The Rich Roll Podcast - Eat Like A Legend: Chef Dan Churchill On Fueling Your Body For Peak Performance

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

This week, I’m joined by Dan Churchill, a performance chef redefining what it means to thrive in the culinary world. With a Master’s in Exercise Science, Dan is fueling plates and human performance. As executive chef of Osprey in Brooklyn’s 1 Hotel, a former restaurant owner, coach on Chris Hemsworth’s Centr app, and cookbook author—Dan is at the intersection of cuisine, fitness, and content creation. We talk about his unique background growing up in Sydney, how a passion for food connected his family, and his journey from appearing on MasterChef Australia to self-publishing cookbooks that launched his career in New York City. Dan shares insights from building respected brands like Charley Street, the harsh realities of the restaurant world, the importance of authentic relationships over transactional partnerships, and finding balance as an entrepreneur, athlete, and chef. We discuss his latest projects, eating with intention, properly fueling training, recovery, digestion, and more. We explore performance nutrition facts and myths, managing energy levels, and working with elite athletes like Chris Hemsworth and Lindsey Vonn. Please enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Eight Sleep: Use code RICHROLL to get $350 OFF Pod 4 Ultra 👉eightsleep.com/richroll  On: 10% OFF your first order of high-performance shoes and apparel w/ code RICHROLL10 👉on.com/richroll  AG1: get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase  👉 drinkAG1.com/richroll. Whoop: Unlock the best version of yourself👉join.whoop.com/roll Brain.fm: Listeners of the show can get 30 days FREE 👉brain.fm/richroll SriMu: Get 22% OFF artisanally crafted plant-rich cheeses w/ code RRP 👉SriMu.com This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp: Listeners get 10% off their first month 👉BetterHelp.com/RICHROLL Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange.

I'm here to help people cook more, cook better, and ultimately see the impact that food has on your overall life and performance. My guest today is Dan Churchill, a chef whose specialty is food designed to fuel not just health, but also athleticism. Most people, when they say they're eating healthy, they truly don't understand what that means. It's quite a generic statement. These individuals are deficient in the nutrition they're putting out because they're

trying to look good without thinking about what's best for their performance. He is the current executive chef at Osprey in Brooklyn's One Hotel. He also produces a dizzying amount of instructional and inspirational content. And he's the author of the newly released cookbook, Eat Like a Legend. and he's the author of the newly released cookbook, Eat Like a Legend. I started cooking at the age of 11. Follow your passion and lean in and actually dedicate yourself to it. That's how you get anywhere, and that's kind of what I did. I'm here to help people inspired to create their habits and routines to live a healthy lifestyle.

Of course, I am changing the world through food. So good to see you. Thank you for coming out here. I've been looking forward to this for a long time, man. Man, can I just say, I feel I represent so many people with what I'm about to say in the sense of how much you have influenced.

I know you hear this, but I really mean it. You're a mate, but you've influenced so many people in this space. And so on behalf of everyone listening right now, I want you to know how much you and your team have impacted just so many people. I appreciate that. Thank you, man.

Thanks. Likewise yourself, you are doing so many things. I don't know how you fit it all in. I want to get into like your daily schedule, which sounds like such a grind, just based on me observing all the stuff that you share with the world and all your many obligations and responsibilities. It's absolutely insane.

But in reflecting upon like how to get into this with you and what I wanted to, you know, kind of explore with you, I was trying to remember like how we first met. Like, I can't remember you not in my life, but I don't remember how I actually first met you. Yeah. How was it, man? Was it? I think maybe we were maybe introduced online and we became like kind of internet buddies. And then maybe I just went to Charlie street. I think that's how it happened. That's actually how it is. Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. You were sitting at table, table two. I don't know what it was, but I think that I was in New York City and I just walked down there and, you know, tried to see if you were hanging around and that's how we first met. And that became like a tradition. Every time I go to New York City, I generally stay on the

Lower East Side or in the East Village. And it's just a short walk to Charlie Street, which sadly is no longer. Yes, you closed it down. But that was like my go-to. And I would never tell you ahead of time. I would just like to show up and surprise you. And what was interesting is there were all these, you know, people that were hanging out there and some of them were just like working, you know, people who work for Athletic Greens

and various brands that you work with, that I work with, who just kind of made that like their HQ. It's became genuinely the social part of my day every day with people coming in and out of that place. And I think that's one thing you kind of maybe take for granted upon reflection is like, it may be hard work, but also it ticked a lot of boxes. And that's what that was for me. So like, you know, meeting people like yourself, meeting anyone just coming through New York city, you register how important like community truly is. So it was great. Like I

loved it. It was, it served an amazing purpose there, you know, and the people there obviously in our space, like health and wellness inspired to bring a positive light to those around them. And that connection, that community brings and creates even just much more positivity, in my opinion. Yeah, it was a community hub, like group runs would start there. There were always people congregating outside and you would be leading people on some workout or something like that. So it extended well beyond just it being like this restaurant.

So it's sad that it doesn't exist anymore, but it probably is liberating for you as well. I know trying to run a restaurant is not an easy thing financially or just in terms of how you allocate your time. That's the thing. I think, you know, I was reading a book, I forgot the name of it, but it's like talking about how good things come to an end and how to reflect on it. And effectively when that came to an end, it was a relief. And people were on the last day of service.

Everyone's like, how do you feel? And I'm like, I'm upset about the people I'm not going to see every single day because we had babies grow up. We had friends and businesses, you know, almost be a catalyst out of that space. But then the time I got back versus the reward outside of that, I wasn't personally growing outside of it either. So like I got so much of my time back. Yeah. And also led to other creative ideas and like new restaurants and all these positive things. Yeah. We'll get into all of that, but I want to talk a little bit about the Aussie spirit. I mean, Charlie street was like your way of bringing a little bit of Australia to New York city. You know, it's no news to you that Australia holds a special place in my heart. Byron has sort

of become a second home in the way that New York city can be for me as well. And I now have like community there and so many friends. And my love for Australia and Australians dates back. I remember one story in particular around when Finding Ultra came out. This is 2012. around when Finding Ultra came out. This is 2012. And I was doing my best to like push this book out into the world in the way that you're about to, saying yes to every opportunity I could find to like give a talk or do a signing. And I didn't have a big following or anything like that at the time.

So it was like whatever I could get, I was gonna take. And I pushed the book out into the world and it wasn't a New York Times bestseller, but it slowly kind of found its own audience. But I did this one talk in Los Angeles in particular, it was at a small like community room in this apartment complex near the Grove, you know, where the Grove is in town. And I had announced it ahead of time and all that kind of stuff. And I said to Julie on the way over, like, I hope more than like two people show up to this thing. Like, I have no idea what's going to happen. And it doesn't matter. Like, this is the way that it goes, right? Well, sure enough, two people showed up.

Osher Gunsberg and Dan McPherson, my two Australian buddies, loyal to the hilt, who just sat in the front row and were happy to be there. And I was like, glad that they were there, but also embarrassed, you know? And so after that, I was like, you are my guys. Well, they're two pretty influential people in Australia. Well, yeah, they're great. But I think it speaks to something about the Australian character. I feel like the moment I started talking to you about Australia, you lit up, right? We've got a sense of chill back, relaxed attitude. And you speak to most people and they say, you're Aussie, I've always want to go to your country. Or, you know, I love the way that you guys are just so

relaxed and chill and fun and happy. Always so happy. You know, we always have this so happy vibe. And it's interesting because it's actually something I had to battle coming over here personally, because you're that person, but if you don't have substance and if you try to almost always be Aussie, you disconnect from an audience. But I can understand how specifically the wellness space or the people we like love being around, the lifestyle we love, like we love that in Australia and Byron, you know, Sydney, Bondi, all these places. They just exude it. Oh, I was just back there for a week and I'm like, you know, I grew up, I wore board shorts everywhere.

That's all I wore. Did you grow up on the beaches? Yeah. So the Northern beaches of Sydney, there's a stretch of beaches at about 20 odd beaches from Palm beach down to Manly. So if you, if you fly into Sydney, most people go to Bondi. If you then get a ferry from say circular key, where the beautiful Harbor of the opera house and the Sydney Harbor bridge are, you can get like a 20 minute ferry to Manly. And I was about,

you know, 15 beaches up from that. And that was my life. Like it's, it's definitely its own bubble. And for me, that was, you know, my lifestyle. And I was blessed to have surfing during the middle of school. I played rugby on weekends. You know, everything was always sunny like it is in LA. And the idea of cold was 16 degrees Celsius. And my parents weren't rich. We were poor. Like we, when I say poor, we weren't like the worst people, but like we didn't have

a very well-off life. But I have two incredible brothers who I call like some of my best mates. And my mom and dad were just, they're two different people. It's pretty crazy. I just was happy. And I wasn't really, I've never been really materialistic. And I kind of look back on that as someone who grew up on the northern beaches of Sydney,

you're very chilled. You know, the idea of dinner is Thai takeout. And so that's like curious to me when it comes to food to food of where my fondness of food came from as well. But because I grew up in culture. It's another, as a swimmer, like I just can't believe like the culture around swimming there and the pools that seem to be everywhere. Does everybody do like those life-saving courses and all the lifeguarding kind of stuff? Is that like part of growing up as an active young teenager? I think parents will want to get their kids into swimming pretty early because they see it as like a pretty natural thing to obviously support the lifestyle, making sure they're having safety in the swim. But then you've also got being by the beach, it's like

you go to Nippers on Sunday and Nippers is like this carnival of events at your local beach. And so you do respective different athletic abilities and you do a lot of water training and then you potentially go into like life-saving and it's like anything you're in this environment where the sand and the water is your life so people want to continue to surround themselves with it if you're not working as a lifeguard you're surfing if you're not surfing you're working at the local smoothie bar if you're not there you're at a cafe and if you're not there you're you know it's probably monday to friday when you have to work in the city but you've've seen it, mate. If anyone's been to Australia, you are on the beach. You just, you get this like amazing, why don't I live here vibe? And that's what everyone asks me. Why don't you still live in Australia? Yeah. So why don't you? Is it that for somebody who has ambition, they have this need to stretch themselves? Because you can just be at the beach and work at the coffee shop and have a good life. There's no judgment on that.

