As you can see...

... we've been a bit absent. For a whole bunch of reasons.

Lindsay's acting career has taken front seat in her life at the moment, as has Steve's flourishing Reiki business, and while Lindsay & Steve will remain wonderful friends, we are no longer together as a couple. Which means for you, our kiss-worthy readers - this blog is a bit on hold. BUT - and this is a great, big, beautiful BUT - we will be keeping our beloved blog up on here for as long as we are needed. Whether we add new posts or not, you can forever consider KMIV a constant resource of vegan awareness and the joys of living a vegan lifestyle. 

Thank you for your support. Enjoy the old posts. We love you and are grateful for each and every one of you.

With love & vegan kisses,

Lindsay & Steve 

"If we're destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting one another and all that stuff, there's got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that."

- Ellen DeGeneres

Please Help PlantBuilt Spread the Word of Strength & Health & Compassion through their Indiegogo Campaign!

While I've always been involved in sports throughout my life, I had always been on the skinny, plain, undefined body side of things. 

Fast-forward to now. In the past two years, I've run three beastly mud runs and a half marathon. I've added on a solid 20 lbs. to my thinner frame, mostly muscle, transforming into a new lean and muscular athlete. I've adopted a solid gym regimen, lifting more than I ever have. A consistent yoga practice has also helped me shape my body. Why now? Why have these past two years proved so valuable with my fitness?

1) I adopted my vegan lifestyle, taking a much greater focus on health and nutrition. My new completely plant-based diet introduced me to new foods, cleaner eating, and a renewed love for lots and lots of fruits and vegetables. And beans. And oh so many other foods.
2) I discovered Vega and Vegan Proteins. And with this came my go-to source for clean, plant-based, cruelty-free options to enhance my fitness, muscle building, athletic performance, endurance, and more.

I've had the great opportunity to get to know many plant-based athletes and bodybuilders, through personal friendship or online followship - Robert, Giacomo, Dani, Ed, Chad, Billy, Derek, Mindy. I've looked to these wonderful people for inspiration, motivation, information, and advice and they have all bonded together to create a powerhouse - PlantBuilt.

PlantBuilt is a group you may be familiar with. The team, compiled and led by Giacomo Marchese and Dani Taylor, co-owners of veganproteins.com (whose collaboration with KMIV brought our most successful giveaway ever!), debuted at the 2013 Naturally Fit Super Show, with 15 vegans competing in various classes of bodybuilding amongst over 150 (non-vegan) competitors. Every single athlete placed in the top 5 of their class and 2 pro cards were awarded. Making up only 10% of the competition, they took home 40% of the overall trophies. This year's team is over twice the size and will be represented in the INBF bodybuilding, Crossfit, powerlifting, and transformation competitions at the Naturally Fit Super Show in Austin, TX on July 26th, 2014. Many of last year's team members returned, and the new ones were selected by the honorary members from a large, competitive pool of applicants.

With such great success last year, I, personally, am SO excited for what they can - and will - accomplish this year. In order for this to happen, for this powerhouse of vegan strength, health, and compassion to show the mainstream that plant-powered is the upcoming movement of our world, PlantBuilt needs our help. And since they've done so much to build veganism in a healthful, strong, positive light, let's come through for them, so they can continue spreading the message.

PlantBuilt is currently hosting an Indiegogo campaign in a effort to raise the needed funds to:

1. Support their selected farm sanctuary and vegan outreach groups
2. Go towards the operating costs to compete as a unit and promote a vegan lifestyle through direct activism

Beyond helping the PlantBuilt team, the animals, and spreading positive message of compassion, there are a variety of perks to reward YOU for your help - t-shirts, custom workout music compilations, Vegan Proteins products, honorary PlantBuilt team membership, and more. For optimal value, check out "The Works" package. For $100, you actually receive more than your donation value while offering your generous support to PlantBuilt.

So let's make a difference, okay?! Visit PlantBuilt's Indiegogo Page: 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/plantbuilt-vegan-muscle-team

and please donate as you can. Each and every dollar means something and adds up to make this campaign a success. Whether you donate or not, please share amongst your friends, family, community, online audience. We have a fantastic group we're supporting here. Let's really make a difference.

Thank you. From Kiss Me, I'm Vegan and from PlantBuilt. And from the animals. 

Many vegan hugs and kisses and flexes to you!

Talking Veganism & Beliefs with Jon Wolf, The You-Time Coach: How to Discover Beliefs You Are Certain About

My brother-in-law and Life Coach/Mentor, Jon Wolf, is doing this awesome series of interviews that I had the privilege of being a part of. We connected about "discovering beliefs you are certain about," even in the midst of growth and change. It was a fun conversation and we delved deep into veganism. Please check it out! Go to www.youtimecoaching.com to find out more about Jon, The You-Time Coach, and dive into his valuable insight and explorations through his blog, www.youtimecoaching.blogspot.com.

