year.
[13:18] And I'm just pumping myself up all the time because it's working. It's working again and I don't want to backslide again. I'd like to make it through this May and through our two birthdays that's coming up without gaining weight. When you say our two birthdays, who? My husband is 359 days younger than me. I'm a cougar.
[13:38] His birthday is the 22nd of May and mine's the 28th. I would love to make it through our birthdays without gaining weight and then just to keep going and through the holidays, because it is a problem. My husband's Jewish, and he always says the Jewish dilemma is free ham. Okay. But for me, it's free food, period.
[13:58] My church gets, Publix is a big grocery store here besides real food, Whole Foods. And every Sunday morning at 6.30, this fellow in our church goes and gets all of the bakery leftovers free. Yeah. Bread. And it's not Dave's killer bread or Ezekiel bread. Those things sell, you know? And so I try to get the things that are a little healthier, like the sourdough or, you know, sprouted grain if they have that. But a lot of the stuff is not really very healthy. And I have a flour addiction. And I recently, just this year, since being in Real 30, picked up on the fact that I had been putting pasta and bread in the same category of calories. And pasta is like a third. No, pasta is 500. And bread is 1400. And what's the difference? Because it's a dry carb. That's right. That's right. And the pasta is wet. And it's more processed. Yes. Beautiful.
[14:51] Well, tell me this. I appreciate that you like free, right? You're very frugal and that's to be appreciated. Tell me this. So the real 30 or you're eating, you know, 30 different whole plant-based foods a week and moving for 30 minutes every day.
[15:13] Did you find that to be difficult or easy? Actually, very easy because I have a Fitbit. Actually, I didn't start working out until I was a youngster of 60, almost 15 years ago. And I could not do the 14-minute mile with Leslie Sandstone on the computer without having to sit down.
[15:32] Now I can go 45 minutes as long as I'm moving. Standing still kind of still causes me pain, but as long as I'm moving. So I've had the Fitbit about three years. I did 1,500 and some miles last year. I slept off. That's about 100 less than I did the year before. I did 1,900 miles one year. Yeah. In a year. So my goal is to do 10,000 steps a day or 70,000 steps a week. So the good thing about Real30 for me was the fact that even though I was already exercising all during the day, every time I get up, I get extra steps before I sit down again. And I was trying to do some workouts. I wasn't necessarily doing a 30 minute all together every day. And I tried real hard to do that in January. I don't know that I did it perfect because we're not perfect people, but it really helped. So doing that big bunch and then still getting my steps. I actually had two or three weeks of 81, some or 83,000 steps a week, which is like a whole extra day. And I even had one week that was 90,000 steps. That's like doing nine days in seven days. Spectacular. It's helped a lot. And then I did not know about the 30 different foods and how it affected your gut microbiome. And I'm still doing that to this day.
[16:44] This whole book I've been writing in, and my week starts on Friday. So, so far I have 42 plants this week. You do. Yes. But every week I write down this thing here. Read for me. Can you read for me some of those 42? So my very first week under real 30, I lost three pounds and I had 56 plants my first week and it wasn't hard at all. And then the next week I lost another 2.6 and I only had 38. That might be my lowest week, but I still had 38 plants that week. And then I lost another pound the next week and I had 49 plants. And then I lost another pound eight and I lost, had 48 plants and so on and so forth. So it just keeps going. Oh, here's a week of 35. That is the lowest. That's the lowest number of plants
[17:32] I had was 35. And the highest I had was 56. And now tell me this, Barbara, are you incorporating any animal products or byproducts during the week or not? Once in a while, I do digress. And I don't want to, but it's my elbow that bends. I can't blame anybody but me. Yeah. Well, listen, the whole purpose was not to vilify any other food group. It was just to get people to eat more plants. Because we know if you're eating more plants that you're then crowding out your plate and you're getting less, of the other, let's just say.
[18:13] Food groups that are not enhancing your gut health, but probably harming it, right? That was one thing I liked about real food because I saw in the beginning it said it's not about what you can't eat. It's about adding more. And I knew that. And so, like, you know, this week we happen to have Easter. We had an Easter breakfast at my church and I had animal products. Sometimes I'll go to these things and I'll take a pimp, you know, a potato in my pocket.
[18:41] I got that from Well Your World. They call it pimping. Sometimes I'll take a sweet potato, sometimes a white potato, and I'll take that and I'll eat and then I'll, you know, get stuff from the vegetables. But there's a lot of temptation at church.