No, not at all. I've just been back and caught up with some friends and they're extremely happy and I'm really happy for them. And that's what I'm saying. Australia is always going to be there for me, but I've always been interested and motivated to push and strive for something that's greater than myself. And I believe when I first was thinking about, you know, Australia versus the world, it's like, Australia is a very small place. Like despite the landmass being respectfully somewhat similar to America relative, the population is 25 million people. Right. And so it's the size of greater New York city or Los Angeles. Exactly. So So you can't really impact the world from Australia.

And so, particularly in my field, and I recognized pretty early on that if I wanted to have a positive impact on a global scale, I had to take a risk in going to America. It's very ambitious. It's been the most amazing personal development I've ever asked for. And I think that's part of the challenge. But you look at Australians who are now living outside of Australia and you do notice there's similarities between us all in the sense of our ambition, our ability to be interested in other things going on that could strive connection.

And I think that's why I've always been fascinated by other areas of things that aren't even in my industry, but I'm just interested in learning. And you see that connection between us all. It's ambition that drives us. When did food come into the picture? I mean, I'm the middle of three boys that played rugby every weekend. So food's always been in my picture. But in terms of a professional stay, I think like I started cooking at the age of 11. Dad is a very, you know, stern individual, but he's very forward thinking. So he puts together this timetable after my brothers and I, have you heard of Jamie Oliver? Do you know Jamie Oliver? Yeah.

So Jamie was someone I was so fascinated by. And dad realized that my brothers and mother and I were always so fascinated this one moment every single week watching this guy on TV and registered that we'd ask questions. We'd go across the table and say, like, oh, what do you think? So dad was like, okay, this is a great life skill for my boys to learn. So he put together a timetable where each day it would be someone else's turn to cook. Oh, wow. And so over time, like there's obviously five of us in the family and there's an extra two days.

I just loved it. And what started out as terrible meals that my mom and dad were just very patient about, actually it's like superannuation or 401k. Mom and dad didn't have to cook as much because I'd love to do so. So it was like an investment in a way, but it was amazing in the sense that I learned my passion for creativity and sensory and smell, taste. And ultimately, I didn't realize at the time, but I love the connection I got with my family through these meals. Because despite growing up, and I said earlier that my brothers and I are very close, there's moments when you're not because you're going through an adolescent period. But it was the one moment we would all be together and either giving feedback

or just asking about your day. And that's why I love food so much. I found that not enough people actually had that moment in time when they sat down and actually were just like having a conversation that was like, not how are you going, but like, no, talk to me about your day. And I relish in that. And so 11, 12, 13, 14, as I got older, I really realized a passion for the power of food

and the positive impact you could have and where my place was in that and the ability to be a young male connecting in a way that most people weren't. So, you know, I, at the time decided to maybe give chefing a go. And back then it was like, you jump into a kitchen. I probably picked the wrong one, but in hindsight, it was great. I went to a catering place and all I did for 90 hours a week was peel broad beans because it was the first thing that I could do, right? So I was like maybe I don't want to be a chef. That really didn't tick my creative juice so to speak.

So then I finished high school so I continued doing high school and I didn't really know what I wanted to do but I knew I loved sport. I knew I loved human performance what I wanted to do. But I knew I loved sport. I knew I loved human performance. So I decided to do an undergraduate and then a postgraduate, like a master's degree in exercise science. So learning about the human body was phenomenal. Putting that to athletes and individuals, whether in camps or helping them improve by an extra five to 10% was gratifying, but it was always brought back to food and I'll still be cooking. And

over time, what took place was I realized that there's a bit of a disconnect, at least at the time, between the scientific nuance, as you discuss here a lot, around nutrition and the application of it. And so when I was effectively in these rooms with listening to nutritionists talk to these athletes about what they should be eating and what numbers to hit and all the science bespoke, it wasn't registering. And I realized that was going to be a problem because the long-term ability to adhere to any plan is to comprehend and understand and be bought in. So what I did was I essentially knew what the nutritionist was saying and I could connect with an athlete just based on our relationships. And so I decided to put a recipe together for them to repeat based on, I knew what the science was.

They don't need to know that I was teaching the recipe. And it came back with really good feedback from like the athlete was just loving the food. They're just like, I love cooking. It was a good challenge. My wife loved it. Can you give me another one? So I was like, sure. So then more athletes started to ask and eventually like, over this pretty short period of time, I'm like, wow, this is pretty impactful. Exactly what like Jamie was doing. I then put together this cookbook called Dude Food and I self-published that. I then put together this cookbook called Dude Food. Right. And I self-published that.

And so that was like the first foray into the food world, if you will. What's interesting about that is this story around how destiny finds you almost. Like you have this love for food, you enjoy the process of it, but it's not really about the preciousness of the cuisine as much as it is this vehicle for connecting with other people and how you can kind of serve people, right? And you put it to the side when it wasn't fulfilling you, you pursue this other thing, it starts to happen to you, right? That you have this thing that you love that you can then apply to this other area that you care about, performance, in an interesting way. And now you've kind of carved this path where you're doing both things

and you're chefing and food is at the forefront of what you're doing. But I've always felt like it's not really the food itself, it's food as a messenger for something else because you're so into all these other worlds that have to do with fitness and community, et cetera. So food is the tool, not the like end in and of itself, which it can be for a certain type of chef. That's it. That's exactly it. And I think I registered earlier. It's like,

I don't want to be the best chef in the world. Like that was never my, you know, task. But when I realized the connection, as you said, like I really understood, I'm like, wow, like I'm making a difference in these people's lives, you know, however is and that fulfills me that's my currency and so how do I do this on a bigger scale and that's exactly what I pursued and that's kind of like what led me to America like after all the books and realizing I do have to get back into kitchens and actually learn how to cook professionally but the importance for me was a hundred percent. The intrinsic motivator was not to do with the end product being around like the best cuisine on a plate. It was what that whole process did for people. Right. One of the inflection points was you doing

MasterChef though in Australia. What year was that? 2013. 2013. Yeah. Not that long ago. 11 years ago. Was that prior to getting your culinary training or did the culinary training come after that? Yeah. And how did you find yourself like on a reality show? This is the ambition piece, right? Like this will be the thing, right? Yeah, this is so true. So I watched MasterChef growing up, like after being into all these food, like after watching Jamie and, you know, cooking at home as a home cook, I was like, oh, I want to watch these cooking shows. And the ones that aren't around

drama, they're actually about the food. And so MasterChef was something I watched vividly for many years. And then I brought Dude Food out because I self-published it. And that in itself taught me a lot about business distribution, problems with like cost of goods and that in itself is a great challenge. I registered like, okay, if I self-publish a book and if this is something I want to do, I need to better my skills. And what better way than throwing yourself in the fire of, it's like actually an eight month process for the show from start of registering through to like four months of filming. So you're away from your family and friends for a period of time, but you're dedicated to this process of cooking, having the best chefs around you. You're constantly just in a camp, cooking camp, and you're learning. And if you

applied yourself, you just continue to learn. So I applied for the show. You go through three or four forms of different stages. And I got the call that I was to be potentially away for a certain period of time and started doing it. And to this day, people look at that show, MasterChef, and see it as one of the best forms of programs, not only for families, but for development. Who were the mentor chefs? So you had Gary, George Columbaris, and Matt Preston. Wow. And then amongst that you had, like, I got to battle Heston Blumenthal, like the chef. Who is that? I don't know. Yeah. He was one of the notorious chefs known for using liquid nitrogen to make ice cream.

And his restaurant, The Fat Duck was known as the best in the world for many years. Essentially, he started late in his career too, but he took science and applied it to cooking in a really unique way. And so when I did one of the challenges I had on that show was I got to battle him, but the judges didn't know whose dish was whose. It was a blind tasting. And that really was like affirmation for me that I can cook at a high level. So I'm going off against this chef. And so that was really, really cool.

What the three judges said, if you applied yourself in this skillset, you lean in, you know, you'll go far. And that's something I've always registered with anyone. It's like, follow your passion and lean in and actually dedicate yourself to it. That's how you get anywhere. And that's kind of what I did. and actually dedicate yourself to it. That's how you get anywhere. And that's kind of what I did. Well, it's sort of applying what you understand about how to be an athlete,

you know, into this culinary art, right? Yeah. So how did you leverage that to take the next step? Like, how did you decide to make this incredible leap and move to New York City? Did you know anyone in New York? Like, why New York City? How much time transpired

in between the MasterChef experience and the move? Okay. So during the actual recording of MasterChef, I knew that in order to capitalize on the PR exposure, I need to also do another book. So I was like, I'm going to self-publish my second book, which is called The Healthy Cook. So Dude Food led into MasterChef, MasterChef, then is called The Healthy Cook. So Dude Food led into MasterChef, MasterChef, then I had The Healthy Cook. That got me exposure on more TV programs in Australia, which got me noticed in America. And I got picked up by a publisher. I essentially flew over, where they said, we'd love to meet with you. And they wanted to pick up Dude Food. And at the same time, I got asked to go on The Chew, which was a program on ABC. So in order to get the visa that

I wanted, that process took a bit of time, but eventually because of those two contracts, got my visa. So then I flew over and I didn't know anyone. So this is like, what, eight and a half years ago now. I didn't know anyone over here. And I went from kind of starting to become pretty well known in Australia, particularly in the food space, because early on social media was early. Like I was one of the first to kind of do it. So then landing in America, having this book and this opportunity on these shows pretty regularly, that's when I realized how far away America was. Very quickly. You had a little dose of humble pie.