_________________________

How to Discover Beliefs You Are Certain About

Everybody has been marginalized in their lifetime in some way. 

Many involve all encompassing things such as religion, sexual orientation, and race, while others for less overt things like the way you dress, whether you like a particular sports team, what car you drive, or what job you work. 

What about the way you eat? Or even how compassionate you are? 

People around the world have been marginalized for years for the very simple reason of not fitting into the mainstream "in-group". 

This blog interview illuminates and explores how an individual's beliefs can change through their own life experience and how a little resistance from main-stream culture won't stand in their way.

Steven Todd Smith is a Reiki Master Teacher and owner/creator of Reiki For Creative Minds. Also: a Life Nutrition Coach, Arbonne Independent Consultant, and Community Manager for Forks Over Knives. 

There are a lot of "standard" questions to ask a vegan, "where do you get your protein?, "do you only eat salad?", or "how do you not eat bacon?". What is the oddest question you have been asked?

Because veganism is still not mainstream, even in large cities in 2014, there's a handful of "interesting" questions that get asked here and there, mainly due to lack of information or misinformation. The oddest question I've been asked was "So can you still eat chicken?" A couple others: "Why do you care about animals more than humans?", "But doesn't that carrot you're eating feel pain?"

I know that the number is astronomically growing, but what percentage of people are actually vegan or completely plant based?

Based on a recent Vegetarian Resource Group-commissioned Harris Interactive study, approximately 5% of the US population (≈16 million) is vegetarian and about half of that number is vegan. That  ≈7.5-8 million has doubled since 2009. Even cooler is that 33% of Americans identify with eating vegan/vegetarian more often, though they are not vegan or vegetarian, according to the study. That's 100+ million people eating plant-based on a more regular basis! Just thinking about the sweeping positive benefits in global health plus the number of animals being killed dropping brings me much joy PLUS knowing that, even though we've already done a good amount of damage to the planet re: factory farming's deleterious effect on the environment, the steps we're making to correct, to heal the planet will kick in sooner than later. 

Being such a small group with a majority of people not sharing what you believe in, how do you continuously maintain your beliefs?

How did/has any minority group continue maintaining their beliefs? Sure, there's a struggle, a greater wall of opposition to come up against. The Civil Rights movement, Women's Rights movement, Gay Rights movement all believe(d) in the same thing - equality, compassion, justice, love. Same with veganism. These tenets, these beliefs are larger than life, no matter how small the overall population sharing them is. They guide me forward, giving them the amazing opportunity to share and spread them, to educate and enlighten. Once you connect to unconditional equality, justice, compassion, and love for all beings - human animals and non-human animals (obviously still in the context that non-human animals are not humans, and vice versa) - and truly believe in them, it's impossible to go against that. And, on the surface level, I get to eat delicious food that cruelty-free and have fun with a community, that may be small overall but is locally very large!, that shares the same ideals. 

Do you believe there are broader concepts and 

values that could be shared amongst everybody?

Yes, and it's definitely worth repeating. Equality, justice, compassion, love. Also, kindness, awareness, sustainability, responsibility, living in alignment. All of these without conditions or bounds. When it comes to religion, faith, spirituality, it all comes back to love, no matter how many different twists and turns each individual one may take. And I'm not necessarily talking what's stereotyped as "hippy-dippy kind of love," (although, what's wrong with that? Nothing.): I'm talking about loving your fellow Earthlings with whom you share this planet. What gives any one of us the right to confine, abuse, torture, or kill another being, whether it's a dog, a cow, a person, a chicken, an elephant, a bear, a fish? I think love is a much stronger guide and force than hatred, than the need/want for power or greed. There are so many broader concepts and values that are already shared amongst a large majority of people in the world; the important transition/awakening happens when we realize we can extend those concepts and values to ALL living beings. Then, we'll find ourselves truly living in alignment.

Many people find safety and security in having a firm set of beliefs. Do you find it easier to simply "live life" when you have a set of beliefs that direct your thoughts and behaviors?

I subscribe to a "strong-walled amoeba" approach. Having a set of guides/beliefs lead the way and protect me, something I can strongly and confidently connect to, while maintaining an open flexibility/receptivity to new ideas or beliefs that I may pick up and/or adopt along my life journey. I think living life in a black or white, immobile, immovable, steel box of beliefs will only prevent you from living fully, from connecting with other people and ideas on an understanding level of some sort. So, the openness and understanding from others that comes along with a solid faith allows for conversation and self-guidance. There are many benefits one will receive from living life with firm set of beliefs though, as much strength, character, individuality can be derived from them. Floating around with no foundation can be both scary and demoralizing. 

