Jocelyn Harris - Founder & Chef, The Healthy Swap

Jocelyn Harris is an avid food warrior, invisible disability fighter, and a brain aneurysm and stroke survivor. After a wonderful career at Disney, she left to focus on her own baking project and opened a bakery called SugaPlump Pastries in Austin, TX. Then came her 100+ pound weight loss journey. She started developing more and more recipes that showcased healthier ingredients.

 

Troy Schlicker: Today I am thrilled to be joined by Jocelyn Harris. How's it going, Jocelyn? Hey, how are you? I am doing well. Enjoying loving this unseasonably warm weather as well too. I'm like, oh, I've got to get outside and actually take advantage of it cuz it's going to be like, forties and fifties again later.

I was like,

Jocelyn Harris: Wait. We were like, I woke up, it was 77 degrees. I was like, what is going on? Yeah. What is going on with the weather?

Troy Schlicker: No, I'm not, I am not disappointed about that part of it all. But Jocelyn is the founder and chef at the Healthy Swap, which is a company you started yourself. Yes. A few years back.

And so I guess to start off, I'd like maybe just to get a little kind of origin background story about you. I know most people have a story about how they came to Austin since most of us are not native Austinites. Yes. It feels like here in Austin. Yeah, just give us a couple minute background story for you.

Jocelyn Harris: So I am not an original Austin. I came from Tulsa, Oklahoma. And that was about 15, 16 years ago. I. I came here because the job at the time that I had moved me down here and I was working there moved forward a few years. I went back into pastry school and at the end of my pastry school when I was going to graduate, they had something called an intern program.

And I couldn't take a leave of absence from that job, so I ended up having to quit and then I moved to Florida to work for. . And I did that for a little bit, came back home and started my company that most people know me for sugar Plum pastries. It was an online bakery. I did quite a few events festivals and things like that.

I did that I think 2020. The beginning, of course, the pandemic is when that company shut down with just like anything else. And then moving forward to 2020 towards the end of 2020 I ended up having a ruptured brain aneurysm and stroke. And we are here today still recovering, but that's pretty much the short and least of it all.

I end up starting in between there. Before I had the aneurysm and stroke, I had the idea of the healthy swap because my life completely changed. I had lost a hundred plus pounds. The healthiest swap was born, it got placed on hold and then I got sick and so this is where we're at today.

Sure.

Troy Schlicker: What prompted you to want to go into being a pastry chef or that kind of line of work anyway? Not a lot of Disney people that work at Disney are, I think making the jump to being a chef

Jocelyn Harris: I think for me it was just years of being at home in Oklahoma and family, and for me it was the assignments.

I don't know if most people know, and I hate to say this in black households almost we are assigned, right? We are assigned. And so my assignment was always pastries or desserts and so that was years of coming up and I was like, I, my grandmother, she, this is really good. Every year you're going to sign it.

And then so as I moved up, I came down to Austin, which they had a culinary school. The Cordon Blue was here at the time and they had a pastry program. And little did I not know is I would fight; I would get in and then I would like recluse and I wouldn't go cuz I was so scared. But anyway, I ended up going and that's where the pastry part came in instead of the culinary.

Troy Schlicker: All right. And was it something like what prompted you to go from baking for your family Yes. To deciding, Hey, I want to again, make this a career or start my own business with it?

Jocelyn Harris: Yeah. That's strange. I know for most, because I had a ra I had a great career where I was at, like I shouldn't have left.

are days I really think I'm like, oh my God, why did I just make that jump to go to culinary school? It didn't really, I think the major jump for me was, , I was making people happy. I had like explored in culinary pastry school prior to see if it was any margin for it or to see the bakeries or things like that.

And people really responded well. And so, I made the huge jump. I was very scared. When I came out of pastry school, I went to work for another company after Disney and I was like, I can do this. And so that kind of is where that jump happened.

Troy Schlicker: Yeah, I think for a lot of people who do make the jump, like if you go to, if you, when you're working at Disney, starting your own business, I think a lot of people feels very challenging cuz your model is a Disney type of company.