Oh, man. Cooked up in the Dan Churchill kitchen. So, so how did you make ends meet and piece it together and not run back home with your tail between your legs? Yeah. Great question. So when the book didn't do well, cause no one readily thought like everyone looked at a number on social media and thought that applied to the world, which all my following was in Australia. No one knew me in America. So like all that went downhill. The show got canceled due to some situation with one of the other hosts that was on board. And so then I'm like left with no money. I had just signed a lease in New York city, which is not exactly cheap.

And so I got a call from my manager and was like, I want you to come home. I was at this point. I'm like, no, it was never like a question of I'm going home because I just got here. It was a question of how I'm going to stay. And so I got out of my lease. I slept on some couches for a period of time, like a long time, thanks to all my legends friends. And I started to think about, okay, I can work in restaurants. No, that's not a problem. Nothing's beneath me. But how do I get to a position where building my brand back up to the space of where I know it can be? And so I started to think about audience. I started to think about impact. I started to really

be conscious of value add. How do I add value that people are going to want to continue to come see my content, come see what I'm doing and be interested in me helping them, which is exactly what I thought of with my book, with like dude food and all these kinds of things. I really built it to a point where like this is for a specific audience. So I started doing content specifically around recipes, tips, all that kind of stuff, which got me noticed by companies. Chefs wanted me to help with them in their restaurants. So at least I got to a position after some time of one, cutting costs, but then also getting some income allowed me to stay, which was awesome. So I felt good, but then I was like, okay, it's one thing to stay. How do

you thrive? And so I effectively just SEO'd the crap out of all my content to be known as the healthy chef, because that's positioning my brand. So I positioned my brand that way through content, online portals, any team I worked with, anything like that. And eventually I got noticed by Lindsey Vonn, Under Armour, and that allowed me to sign with them to take the role of her chef at the Olympics in Pyeongchang. And at that point I got picked up in other brands as well, which really started to solidify my presence. But I think what that taught me was more than anything, your affiliation through brand equity is more important than the transactional relationship you get with those brands. Explain what that means.

So a lot of people look at getting in partnership and the first thing they'll do is look at a number associated with how much you're getting paid. I've never personally been motivated by that. But if you think about the long-term viability of your personal brand, your personal brand is your name and you're doing that for the rest of your life. So why would you think about the next two years when you think about the value you need to get for the next 10 to 15? So by me working with like an Under Armour or an AG1 or these companies at the time, it's like you are getting potential more brand equity and exposure that can take you to another level afterwards, right? And also think about how you can use their resources to support you in other areas, get you in front of other companies

or do the things that you need to do to share your message on other platforms. And so I think that kind of gets lost in this day and age where people think so transactional and they don't think about like the other value you get. I always say when people ask me like, what's important to think about when working with companies? Like, well, would you do it for free? Not because you have to, but because you get just as much awesome feeling and value out of working with this company than you would if you got paid.

And so that's a big lesson I learned. Because it's an authentic relationship that serves the kind of message that you're putting out into the world. And also I think on that transactional piece, a lot of people look at it, yes, like what are you paying me? But also they're not thinking about like, how can I over deliver for the brand?

What is the service that you're providing them, right? It's a partnership. And these partnerships thrive when you have a longer term view of what the possibilities can be if you're allowed to kind of grow and mature together. But I think in general, this idea of you carving this unique path, like the typical path would have been, well, I'm just going to go work in restaurants and network and meet these other chefs and move up in some kitchen. And maybe one day I'll have my own restaurant. For you to say, that's an option,

but I'm gonna pursue this digital path and blaze kind of my own thing out there. I mean, what year was this? This would have been 2018. Yeah, 2018. Yeah, 2018. And kind of reimagine what a career path for a chef could be.

Is this hybrid mentality that you have. Like in so many ways, you're a hybrid chef, you're a hybrid athlete, you're a multifaceted person who's doing many things. We were joking at the top, like, I don't know how you have time to do it. Like you now are the head chef at the Osprey, which is the, is it the executive chef? Is it, what's your title?

Executive chef at the Osprey, which is the, is it the executive chef? Is it, what's your title? Executive chef at the Osprey, which is the restaurant at the one hotel in Brooklyn after Charlie street closed. But in addition to that, you're also like this fitness influencer and you're working with all these brands and you're making all these videos with recipes. And now you have the book, like a legend that's coming out. You have a girlfriend and you have a dog, like you have a lot, you have a real life. You're not just like a dude with roommates, you know, in a tiny apartment. Like you have a full life on top of all of these different

things that you're doing. And I just know when Charlie Street was open and I would drop by, you're in the kitchen, you're greeting people as they're coming in, you're kind of the host running the show. And then you would go out onto the sidewalk and like lift this door out of the, you know, and go down into this basement

where there was another kitchen and that was your production studio where you would just relentlessly shoot content for like, I don't know, however many hours a day. And that doesn't include the fitness videos and the community runs and all these other things that you're doing, like in a podcast on top of that,

like and making TikTok videos and going into people's houses and cooking for them. We're gonna talk about that. It's a lot, dude, but it's unique to you. And it speaks to this idea of, I'm not just one thing. I'm doing all these other things. And as an athlete, you are this like tactical athlete, I think fundamentally, like you can deploy your fitness acumen in so many different areas. You're

not purely an endurance athlete or a runner. You do many different things. You can crossfit and whatever anybody's doing in the gym, like you're probably better at it than most. And we're going to get into that as well. The reason I'm bringing it up is it's a mindset. It's a unique mindset. And I think there's something courageous about that to say, I could go and fit into this mold or that mold or be this person or craft an identity around this, but your umbrella is broader than that. So talk a little bit about how you think about career, how you think about identity, like how you've created this situation where you are able to do so many things and not get like pigeonholed into one thing or the other. Yeah, it is a lot, like a hundred percent. And I think for me, I've always done stuff that I just love. I love doing, and I feel that's

part of it, but I've definitely learned over time the importance of going deep. And I know that sounds contrary to what you just said, but I've registered pretty early on that in the space and where I want to get to is I need a restaurant or something associated with the restaurant to be a chef in America. So tick. I should have digital presence. And this is all to have the impact of genuine influence on people, positive influence. A social presence. It's good to have a book because it's credibility. And then they talk about maybe having a show, right? All these things are great. But I think the important thing is as you go deeper, you start to say no more. And despite all the things you said, everything

relates to fitness and food. And that's where I've registered. If it doesn't even relate to that in some way, there's no point doing it. I also have an incredible team like you do that supports me in everything that I do, both in the restaurant. So I've got my operational team. I've got the one hotel marketing team. I've got that whole team as well. So to be a chef these days, as you said, I didn't want to be in the restaurant every single day, but I do love cooking and I want to empower a team. And so I registered, okay, what role would it work to me to be in? And the role that I have right now with One Hotels is incredible. I love it. How did that come together? So even at Charlie Street, the culinary and the F&B team

used to come into Charlie Street, talk to me, get my thoughts on things. When it was towards the end of Charlie Street days, they were coming a bit more consistently. And then one day they said, hey, we want to talk to you about an opportunity. So this is a good lesson to me. It's like, it didn't take me a year of them coming in. It took me many years of learning how to run a restaurant in New York, the persistence around team building and all these skills you learn up to this point. It took me like seven years to have that moment. And that was a huge understanding reflection. So when they asked me, I said, I'm super keen to do this. These are my boundaries, not because I don't want to do them just because I don't want to over-promise anything that I can't do because of my time restrictions this is what I'm going to

crush these things right here and they were like yep that's what we want you to do and so that is essentially how it all started and it felt so good to sign that arrangement one because I love what the one hotel stands for as a you know boutique sustainable restaurant or hotel group but two is like as a reflection of where there's markers in your life of affirmation to know you're on the right path to having the the success that you want that was one of them so that took years and the thing that you're interested in killing it at is the thing that you're strongest at so So what was that like designing the menu, kind of being the face of this, being an ambassador, you're not in the kitchen

cooking. I mean, you'll go in there. I see the videos and all that kind of stuff. So it's not like you're not in the kitchen, but you're not the one who's in the kitchen every single night preparing the meals. No, no. So if I want to be, I can, there's nights where I just like, I kind of feel like cooking tonight. So I'll go in and I'll go in there and see the team and hang out and cook with them and do that, see the tables and whatnot. But it's also important for me to register. It's like, I don't want to be just a face to the brand. That's not what I want.

