30 Kimmye Bohannon: holistic health coach

Kimmye Bohannon is an Integrative Health Practitioner and Board Certified Holistic Health Coach. She helps people change the trajectory of their health to live better, longer. In 2012, she started drinking organic green vegetable juice and decided to start a business called The Weekly Juicery.  Twelve years, and over a million bottles of juice made later, she’s helped thousands of people change the trajectory of their health. In 2024, she decided to close The Weekly Juicery to expand her mission to teach as many people as possible how they can take charge of their health journey to live better, longer.  It's called Chasing Good Health. As Kimmye says, “Chasing good health is a lot more fun than waiting on disease!”

Follow Kimmye and chase good health!

https://www.instagram.com/kimmyebohannon/
https://www.facebook.com/kimmyebohannonwellness
https://www.tiktok.com/@chasegoodhealth
The Official Recipe Book of The Weekly Juicery


Kathie’s note: I met Kimmye at Commerce Lexington (chamber) when we were in a BOAB group, business owners advisory board. She was always chipper and had such a magnetic personality. I had the opportunity to help her with some PR and writing and such in the early days of The Weekly Juicery. One of the phrases she has always used to describe juicing is "Flooding your body with nutrients." I mean, think about how cool that sounds. And is.

Writers Rotation intro/outro recorded at Dynamix Productions in Lexington, Kentucky.

Transcript

Kimmye [00:00:00]:
Hi. I'm Kimmy Bohannon. I'm a holistic health coach, and words are a way to make something last forever.

INTRO [00:00:07]:
Hi. Welcome to the Writers Rotation podcast. I'm your host, Kathie Stamps. I love words and writing and people and talking. So I'm talking to people who write all kinds of things in different professions. It's a writers rotation. 

Kathie [00:00:25]:
Kimmye! How are you?

Kimmye [00:00:26]:
Good. How's it going?

Kathie [00:00:27]:
So what is new in the world of healthy health?

Kimmye [00:00:30]:
Well, you know, I closed the Weekly Juicery. Did you know that?

Kathie [00:00:33]:
I did because I'm on your mailing list. And it (lasted) what? 12 years? 14?

Kimmye [00:00:38]:
12 years. Yep. 1.6 million bottles of juice. And it just got to the point that I couldn't do it anymore. You know, we're not rewarded for being healthy businesses and making juice the way it should be made. You know, we're rewarded for buying things that keep us sick and couldn't do it anymore. I mean, Kathie, I was going to have to charge like $20 for the juice.

It was a lot of labor of love and I would do it all over again, and I would still be doing it, but I thought there's just a better way. There's a better way to teach people this craft. So I said, that's it. I'm done. I'm going to figure out a different way. So that's what I've been doing.

Kathie [00:01:24]:
How did you learn about juicing in the first place?

Kimmye [00:01:27]:
Well, you know, I didn't feel good. I had three young children. I worked at a corporate job and I was aging in dog years, just dog years. Felt terrible. And I said, wow, like, something would need to change or I'm headed on a trajectory of getting sick at an early point in life. I was in my thirties. Like, I'm going to get sick. So I found an author, Natalia Rose.

Kimmye [00:01:48]:
She's a raw foodist. She talked about making recipe for green juice called green lemonade. And, I mean, you were around in those early days around me, and I started making it. And my life changed. The trajectory of my health changed. I always say juicing is a gateway drug. It's a gateway into holistic health. Then along the way, I became an Integrative Health Practitioner and Holistic Health Coach. I got board certified and all these things.

Kimmye [00:02:12]:
And so I started helping clients really make a change toward managing their health in a new way, regaining health sovereignty, which is like my big mission. And now I teach a digital course called Juice School. It's $35 a month, and I teach them how to make our recipes, how to make smoothies, all healthy things. We do holistic health classes. It's $35 a month because I want them to spend the money on the organic produce. I'm beating the system.

Kathie [00:02:38]:
You had the cutest names. Debo's Remedy, Felon Melon.

Kimmye [00:02:42]:
Yeah. Afternoon Delight, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, Felon Melon. There were all kinds of crazy names around. We had a really creative group of people working there. So that was fun.