This is intimidating, but say by going to a smaller company, it allows you to see, oh, this isn't rocket science. Like there, there's definitely things that you have to do and there are differences from working for a Fortune 100 company like Disney Spot. That doesn't mean that you can't be capable to do them.

You

Jocelyn Harris: know when I, you are very correct. When I did work at Disney, it did inspire me when I did launch my business to do huge amounts, because at Disney that's all we did is wholesale huge bulk amounts. And so I just knew when I did start my company that's, I wanted to do big bulk amounts of pastries to serve big, large quantity of people.

So that's that other jump that led me to do pastries, Disney inspired. Their models and things like

Troy Schlicker: that. Yeah. And then that's Mr part of how the events and those kinds of things kicked in. Yes. Which, which as you mentioned, was probably the hardest hit industry. Yes. In in the world.

Definitely in the United States. Events in hospitality once covid hit because no one was getting together and obviously no one was leaving their home and all those kinds of things. So, it obviously required you to take a direct pivot at that point in time. Was at, so at that point in time, you mentioned also having this a hundred-pound weight loss training.

Was that the. Covid hits is, are you already on that journey or was that something that I

Jocelyn Harris: already covid tired Covid. Yeah, so exactly. You

Troy Schlicker: did the exact opposite of what everyone else did at Covid. You went ahead and said, I'm going to lose a bunch of weight. All. No, that's awesome. It's amazing, right?

But everyone else during Covid is oh, I get to sit at home. I can't go to the gym and I'm just going to eat food again. Hopefully not too many people put on a hundred pounds, but I know for a lot of people it was, at least five, if not 10 15, and so that's awesome. That specific time inspired you to lose so much.

Oh yeah.

Jocelyn Harris: My journey had already started. I had to do a lot of soul searching even before I even got to losing the weight. Like I had to do a lot of I guess what most people would say, I was a mental health, like I had depression and I couldn't understand why I was in this hole. And so I had to do the soul searching.

I went to therapy and this was prior to Covid. And then I started doing cuz. Most people, I don't want to say all, but some people that are larger. I was knocking 300 pounds at that point. I just could, people were like, just go to the gym. And I was like, absolutely not. I was terrified of the gym. And so I just remember one day as I was along this journey trying to get myself in a mindset to do that.

I had a friend, she was like, okay, come on and work out. We'll just do it at home together. And she would. Zoom class. And then that's when like the working out picked up and I started to get into a better mindset and mind frame. And then you could I don't know if most, some people follow me on my social media journey.

You can see from when I started this journey until I got sick. I did stories on my journey and it was very hard. But the one thing I will say, Food is a one thing that changed my life. And so time covid hit then is when it was already in full circle. I think Covid just made me dig a little bit deeper.

Had me, I had a thought of the Healthy Swap before Covid and really the Healthy Swap started just. to talk about mindset, weight, and food. It started out with me being on live, doing meals, things like that. And that's how the company came to be through my weight loss journey. And then, like I said, when Covid hit, it was like, pause,

We had to really pause. But that a hundred pound journey has started prior to Covid and I just chose to keep it going during Covid. That's it. Yeah.

Troy Schlicker: Yeah, that's awesome. And again, as someone who grew up playing sports and from a genetic standpoint, I'm more usually struggling more to put on muscle and, like everyone sh. . There's very few people. Even the people that you know are models and stuff. Everyone has something they don't like about themselves, right? And so there's always that mental aspect of getting over something to get to where your goals are, whether it's a fitness type of goal, a business goal, a personal goal.

There's the biggest thing, the biggest challenge standing in most people's ways is their own. Yeah. And that, and again, that's awesome and it's rarely that it's just a flip of a switch, right? You say it's a journey to actually sometimes unlearn things that we had learned previously that just were not accurate or to get over the mental hurdles.

Like again, it's rare that, kid doesn't walk the first time they stand up. Like you gotta have. get to the, you have to start to build those muscles and habits and again, it's rare that you just decide one day and suddenly are eating healthy and going to the gym on a daily basis. And showing those struggles though, I'm sure is helpful for other people going through the same thing.

