Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute
In 2015, Ted and Carol founded Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute (RLMI) to advise and treat patients taking its plant-based programs. RLMI has since pivoted to providing education to both clinicians and the public instead of treating individual patients. In 2018, the Barnetts and others on the RLMI team created the “15-Day Whole-Food Plant-Based Jumpstart,” a short, accessible, and inexpensive program to start people on a plant-based diet because “You can do anything for 15 days.” Jumpstart launches people on a healthy vegan (Esselstyn-style) diet and, as Ted likes to say, “shows people the best their body can do.”
From the beginning, the lab results—measured in-office when Jumpstart was given in person—consistently showed significant improvement on average, and dramatic improvement in many participants, in cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, and weight levels [see Jumpstart Improvements on next page]. What’s more, people who go through Jumpstart feel better, as measured by mood, energy, sleep quality, and pain experienced, with many people reporting they never realized their joints had been aching until the aching stopped.
Every Jumpstart session includes a regular facilitator who is adept at running Zoom meetings, as well as a medical facilitator—Ted or any of a number of medical professionals who work with RLMI. After Jumpstart, RLMI continues to support people on their plant-based journey with monthly lectures and meetings, an enduring forum, and offerings such as coaching, cooking classes, and book clubs.
The RLMI team pivoted to offer Jumpstart Live via Zoom during COVID and recently innovated a version of Jumpstart without Zoom meetings called Jumpstart On-Demand. Jumpstart has been given over 75 times to more than 2700 people in 49 states and 12 countries. Both Ted and Carol have attended nearly every session of nearly every Jumpstart, and they never tire of the mutual support, the enthusiasm, and the delighted surprise of participants on Day 15 when they get their lab results.
While they are glad to have a team poised to continue RLMI’s mission into the future, Ted and Carol will continue to help steer RLMI and Jumpstart, especially in the areas of communications and strategic planning. With so many lives to save, it’s an “All hands on deck” moment.
Ted with Freya Dinshah Q&A at
2025 American Vegan Garden Party
RLMI in the Vegan Galaxy
Making and Supporting Vegans
RLMI helps move us towards a vegan world with Jumpstart and programs that support “alumni” or can be taken on their own. The Lift Project explores all the pillars of healthy behavior. Regular lectures and meetings include weekly Office Hours with members of the RLMI team. And the Pale Blue Dot Community is an invaluable forum for mutual support and positive exchange.
Educating the Medical Community
RLMI’s “special sauce” is its empirical basis and its plant-based and Lifestyle Medicine-certified medical professionals, including Dr. Barnett; Susan Friedman, MD, MPH; Kerry Graff, MD; Kim Scheuer, MD; Deborah Chielli, NP; and Jane Dorsey, NP. RLMI offers free CME credits to doctors and other health professionals for taking Jumpstart and Lift. CME credits are also available for Lifestyle Medicine Grand Rounds, a unique program in which a panel of experts considers a real patient case from a lifestyle medicine perspective. Doctors who see the benefits of a healthy plant-based diet start to recommend it to their patients as part of what RLMI calls a “cycle of culture change” in both the health care system and society at large.
Embracing the Ethical Reasons
RLMI leads with health reasons to eat vegan, focusing on its power to arrest or reverse chronic disease. But with kindness and respect, RLMI programs refer to ethical reasons for veganism, and the team finds that most people are open to considering these reasons once they are already eating plant-based. It doesn’t hurt to have extra motivation—saving the animals, preserving the planet—to buttress “your decision to eat what is healthiest for you and may save your life.” RLMI’s mission is to “crosswalk” plant-based eaters to be confirmed vegans who will eat that way for life.
Carol Hee Barnett contributed this article at the enthusiastic prompting of American Vegan Society (AVS) staff who became enamored with the Barnetts and their story during their recent (first ever) visit to AVS headquarters.
The Barnetts were the cover story of American Vegan magazine, fall 2025/winter 2026. This is an excerpt. The full article includes their amazing personal journeys: finding each other, joining the vegan movement, and speaking vegan. Success stories from RLMI are also in the article. Become an AVS member to view future and past issues of American Vegan as well. Photos taken at AVS.