That's not what I'm just good at. Like I'm really good at people. I'm a very good people person. Like I love friends. I like the idea of being nice is actually fun for me, but I'm also interested in other people and their stories. So I want to make sure I look people in the eyes when I talk to them. The idea behind that is it serves my purpose of feeling like I have a home and a kitchen

that I can cook in. I create the menu. I create obviously the content around the menu, but also build team morale, build systems, modules, things like that that can help grow this team and make the culture what it should be. Bring opportunities, bring my friends in, create dinner options. Like I go to Nashville, open outdoor cooking event, go to Hawaii, bring presents to the Hawaiian people and their traditional cooking means.

I can add more value than just being in the kitchen, which is totally fine for me. But it's kind of like if you know you can do everything that these legends ask you to do, but there's things that people can't do that you can do. Pick the things that you love that people can't do because you're the only person that can do them. Why is the restaurant business so rough? Oh man. We've all heard it, you know, don't invest in a restaurant. Most restaurants fail. Like why is it so hard? Okay. So for one, okay. So you've got the margins are small. That's a hard part. So the margins in food are small. Like you look at these tech companies now and the margins they're getting and the startup values and all that kind of stuff. And

you look at a restaurant, like if you had a hundred grand to deploy in an investment, would you go there? Like, or an index fund that annualizes 10% every year, right? So there's different ways to look at it. So number one, profit is tough. You're constantly getting changes in regulations from the government. Like we just saw what happened in LA with fast food and the minimum wage and all that kind of stuff. So that's constantly changing you at the whim of the government. Managing people. Some people don't want to work in a restaurant their whole life. Their prerogative is not actually to be front of house. Their prerogative is not- Well, for most people, it's a transitionary kind of thing. Exactly. So it's really hard to build, depending on the type of restaurant you're at,

consistency and where your priority is for them in this space. So you can ask them to call out. There's so many small things like the delivery times and, oh God, the list of things. It rains one day, so that's meant to be a Saturday. And a Saturday is like how you make your money. And all of a sudden that goes out the window. And so it's really challenging, man. Like there's so many things that people don't think of. Like even you see people use napkins and the amount of napkins they pull and the cost of that may be small, but if you do that every single day, it's like, okay. There's a lot of those things, but- And it's relentless.

It's relentless, man. Like you saw me, dude. There'll be days where someone calls out, okay, well, this restaurant doesn't open unless I'm there. So anything else I had that day can kind of just go by the wayside. And that's another thing. It's like, I, because I have so much going on, I can't be the last line of defense with the Osprey, which is why I have such an incredible team. And, you know, Chef Aaron there, who's, you know, the executive chef of the whole hotel, his job is, that's his baby. So I can rely on him. And it's, you know, that's the idea. So. You're also this insane athlete. You are naturally gifted. On your website, I looked at your website, it said, I have a resting heart rate of 27. What do you honestly think about that?

Well, yeah, I don't know. Like, it's sort of cool. Like, listen, if my heart rate was 27, like I'd probably advertise it as well. But let me tell you, my friend, I'm also in a whoop group with you. So I see your data and I can tell you that your heart rate, your resting heart rate is not 27, it's 30. It is consistently 30, which is insane. Yeah, it's pretty.

And you have these really high HRV numbers. I think your average HRV is like 100. I remember the text you sent me one day, like, dude, how do you even have above a 150 HRV one day? I know, I don't understand it. Like your metrics are bananas. You go out into the world and you crush it and you do all these different kinds of races

and things like that. But my thing is, your potential is totally untapped. I think you get in your own way with the way that you train. And I know that you're set on breaking three hours in the marathon and you have a coach. So I'm excited to see what happens when you actually follow a proper program

because you're a guy who just goes out and kills it and blows whichever way the wind blows oh my friends are going to the gym oh i'm going to do a crossfit workout oh i'm going to do high rocks or today i'm going to run a 10k or whatever there's no structure or kind of direction directionality to any of this right and i'm like this guy has the potential to just absolutely skyrocket if he would just fucking focus. So when you made the announcement or you said, I'm going to try to break three hours in the marathon,

I think I texted you and I was like, all right, man, here's what you need to stop doing if you want to be serious about this. Because you like to go out and kill it. And I was like, you actually, you're fast enough already. You don't need to get any faster.

I know you love your tempo workouts and your interval workouts and stuff like that. But what you need most and what you're most lacking is a legit, real endurance foundation. And I noticed this when you did, was it the half Ironman? Yeah. You raced that a couple of years ago.

Yeah. That's where you can't hide, right? Yeah, dude. And talent's only gonna to get you so far because that's a very difficult race distance to like master. You even said, you said that that's a harder distance to train for than an actual Ironman. I think it is because you have to be,

it's sort of like running the 800 meters versus the 400 meters or swimming, you know, the 200 meter freestyle as opposed to the 100. Like the shorter distance, it's a sprint for the most part. But when you extend it out, when you double that, you kind of have to be on the rivet the whole time if you want to be elite in that distance, if you want to master that distance, which makes it much more difficult than something that's way longer where you can't be on the rivet the whole time. Like you have to be at a certain pace that you can maintain and you're in a lower grade state of discomfort, but it's much more tolerable than the extreme pain that you have to extend out

over like a half Ironman distance. I agree in the sense that the aerobic energy system you're using over, like even when you get off the bike to do the 42K after that, the pace you're working at there or the expectation of the pace is much lower than trying to sprint a 21K half marathon. But going back to what you said, it's like the biggest challenge I face in this athletic prowess space, I just love intensity. When my mates throw a workout in, I'm like, yep, let's do it. I'm going to send it. And that's like great for my headspace, but even looking at the modality of training, and this is why this training block's been so interesting.

It's just, you know, 100% all in on this. Like that's what I'm doing. And you're like, dude, you need to slow down. That's what you said. Like just like run slower. And so you can build your zone too. And I remember saying- Which is much harder for you than running fast and hard.

Yeah. Like my zone two is like extremely low. And it's like the idea of- Because you have no real base. Right. Right. Okay. Yeah.

This is like an older brother moment right now. So we'll see how it goes. Hopefully your coach is giving you some long runs and is paying attention to where your heart rate is. Yeah, yeah, 100%. He's great, man. Keeping you under control there. 100%.

No, it'd be good. Good challenge, man. Where are you laying that out? Where are you putting that to the test? Boston. Oh, in Boston? Yeah. Coming up?

Yeah. Oh, I didn't realize it was right here. Yeah, yeah, we're there. Oh, shit, man. How are you feeling? Dude, I feel great. The only thing is I had like a little bit of patellar tendonitis in Australia. So I'm just hoping it doesn't flare up again beforehand.

But like I ran, I did my big last training block with like, it was like 32 Ks with 18 at marathon pace. And it was great. It was really good. So here we go. Fingers crossed. We'll know soon. In the middle of like trying to push a book out and do all the promotional stuff and make viral TikToks.

At the center of everything that you do, as you mentioned earlier, is the intersection between high performance and food, nutrition, right? And I bring up all your kind of athletic accomplishments to just basically, you know, proof of concept, like you're legit, dude, like you're incredibly fit, like you're obviously living, you know, the lifestyle principles that you preach. And this book, this new book is really about that intersection itself. So as an introduction to kind of the things that you talk about in the book, like maybe you could talk a little bit about the difference between what it means to just eat a healthy diet versus like eating for performance. Like sometimes those are at odds, like what's in your best interest in terms of like longevity and being healthy isn't necessarily what's in your best interest performance wise, but there is a way to eat

healthy for the longterm while also being performance minded. Yeah, 100% mate. I think also that the idea of all this kind of gets complex and like this doesn't, but the idea around healthy eating in itself, we talk about this in the book is around eating for aesthetic instead of eating for performance. Like I knew growing up, and this is very common, I knew growing up that I'm like, I want to eat to look good, right? Most people are like that. And that's no shame in saying that. In doing so, which is where people say I'm eating healthy, you actually have typically seen that these individuals are either deficient in the nutrition they're putting out because they're

trying to look good without thinking about what's best for their performance. And if you do so, you're not eating enough food to if you do so, you're not eating enough food to then support your performance. You in turn will become essentially putting the way you look and feel on the back burner. And we've seen that. Like I've seen it with athletes. I've seen it with young males. Like the idea behind, I think eating disorders is much more common than we know. Like like because the idea and even defined is like an eating disorder can be simply the idea of you going out to dinner and not eating because you don't want to eat the food because you think it's going to make you look bad,

right? I'm first to say I'm guilty of that myself, right? But in terms of the difference between healthy overall and eating for performance, there's different times of the day, different modalities, different contexts that we all fall under where your situation requires certain energy and energy can come from fat proteins carbs the fifth macronutrient we talk about the water everything like that and what i find is most people when they say they're eating healthy they truly don't understand like what that means it's quite a generic statement so what we've done is just trying to find eating more for their performance is specifically to the types of ratios and including more of the fifth macronutrient, which is your micronutrients than you should do. And the reason why I say this,

man, eating for performance isn't just for like an athlete. If you're a single mother, if you're someone who's trying to just do your best, you got a presentation, you're trying to get that job promotion, what's your energy like? Are you eating enough carbohydrates? Cool. Are you eating enough of the colorful ingredients? Cool. But are you supporting that through everything else, including water, time of day, eating

before and after the session? People don't realize how much they're affecting their cognitive function, their gut, when they're not supplying enough nutritional value at the right time. And so what I've registered is if you put a blanket over healthy eating, what are the most things people say? Cutting out refined sugar, eat more plants and have some sort of protein that hits a certain amount of scale. Cool. What if you're a bit more specific and making those ratios more confined to the times of situations. For example, we use an athletic ability. Are you getting enough of the short, simple sugars from quality ingredients like fruit before your races? After a presentation, are you supplying yourself with the right fats and