For sure.

Jocelyn Harris: Yeah, most definitely. I was just in a really, like I said depression, anxiety. I was just in a bad season and the only way I knew how was to. to get myself out and I just knew whatever I was doing wasn't working for me. And so hence the journey. I would just reach out to different people and I can remember the moment that I reached out to a stranger on the internet and I so wish Rachel Truth Bombs is her Instagram.

I reached out to her cuz she was on Facebook or something and I was like, Hey., I need some help. Help me, guide me, help me. And she's still on the same journey with me and we're friends. Until this day, it's just been a great path to meet, getting me to where I'm at now. Yeah. That's awesome.

Troy Schlicker: We're in Covid, you're at the start of this journey Sure.

For the weight loss. But obviously the business is your business. Gone to zero cause of all the craziness that's been, that's happening. Yes. What was there a thought of going, trying to go back into the corporate world or do something different rather than start the healthy swap? Or were you, at that point in time, you had been away from corporate life long enough that you're I don't know if I want to go back.

What was your thinking there?

Jocelyn Harris: As quiet as it's kept I I never left corporate world. I went into a different space and that's teaching. . And so that's the one thing that I never walked away from, whether it was culinary or anything. I ended up being a substitute teacher.

And that kept me in the door because that is the one thing I. for in life is to make sure people can learn how to cook or I want to teach them about that. And so what better way than to substitute, teach to offset, of course. The covid or anything like that. And then of course the school shut down and that's a, that kind of happened.

But during my sugar plump days and things when they started to slow down, that is exactly where I went to and that's teaching and I absolutely love it. So corporate world, I guess teaching world I guess is where I. . Yeah. But yeah, that's the one thing I do love and that's to teach anybody any age that they can cook and boil water is the big thing that I run up against people.

They're like, how do you boil water or cook an egg? Just the ease of it to teach people to know they can do it even though they've never done it before. Okay.

Troy Schlicker: No, like it's like a lot of things in life, whether it's losing weight, Anything like if you don't, if you weren't taught how to cook or Yes EV everything can seem very intimidating.

When you haven't done it. And most of us would rather continue doing the things that are relatively easier, that we're good at, rather than sometimes challenging ourselves. So again, if it's, learning how to cook and making, making mistakes and figuring it out and having something not taste as good as it.

As you think it should taste. But yeah, no, even as, even the best cooks in the world, again, everyone started at zero at some point, and so it's just that they've been practicing and honing their craft for a lot longer. And for most people, you don't have to get to that level. You just have to get to the level, like you say, where you can make yourself some healthy food and not have to eat out all the time.

So that way you can. In this time, maybe save some money. as things get challenging economically or I know someone who likes to eat healthy myself. One of the biggest reasons that I cook is just because it is so much healthier than even the healthy, yeah. Restaurant options because from there they, there's just so many additional things they add for taste purposes and presentation purposes.

And it's that's great, but I don't really need five, 500 calorie salad dressing on my salad. I don't need all the extra butter in my chicken on the chicken breast to make it taste good. Yes, it does help it taste good, but that's just a bunch of fat and stuff that's not really needed. So, learning to cook is, has a, a.

Health benefits as well as personal survival benefits

Jocelyn Harris: as well. Oh, yeah, most definitely. I think also to, to go back during my weight loss journey I challenged myself not to eat out for 30 days. And to see what I can do, see how I can make things taste, and I will say a lot of people, like you were saying, going out to restaurants, they don't realize the additive stuff that goes in to make it taste the best.

And when you come home and you start cooking and you're realizing, oh, I can make it taste good just with different ingredients, whether it be people like to add in a lot of dairy, a lot of oils that are not good for. It's, it does that for you as well too, if you can challenge yourself to, I don't suggest people do that.

I was just, that was a little much for me. But I took that challenge and it was actually amazing for me to see what I could come up with during cooking and taking things away and just seeing how that worked for me and ended up being probably the. 30 days of my life actually.. Yeah.