[18:54] And there's a lot of unhealthy people at church. And, you know, I haven't been able to influence any of them to speak of there. But I try and I try to do what's best for me. And so I did eat some animal products Easter morning. And, um, I wish I didn't, but I don't beat myself up and it's one day and, you know, I try to counteract and do a little extra exercise, but I do know you can't outrun a bad diet. No, no. You know, exercise is great for your bones and your energy and your organs and everything else, but it's not that great for weight loss. It's the food. Who said that Dr. McDougal or Dr. Clapper? It's always food. Both of them. Both of them say it equally. Tell me this, Barbara, did your husband join you on the real 30? Not initially. I started this because of the pain and because I was also a little more overweight than he was. And in the beginning, I used to cook and then I would add the meat for him. But then I just kind of stopped doing that. And of his own free will, one day he said he was going to give up eggs. And I was happy. There hasn't been any cheese in the house in a long time. Yeah. He's out a couple of days a week and he helps his son in his business. And they buy him pizza and gyros and you name it. He eats it fried chicken whatever he has that away from the house so he's getting it maybe three days a week and he doesn't seem to mind not having it here but in the beginning he used to eat this.
[20:19] Glorified candy granola from costco that had m&ms in it, and i thought what can i do what can i do because i i would see it and i want to eat it and i had some uh older tupperware that was opaque and it wouldn't fit in one so i had two containers and i put them in the refrigerator and they were in the door. Every time I opened the door, I knew what was in there, but I didn't have to look at the package or see the food. And that helped me a lot. But eating that. What about family? I mean, sorry, friends. Do you have friends that know what you're doing? And how are they feeling about you getting more plant strong?
[20:57] Mixed reviews. I think pretty much everybody knows that I don't eat much meat, if any. And I've had one. The worst reaction was someone said, oh, it's not good for everybody. I knew somebody who ate that and they got really sick and, you know, so I just OK, just don't say anything to her about my eating anymore because she doesn't want to hear it. You know, and Dylan Holmes from Well Your World, he he says that, you know, we shouldn't preach. And I did too much of that, like so many people do in the beginning, because I am gung ho and I'm excited for me. And, you know, when you have good news, you want to share it with your friends. But I do have one friend locally who we've been, you know, chatting back and forth and, you know, several different people. And I just try to share if they're interested. I pretty much share like my charts. I shared Real 30 with people and how easy it is to work at it. And, you know, that's all you can do. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. No, no. And you're right. Usually the getting all preachy tends to backfire and then people dig their heels in even more. So it's better, obviously, to be a shiny example of what this lifestyle can afford to us.
[22:10] Barbara, how long have you been married to your husband? 17 years on Valentine's Day, and they said it wouldn't last. I was widowed for seven years. Gotcha. Did you ever think you'd find somebody else? Oh, yeah. He's my third husband.
[22:27] I've actually been married 43 years. It only just took three husbands to do that. Right, right. So what do you, I mean. He's the best. That's so awesome. For us youngsters that are looking for worldly advice, what do you think is the secret to a really successful marriage slash relationship? Laughter. That's part of what I like. My husband and I, we do actually do stand-up comedy at the talent show at his church once a year. And I'm a straight man. Somebody has to be.
[23:00] Wow. Wow. I don't know. So we're always zinging each other and we make lots of jokes. And yeah, well, like I said, when I told him I had a date with a hot younger man, he he didn't he didn't bite on it. He didn't bite. Yes, that's good. I'm not seeing your wife, but I'm sure she's lovely. I've seen your children. I like I like how playful you are, Barbara. Tell me this. Tell me this.
[23:28] What else happened besides weight loss to you since you started this? Anything else going on with prediabetes, diabetes, anything like that? Yes. In fact, I go to this thing that's here locally. It's a whole bunch of different cubicles that people rent, and it's like lawyers and hearing aid and, Canadian pharmacy and all stuff that seniors need. And I happened to go to a function there one day and there were some research people at the front and they asked me if I wanted to participate and give them a blood sample so when I have a chance to get free blood work and know what my cholesterol is for free and this is three weeks after I really started gung-ho again with Real30 and they took my blood and they gave me $45 which I didn't know they were going to pay me, and they said they were going to give me an appointment in a few weeks and tell me what my results were now I was not fasting because I didn't know they were going to do this. And they sent me an email just a couple of days later and that said I was no longer pre-diabetic. I was 5.6%. And I have been trying to get there for several years. Even through losing the 32 pounds, I still was pre-diabetic at like 5'7".
[24:42] Which, you know, was not too bad, but still not good. I have a very strong family history of diabetes. Both of my sisters are diabetics and my father was. Yeah, well, that's fantastic news. And yeah, we want that A1C to be below 5.7 and 5.6 is below 5.7. So that's outstanding.