things like that to get the brain back to its recovery state so you can also sleep better afterwards so you can recall what you just said if there's feedback needed for the follow-up presentation. And so that's kind of where I've defined it. It's like, well, we have this blanket term and we all know that if I cut out refined sugars, if I eat more colorful ingredients, and if I eat a certain amount of protein, I'm eating healthy, which is true. But if we were just to be a bit more specific sometimes and understanding a bit more time and preparation around our food, we could have something that's a bit more for our performance specific to what we're trying to achieve. And that's the goal inside. We all know that we shouldn't eat ultra-processed foods, refined sugars, the things that you just referenced. We want a diet that is

rife with all the colors of the rainbow that has the complex carbohydrates, the healthy fats, the healthy proteins, et cetera. Timing is something I don't think we really talk a lot about. It's something that I always am trying to figure out and quite frequently getting wrong to my detriment and to the detriment of my sleep and vacillations in my energy levels. What are some of the common mistakes that even informed well-intentioned people make around healthy eating when they know those basics and then you see what they're doing? Maybe it's Lindsey Vonn, maybe it's some other athlete that you're working with and you're like, why are you doing this? Honestly, when it comes to timing, I think people leave it too late to eat,

even when they think they're eating. And I mean that in the sense that food's the last thing, generally, if you're really busy, people don't put it first. I know that sounds like counterintuitive for a second, because if you're an athlete, you're different. You've got someone looking after you. Thinking about your day and you've got a meeting, you're meeting and running over, how well planned are you to still eat if that's like your lunchtime period or if you've got to go to the gym or these things? I find that people, number one, the biggest root problem is they don't respect themselves enough. They don't put themselves first. And so when it comes to timing, their first thing to sacrifice

is their health through food. It's not even training. They'll train before they'll eat. sacrifice is their health through food. It's not even training. They'll train before they'll eat. And so I think that's a massive factor for me. And so I've seen that consistently where people were like, oh, I'll go do this bit later. I'll grab a quick bar. And like, it's not enough. It's not enough. Like, and I know it's easy for me to say, cause I work around food, but if people simply apply the same principles of planning that they do for their work life, just for like a half an hour about what they're going to eat throughout the week and how they're going to store it and all that kind of stuff. It's really simple to do. They could absolutely solve all these issues that I see

happening every day. Even if you look at like athletes, when they finish a workout, if they don't have a setup, they typically wait two and a half, three hours before they actually eat. And it's so shocking to me. And I'm not talking about this whole concept of glycolytic window, just simple nutritional value. The biggest issue outside of timing is not eating enough. I've seen this day in, day out. And a lot of it comes back to the whole aesthetics. People don't eat enough food. And it's contrary to how we look at obesity, particularly in this country and how we've just noted what's like 1 billion people are now obese or something like that. But when it comes to us, particularly those people listening today who are around

this health and wellness space, eat to support the amount of work you're putting in, not just for your effort of activity, but your brain. Your brain needs food. It needs it. And I don't want to use myself as a reference here, but if you look at like a training session, when you look at doing a low intensity session, your body's burning calories. Awesome. If you do a high intensity interval training session, you're burning more work after the actual training session because your body's having to work so hard to bring it back to a steady state. All the parameters, the heart rate, the stroke volume, the ultimate cardiac output, that's just two or three parameters in getting your body back to its level environment. The day after a training session and you'll see it in your whoop or your strain, you're so high,

the next day you need to eat. People are like, I'm not working out as much today, so I don't need to eat. You need to eat. Your body's working so hard to recover. And I think people say, well, I'm not sore anymore. I'm like, well, there's more going on in the DOMS that's happening. So principles, step one, planning. I definitely say we have more people not eating enough and the timing around our food is disrespected. One of the things I've noticed about you is you're always eating. You're always eating. I think there is something, I don't know what the science is, about metabolic health and, you know, always kind of like eating a little bit all the time as opposed to long stretches of time

and then a huge meal that you then, and this is something I'm guilty of, you know, like, and then collapsing and falling asleep. Sure. But it is like an outrageous statement on one level to say like people aren't eating enough when we're all obese, right? I know you're talking to a very specific type of person.

Yeah. And, you know, I fall into that category. Like I don't plan enough and I'm busy. And a lot of times it's just catch as catch can. And I make do with whatever it is. And suddenly it's seven o'clock at night and I got to figure out like what dinner is going to be about. Cause I haven't thought about it all day. Yeah. That's actually it though. And that comes under the same principles of everybody that are busy, which we all are. Whenever someone sends to me how I am, I go,

I'm busy. i'm like well so is everybody so like and i think the principles i'm trying to instill is just putting yourself first you know i want people i want people to register that like in a day no one else is going to do the work for you and that means looking after you like you are if you're trying to be improving your performance you're trying to be improving your performance, you're trying to be healthier, just start to put yourself first. You've got the book divided into like different categories, right? Like pre-workout, recovery, sleep support, game day, right? Digestion, quick energy, which is a cool way of organizing it rather than saying it's breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, desserts, things like that,

which speaks to this performance thing, like different types of foods for different purposes. So what are some larger kind of rules around like, how do we eat before we work out? How do we eat after? How do we eat to maximize recovery? How do we eat so that we're taking out an insurance policy on restfulness at night? Yeah, good question. Most important thing to think about this is still subjective because although what may be good for you per se, you may not feel up for it. And so priming your endocrine system to do the work to make sure you're actually digesting

food, et cetera, is actually, you know, your serotonin, your endorphins come out when you're lit up, right? If you're not lit up, they're not going to be primed. So what I mean by that is if you're someone who can't digest food before a run, like if you're about to do a marathon and you'll say, like, as much as I tell you, make sure you eat two hours before your race as your last main meal, have a banana and maybe one of your gels before the marathon. If you're one of those people, I can't do that. It's like, cool. I can't force it down your throat. So if you're doing a run and you're getting up to your workout whatever it is that's still subjective ideally

you do want to have at least like half a banana in your system before any workout and that's like when I'd say that it's more than like a 45 to an hour workout timing wise if you're someone's getting up and doing like you know your f45 or your your HIIT class and like I want to do that it's early morning you don't have to have anything beforehand. Just have a coffee if you want. But in terms of your follow-up then, what they say is if you didn't have anything before your workout, if you did it fasted, you should definitely have something sooner because if you have to have amino acids in your system to break down the work that's going on. So if you're someone who does something in a fasted state, in your system to break down the work that's going on. So if you're someone who does something in a fasted state, make sure you get food into you relatively quickly after your workout.

If you're someone who did eat before your workout, you have still two hours relative post-workout where there is shown to have amino acids still in your system amongst everything else that's going on. I think that's another principle as well. It's like, make sure when you're eating, that's what we talk about. Make sure you're eating a variety of foods. Because if you just get the protein, if you just get straight carbohydrates, you don't have the micronutrients, which we know is the fifth macronutrient. If you don't do, you don't have those principles, which are huge along the whole pathway. Because people look at protein like, oh, I've got my protein, it's going to work. I'm like, yeah, but if you don't have all the registered micronutrients to help support

that process, then they're just going to be sitting there and not being able to do anything. So you've got to make sure you have the right nutritional value around that, whether it be just some greens and some colorful ingredients. So I always say every meal should obviously, we say this, every meal should contain colorful ingredients, right? Before you work out, if you're not going to work, if you're not going to eat before you work out, make sure you have something within two hours after, all right? Then when it comes to the food specifically, this is where it starts to vary. And we talk about like the ratios of like, you know, 50% carbs versus that kind of thing. And how do you look at that on a plate?

Well, we break it down in the sense that carbs can be broken down typically into starchy veggies, brown rice, sweet potato, all the things that we register pretty normally, right? If you see like if your plate was a circle and it's like 50% of that, it's a pretty simple basic understanding. Same with your protein. What's your favorite protein? Tempeh? Tempeh, lentils, black beans. How much protein do you reckon you get a day? How much protein do you reckon you get a day? I meet my daily requirements, but I don't go over. When I haven't had those staples, I definitely supplement with plant-based protein. But I probably get, I don't know, probably 100 grams.

100 grams? There's like sort of a trend right now of more and more and more protein. I've been more conscious of it because I'm coming up on 58 now. And I know that as you age, it becomes much more important. So I've been more diligent about it. But when I was like killing it in doing Ultraman and all of those races, my protein intake was definitely on the lower side and it didn't seem to impair my performance at all. No, no. That's very subjective. So I think people get all up in their head about protein. And listen, when you're kicking up on 60,

maybe start thinking about it more diligently. But all the energy and hand-wringing that goes into protein with younger people, I feel would be better placed on making sure that you're getting your micronutrients and your fiber and all these other things that aren't as sexy and aren't as fun. That's the most frustrating thing when it comes to this whole macro lens, if you will, if I put a double meaning on it. People look at protein, it's like, it's been drawn out just due

to marketing on CPG products. They see a protein on the thing. It's like, oh, it's a number. It's a simple number to hear. And everyone's like, if I hit my numbers at the day, it's easy. The most dominant one we look at is protein because it leads to lean muscle and the development of a better metabolic rate, right? But unfortunately, as you said, the unsexy topic is the micronutrients. And because they're micro, we determine them as less important because the term micro is not as good as macro. Not only that, it's a bit more complex. So that's why I've just kind of positioned it as the macro, the fifth macronutrient. You're not a hundred percent plant-based, but you're a very plant forward guy in general. I am plant-based. Am I going to be able to pick up this cookbook and put it to work as a plant-based person? Yeah, dude.