Troy Schlicker: Rather you have to figure stuff out and you start to understand again, the more you can understand how yeah, the diff how food affects our body the more just like anything, the more knowledge you have, the better you're going to be at.

Even if it's going out to eat, understanding, oh hey, maybe I should ask for it, not cook this way or with something on the side so that way I can still enjoy going out and having a good meal, but I can also stay within my goals if I'm struggling with weight loss or other things.

Jocelyn Harris: Yeah, and I, that's the other thing if people are struggling or to gain or to lose, is if you go out to eat and you get the creme bru, you.

You shouldn't feel guilty about having it, it's not going to derail you if you have the dessert, right? I really want people to understand there have been plenty of days I've had the chocolate cake, but yet, it, it ended up just okay. And I want people to know you don't have to punish yourself.

Food should be looked at as fuel, not punishment or reward. And that was the one thing I personally had to. Face, right? Like I grew up with reward system. Oh, okay. If you do this, we're going to get you a piece of cake or you can have this. And I had to retrain my thought process.

That's not how it works. So that for me, that is how. that struggle went for me that in an addiction to sugar and carbs. So

Troy Schlicker: yeah, it's hard, like if when you get, when you have it all the time, it's hard to not have it. Whether, whether it be coffee, which again, coffee without all the extra stuff in it actually is relatively healthy.

But people get, addicted to anything and obviously there's some addictions that are much worse than others, but that doesn't mean that there are very few addictions that are truly healthy for you if you don't have the ability to make

Jocelyn Harris: adjustments. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Most definitely.

Troy Schlicker: That's the other thing I talked about with the having the treat, right? So we just had Thanksgiving weekend like you have, like you can't be. Hopefully, unless you literally have a fitness competition or something very specific, like hopefully everyone was able to like, go back for seconds and enjoy leftovers and not worry and have a second, have a first or second piece of pie like that, one weekend of enjoying the food and the company and all the stuff that you hopefully got to.

Be a part of is well worth not hitting a daily calorie tracker or something. Correct.

Jocelyn Harris: It is not going to derail you. That's, that is the one thing I have to, it's a mind shift or a mindset thing too. Like we sometimes people have in their mind, oh my God, if I eat Thanksgiving, it's going to push me back.

Yeah. I don't fall into that belief system anymore.

Troy Schlicker: I. Sure. And also put again, push you back from what? So right. So if you're, even if you're 40, 50 years old, it's going to push you back from the next 50 years of your life. And obviously it's good to have goals and if having, losing a hundred pounds, if there was a goal set of when you wanted to do it, I don't know if there was, but it's not.

Again, if you suddenly hit it and then completely reverted your life back to the old way , like that's not going to be sustainable. Which is why so many people fail on weight loss journeys and yo-yo back between losing weight and gaining weight is cuz it really is about creating habits and a lifestyle that you can actually happily sustain to, to be able to keep doing it for years and decades.

Yeah,

Jocelyn Harris: I when I started my journey, I didn't there was no weight loss in involve goal, my goal was just to move. That, that was strictly it. I just remember, I want to do a pushup, I want to do a jumping jack, without fa that was literally my, I want to get up out of bed and feel good about Jocelyn like that.

the goal when I started my journey and then it turned slowly as I started going through it turned into, oh my gosh, I'm dropping weight. And so, then the, then that started to set goals with weight loss, so yeah.

Troy Schlicker: You mentioned that you also relatively recently had a brain aneurysm and stroke.

Obviously, that is going to impact anybody quite significantly. How has, how have you been dealing with that and recovering, and how did that impact where things were at? When, about how long ago did that happen?

Jocelyn Harris: Sure. My, my rupture stroke happened. at the height of Covid, which was November, 2020, Thanksgiving.

So, I literally just had my two-year anniversary, not even a week ago. And so, I didn't get to enjoy, I got to enjoy a little bit, but I didn't realize where I was at in that space. But it was rough. I, there is no other word. I want to use another word. It was beyond rough. It's not something. I would wish on my worst enemy, I literally lived in this cloud or fog for almost a year.