[25:04] Did you feel at all deprived eating the way you were eating? How was your food? Did you like it? I love everything I eat, including some of the things that I shouldn't. The animal products that we sometimes imbibe in or the UPF, the ultra processed foods, which is very little of. It's really hard when you live with someone who doesn't totally eat this way. And so like he has these little tiny pretzels here in the house. And sometimes I'll have a few with a little peanut butter on them. And I know those are processed, but, you know, I can't say you can't have anything in the house to eat, but mostly he's pretty good and he's pretty supportive and pretty helpful.
[25:43] So I don't feel deprived, you know, as long as there's not particularly in the house, I don't feel deprived. The temptation generally arrives outside of the house. Yeah, we went to eat Easter evening with our grown kids and our grandson and my husband's first wife. They all live together and we all went to eat and we went to Chinese place. I had the mixed vegetables and the brown rice and I asked for it to be cooked with little to no oil. I don't know if that really happened, if they understood English, but it was good. It didn't taste very oily and I enjoyed it. And they had what they had and that was fine with me. Yeah. No, I love the way you're making it work. Right. What did do you get along well with your husband's ex-wife? Absolutely. Yeah. She was, you know, I mean, she was his grandmother of the grandson and I had nothing to do with their divorce. They were divorced like 20 some years or something. Right, right, right. We came in the picture and they all live together. So we're all friendly and we all get along.
[26:40] You grew up in, is it outside of Canton, Ohio? Is that right? Right. I had to go to Canton to be born. There's no hospital in Louisville. Got it. Got it. Well, and you know that I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. So we're both Ohioans. I like that. You know what's high on the outside? What's round on the outside and high in the middle? Ohio. And you know, my mother was a, her parents were migrant firebrokers from Kentucky. So I always say my mother was a hillbilly and my father was a worthless nut because Buckeyes aren't good for anything. You can't eat them. Oh, my goodness. Any butter kind. Have you had chocolate covered peanut butter balls and they call them Buckeyes?
[27:23] I don't believe I have, but I'm certainly game. They're sort of like homemade Reese's cups, basically. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds divine.
[27:32] Yeah, it does. What did you have for breakfast this morning? I knew you were going to ask that. I don't write down my food per se, unless it's on my count list, but I did write down. I had blackberries and oats and grape nuts and almond milk for breakfast. And how did you have your oats? Were they? They were overnight oats. overnight. They had chia in it and they had actually some of the, I think it's called Hirosha. We had a Seder dinner Tuesday night. And even though I'm a Methodist, the Methodists do that sometimes, you know, to show. And Joel went, of course, and it's almonds. I don't mean almonds, walnuts and apples chopped up and it's called Hirosha, I believe. And so I put some of that in my overnight oats.
[28:17] Yeah. I like it. I like it a lot. Have you ever tried Ann's Savory Steel Cut Oatmeal? No, not the Savory, but I did try the Lapidop Oats. Okay. Yeah. Because you know that her Savory Bowl has that one ingredient that you don't particularly care for, the nooch. The nooch, yeah. But you can always make it without it. Right. Not a necessary ingredient. This is my list of recipes from all your books that I've copied. Wow. I have a list of about six inches of scrap typing paper where I have copied all these different recipes from different people. Some I've tried and obviously some I haven't.
[28:59] Barbara, you say you're retired. What career field were you in before you retired? My mom says that from the time I was a little girl, I used to say I wanted to be a wife, a mommy and a secretary. And that's what I did. I did secretarial office clerical kind of stuff. Wow. I bet you were really good at it. Uh, I, I've, I've been in banking, I've been in retail and, and, you know, just all kinds of general clerical kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. But I retired in 1966. That's when you retired. Yeah. That was when I was 66. And did I say 66? No. When I was 66 years old, that was what, what would that be? 66 and 51. No, that'd be 2017. My bad. All right. Yeah. No, this is what I do now. Yeah.
[29:51] I saw these these are memory bears from a deceased person's clothes oh my gosh camouflage they was it was a marine person and then this is another one this guy who passed away he was a karate, coach and that's his e i've made 308 bears in three years and they go back to the family i sell them for the hospice organization they take between six and eight hours. Wow. And I love doing it. It's good for my brain. And it's, it's so comforting for me because my second husband passed away at 49. I was widowed at 50, two weeks before our second wedding anniversary. Oh, I'm sorry. What did it, was it a heart attack? No, actually he was morbidly obese. He was six foot two and he weighed 355 pounds the day of his gastric bypass surgery. And he did wonderfully well from that. And we were walking up to 30 minutes at a time. And six weeks after the surgery, he got sick. We all three got sick with colds. His mother, he and I lived together. And six weeks later, he was dead from Guillain-Barre syndrome. Oh, yeah. And yeah, did that affect? I was waited for seven years when I met and married Joel then. So did the Guillain-Barre, did that affect his respiratory system? Well, it started at his toes and worked its way up and he was paralyzed. And the last time that he spoke, before they put the tube down his throat, and then he was in a coma.