Were you thinking about me when you wrote this thing, dude? Always, man. I was like, if I'm going to ask you to write a blurb, I better make sure it's got some plant-based stuff on it. Yeah, dude. Essentially, most of it is plant-based or at least plant-forward. And then what we've done is for recipes that aren't, they're flexed. So I've actually graded one recipe for both plant-based and not that's the same recipe. And that's something that's like another thing.

It's like I didn't want people to be alienated into thinking they couldn't ever eat, cook, or do these things things and to create a book around that and include those principles where you know kind of on the cusp of talking about is so important to me it's more important to get people cooking that is to alienate around like the specifics of it to be honest and once that happens then you can educate and so yeah like the idea of making a really creamy sauce out of tofu is actually a lot of, have you done that before? I let my wife do that. Okay.

You've had her cheese. You know, she knows what's up and how to make things taste creamy. It's so good, man. What about hydration? You talked about the importance of hydration as another real important pillar. Yeah. Okay. So I don't want to be generalistic, but I'd say when you're working out, people don't have enough sodium or electrolytes to support the amount of work they've done. On average, on the lower end, about 350 milligrams of sodium is typically per hour that we lose. On the higher end, if you're a really heavy sweater, it's about 725 on average. I'm a heavy sweater. So when I finished like my two

hour runs, I'm like, wow, I need like, that's why I have dogs lick me afterwards. I'm so salty. But effectively, if you look at that and you look at like some of the older generational brands of electrolyte supplements or actually like drinks, rated drinks, they're kind of like around 300 milligram range of sodium and electrolytes. And you're like, wow. And you start to see more of these brands come out there, like more like LMNT, Hyro, you got all these brands that are like 500 milligram sachets, which you can then deploy into water. So I think in general, from an athletic perspective, we've got to be sure to understand where we're at and you can do sweat tests, you can do all those things. If you're more on the pre-dialed in athletic side, I really recommend you do that to

know where you're at because just 2% loss in dehydration can lead to a detriment in your performance. Yeah, I feel it for sure. I think what you're saying is accurate. Certainly when I'm hydrating properly, we work with Element. And when I'm using that during my sessions and after my sessions, I do feel like I recover more quickly. Like my energy level just stays consistent afterwards. I don't get that sense of depletion. And I do think that most athletes are not as conscious of this as they should be. My only kind of precautionary sentiment around this is that this message, because a lot of people are talking about this right now, spills over into our relationship with sodium as average

everyday citizens. And there's this message sort of propagating around the internet that people are sodium deprived in general and need to be upping their sodium intake in a world in which we're afflicted with insane rates of chronic disease and rates of hypertension that are damaging people's health all over the place. So unless you're preparing all your meals at home and you're not using any sodium whatsoever, you're more likely eating out a lot, getting Postmates and all that kind of stuff. And if you're eating at a restaurant, not your restaurant, but most restaurants, they just overdo it with sodium. Most people are getting way too much sodium. So I just, that's almost like a PSA that I have. I mean, I'm interested if you agree with that, but I do see on the internet, everybody talking about salt and I am concerned about how that's being interpreted. Yeah, it's a good point. So there was an article in the New York Times pretty recently. It talked

about essentially there was a quiz you can do. There's 10 different products and you could choose and say, which one do you think contains more sodium? And you go down the list and like I myself, I, someone who's in this space got five out of 10. So it shocked me to see, oh my God. It's just hidden in so many things because it's used to make these foods palatable. A hundred percent. And so what I would say is packaged foods in general all have extra sodium in them, hidden sodium. So to your point, mate, it's like, yeah, if you're someone who on the regular is having packets of chips, certain types of cheeses, even like certain bacon, even the turkey

bacon, or even like a lot of these, unfortunately, some of these plant-based products that are like super high in sodium to accommodate the preservative or even just to make them taste a certain way. You do have to monitor that. So if you're someone who's constantly having those products, you're probably doing too many. What were the ones that you got wrong? What did you miss? Oh, dude, there was a cheese. There was a cheese brand. It was like a pepper jack cheese company, the company name, but it was up against a packet of Cheerios. And I was, it's not a packet of Cheerios. What's that ones with the, um, the cheesy fingers. What are those ones? Oh, uh, Cheetos. Cheetos. Yeah. So it was Cheetos versus that. And the cheese had more.

And I'm like, what? Wow. Yeah. And then you had like soda cans and a bunch of the other ones. And it shocked me. I was like, wow. And to be honest, a lot of the time, both of them had too much already. So it's like the obvious one was still high. Like it wasn't as if it was like, you know, one was extremely low and was high though. Most of the time when you pick something that was on the lower end, it was still a high sodium count product. So I guess in a nutshell, if you're eating whole foods, if you're eating a lot of whole foods throughout the day and you're looking after yourself and you're athletic, yeah, you've got to make sure you're getting enough electrolytes in. If you're someone who still adds packets of

chips and things like that, you may not need as much additional help. You're probably well in excess of your daily sodium requirements. I mean, that's the only qualifier I wanted to make of that. Fair point. But speaking of things that get talked about on the internet, what are some of the other nutrition trends that you find cringeworthy? Oh, like kale. Can I swear? You can say whatever you want. When people say kale's bullshit, I'm just like, oh my God. There's one certain culprit, or I can think of two people come to mind who are propagating that nonsense. And I had a really good chat with Simon Hill about this

and I was just like, we work so hard and to be honest, can be a boring landscape to talk about healthy food, right? We try so hard to sexify that and someone comes along and says this and I'm just like, oh, man it's clickbait it's not like you know and they know it they know it they know better oh how far this rabbit hole do you want to go down i mean i don't want to linger here too long but my point being there's a lot of

nutrition misinformation out there you know someone who's spinning a very reductive theory that is appetizing because it's so simple and it generally orients around everything you have been taught or you think you know is wrong. And this healthy food that you've always thought was healthy, that everyone says is healthy, is actually unhealthy and is killing you. And here's a study to support that. Yeah. It's like when gluten-free came out, everyone's like, oh, I'm going to be healthy. I'm going to be gluten-free. And it's like, well, I understand if you're celiac or you have issues digesting gluten, but it's not necessarily bad for you. In fact, now gluten-free products came out with a very high in sugar, refined sugar. So then all of a sudden people- Well, there's so many situations in which the solution to the problem is worse than the original problem. So yeah,

those gluten-free things, there's a lot of processed packaged foods around that. Yeah. There's that one. I mean, there's still, when people still ask me like macro counts, like if it fits your macros, have you heard that one before? No. So it's like a very big bro culture dogmatic thing where it's like, and I don't mean this in a bad way, but people essentially say, I'll have calories, I have macronutrients and like whatever I get them from, whatever source I get them from. So say- It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. So if say a snicker bar was exactly what my macros were for the day,

that's fine. I was like, okay, gut health, macronutrients, vagus nerve, brain, blood-brain barrier, none of that's going to get benefit. Detriment. How are you an antidote to that? And how do you think about how you present and show up on the internet as somebody who's talking about food, cuisine, performance, fitness, and the like. I just feel like you're somebody who is taking responsibility for that. And you're always putting out a positive message.

You're always trying to help people, but you're not looking to like create some kind of controversy or trend per se. Like it's always, you know, pretty like grounded, basic stuff. Here's a helpful thing. Yeah, exactly, man. I think it's so important to be leading by example. And so like the stuff I

share is like I've led a life the way that I want people to lead an example within their own retrospect, but I don't want to feel like I'm bringing something up that's just clickbait. Like I brought up this whole thing around sodium, super important on my stories for people to reflect on it, understand it, right? Do with it what you will. It's like plant-based or not plant-based. People talk to me, should I be plant-based? Should I not? I'm like, well, here's the for and against. Here's the reasons as to why. The biggest message I would say is I think it's more important that you focus on eating more plants than deciding on what sorts of protein you focus on, right? Because not enough people eat more plants, right? So I try to lead a life

that is more existent with the lifestyle that I talk about. And that's simply it. Lead by example. And then avoid any forms of clickbait, trying to get in the media just through the title, kind of SEO grabbing situation. SEO is important. My life has a success of because of that due to the healthy cook and stuff like that but I don't like the idea of doing anything that's

not authentic to me so lead the life share the message and also surround yourself with legends who are the experts in their field

that may not be as good at telling the story but they're okay being someone to share with you to share that story and I think that's what I've always enjoyed too is like lifting other people up using their expertise to highlight a style that should be important. Well, the catchiest sort of nugget style stuff that you do

is this series around what people spend a month on food and then inviting yourself into their apartment to cook for them. And you do this on TikTok and on Instagram. And you've gotten some cool people like Ryan Serhant, Jared Leto. Who else have you had? You just had Dwight Howard. Yeah, that's right. You had Dwight Howard, which is always really fun. I think I joked with you if you asked me, like, I have no idea what I spent or whatever. But what's so great is that it's like how to cook. It's also healthy eating. It's also like, I want to see what this person's house looks like. You know, that kind of real estate thing, you know, especially in New York City.

Yeah, dude. And then how do you whip something up when you open up the fridge and there's like nothing in there? And how do you figure that out like on the fly? Like, it's really fun. It's very clever. Thanks, mate.

It's actually so real that people sometimes are like, is that real? Like there's people, obviously like I can't just bump into Jared Leto. Come on, man. These are like prearranged, right? Some of them are, man. Some of them are.

