Meet "The Plant STRONG 5ive"

We are so excited to share with you today our new blog name and logo!

Let me explain our reasons for the change.

Rolling out the Breaking Four blog was a snap decision. It was the night before Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast and about five hours before our power disruption. Matt and I were sitting in the living room and I turned to him and said, “I think we have a blog in us.” Several people had suggested to me that I start one, but I recognized they said this only because I write for a living. I always scoffed at the idea because I never felt I had a point of view worth sharing with a broad audience. But the night before Sandy something felt different.

Matt asked what I would write about. My gut knew what I wanted to discuss -- nutrition, specifically our whole-food, plant-based lifestyle -- but I worried that I’d turn people off. I’ve seen people tune out the minute they hear the word “vegan.” Would anyone I know seriously want to listen to Matt or me champion it? That had definitely not been the trend thus far. I thought for a few moments and responded, “We’ll set a goal to complete our first full marathon in less than four hours. We can call it Breaking Four (a take on our favorite television show Breaking Bad) and share our training journey.”

Matt was game (running a marathon had already been in the cards for us for 2013), but deep down he knew where our passion really lie -- whole-food veganism. He asked if we would talk about plant-based nutrition. I said “yes” but that it couldn’t be our focus for the reason I described above.

That was it in a nut shell. I did a quick Google search, found Blogger, created Breaking Four and piloted it to a small group of Facebook friends who I knew were fitness enthusiasts for their feedback. The rest, as they say, is history.

It didn’t take me long to find my voice and it was exactly where Matt suspected it would be -- in the world of whole-food, plant-strong living. Food fuels our body so what we put into it matters more than anything. Knowing that, believing that and living that how could it not have been the focus? If we can inspire or motivate even a handful of people to make better dietary choices, just as author Michael Pollan; health advocates Kris Carr, Kathy Freston and Chef AJ; athletes Rich Roll and Scott Jurek; and Doctors Barnard, Esselstyn, Campbell, Fuhrman, Ornish, et al have done for us, then this blog will have served its purpose.

Over time, I grew more comfortable writing the words “vegan,” “plant-based” and “whole-food.” The emphasis naturally shifted from running almost exclusively to nutrition.

Recently, I had the pleasure of taking a food blogging course at Manhattan’s Natural Gourmet Institute with vegan chef and author Alex Jamieson. Alex stressed the importance of defining very specifically your target audience and niche and then selecting a blog name that supports both. Though Matt and I still plan to train and run a sub-4-hour marathon in September with half marathons and other races sprinkled in between (we seriously love running), Breaking Four does not define who we are nor is the name intuitive to those we are trying to reach.

Our journey has also never been just about Matt and me. It began and continues today as a family. Our children will go on to have families of their own, armed with the knowledge that Matt and I lacked for 40 years. Their children -- our grandchildren -- will benefit on day-one. How extraordinarily lucky we are to be in positions to break the cycle of unhealthy eating and living … not just for us but for our children, their children and their children’s children!

While individually our Plant STRONG 5ive family is at different stages in our journey, our end goal is the same: to grow and thrive within the plant-strong community and to share our knowledge and lessons learned with all of you.

The Plant STRONG 5ive brand is inspirational, aspirational and it defines who we are and how we live. Simply put … it’s our niche.

Before I close, I want to thank my husband for conceptualizing The Plant STRONG 5ive logo. I hope you like it as much as we do!

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