You haven't been vegan/plant-based your entire life. How hard was it to realize that your previous personal beliefs and values were in a sense "not the right ones" and how do you go about changing your beliefs?

Great question. As I've deepened my spiritual connection and practice and studied more what our purpose, as humans, is here on Earth during our lives, I begin to lean more toward the concept that our beliefs - we'll say specifically of equality, compassion, justice, love - are always there; we just aren't fully conscious and awakened to them yet. Sure, knowing what I know now, I wish I had been living vegan my whole life. But then my life wouldn't be mine. The journey is just as important as the outcome, because it lays the foundation for the path you end up taking. The foundation - knowing your "Why?" - needs to be strong, have purpose, or any changed beliefs will easily revert back to old habits, patterns, actions, beliefs.

While I had initial resistance because the new beliefs challenged my old ones, I entered with just the slightest openness and understanding, as mentioned above. That gave me the space to explore, learn, and experience. I had/sought support, dove into many different resources, and began to realize that veganism provided me with everything I actually was in alignment with in life. It was less of being wrong and then being right; it became my next powerful platform of growth. The difficulty came in the unknown part of the change: what will I eat?, how will I interact with others?, etc. Just like any change though - even from crawling as babies to learning/deciding to walk (not wrong to right, just the next step in personal growth) - the answers, regardless of the stumbles along the way, eventually came.

Steve, for those people out there now that question their own beliefs, what would you share to help them reach the same level of certainty you have that your beliefs are definitely the right ones for you?

It's as easy as asking yourself: "Is this action I'm taking in

alignment with my greatest/deepest values in life?" For me, I realized contributing to an industry that promotes confinement, abuse, and killing was not in alignment with my values. I do not support confinement, abuse, and killing. Once I learned and realized I could take care of my own health, my own fulfillment, and help other beings on this planet, it became a simple decision. Sure, the journey between the question, the exploration, and the decision may be trickier and take a while (or maybe not...), but the feeling of consciously being in alignment is one of the greatest feelings you'll experience. 

So, truly ask yourself. Explore. Figure out if you're serving both yourself and others with your beliefs; if not yourself, then it's time to change. If not others, then it's time to change. You can achieve both. We all can achieve both. Let go of the past (as the past is already past), tap into your present, your right now, and decide if what you are doing creates a better today AND future all around. You don't have to know all the specifics; there's a very good chance if the decision is in favor of equality, compassion, justice, and love, you're heading in the optimal direction.

Vegan Mainstream Professional Bootcamps! For the V-Entrepreneur in You! (& 2014 Bootcamp Schedule)

In October of last year, I had the privilege of attending Vegan Mainstream's Professional Marketing Bootcamp. I was every excited for the opportunity, as I had followed Stephanie Redcross, the founder of Vegan Mainstream, for a while. Stephanie actually featured Lindsay & KMIV on VM back in 2011, which was a wonderful chance to build an even greater audience. Vegan Mainstream has been helping vegan entrepreneurs develop their brand, marketing strategies, design, PR, SEO, and more since 2009, launching compassionate businesses more into the mainstream. Last year, VM kicked off its inaugural bootcamp schedule, visiting Berkeley, CA, Washington D.C., Chicago, IL, New York City, NY, Los Angeles, CA, and Austin, TX, taking the United States by storm and inspiring many V-Entrepreneurs - whether health coaches, restauranteurs, food product creators, teachers, etc. - to move forward with creating or building their businesses in a super saavy, connective way.

To the event! October 12th, 2013, I made my way to Occidental College for the Los Angeles bootcamp. I was the first guest there, and the last one to leave. The bootcamp was a sell out, bringing people from all over to soak in the wonderful information, advice, and resources shared by Stephanie and her VM Bootcamp expert team. The day took us from the creative aspect of building a business to social media strategies to business tax laws, & exemptions, funding, press kits, patents, and so much more. The speaker slate was powerful, featuring:

• lawyer Sandy Thompson, PhD, Esq.
• marketing and business development specialist Paul Paez
• PR powerhouse Annabel Adams (www.maddcappr.com)
• VM founder, Stephanie Redcross
• Happy Herbivore founder, Lindsay Nixon

In addition to the wonderful talks and Q&As, we dove into a delicious lunch, a mix & mingle & network session, and a fun Vegan Shark Tank! Some of my favorite takeaways:

• "Our role is not to convert, rather to spread the word"
• Key items for consideration in attracting the "Vegan Curious": demographics, competition -> Who/What else can solve that problem and/or provide service?, unique distinction -> Why does your product/service do it better? How?
• "Understand your value, understand the person with whom you're connecting, add value to those relationships"
• In crafting your pitch for public relations, figure out "Who Do You Want to Emulate?" Use someone/something that's been successful and develop it into your own
• Look at your community. Who are your followers? Who are your advocates? Who are your Tribe Members? Where are they?
• HELP your audience. Don't SELL to your audience.
• Share your story & reference it often. People come to you (to buy, to join) because of YOU. 