Kathie [00:02:53]:
What'd you go to school for?

Kimmye [00:02:54]:
Well, you know, I graduated with a finance degree. So that was my aspiration, to work in some sort of, like, stock market, trader, and that's what I did. I worked for JPMorgan. I worked in risk management. I was a portfolio manager for a while, and then I worked in risk management. And listen, it was a lovely corporate job. I have nothing but good things to say about JPMorgan as a company. I just had three kids in five years.

Kimmye [00:03:22]:
I mean, that was really the straw, and I didn't feel good. I was traveling around everywhere and flying on planes all the time, and I just did not feel good. Trying to come home late at night and take care of my kids, it was just couldn't work. And I considered going back to that. But I started making this green juice, and I felt so good. And then that kind of took a life of its own. I mean, you're asking me, wow. Did you want to be an entrepreneur? I never considered being an entrepreneur.

Kimmye [00:03:48]:
That that was never in my wheelhouse. I didn't even think about it. Even when I started making green juice for my friends and my people, I didn't know crap about running business. Everything I know I learned along the way. So I didn't really have aspirations. But I think sometimes when you're on the right path, you know, the knowledge of what you're supposed to be, to what you're supposed to become, to how you're supposed to serve, comes very easy for you. And that's what happened to me in the integrative and holistic health space. It came very easy to me and I have a really uncanny ability of distilling concepts that seem difficult to understand how the body works in very simple ways to explain that so that people can learn, and I think that's how why I landed here: to do this work.

Kathie [00:04:29]:
And your health journey started with (reading) a book.

Kimmye [00:04:33]:
It sure did.

Kathie [00:04:34]:
And now you have (written) a book.

Kimmye [00:04:35]:
And now I have a book. That's right.

Kathie [00:04:37]:
And you've read many, many in between them, I’m assuming.

Kimmye [00:04:40]:
Yeah. Look at my bookcase. Like, those are just my health and wellness. Like, that's my collection. Yes. I do love to read. I don't like to watch TV. I never really have. So I have other hobbies too, but, yes, I like I like to read. I think it's very peaceful. It's very peaceful to me. So yeah. And now I have a book.

Kimmye [00:05:07]:
I struggle to call it a book in the sense that, I don't know, I feel like authors and books are fancy. They are highly creative. This is more of a recipe book, a compilation, but there are there are a lot of chasing good health tips. But it doesn't really feel like a book to me. You know what it feels like? It feels like the great last act of The Weekly Juicery. That's what it feels like. It feels like my way of keeping this going forever in the kitchens of the many people who will make our recipes. It's creating transcendence beyond just the physical thing of The Weekly Juicery. It's giving it this life that lives on. That's why I did it. Yeah. We had five retail stores and then we had a central kitchen where we made all of the juice. And then I started shipping juice all over to customers all over the U.S.

Kimmye [00:06:03]:
That was no small feat, because it's a perishable product. So it has to arrive not frozen, but still cold. You know, you get it. It was a big learning curve, but it occurred to me that there are many people that just didn't have access to juice the way it should be made. In fact, it needs to be made in your home. If you want to get the really healing, potent power to change your health, you have to make it a home.

Kathie [00:06:24]:
And the best way or the easiest…

Kimmye [00:06:27]:
The first step is to keep it simple. That's what the first step is because we live in a world where we see beautiful food and juices and smoothies and chia seed pudding and sourdough bread and these lovely curated perfect looking things.

Kathie [00:06:45]:
Well, it's the photography.

Kimmye [00:06:46]:
Yes. Instagram and Facebook. We see all these complicated, like, perfectly curated things. That is not the way it needs to be. You can make a wonderful smoothie in under two minutes with three ingredients. And part of the way that I teach my clients, like, keep it simple, the same with juice. I teach all my students in Juice School: start with a simple recipe, make it every Sunday. I give them the simplest juice machine to buy and we make it every Sunday.

Kimmye [00:07:10]:
Like, get good at it. Then you can start ad libbing. Okay. You want to try something other than a cucumber? You want to try an apple? Okay, great. But keep it simple. Don't be trying to have some Instagram-worthy smoothie or juice. Keep it simple.