Do you just roll up on people without them having any idea? You've got to think about this culture now in New York City where like you're almost expected to be like, especially on a weekend and you're in Washington Square Park and there's so much going on. It's a lot easier to do it there than say a random street in Malibu. Yeah, sure. But like the idea was like it came out of, okay, I want to show the fact that you can cook.

People are like, you can't cook from anything. Like come check out my fridge. I'm like, I will show you I can still make a meal based on what you have in your fridge. And so that's how it started. And so it catalyzed the ability to also show again, unique version of New York city and the different types of apartments you have and the budgets people spend and they say they spend. And it's like, that's the fun part,

but how do you scale it? How do you create a business out of that? And that was another challenge in itself. But the fun thing for me, they got the cook and I love that. Is it a business? How could that be a business? Well, not the business of, it's essentially opened the doors for me. Well, it's created, yeah, because those are the kind of videos that are going to get spread around and people are going to share it, right? So it just creates, it's like a billboard. It creates broader awareness of who you are and what you're doing. Exactly. So it's like, it inspires people to be like, oh, I can do something with nothing. And then you create like a, I don't know, an AI bot that if you take a fur of your fridge,

you can tell you what you can cook from it and then start to translate. You must have shot some of these where they, it goes wrong and then you don't air them. I'm not going to ask you to name names. Who said no? You know, there's got to be some crazy stories though. Oh, I've had some times where people start and then I'll go to edit the video or the team will go to edit the video and they hit me up and like, Hey man, I actually don't feel comfortable doing this. And you're like, Oh, absolutely not. That's fine. Like I never want to be that way. But there's been times where like I've gone up to someone and someone's like, Oh, you scared me. Obviously like, Whoa, especially

now you gotta be really careful. But yeah. Yeah. You mentioned bro culture a minute ago. I look at you and I see somebody who kind of straddles, like you've got one toe kind of dipped into that world. Like you are this tactical athlete and there is a kind of bro culture, hybrid athlete, lifters who run, like this is a new thing, right? Guys who are just, you know, shredded and ripped, but are now signing up for marathons and the like. It is an interesting trend. I think it's cool. Like anything that gets anybody to get interested in fitness or people who have never really embraced running to run or think about running differently.

Cause it, you know, there's a physique out there that I aspire to have that isn't like what you think of when you think of a marathon runner. What do you think about like, is this a fad? Is this something that's building? Like there's all these new, like High Rocks is now like a huge thing. It's sort of the evolution of CrossFit on some level.

Yeah. But there's this whole kind of world opening up around the hybrid athlete. And it's also like, there's a fashion piece to it as well. Dude. That reminds me a little bit of cycling where there's all these rules

about what you can wear or should wear and shouldn't. I don't know if that's a good thing, but there's a uniform to the hybrid athlete, right? Black shorts, black tank top, white socks, white shoes. It's a thing, right? What is going on? Look at Will Gooch. Like, is he just not-

Oh, well, he's the poster boy. Right, like he's just this specimen. Even like Nick Bear, all these guys. And I'd also say Milena thinks I have more than one toe in the bro culture. Oh, yeah, yeah. Maybe a little bit. A little bit, right? But are you more endurance athlete or more bro?

You're pretty bro-y. I'm pretty bro-y, dude. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. I love my lads. I think push comes to shove. You're headed to the gym before you're headed out for the long run. Yeah.

I'd say like high rocks is honestly the perfect, like i'm gonna have a crack at hyrox i think that's the perfect type of thing for me because it doesn't include so much strength i wouldn't be strong enough to beat with those crossfit guys yeah but i love like hunter mcintyre dude i'm ready i said to him like what do i need to do to beat you and like what's hunter yeah you need to quit everything you're doing yeah and spend the next 10 years doing nothing but training and you still aren't going to beat him because he's a maniac he's a maniac dude he's like he's like yeah you're gonna have to like run a 340 kilometer after doing a sled push and then go 330 anyway yeah the high rocks the hybrid this world is become i, so much more accessible to the average

individual. And I mean, the sense that CrossFit had a really good job creating this almost a gamified version of fitness. It did a really good job of that. It got to a position though, where it wasn't scaled in my opinion, to the point where technique was paramount. It was more about the end result. So you had more people succumbing to injuries and situations like that because you got olympic lifting like like watching crossfit people do the pull-up thing oh man i'm like what is happening tipping yeah yeah dude but like the olympic lifting bars i did a five-year degree to know how to teach someone how to do that and so to like have I don't know, you go in to do it and you just see people picking it up after a month and expecting to be perfect. It's like, that's how you lead to

injury. And you're not doing one rep, you're doing 15 sometimes. And I'm not here to say it's not good. I'm just saying over time, I feel like definitely had an issue with creating a wider net of average individuals to draw into a competition. And that's why I like the idea of the running's free, right? Anyone can run and running's become cool, especially cool. Cause like now I have to spend an extra half an hour before I go out to actually know what I'm having to wear and make sure I'm matching. Yeah, you better put the uniform on. Exactly. So you've got that, but High Rocks and all these other events have made it a much more approachable for everybody to honestly get off the couch and train.

And that's why- Should explain what High Rocks is for people that don't know. Yeah. So High Rocks is a circuit style competition where you do eight different disciplines. In between each discipline, you have one kilometer run. So you ended up doing eight kilometers along with eight different disciplines. And disciplines can be anything from a thousand meters ski, rowing. You could be doing pushing a sled, pulling a sled, wall balls, lunges, bounds, farmers carries. And so when I look at this, it's like, you can be someone who literally

get off the couch and wanted to go do something for the first time and train for this. Actually, that's why Centaur, we partnered with them. We're so excited. Oh yeah, I think Luke told me that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting. So like we are now the equipment and also digital supplier for them because it was like, it's perfect in our wheelhouse to help support people to work towards a fitness event that they can have as a goal. And I think that's something that's like interesting when you look at what motivates people.

It's very easy to motivate yourself towards running something or doing a marathon or half marathon or 5k. Cause you, you're like, okay, this is the date I'm going to train towards it. So it's so good with like a high rocks event. When you've got an event coming up, you go, okay, I'm going to train for something great to the high rocks event. I'm going to sign up. Then you've got like a 10 week lead time to train towards it. And it's like, you don't have to be technically sound. You can just be, want to run for a little bit at any pace I want and move my body with some exercises. It's growing really fast, isn't it?

Yeah, dude. It's really exciting. You mentioned Center. Center is Chris Hemsworth's fitness and nutrition app. You're the nutrition guy on that platform. How did you get involved with that? And what is your role in it now? Like it's grown, like it's a big thing, right? Yeah, man. It started like five years ago. It started just as an app. Chris and I met at Tourism Australia event and he was telling me about, he was making this app that we're talking about food and nutrition, like how he's eating for roles and whatnot. And I was like, that's, you know, we're talking about those awesome dudes. Like, yeah, man, I'm thinking about creating an app to support my lifestyle. And

because I think it's other people want to do this and make it really approachable. So, you know, I was like, I'll give you a call or I'll get somebody to give you a call if anything happens. And I'm like, okay, cool. Didn't think anything would happen. About nine months later, I got an email from the team producing the app and they asked me to be the head of this, this part of the division. And so it started out solely as a digital platform and now has grown into a complete brand of wellness where we have equipment. Right, making products and stuff, right? Products, yeah. We've got everything from adjustable dumbbells to home kits, full racks and everything. And now we have, we're the equipment partner of High Rocks.

High Rocks, yeah. And when you think of a fitness app, you're thinking of those typical apps, but this is like super high production. Like there's all these videos and like all of this count, like it's a different version of what you think of when it's at a higher level. Yeah. The execution level is really. When the whole process of us getting somewhat acquired happened about two years ago, that was one of the biggest pills i talked about our content is just so intentionally good it's so good and the team do an incredible job we now have a place in la which is yeah you didn't were you just with them or what did i just see where was i somebody like i just was it luke or maybe it was you like shooting a bunch of stuff that would have been luke he's putting people through a daily something

maybe that was luke yeah yeah lu, Luke Zocchi, man. So Luke is, Luke Zocchi, Zocco, famously, you know, trainer to Chris Hemsworth, lives in Byron. I had a chance to go to his house and do a workout. How good is his house, man? Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, he's got a nice setup there. True or false? You prepared a meal plan for Chris as he was preparing for Thor?

False. False. False. All right. There's a lot of news around that. A lot of Daily Mail articles about you basically coming up with the meals for him. I figured that didn't ring true. No, no, of course. I've always like, it's funny because he's had, Luke does a lot of that, to be honest. Luke is with him so much. He's confident, you know, that, to be honest. Luke is with him so much. He's confident, you know, and Luke and I chat about all the time because news article will be like, Dan did this. And I have to text Luke and be like, Hey bro, this came out just FYI. And you know, you know what media is like. And so you have to set the story straight, but he's got an amazing team around him. Like even Aaron who works with

him on the daily, uh, on the operational side, it's like, it's a true representation of having people around you that you trust and love. And I think that's what you see. And it's what I see every day. It's like, we can't do what we do without the right team around us, you know, and people you're confident to say they'll look after you. So if Chris ever asked me to make him a meal for Thor 7, I'll obviously do it. He's good. You might have to compete with Ross Agile, who's trying to give him cake and cupcakes. He's always talking about cookies and stuff like that. I was like, dude, I don't think that's really how you're eating. No.