Stephanie knows business; she knows people; she knows marketing, social media, effective & genuine interactions and networking; she knows how important building vegan into the mainstream is for our ultimate well-being in this world. With these Professional Marketing Bootcamps, she's providing an invaluable forum to learn, receiving inspiration, motivation, momentum, and connections that will help you and your growing business thrive in a world where "vegan" is still in the minority. It's a changing world though. And all of our vegan businesses and ideas have a place to settle in and revolutionize the world. Sure, this is very *big* talk, but, if there's so much potential out there in this awakening market, it's up to us to take the initiative to make sure we're not diving in without awareness and knowledge. Vegan Mainstream's Professional Marketing Bootcamps become the perfect vehicle to help you step and leap forward to the greater good of yourself and everyone else.

This year's bootcamps are kicking off Sunday, April 6th! Check out the schedule below and sign up if VM will be in a city near you:

I highly recommend getting yourself to one of 2014's VM Professional Marketing Bootcamps. You can jump on the website to vote for which cities they come to in 2015, in addition to reading up more about it.

Thank you Vegan Mainstream for bringing this amazingly wonderful compassionate awakened conscious lifestyle to the mainstream!

Do you have a vegan business? Are you a compassionate entrepreneur? Go to www.veganmainstream.com for more info and schedule your 30 minute introductory call.

Review of T. Colin Campbell's WHOLE & A Giveaway for YOU!

I had the privilege of reading an excellent book by one of my teachers and an icon in the world of plant-based nutrition. I am excited to share this post with you along with a giveaway for this book and more! Take a read, and then enter in your information at the bottom for your chance to win. Enjoy!

An a cappella singing group comprises of several/many people, several/many different voices, performing different parts of a song. Together, they create a complete soundscape, a recreation of a musical entity: one person presenting the percussion, others the melody, others harmonies, vocals, etc. Now imagine focusing on just one of the members and extracting her from the group because her harmonizing is so angelic, so beautiful. We take her harmony out of the group and just have her perform that harmony on its own as a song, expecting the benefits of what's provided from the complete song. Well, we're not going to get it. It's only one part of many that creates the masterpiece; by itself, it's out of context and, while complete in its own individual sense, incomplete in scope of creating a full song.

Now let's bring this to the context of food & medicine: maybe extracting a specific vitamin from a whole fruit and marketing the benefits the vitamin in supplemental form; or maybe chemically creating a pill to assist in the bolstering or reduction of a certain chemical process in the body. In both cases, just like removing the vocalist from the a cappella group, we fail to receive the full benefits of the complete entity, the full picture. In fact, when it comes to messing with the natural completeness of whole plant foods, we often unconsciously (or even worse, and all too often, consciously) introduce a host of detrimental side effects into the picture, sending the exploration for health down a rabbit hole that's guided by greed and power instead of positive intentions.

In WHOLE: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition, Dr. T. Colin Campbell expands beyond his work in The China Study, which brought to light the immense benefits of a whole-food, plant-based diet, and presents a reality where profit trumps true health and real solutions are hidden away. Dr. Campbell makes a convincing case that we ("the system") have got it all wrong. We've bypassed the clarity of what the whole picture presents by breaking everything down into tiny little pieces and allowing each and every one to define the entire picture, out of context and with selfish intention. He explains what's going on in the world of nutritional sciences, food marketing, medicine, and government, spotlighting the reductionist paradigm that unnecessarily detours the full landscape described above, and provides us with the actual truth, the WHOLE truth, about how to think critically, understand the system, and achieve true health by living WHOLE lives.

I remember reading Dr. Campbell's The China Study a few years ago - a great but dense read, packed with tons of information, charts, etc. Definitely a valuable read, but potentially not suited for readers who prefer to avoid more of a complex immersion into detailed science. I think WHOLE does a good job of bridging that gap, making for a read that can connect with even more audiences, especially because it describes the pitfalls of the current world we live in and lays out approachable solutions (we want to be in the know, right?!).