Kimmye [00:07:24]:
That's the key. That's the first step. Nothing about this process is hard. Nothing about this process is complex. It's more about keeping it simple and having a dedication to doing it. And that's what, isn't that what's hard for all of us? It's never the thing that's hard. It's the dedication and the discipline to do the thing that's hard.

Kimmye [00:07:47]:
I'll give you the recipe for green lemonade and anybody who listens, just write this down. This was our best seller for 12 years running. We made, I don't know, half a million bottles of the thing because no other juice we made ever came close, and we have, I don't know, 40 SKUs, 40 different juices. This is, was the best seller. You can think about it when you're at the grocery, the threes. 

3 heads of romaine
3 bunches of green leafy kale
3 cucumbers
3 lemons
and a small piece of fresh ginger. And small would be, call it, a couple of inches.

Kimmye [00:08:25]:
And all of that should be certified organic by the USDA. If it doesn't have the seal, it's not organic. So you'll look for the certified organic produce, and you're going to come home, and you're going to wash that and put it into your juice machine, and out is going to come 4 certified organic juices, with more plant power than you could possibly eat in a week, in the easiest assimilated formed by your liver. And suddenly people will start asking you, oh my gosh. Susie Q, what do you put on your skin? It's so glowy. And you'll be like, what? I don't know. I don't have an idea.

Kimmye [00:08:59]:
Yes, you know. You have cleaned up your internal terrain so that your external terrain, you can't miss it. So make green lemonade, everyone. It quite literally could save your life. Quite literally.

Kathie [00:09:23]:
That's awesome.

Kimmye [00:09:24]:
Well, I'm going to tell you all, the one juice machine to get. You might as well hear it all. The juice machine I recommend to all my students is a Breville machine because it's the easiest to use. It's the simplest to clean. I've had this machine for 8 or 9 years. In terms of cost, it's pretty affordable around the one you're looking for is the Breville Juice Fountain. And on Amazon, it's generally around $280. So that's the one you're looking for. Although look around, because if you are a HomeGoods shopper or a Marshalls shopper or a TJ Maxx shopper, I've seen that same machine many, many times, and it's about $149.

Kimmye [00:10:08]:
So sometimes I buy them and I stockpile them, and then when my friends say I need a juice machine, I'll be like, hey. This is the one, you know, because it's really a much lower cost. And the reason I like that one is because the pitcher that holds the juice is about 70 ounces. And that way you're not switching the pitcher out as you're putting juice through the machine. Because some of the juice machines that are lower cost have a really small juice pitcher. So you can imagine the grouchiness when you're trying to move it over to a larger pitcher all the time. So that's the one that I recommend for everyone, all of my students. And everybody loves it, and it's very easy to use, assemble, clean, all of that. Put that on your Christmas list.

Kathie [00:10:47]:
Cool. I know you just went down many, many rabbit holes, didn't you, when you got on this health gig? I love it. 

Kimmye [00:10:53]:
Yes. I mean, that's what I said. Juice is a gateway drug. If you want to make a change to the trajectory of your health, a juice journey will change your life, and it is a 100% possible to start where you are growing younger and aging in reverse. And if we do that, by definition, we are more likely to avoid the chronic diseases of our time and we are more likely to stay off of this rotation of pharmaceutical drugs that we're sort of fed into with our food system. So, it's possible. And a juice journey, it's just like I said, it's the gateway. It's the beginning.

Kimmye [00:11:28]:
Start there and everything else will start coming into focus for you. I do feel like in my own biology and in my own physiology, I am getting younger as I get older. So that's my big message, is everyone can regain health sovereignty and everyone can do it. And juice is a great place to start. It's a great place to start. Make green lemonade. Make it every week for a month and then then see how you feel. That's the challenge.

Kimmye [00:11:55]:
It's amazing. It's nature's perfect fuel source. That's what it is, and nature doesn't make mistakes. And when we can get back to that, I think our body really responds. It just starts kind of to sing, if that makes sense. Everything starts falling into place. 

Kimmye [00:12:15]:
And, like, aging is a gift. Right? Every year is a gift. Every year is a gift. It is great to get older because the alternative is dying. So we want to get older. Like, that's a gift.

