Rene Pere is a Board Certified Diplomate in Lifestyle Medicine, Food for Life Instructor, and licensed Occupational Therapist based in Austin, Texas.
Hearth -
a home;
a vital, creative center;
where the fire burns the brightest;
when heart and earth come together.
VISION:
Personal and planetary health through lifestyle medicine.
MISSION:
- Sharing my personal health story.
- Teaching whole food plant-based meal preparation.
- Speaking on the importance of adopting the pillars of lifestyle medicine in achieving and maintaining an optimal state of health.
- Illustrating how our food system connects our personal health to the health of our planet, making them inseparable from one another.
- Promoting Occupational Therapy as a key profession in expanding the practice of lifestyle medicine.
A stronger heart will heal the earth.
Thank you for visiting my site. I hope that by sharing my own story, it will help you and anyone else to build a better state of health through diet and lifestyle. I transitioned to a plant-based diet after experiencing a major health scare at 46. Two of many facts I learned while making these changes continue to resonate with me. First, heart disease does not exist on half of the planet. And second, if everyone opted in to more of a plant-based diet, it would decrease food related green house gas emissions by up to 70%. I soon realized that in changing what I was eating to more plants, I was not only making the single most effective change I could to improve my health, my energy, and my weight, but the overall health of the planet as well.
Today, more and more people are adopting a plant-based lifestyle, and they do so for a variety of reasons. Some do it for the environment. Some do it for the animals. Some have done it to reverse heart disease and diabetes (yes....reversed). My own personal reason was to improve my state of health. I wanted to do everything in my power to avoid another blood clot forming and passing from my heart into my lung. It was a pulmonary embolism that I experienced. It was painful. It was unexpected. And it set me on a journey in trying to answer these 2 burning questions I could not get out of my head: 1. Was this caused by something that I am doing? and 2. Can I change anything to prevent, or at least minimize the chances of this ever happening to me again?
Plant based is planet based.
I knew I needed to make changes, and those changes began in how I stocked my pantry and fridge, in how I made my grocery list, in learning new ways of preparing food, and maybe most importantly, in prioritizing food as medicine. Each time that I enjoy a meal, I am now reminded that what I put on my plate will either hurt me or heal me.
Learning to prepare plant-based meals was the cheapest, easiest, and most life saving and life-giving decision I've ever made. Putting more plants on your plate at every meal is like that 4 point play from outside the key. One for your health. One for the animals. One for the planet. One for those you love.