The power of this book comes from the presentation of where a non-WHOLE, or anti-WHOLE, world has left us: sicker than before, paying more for health care (which is more accurately described as "disease care"), and more confused than ever before. Yet nothing is being done by those in control to truly solve this crisis. Eating unhealthfully makes us sick. Being sick forces us toward interventions - pills, procedures, etc. Interventions cost money. Eating unhealthfully makes lots of money for the food, pharmaceutical, supplemental, and medical industries. Is this the type of world we want to live in? I can say, with 100% confidence, it is not! The solutions come from changing the policy and sources of information from the top down (which is possible but very difficult) or, more accessibly, accepting responsibility as individuals/consumers, questioning the status quo (that does not serve us), and taking action toward our own health - getting us closer and closer to a tipping point in favor of true health.

Many statistics in the book blow my mind (like "The annual revenue for Big Pharma, $289 billion in 2010, exceeds the total national budgets of at least 80 percent of the countries in the world). Learning about the reductionist paradigm's stranglehold on government and within the scientific community angered me, as it seems all too obvious that the current system is not working and has not been working for a long time now. And the information presented almost became a storyline, a journey from clarity into darkness - ending with a call to action to come back into the light.

I highly recommend WHOLE: for a fulfilling read; as an advisory to you, the consumer; as a vote for truth and for health; and so much more.

"The current system is unsustainable. The only question is, will we free ourselves before it takes us down with it? Or will we continue to pollute our bodies, our minds, and our planet with the slag of that system until it collapses under its own economic weight and biological logic? ... What we eat, individually and collectively, has repercussions far beyond our waistlines and blood pressure readings. No less than our future as a species hangs in the balance...

It's time for us to begin a real revolution - one that begins by challenging our individual beliefs and changing our diets, and ends with a transformation of our society as a whole." 
~ T. Colin Campbell

You can find out more about the book, Dr. Campbell, and plant-based nutrition research, studies, and courses at www.nutritionstudies.org.

To enter the giveaway for WHOLE and The China Study Cookbook, just dive into the Rafflecopter widget below. Have fun and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Kissing Tips For a Kiss To Remember!

It's that time of the year when the drink is flowing and you very often get to kiss girls or guys you wouldn't normally, so if you get the chance give your partner a kiss to remember.

Why is it someone can give a kiss that makes there partner melt yet another can leave them cold?

Let's find out with some tips guaranteed to make you partner melt and want more.

1. Kissing involves the whole body

Kissing is not simply about putting your tongue in your partner's mouth, there is much more to it than that.

A kiss should be an expression of affection from your whole body.

When you kiss make sure your body language is correct and the way to do this is to relax.

When you hold your partner she will feel if you are relaxed, if you are like a stiff dead weight passion can't flow, so relax and dot be self conscious.

When you go to kiss her move your body close and hold her gently.

The main point to remember is:

2. Kissing is a two way action

When you kiss move slowly at first and then start to be explore your partner's mouth with your tongue use a firm tongue and start to alternate between slower and stronger moves.

The point to keep in mind is for a kiss to be successful you both need to enjoy it. Everyone likes to be kissed in a different way i.e. some like soft slow kissing others like more wild action and you need to find out.

When you kiss your partner you will find out how she likes it by her reaction to you and you can simply follow the lead and she will do the same with you.

Kissing is an inter action between two people and should flow naturally if you are both relaxed.

3. Surprise & Variety

The way to make a kiss memorable is not to let your partner know exactly what is coming next. If she is expecting you to kiss her hard slow down and be gentle - Make her wait and tease her.

Try slow and quick movements hard and soft etc and always make sure you do it with:

4. Passion

Passion indicates desire and comes from within. If you are relaxed and follow your heart you will be lost in the kiss.

Kissing is one of the most intimate gestures humans can make and it's a fact that 90% of women and a similar amount of men wished there partner paid more attention to it.

5. Kissing stopping and starting

You can't simply kiss continuously; you need to breathe so when your lips part use this moment to target a key erogenous zone: The neck.

Kissing the neck and going back to the lips is a real turn on and most people love it. In fact in women it is one of the key erogenous zones.

Another great way to add passion to a kiss is to use your hands.

Not simply to hold your partner but to explore her back - Squeeze her behind rub her back, touch her shoulders and play with her hair - Most women simply adore having there hair played with, so take advantage!

Finally

A kiss is much more than simply touching lips it's an expression of love, passion and desire.

If you are relaxed you will be lost in the moment and the kiss will flow naturally.

Make sure you relax and use your body, add variety and surprise and whoever you kiss, let them know you're enjoying it and show plenty of passion.