Kathie [00:12:30]:
Yes. What was your book journey like? One day you had this idea or someone fed you the idea.

Kimmye [00:12:35]:
Well, you know what it was like? I was going to write down recipes, or type them out, print the thing out, staple it together, and hand it out. That's how it started. Because I'm perpetually someone who underestimates the difficulty of something, the time that something's going to take, the effort, energy, intention that's the real project of something. And so it goes something like this: Someone came into the store on the last week or I'm they're like, oh, Kimmye. You should do a recipe book. I'm like, oh, yeah. I'll totally do that.

Kimmye [00:13:13]:
That's a great idea. Sounds great. I'll have it done in, like, two weeks. Totally fine. Write your name down this piece of paper. I'll email you when it's done. Totally fine. Like, so easy. It'll take me, like, no time. Well, 146 pages later, self-published book. You know, here we go. Weekly Juicery recipe book. Kathie, this is a great work of my life. It took me forever, forever to do it. And I really have an appreciation, I guess, I would say for all the authors.

Kimmye [00:13:47]:
This is a recipe compendium. Like it's a group of our recipes. It's the last great act of The Weekly Juicery, but even that took so much word energy, so much creativity to not say the same thing (over again). I just really have a much greater appreciation for those that write anything, blogs, books, whatever, newspaper article, just all of it, anybody who does it. And I have an even greater appreciation for the editors that try and help them. Because just going back over this thing 5,000 times, and then there'd just be another one. There'd just be another error, another spelling error, another grammatical error. I guarantee any of you who happen to read or buy this, there's going to be an error and I've tried my best not to make it so, but there probably will be. This project taught me a great deal about what it takes to be an author, a writer, just how much work it takes.

Kimmye [00:14:53]:
I'm really in awe of all authors out there, like, wow, holy smokes. That's what I would say about the book writing process for me.

Kathie [00:15:01]:
Do you have another one in you?

Kimmye [00:15:03]:
No. Probably not. I mean, I do. I guess I have, yeah, I do have a book idea actually. Again, whether or not, I shudder to say it, because you know how I'm, oh, it won't take very long. I'll just whip that out. I have an idea of a book called 52 Weeks of Chasing Good Health. So that it's basically one holistic health strategy that you learn and practice and integrate every week so that you have a starting place, you have a place not to be overwhelmed. I mean, who can't learn one thing? You know, who can't practice one thing? I think it's hard in the interwebland when Susie Q and Polly Sue and everyone else are doing these things and then we are so quick to try and jump on that, and then we do that so many times we end up doing nothing and then we're wondering why we're still stuck and why we don't make progress.

Kimmye [00:15:53]:
And it's basically because that's not really a path to healing. And so this book would be kind of like a pathway to healing that you could jump on and jump off so easily. So that's kinda been swirling around in my head, but I don't know if I'll ever do it. Who knows?

Kathie [00:16:08]:
Well, you could actually write it in a year.

Kimmye [00:16:11]:
Who knows? You could do 1 a week. Yes. You sure could. Maybe 2025 will be my year of, writing because my whole coaching, my whole health coaching platform, container, modus operandi, whatever you want to say, is based in this idea and this framework that I call Chasing Good Health because it's a hell of a lot more fun than waiting on disease, and you gotta be doing one or the other, so you might as well be chasing good health. And so I really try and teach all my clients what that path looks like, and that's the idea of the book and it's, you know yeah. So I don't know, but I love your idea. Maybe 2025, I'll start writing the thing 1, like one week at a time. So I don't know.

Kimmye [00:16:51]:
I also would hope, this is just a hope, I'll put this out into the universe. Here we go, here it goes, coming out there. I would hope that I would not have to self-publish the thing, that somebody that knew what was up would help me. So calling all, anyone who's interested in the land and the universe of chasing good health coming to life, be an editor or help me. There you go, it's out there.

Kathie [00:17:17]:
Traditionally published.

Kimmye [00:17:19]:
Because it was harder to do it all myself. That was it. That was my book writing experience. When I was in 6th grade, I won a young author's conference for my poetry book.

Kathie [00:17:33]:
Excellent.