And the best way that, that's the best way I know how to describe it. You. Go into the hospital. You have no idea. I went into the hospital, I couldn't speak. It was like playing this crazy game of charades to get people to understand because I woke up and I had no idea. Yeah. And the biggest question that I get to this day is, did you have a headache?

And the answer is, I did not. I just felt like I had a sinus infection. And so that was pretty much the diagnosis that I had. And then I went to sleep thinking I was resting, and then I woke up and I couldn't speak. I couldn't dial a phone, I couldn't understand. And when I tried to dial a phone, it was, people could hear me, but I couldn't speak back.

So, me getting to the hospital was a game of. The charades of writing, something's a matter, that's how my life got saved is that I had enough sense to understand, to get myself to the hospital. But going to the hospital, things are a little bit of a blur. I just remember going to the hospital and they're like 15 people surrounding me talking about she had a stroke and I was like, you're crazy.

I didn't have a stroke. You're nuts. I don't you. No. And I. ended up, I just remember being, they put me into an ambulance to get to the neuro ICU and the next thing I knew I was in the ambulance. I went there and then I could hear people around me asking had I eaten. And I'm like, why are y'all asking me the stupidest, you know what, Sure.

Y'all asking me about if I eaten cuz I was in this fog and I could not respond. Sure. It's like being in a bad dream and you. You can't wake up from it. Like you want to respond to people, but you really can't. And so, the next thing I knew I w I had brain surgery. I didn't realize at that point that I had a brain aneurysm.

And what in the world was a brain aneurysm? I didn't even know I even had it.

Troy Schlicker: Yeah. And unfortunately, it's one of those things that you usually don't know until it strikes, which is a scary thought. It is

Jocelyn Harris: so scary. And I, for me, it caused they, my, when I came out, I learned as of today, from the doctors that when I, the brain aneurysm ruptured, that had already started to leak.

Leak, the aneurysm had already started to leak seven days prior. And that's a whole scary thought considering I had probably had like many strokes prior and didn't even realize it. Like I was literally working out every day. Not realizing. And yeah,

Troy Schlicker: so, I had there's again, it's just, it's obviously, yeah, there's so many different components of things that could have happened because it was covid. Not if you were working, if you were working from home anyway normally, but Right. with Covid, my guess is you were almost exclusively at home. Like all of us kind of were. And so fortunate, fortunately, you didn't have one of those strokes while you were driving. Or you didn't, cuz like that would've been a whole other, I feel like there's just so many ways obviously, that it could have gone both probably better.

Yes. As well too. But also, you think again, there's a lot of people who don't. period. Correct. It's.

Jocelyn Harris: Just I'm in a beautiful 20% that survived. Yeah. And I'm also in that even smaller percent that didn't have any physical deficit. I have some weakness, Umhmm, and most of mine is, cognitive brain processing issues that  have now.

But in order for me to even get to where I am today, I had to relearn how to talk, walk, write re I had to relearn how to work out again, that, and I'm still learning to this day how to do some like complicated exercises because it just won, yeah. . But spent nine days, nine to 10 days in the neuro ICU

David's. They were fantastic. The one thing I would say that was a downfall for me was during Covid no visitors. Yeah. And that. Really sucked. And also too, I

Troy Schlicker: would imagine, right? Like you're already going through something that you have a hard time comprehending. Yeah. You at a point in time where between being scared and being all alone, not having people that you can connect with, like it's it, again, like in your case it wasn't obviously covid related, but it was one of the things about Covid that I think got handled as poorly as anything it was.

Social, inter like we are social being and it's meant to be with people and thank God Covid happened. in 2020 where we could for a lot of people, you could at least FaceTime people and do some more social stuff than if it had happened, 20 years ago when none of that, a lot of those technologies weren't really either weren't available at all or weren't at the level where they could be used by most people.

And again, it's always there. There are almost always things could be worse, but you also think of oh, wow. Like having, allowing people more social interaction, whether it be hospitals in a smart capacity or, not having kids miss a year or two of school in person and that social development that happened and all these kinds of things.

There's just a lot of things that are important for humans to have that social contact.