[31:18] And then he had three brain scans, and the last one was almost totally flatline, and we had to disconnect.
[31:24] That was tough. The bumper sticker says that which does not kill you makes you strong. Well. That was 24 years ago. 24 years ago. Let me ask you this. Did you laugh a lot with him? Oh, yeah. He had a great sense of humor, too. And I like the fact that he was a big guy because I could sit on his lap, and I didn't worry about hurting him.
[31:48] So you said you've been married this is your third marriage where where's the uh the other marriage fit in well the first one was my high school sweetheart we were married almost 27 years when he left me for another woman oh and i was divorced five and a half years and in that time i went to college and got my as degree in office systems technology and then, um i met my second husband on online when web dating was weird it is weird and we dated for 17 months and got married And then, like I said, he died two weeks before our second wedding anniversary. Then I met my third and current husband also on the computer, but he was local too. And we only dated for nine months and two weeks. We got married on Valentine's Day.
[32:29] Wow. That's so wonderful. Let me just go back to, you said that you were experiencing, a lot of pain. Where was your pain? Was it like in your hands, in your knees, your hips? Where was it? Pretty much all over, but mostly I've had two surgeries on the left knee and I had this right shoulder out of the socket twice, 36 years apart from injuries. So those are the two major parts. Also, my ankles hurt a lot and some low back pain. And I know that, you know, if I was carrying some less weight, particularly for the knees and the ankles, it would be better. Yeah. And so is that pain dissipated? Not a lot. And I think it's because I'm nibbling and having the ultra processed food. I think the little bit of pretzels and the little bit of regular salad dressing, which I know has oil. And I'm thinking that's what's keeping the pain from not dissipating. Because when I did Redline Challenge, there were people in that in the five days of the challenge online. They were feeling less pain. It took me about three weeks. After about three weeks, I could literally stoop and bend down, which I hadn't been able to do in years. I haven't actually tried it in a long time. And I still hurt some. But then I'm also, you know, four or five years older. But I have to think that I've got to cut out those little bit of nibbles. And that's one thing I struggle with. Put your dad in his book called Just a Little.
[33:51] Or moderation kills. Yeah, right. A little won't hurt. Yes, it does. Well, again, we're not here to vilify, but everybody has to go on their own path. That's right. You know what you are? What I love is that you are on this continuous path of learning about yourself and food and how it affects you, and your weight and any potential inflammation that's going on there. And we know, you know, we do know.
[34:26] From very definitive research that whether it's animal products, whether it's dairy products, whether it's, you know, sugar, all these things, cause a dramatic spike in inflammation in our bodies, literally within just a couple hours of consuming them. So I will just just say the less amount of these inflammatory foods that we can eat, the better off we're going to be and we're going to create an environment that is anti-inflammatory instead of inflammatory, right? Right. And I've known that. And yet it's like, that's why I just recently read the pleasure trap, hoping to find that missing puzzle piece on, you know, how I can say, because sometimes in my head, I say NMF, not my food. Right. Right. And sometimes that works and I will ignore it.
[35:20] Have you ever thought, have you ever thought about coming to one of our retreats? Um yeah i saw that i would love to but i really just don't fly i haven't flown, i hardly ever fly or go anywhere it's just it's so hard to do that particularly.
[35:35] We have already full of black mountain we are full of black mountain but we have a wonderful one in sedona yeah i think i maybe talked to you about that when uh when i called you the other day but uh in sedona in uh late september so um, Maybe we'll get you a Greyhound bus ticket.
[35:57] Barbara, any departing words of advice for everybody that's out there that's like going, wow, that Barbara is just something else. I want to be like her. Well, I appreciate that. I think that probably perseverance is really what matters, because I'm not giving up. Um i have time in my life now because i am retired to work on me and i'm worth it and i'm not going to stop until i feel better until i feel like i'm at my best until i'm happy with my weight i'm happy with the choices that i make when i eat, yeah i know what's good for me i don't you know i can't say what's good for other people that has to be their decision but i know what i should be eating and I do my best at that most every day, but movement is just really it. You got to keep moving every day. Even when I had COVID, I got 5,000 steps. Yeah. Yeah. Those two days, because you got to get up and you got to move. And if it hurts, just walk a little more before you sit back down. Yeah. Because when you get up, you're going to be stiff again. You know about, uh, Ann's world record. I couldn't do that challenge because of the shoulder injury. Sure. I wouldn't begin to try it, but I did do the beans thing to try to eat more beans and I'm trying to get my LDL down. And I'm like, I say, I'm not doing blood work again until May for my doctor, but I'm hoping that it's improving as well.