Kimmye [00:17:34]:
Sixth grade. And we had to design the cover of it too. And mine is covered in fabric and then I cross stitched a little thing in the middle of it. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah.

Kathie [00:17:43]:
That is so cool. Do you journal?

Kimmye [00:17:46]:
I sure do. Do you want to hear my questions? I have to have a prompt because I like the freeform writing and I do some of that, but I mostly find that my brain cooperates more with me in this journal, ongoing journey of journaling, if I just use the same prompts over and over. Maybe that's like my OCD, you know, neurodivergent brain coming out, but yeah, I'm happy to share them if you want to know what they are. I'm going to read them from my journal so you can have the exact words.

Kimmye [00:18:18]:
Number 1, what are 3 healthy habits that make you feel good? So three healthy habits that I know make me feel good. What are those things? Right? It's not what Susie Q says, what Sally K says on the interwebs. It's what I know makes me feel good. What are those?

What are 3 things that would make today really great? So at the end of this day, what are 3 things you can write down that are going to make today great for you? 

Three things I'm grateful for, one way that I'm going to chase good health and not wait on disease today, and one moment where I experience true joy. And so does that count as a journal? Yes. Because it's really just answering those questions. It's really not freeform writing, but anyway, that's what I do every morning.

Kathie [00:19:04]:
And sometimes you have the same answers and sometimes they're different.

Kimmye [00:19:05]:
Sometimes they're different and sometimes they're the same. And if it's the same, that's okay. My commitment to myself is just to do it. I hope nobody's going to ever give me a grade or you know, look or judge it. So, yeah, it's basically a way of organizing my day in such a way that I have been grateful for the things I have, that I am present to experience what joy might have otherwise been missed, roll on through and the end of the day, you might issue a complaint, but I bet you there was a moment of really true joy if you just thought about it. So if I write it down, then I'm future-casting that into myself. 

Kimmye [00:19:43]:
Like, look for the moment of joy today. It's coming. So be alert to that. And then as I said, I don't want to search after Susie Q's health or Polly P's health or Sally's health in the interwebs. I'm after my own health and that means what's on track for me and what feels good for me is different than you. And I want to just really remember that I'm sovereign and I have to do that for myself. No one's going to do that for you. You have to do that and so that's my what makes me feel really good and then I'm more likely to do it.

Kimmye [00:20:14]:
You know what I mean? If I write it down and I said, okay, I've already said this makes me feel good so why would I not take the step to do it? Then you just got a discipline problem, sis. That's all you got. I really work on that. So I don't know if you count a journal. You said you're a writer and you have a writer's podcast. So if you say it counts, I'm going to vote it counts.

Kathie [00:20:33]:
Absolutely. You used words. 

Kimmye [00:20:37]:
I used words. That's right. Yeah. Sure did.

Kathie [00:20:40]:
That totally counts. I have a 5-word mantra: My joy is a nonnegotiable.

Kimmye [00:20:48]:
That's good. And do you repeat that to yourself on a daily basis? Is that, like, something that you always keep forward in your mind? How do you—

Kathie [00:20:56]:
I have. I just I started, well, this was probably 2015, smile therapy. And it was really, really hard. Just sitting at night just, you know, watching TV or whatever, to smile. And those zydigo, whatever that muscle is called. [zygomaticus major muscle]

Kimmye [00:21:09]:
Instead of frowning.

Kathie [00:21:11]:
And now I'm known in all my Zooms that I'm on, “You’re always smiling.” I go, I know. It's intentional.

Kimmye [00:21:18]:
That's right. Yeah. And, you know, less wrinkles. Right? To smile and not frown all the time. Absolutely. Which is why I wrote this book, you know, now this little company of mine lives on long after I'm gone, long after there's no more juice being made at The Weekly Juicery. People are making it all over the place. That's why I wrote that book, to make it last forever. There you have it.

Kathie [00:21:41]:
That's awesome. I love it. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Kimmye [00:21:45]:
You're welcome. Really enjoyed it. Have a lovely day. It's so good to catch up with you.

Kathie [00:21:49]:
You too. See you. Bye.

OUTRO
Thanks for listening to this episode of Writers Rotation. Like and subscribe for more. And remember, writing is a marketable skill. Smiling is a remarkable skill.