Jocelyn Harris: I remember one thing very particular, and there's very few things I remember in the hospital, but I do remember the moment. They were like, okay, Jocelyn, we're going to get you up and walk. And I'm like, I can walk

And so that was, that moment. I was like, I can walk. So I, I remember having the walker and they had me like one step at a time with. a belt trying to walk and they're like, okay, we're just going to walk around the hall. And I just remember looking in the neuro ICU  and I in that moment, looking in the rooms as I'm walking past all these people were on ventilators.

They weren't breathing. They had a stroke. Nobody was up. Everybody was pretty much sedated. And I just felt in that moment, it was so surreal that I was lucky enough to survive and see all these people. And I was like, oh my gosh, what really just happened? And why am I still here? So that was a. Coming moment of, for me, seeing all the people that were next door to me that couldn't walk and talk as I was doing.

Cuz I was like, oh, why am I up? I just didn't understand why I was in the same space. Sure. But that kind of reeled at home for me, how serious things were. In the situation. But yeah, I remember being on the hospital floor and nobody, all, you could see dur nurses and doctors and techs. Sure.

Troy Schlicker: Yeah.

A hospital floor is not all, not generally the most period and fun place to be, period. No, but I'm sure again, during that time with the lack of visitors and everything else going on in life and in the world like that would've been pretty crazy. . Yeah. So, what things do you have going on now?

Obviously, you're doing still some physical therapy stuff and things that way, but you've got the healthy swaps. So, tell us a little bit about that and what you've been Sure. Been doing.

Jocelyn Harris: So, I did end up graduating therapy. And that was May of this year. They're like, okay you've improved.

We're going to just scoot you out the door. And so after that happened, I ended up, after graduating from that, I ended up going to. out of St. Davis Therapy. They referred me over to a great place called Austin Speech Labs. And for there they continued my speech, all the things that allowed me to talk to you today very well.

I did that and I just literally graduated as that as well too. And so I ended up doing that and my first. come back to the world, I call it. They were like, Hey, Jocelyn, we have a gala. Can you give a speech? And that was my first time being around a bunch of people and being able to speak and dictate words that I was struggling with.

And that ended up being my first round. And then after that, I still go back and I volunteer there for stroke patients as well too, because that's my heart. Sure. Now I've been there, I know what it's like for them. And then in the midst of everything, I finally got my company the Healthy swap off the ground we had A launch in August and we had it's called the healthy swap round table.

And you guys can catch that on either the chef, Jocelyn. Yes, you can check it on the healthy swap lifestyle.com. We had four it's called Revealing Reconnecting and there's another r but there's a whole series in where I talk about what's happened, how I got here and how I came through, and how the healthy.

came to be. So, I did a whole series, we launched, and then in that sit in that launch I created a book it's called The Healthy Swap Project. And so in between, I think this project helped me heal, right? Cause this book was written as I'm recovering. It's not something that started prior. But the Healthy Swap project was a book that I.

And basically, the healthy swap has. Tips of foundations. And so we are food first always wellness, mindset, exercise, and self-care. And that for me is what got me through, of course, a hundred pounds that we talked about earlier. In is that those are the four, the five principles that I live by and one cannot succeed without the other.

I think for me if I didn't have exercise or food, I wouldn't be here. Just like I need to take the wellness of them both and put them into something and our mindset had to get right, and self-care. And The book is available now if you guys want to. It is on the healthy swap.com and it's $10 and it's a 20-page book.

It's a download. It's nothing I have to mail to you, but it's super easy. You guys can read my whole story in there. And then also it gives you guidelines and tips and tricks and recipes are also here to get you started on your own. Journey. And so the, basically everybody's Jocelyn, what's the healthy swap?

So basically, the healthy swap is food, number one food. And it's just like you swapping out let's just say for instance, you wanted to. Swap out milk. Maybe you want, maybe you need to get away from the dairy because you got some issues going on. It tells you, okay, if you want to swap out your milk, maybe we do it with almond milk, or maybe we find oat milk.