[37:25] Barbara. I'm so glad that I got to get acquainted with you and that, uh, that we've met and you agreed to come on the plant strong challenge. And, uh, if you remember when you called me, yes, I put your number in my phone so that I would answer. Cause I don't answer if the name doesn't come up. Yeah. And I said, is this rip? And you said, yeah, how did you know? And we talked for 17 minutes. I was telling you some of this stuff. And then you asked me and you said, would you consider and i interrupted you and i said yes, i knew you were going to ask me to be on your podcast so i have some jokes do you have a second let's go let's go, where do vegetables where do vegetables go to kiss where do vegetables go to kiss i have no idea the mushroom.
[38:15] Good good okay where do honeydew cantaloupe and watermelon go for the summer, Help me out. John Cougar Mellencamp. Good. Great musician. There was a T-Rex and a Velociraptor sitting in a bar. And the Velociraptor points to the Triceratops in the corner and says, why is he first to get served? And the T-Rex says, because he was herbivorous. Good. Good. He was here before us. Yes, indeed. This was an actual text I got from my husband, who calls himself a techno peasant. And we're lucky he knows how to text. He doesn't even know how to use the ATM, I don't think. So he does a lot of the grocery shopping because he's out and about because he's helping his son in his business, and so he stops on the way home. So he texts me from Aldi, and he said, Do we need any romance? And I said, Yeah, be sure and bring some. And also, don't forget to get the romaine. Good stuff. And so I posted it on my vegan website, Well, Your Old probably, and somebody said, You better watch out. You might produce.
[39:25] Barbara, you're also engaged in the Go Plant Strong Facebook community, aren't you? I am. I'm on Plant Strong and I'm on both the Real30 and I'm on Well Your World, those three things. How important do you feel being engaged with community is? Oh, I love it. But I find that on both of those websites, both Dylan's and yours, that people are generally, you know, really nice and friendly and positive. And, you know, you can get good recipes. You can get encouragement. I know that things that I post encourage other people. And, you know, even sometimes when I have down days, like I had one day that I forgot what it was. It was cold and I was hurting. And it was like I ate something that was wrong and my weight was up. And then I said, you know, I've learned two things from this. And it was something like flour products aren't my friend. And tomorrow is another day. You just don't give up like Scarlett O'Hara said. You just start over. Every day, every meal is a new chance to eat the right way for yourself, for your health, for your body. Oof.
Faith and Final Wisdom
[40:27] So wise. So wise. So wonderful. Barbara Court. I have one last thing. Hit me. This morning, I was reading in my devotional book. I have that little daily bread that you get from church, you know, and 1 Thessalonians 1.3. And I thought of you when I heard this. And it said, we remember your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope.
[40:54] Because what you did with real 30 offering it for free and so much good has come out of that in my life, you know and encouragement so many hundreds and hundreds of people are helped and you didn't i mean yeah you could probably get some customers out of it not everybody's as cheap as i am, but i i just love that that you did the the real 30 challenge and the website it's great, and i tell everybody i know that is interested about it and hope that some of them will try it because so many people need so much help yeah it's so easy yeah it really is it's just you know ordinary food ordinary cooking, doesn't have to be 15 ingredients i don't know what miso tastes like i don't use tamari tahini coriander cardamon pods i don't cook with that stuff i just, do regular stuff without meat and the other thing barbara, for people that are like you that are very you know, Cost conscientious.
[41:57] This is the most affordable way to eat. Truly. Truly. Yeah. Price of eggs and meat and stuff. Oh boy. I'm glad I don't eat them anymore. I hear you. I hear you. And it doesn't matter how old you are. You can still change your body. You can still change your life. Thank you. No, it's never too late. Never too late. Should have started before, but at least I started at 60. I started exercising at 60, and I started eating right at 70. It took me 10 years, but I got here. I have outlived one husband who died at 49, two grandparents who died at 71, and one father who died at 64.
[42:39] Yeah. I'm almost 75 and kicking. And you're not slowing down. No, I'm not. No. Will you give me a plant-strong fist bump on the way out, young lady? All right. Hey, ready? Boom. Blow it up. Thank you. Boom. It was great.
