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The Sonya Looney Show


Hey everybody! My name is Sonya Looney and welcome to my podcast. For those of you who don’t have any context on me, I’m a plant-based World Champion ultra endurance mountain biker. I travel the world and have met some incredible people with world class attitudes and ways of living that motivate me daily, and I want to share their paths of mastery with you. This is a podcast interviewing inspiring leaders across the categories of wellness, endurance fitness, plant-based nutrition, mindset, and entrepreneurship to help you unlock the best and healthiest version of yourself.

Jul 23, 2020

Alison Tierney is a registered dietitian and board-certified in oncology nutrition and started her business, Wholesome LLC in 2015. After developing an oncology nutrition program at a local academic cancer center, Alison pursued Wholesome exclusively as her business and client base continued to grow and increase in demand. Her passion for nutrition and healthy lifestyle is obvious in her work, her care for her clients, and her desire to always keep learning. Although Alison is board-certified in oncology nutrition, she is multi-passionate in nutrition and her expertise goes beyond cancer and involves helping others with the management of chronic diseases such as: heart diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and autoimmune diseases.

I love the story of today's guest.  Many of us tend to weave through different experiences in life before we find our path.  Alison is no different.  In school, she initially studied business and was a college athlete. As an athlete, she was aware that nutrition was important for fueling long practices and game days for optimal physical performance, but she wasn't thinking about nutrition in terms of disease prevention and longevity.  By the time she finished her business degree, her interests had started to change.

Her husband encouraged her to switch to nutrition, but she felt like it was too late to switch. I can attest to that feeling!  But take it from both of us, it's never too late. She took one nutrition course and that was it her last year of college and realized she had found her path.  She went back to school to pursue a second bachelors' degree in dietetics.  Her interests also changed from dietetics to oncology nutrition as cancer started claiming the lives of her family members.

Outside of the cancer center, she focuses on Wholesome LLC to provide individual counseling, classes and seminars to promote a wholesome diet.

While Alison is an expert in using nutrition to treat chronic diseases, we went in a different direction - hormones. She was featured in Neal Barnard's book, Your Body in Balance.  Things like fertility issues, PCOS, menopause, and having your kids eat plant-based has come up in a lot of questions from my listeners and friends.  Alison has a lot of experience here too.  She was unable to get pregnant...that is, until she changed her diet to a whole-foods, plant-based diet.

Topics Discussed in the Podcast 

  • Alison's Fertility Journey (6:00)
  • Whole Foods Plan-Based Diets and Hormone Regulation (9:00)
  • What about eating low fat organic dairy?
  • Eating beans and how to get your gut used to them (20:00)
  • phytoestrogens in soy
  • top cancer-fighting foods (28:00)
  • her role as an oncology dietitian
  • how to change your diet: add before you subtract
  • foods to ease menopause symptoms
  • how to help kids change their diet

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