Community Spotlight
The Plant Chicks, Marcia Prince and Jackie Tarleton, on Building a Women-Only Plant-Based Coaching Community | Ep 016 | SoFlo Vegans Podcast
Marcia Prince and Jackie Tarleton, co-founders of The Plant Chicks, join SoFlo Vegans to share how a health scare from years of keto-fueled bodybuilding and a dietitian-led wake-up call each led them to plant-based nutrition, how they met and launched their women-only coaching community in January 2018, and the real-world math behind fiber, protein, and going vegan around unsupportive family members.
Topics Covered
- Marcia's decade on a high-protein, low-carb keto bodybuilding diet leading to repeated kidney stones and an orthorexia diagnosis, and how a registered dietitian's 30-day vegan trial reversed the pattern
- Jackie's path from teenage vegetarian to junk-food vegetarian to a period of eating meat again, then getting sober in 2012 and committing fully to plant-based eating roughly three years before this episode
- How the two met after a mutual friend connected them, bonded over a shared T. Colin Campbell nutrition certification, and co-founded The Plant Chicks in January 2018 after Jackie left medical sales
- Why fiber, not protein, is the real nutrient most Americans are missing, citing figures that 97% of the US population falls short of the already-low recommended fiber intake
- Practical advice for living with non-vegan partners and family: lead by example rather than lecture, cook your own meal first, and let visible results start the conversation instead of ultimatums
- How to eat plant-based without a lot of time or access, using apps like Happy Cow, Instacart, and meal-delivery services like Purple Carrot, and by learning to ask restaurants for off-menu plant-based dishes
- Recommended deeper-dive resources including NutritionFacts.org, the Plantrition Project, and books by Drs. Esselstyn, McDougall, Barnard, and Greger
- The Plant Chicks Tribe, a free 700-plus member women-only Facebook community built around a 30-day challenge, body-positive support, and rejecting diet culture in favor of a sustainable lifestyle
About the Guest
Marcia Prince and Jackie Tarleton are the co-founders of The Plant Chicks, a plant-based nutrition coaching brand and community for women, combining Marcia's fitness competition background with Jackie's registered dietitian training.