About Lani

Lani Muelrath, MA, is an award-winning health educator, professor, best-selling author, inspirational speaker, and TV host widely sought for her expertise in mindful, active, plant-sourced nutrition, vegan living.

Lani has been featured on CBS-TV, ABC-TV, Prevention magazine, USA Today, Huffington Post, The Saturday Evening Post, and NSPR. She created and starred in her own CBS television show, Lani’s All Heart Aerobics, and has served as presenter and consultant for the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine, The Complete Health Improvement Project, and Plant Pure Nation.

Recognized as a thought leader and pioneer in the integration of vegan living, fitness, and mindfulness, Lani’s approach blends plant-based nutrition with compassion, mind/body awareness, movement, and transformational techniques from mindfulness meditation practice. She has been teaching in health, fitness, and wellness for over four decades.

Lani has been vegetarian/vegan since 1973, when she also started teaching yoga and began a meditation practice. The ethical considerations of treatment of animals, the environment, and health were natural outgrowths of these practices. Her early studies in meditation took her to India on retreat several times. Since then she undertook the study of  Insight, or Mindfulness Meditation, which she has practiced for over twenty-five years. She has studied with some of the best-known leaders in mindfulness practices, such as S.N Goenka, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzburg, Joseph Goldstein, and Diana Winston.

Certified in Mindfulness Meditation Instruction and Plant-Based Nutrition from Cornell University, Lani is also an authorized Mind-Body Specialist and Behavior Change Specialist. Her multiple teaching credentials include Yoga, Physical Education, and Advanced Fitness Nutrition. Recipient of the California Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Instruction, Lani has been guest lecturer at San Francisco State University and is associate faculty in Kinesiology at Butte College, where her book has been adopted as required text. She has designed and implemented several college level courses in Health, Kinesiology, and Fitness.

Lani earned a Masters Degree in Physical Education from California State University Chico, where her Master’s project was titled Integrating the Western Scientific Approach with Eastern Mystical Experience. Working in higher education and the private sector as a physical educator, teacher, nutrition counselor, and wellness coach, Lani realized that many people were not aware that behind their desire to get healthier, lose weight, improve their sense of confidence and ease, and overcome problematic behaviors, there lurked deeper issues masked by smoke screens and symptoms.

Having discovered through personal experience and training that mindfulness practices are a proven method of getting beneath the surface of these obstacles – thus helping one overcome negative patterns of thinking and behaving, by training the mind in a particular fashion –  she began introducing mindfulness meditation to her clients, naturally blending the three pillars of food, fitness, and frame of mind into her work.

During much of this time, Lani also taught sixth grade for twenty years where she specialized in environmental education.  She and her husband Greg have traveled extensively as volunteer field biologists, working internationally with endangered animals such as sea turtles and albatross birds.

The Mindful Vegan: A 30-day Plan for Finding Health, Balance, Peace, and Happiness is Lani’s third book, following The Plant-Based Journey: A Step-By-Step Guide for Transitioning to a Healthy Lifestyle and Achieving Your Ideal Weight, awarded Top Media Pick by VegNews Magazine, and Fit Quickies: 5 Minute Targeted Body-Shaping Workouts.

Lani lives in the Sierra/Cascade foothills in Northern California with her husband Greg, with whom she travels the world on wildlife advocacy projects and outdoor adventures trekking, hiking, bicyling, and scuba diving.