Chelsea Mae Cullen: The Full Story Behind Lean With Plants
From a decade of plant-based dieting in New Zealand to a 40-pound loss, a podcast, and a coaching program for women. The complete timeline.
Chelsea Mae Cullen is a New Zealand-born vegan mum who spent more than a decade eating plant-based and still could not lose weight, figured out why in 2018, lost 40 pounds, and built Lean With Plants around what finally worked. Lean With Plants is now a 12-week one-on-one plant-based weight loss coaching program for women, and the coaching team has worked with over 3,000 women. Along the way Chelsea started the Lean With Plants podcast in 2020, grew a YouTube channel to nearly 150,000 subscribers, and moved from New Zealand to Austin, Texas.
That is the one-paragraph version. This page is the long one: the full timeline, from the diets that did not work to the program that exists today, with sources for the public parts so you can check them yourself.
Quick facts
| Full name | Chelsea Mae Cullen (Mae with an E, often misspelled "Chelsea May") |
| From | New Zealand. She describes herself as "a kiwi vegan mum." |
| Known for | Founding Lean With Plants, plant-based weight loss for women |
| Her own result | Lost 40 pounds (18 kg) starting in 2018, and has kept it off for years |
| Core idea | Calorie density: eat more food, not less, by choosing foods with fewer calories per pound |
| Podcast | Lean With Plants, running since 2020, 240+ episodes |
| YouTube | Chelsea Mae, nearly 150,000 subscribers |
| Family | Married, mum of two girls |
| Website | leanwithplants.com (formerly chelseamae.com) |
Before 2018: a decade of doing everything "right"
Chelsea was vegan for over a decade before she ever got lean. That detail is the whole reason Lean With Plants exists, so it is worth sitting on for a second.
She was not eating junk. She was eating the way a healthy vegan is supposed to eat, and she tried nearly every version of it. In her own words, as reported by BODi's Body Network: "I tried doing a low-carb vegan diet for a couple of months, then it was a fruit-based diet, and then it was a raw food diet." She tried running, and says it took her about six months to lose five kilos, then an injury put them back on in about a month.
On the old version of her website she was blunter about it: "I'd been dieting starving and bingeing for 10 years!"
If you have ever eaten a salad for lunch and a sleeve of crackers at 9pm, you know exactly what that decade felt like.
2018: the newborn, the heaviest point, and calorie density
In 2018 Chelsea was at her heaviest, after having a baby, and still eating plant-based. She wrote later that "with a newborn I knew I couldn't face restricting diets again."
So she stopped restricting and started looking at the math of food instead. What she found was calorie density, the number of calories packed into each pound of food. Oil sits at roughly 4,000 calories per pound. Most vegetables sit around 100. Whole grains, potatoes and beans sit in between. A diet can be completely plant-based and still be full of calorie-dense foods: oils, nut butters, dried fruit, smoothies.
Her description of that moment: "I stumbled onto calorie density, and could finally eat again!!"
Over roughly the next 15 to 18 months she lost 40 pounds. Not by eating less, but by eating more of the right foods, and by building habits that did not depend on motivation. You can read the full breakdown in how Chelsea Mae lost 40 pounds and kept it off.
2020: the podcast
In March 2020 Chelsea launched the Lean With Plants podcast. Its description still says who it was made for: frustrated plant-based women who could not shift the weight while eating a healthy vegan diet.
In June 2020 she recorded her full story in an episode called "My Story of Losing 40 Pounds." The show has since passed 240 episodes, and on Apple Podcasts in the US it holds a 4.9 out of 5 rating from more than 850 ratings. Guests have included Dr. Michael Greger and Ami-James Deane, better known as Broccoli Mum, who now runs Lean With Plants alongside Chelsea.
More on the show in the Lean With Plants podcast.
2020 to 2021: the free Kickstarter and the first membership
The first version of Lean With Plants was not coaching at all. Chelsea ran a free Kickstarter challenge, teaching her framework to anyone who signed up, and in early 2021 she opened a Lean With Plants membership: a self-paced course with a community around it.
It helped a lot of women learn the method. But learning a method and doing it consistently are two different skills, and the next version of Lean With Plants was built around the second one.
The shift to coaching
So the program changed shape. When Lean With Plants moved to a coached format, the announcement put it plainly: "this is not a do-it-yourself program." Chelsea and a small team started working closely with a limited number of women, with far more accountability than a course could give.
That is the direct ancestor of the program today. The history of how it changed, including what happened to the membership, is in Lean With Plants membership, course and coaching.
Today: a 12-week coaching program and a team
Lean With Plants today is a 12-week one-on-one plant-based weight loss coaching program for women. Each client works with a real coach who checks in daily, looks at her food photos, and coaches her through the moments diets never plan for: eating out, the 9pm craving, the bad week. The coaching team is led by head coach Ami. Most clients are in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and the average client loses around 18 pounds in 12 weeks.
Chelsea built the method the coaches are trained in and still leads the program alongside Ami-James Deane. Every two weeks clients also get a Q&A with Chelsea or Ami. You can meet the team on the coaches page.
Texas, family, and the life around it
Chelsea is married and a mum of two girls, and her weight loss started when she had a newborn at home. The family has since moved from New Zealand to Austin, Texas, a move she shared with her audience on YouTube and Facebook.
She still posts what she eats, still cooks the same big, simple plant-based meals, and still talks openly about the habits that keep the weight off. That transparency, years of it in public, is a big part of why women trust the method.
Where Chelsea has been featured
Between August and December 2024, BODi's Body Network ran six articles on Chelsea's story and methods, including her 10 daily habits and the diet mistakes she stopped making. They describe her as "a Kiwi vegan mum" who lost 40 pounds and kept it off.
What Chelsea actually teaches
Three ideas run through everything she has built:
- Calorie density. Eat bigger plates of lower-calorie-density foods so you are full without counting. See calorie density explained.
- Habits over willpower. A few tiny daily habits that take about two minutes each, chosen because they have the biggest impact. See the STACK Method.
- Leanness as a skill. Losing weight and keeping it off is learnable, like brushing your teeth: a couple of minutes a day, for life.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Chelsea Mae Cullen? Chelsea Mae Cullen is the founder of Lean With Plants, a 12-week one-on-one plant-based weight loss coaching program for women. She is from New Zealand, was vegan for over a decade before she figured out how to lose weight, lost 40 pounds starting in 2018, and hosts the Lean With Plants podcast.
Where is Chelsea Mae from? New Zealand. She describes herself as "a kiwi vegan mum" and has since moved with her family to Austin, Texas.
Is it Chelsea Mae or Chelsea May? Chelsea Mae, with an E. Her full name is Chelsea Mae Cullen.
How did Chelsea Mae lose weight? By switching from restricting food to eating for calorie density, filling up on foods with fewer calories per pound, and building small daily habits that made it stick. She lost 40 pounds over roughly 15 to 18 months without counting calories.
Is Chelsea Mae married? Does she have kids? Yes. She is married and has two daughters.
Is chelseamae.com the same as Lean With Plants? Yes. chelseamae.com was the original home of Lean With Plants. It now points to leanwithplants.com, which is the official site.
Does Chelsea Mae coach clients herself? Day-to-day one-on-one coaching is delivered by the Lean With Plants coaching team, led by head coach Ami. Chelsea built the method, leads the program, and clients get a Q&A with Chelsea or Ami every two weeks.
If her story sounds familiar
The first half of Chelsea's story is the part women recognize: eating well, doing the work, and quietly deciding the problem must be them. The second half is the part we help with. If you want to find out whether coaching fits where you are now, apply here and book a call with our team. If it is not a fit, we will tell you.