That may work for you. Same thing with butter. Maybe we need to lower some calories and take away some fat, so we head on over here to gee, or that is what the healthy swap was built on. During my time of my weight loss, I had to figure out how to replace my lovely fried chicken with something that would be great, or I needed to find out how to replace.

My lovely chocolate filled Chex mix with something that would be better. Maybe I decided I wanted to eat it with. or granola, healthy granola. So, it just gives you those options or swaps that can help you lead to a healthier life. I am not guaranteeing you're going to lose weight, but the goal for this is to realize you can just live your normal life as you've been living and maybe just swap out sour cream for Greek yogurt.

Troy Schlicker: It's not huge, doesn't have to be. And hopefully in a lot of cases, isn't life-changing changes in your life that add up, if you can make small changes over a consistent period of time, they can have outsized results.

Jocelyn Harris: Ab, absolutely. And I've created, like I said, this is not necessarily about me.

Of course, in the beginning to start was about me, and I am me. Of course, test dummy, but I want, I'm building, right? I want to build a community of people that want to start using the swap, are doing some of the small things to get them where they want to get in life. And that's really what it's about, is taking small steps so you can get to your bigger goals, however that looks for you.

Again, I just want to be clear, it didn't, my journey to the healthy swap didn't start out. with exercise. I literally started out with food like that is how I lost the first pound, is with changing how I looked at food. Exercise will help you. Of course. I'm not saying that will help enhance it, but.

Food can, food is where like you hear a lot of people say, food is where your abs are made or in the kitchen, and the same thing with losing weight. It is definitely in the kitchen. And exercise is just a bonus.

Troy Schlicker: It's a good bonus. There's a lot of. Great benefits to it as well, but in reality, like again, from any number of calories you spend during the day, you're working out actually as a very small percentage of it.

You got it. And food is definitely, has an outsized impact on all those things for

Jocelyn Harris: sure. Correct. Yeah. Cool. So that's what I have over, you guys can come on over to the Healthy Swap lifestyle. We are definitely on Facebook and Instagram and we are building a community. So, you guys can come over, ask questions.

We're pretty active. I'm pretty routinely on Chef Jocelyn and over there. Community is where we're trying to build and I want people to know you can definitely do this and you guys don't have to be on the same journey as me or you gaining or losing. Maybe you just want to change the way you eat and you just want to be in maintenance.

It's a whole lot of journeys that everybody's on and it's okay that you're,

Troy Schlicker: everyone's journey is personal, but it's nice to have other people that are sharing your, sharing the journey or sharing the lifestyle, the goals, whatever it may be. Like, there's a lot of, obviously, research around the fact that's going to help if you surround yourself with pe like-minded people, that, that will help you achieve your goals

Jocelyn Harris: Best Absolut.

Absolutely.

Troy Schlicker: No, your story's super inspirational. Having gone through that and obviously as someone who does, again, that's, it's not where I make a living, but I am very passionate about health and fitness and all those kind of things as well too. So it's awesome to see you putting a lot of good information and vibes and all that kind of stuff out into the world to help people achieve.

Jocelyn Harris: Yeah, it's definitely, I do wanna say I did have to make a huge switch, and I don't know if I brought this up, but part of, or part of the recovery was training for a power lifting competition. Okay. And I did that in July, my first one. And that was something I never thought I would ever. . I ended up winning my first par lifting competition in my way into my age.

I'm a master's, but that has become also my exercise passion now. Sure. Power

Troy Schlicker: lifting, it's given you a goal when you're going out to exercise of here's what, here's why. Like instead of it's just being, oh, I should, I know I should exercise, but I'm exercising with an objective in mind.

Jocelyn Harris: Oh, yeah. Oh, most definitely.

Yeah.

Troy Schlicker: I think that's super helpful. We'll definitely check you, check her out like I say at Chef Jocelyn for her or the healthy lifestyle, swap on, on Instagram and she can be found, like I say, Facebook and her website and stuff too. And I really appreciate you taking the time to, to come on the podcast and chat today.

Jocelyn Harris: Thank you. I appreciate

Troy Schlicker: it. Sounds good. I hope everyone has a wonderful day.