How is that possible? I don't know. He's like the most ripped guy ever. Yeah. I don't know what's going on there. We're getting him in here soon though. Oh, you are? Yeah, I don't know.

He's on the calendar at some point. Is he swimming over here? He's going on there. We're getting him in here soon though. Oh, you are? Yeah, I don't know. He's on the calendar at some point. Is he swimming over you? He's coming through LA. He's doing all kinds of top secret stuff that he wants to come in and talk about. So I'll be sure to ask him, Dan. Yeah, nice. One of the things that you think about

or that is sort of a common dilemma with chefs is that it's an unhealthy lifestyle. You're eating all this food, you're in the kitchen all the time, it's high stress, et cetera. And a lot of chefs deal with burnout and poor energy levels and getting overweight and all this kind of thing. You're modeling a different way. You're not in the kitchen every night, so it's a little bit different than what one would think of as a chef. But I think it's important to kind of spend a few minutes to talk about

how you balance everything and how you prioritize healthy living. Because you're not somebody who only has one thing going on. You have a lot of demands on your time. Like you must have to be incredibly efficient with how you're scheduling everything out to get everything done that you're doing. And fitness is at the forefront of your profession. So on some level that distinguishes you from a normal person, but, but I do see somebody who's taking seriously that investment in self, not in like an indulgent way, but in a way where you're modeling like what's possible for anybody in any profession. Yeah. So I think like the I look at it is the role of a chef has profoundly changed over the years. And the opportunity to become one is the same across any industry in

the way that I feel there's no one way to skin the cat anymore. And I've always looked at like, I want to pave my own path to what I believe is the way that will make me happy, but also achieve the success I want to have the impact that I have. And that starts with like Sunday night. My first thing I do is I write a group newsletter to my family. And that's like, I'm bringing that up because that's so important to my headspace to reset my week. And I want to share within the week and being far away from them

is a great way for me to connect with them. But then from there, it's like all about setting in the things that I know are the controllables. I talk all the time about control the controllable. Now there's certain times of the day where you know stuff's going to pop up, issues, obligations, distractions. And so you have to find a way to put out those fires. In this situation, by putting particularly things that I really need to do for me in the morning, I know they'll get done. And so at least at the end of the day, if I've had a bad day or things didn't go the way I wanted, I still looked after me. So that involves chefing and everything. So I know that there's a certain number of times I'll go to the restaurant. I know those days I'll get out later. So the following morning I'll need to,

you know, look at my sleep in time and adjust it accordingly. So I set up my workouts accordingly. So I know when I'm going to work out. I then look at my gaps when I can set out food. So again, putting myself first with my food and then restaurant time. Outside of that, my team works on when to schedule in like all my content staff or meetings with my partners, et cetera. But the most important thing that I do is yeah, effectively put what's important to me first. Because if I can't look after me, I cannot be the best partner, Milena. I can't be the best dad to Maverick, the best dog in the world. I can't shop for my mates. I can't shop for my team.

And I learned pretty early on in that I was struggling. I was burning the candles at both ends and I just wasn't being the best person. So I was like, well, the reason for that is even if I get all those things done in a day and not my stuff, then I struggle. So it's so important to look after me. And it's not a selfish thing. I really believe that if you put yourself first, it's selfless, because that means you are willing to do what it takes to make sure you look after the people that most importantly around you. What's a day in the life of food look like for you then?

Kind of varied. How much prep are you actually doing? I mean, you're around kitchens all the time, so you're able to pop into these kitchens and make yourself something here or there. But are you planning ahead? What does it look like? Especially when you're busy. Sure.

So when the restaurant's busy, man, I can't get in there. I don't want to get the team or me to stop what I'm doing to make a meal. So it's sometimes easier either to purchase something or effectively make something ahead of time. So I'll definitely say despite being around a restaurant, sometimes it's a lot easier not to eat there. So I know everyone says, oh, you're around food, but it's sometimes less easy than you think.

I would say that the stuff that I do is like my breakfast oatmeal. Dude, have you seen my oatmeal bowl in the morning? Have I showed you that? No. Oh, dude, it's called the Power Bowl. It's like oatmeal, cinnamon, frozen raspberries in oatmeal and cinnamon, and then like maple, peanut butter, natural yogurt, walnuts, chia seeds, flax seeds. Like that in itself is awesome. Like that just gets me. That's why I get out of bed. You're the second person in a week to come in here and just like go crazy on oatmeal. I had

Michael Chernow in here. I did, I saw you. So he's talking about his creatures of habit, like oatmeal concoction and all of that. And just getting all fired up about, you know, especially ironic in this moment where people are like demonizing oatmeal as a breakfast when it truly is like the breakfast of champions. Oh, dude. Was it yours texting? It was like, I think I did, remember I did that 10, I went plant-based. Someone said to me, you couldn't build lean muscle on a plant-based diet.

I'm like, you're wrong. Watch this. So I went plant-based for like eight weeks and I ended up building, you know, the muscle and the strength. And all that time, I didn't realize how much protein was actually in my oatmeal that was plant-based. I had 38 grams of protein in my oatmeal bowl. And I was like, wow, I've been eating this without, I swapped the yogurt to was plant-based. I had 38 grams of protein in my oatmeal bowl.

And I was like, wow, I've been eating this without a bit. I swapped the yogurt to be plant-based yogurt. It was a good lesson for me because I don't really count nutritional value per se too much. Like usually I do it one time or whatever. And then like, I'll know if the next time, but that was a good reflection of me going like, yeah, you can eat shit tons of protein on a plant-based diet. Sorry to diverge, but that was exciting for me. So I want to share it. But effectively I'll have my oatmeal and then I'll typically, particularly right now, I'll definitely do like three eggs,

avocado toast three hours later. And I'll have like some sort of bowl, you know, macro bowl, what I call the Monday to Friday bowl, which is like roasted veggies, some wild rice, some sort of protein sauce. And then sometimes a shake in the afternoon and then dinner, which will be, you know, pasta or something that I just love cooking up. So that's a day on a plate. That's four to five meals typically. Right. And what's the workout regimen? For that or those days? In general, like I know you go, it goes in waves or whatever, like there's going to be more intense days than others.

Sure. But like a typical average day. Okay. So right now I'm probably doing, I just finished up my big load week for marathon, right? So I was doing 90 kilometers. That was my big one. So I think like on the average day, it'd be, you know, 10 to 16 Ks.

That's like six to 10 miles on a morning, just an easy run. And then in the afternoon, I might do some strength work or just hit a cold sauna on a hot plunge. That's it. So like right now, that's it. I typically right now, my week is probably around 80 kilometers, maybe two resistance training sessions and a lot of hot and cold. Yeah.

That's a reasonable schedule. Right? Yeah. How do you do all this when you're traveling? You travel a lot of hot and cold. Yeah. That's a reasonable schedule. Right? Yeah. How do you do all this when you're traveling? You travel a lot, dude. And then you share your whoop scores. Like I saw your whoop score, like you're, you know, you were burning it pretty hard the other day. You bounced back all right. Thanks, man. I appreciate you saying that. You saw the red to the green? Yeah, I did. I'm familiar with the red to the green. Yeah, I bet. I bet. Mate, again, it's the same principle. When I travel, I look where,

and I don't have my kitchen, right? So I try and stay in a place that has a kitchen because I need to cook. I love cooking. So I put myself in my mindset, okay, cool. Plan, where can I eat? Where's a good coffee spot? Where's a wifi? All these kinds of things that I think of ahead of time to make me be able to be sufficiently be my best. And then training, it's like, I'll hit up, I'll hit up my mates who train, like, are we training this day? Are we not? And then I have my running plan right now, which is running plans are easy. It's not like you have to think of a gym to go to. You just got to run unless you have a track. Are there any tracks close to here? What do we got? There's a couple of high school tracks around.

Yeah. So like, I guess it comes down to planning again, man. You just got to plan. And not a lot of people put themselves in the position to do so. And I'm terrible outside of those things. Outside of that, I'm really bad. What are some planning habits or like hacks or tricks that you could share with people? Like what are the apps that you're using? How are you figuring out where you're gonna get your healthy food? Perhaps somebody who's traveling, who's not gonna stay in a place where there's a kitchen

or doesn't wanna cook. Like how do you find the healthy places? Like what are some tools or tips that you can give people who typically get tripped up when they're on the road? So I definitely always allow more time than you think in your brackets, by the way, because you're not used to the travel times. You may have to set up in a place you've never set up before, et cetera. But I'd say, number one, I use Google Cal, so easy, just like block it, right? They block it. If you work with a team,

they know you can't be contacted during that time, even if the time zone is slightly different, everyone knows, right? So I use that. I research essentially like gyms and I'll know relatives that whether it be friends will tell me or what I've seen will have access to the resources I need at that gym. Same with like hot and cold, who has that. Running obviously is easy. And then when it comes to food, like food is, I always put into blocks, right? You've got your, what they call cafes. I feel this is interesting. I think you kind of like this. Cafes in LA can almost be like these, they're almost like somewhat of a diner style set up,

whereas like a coffee shop is more like an Australian cafe, I feel. So like you've got the guys at Great White in Venice. That's like, in my opinion, that's the goal idea for me as a brunch spot, like that kind of concept. And I know it's going to be healthy. It's going to be clean based on the type of plants and veggies and everything on the menu. So relative to where you are, go on to, I'd say, use Safari Maps and type in food. And you can look around and whether it be a bowl place, sushi, or if you're vegan, you

can just go tap vegan and you can be relative to all those things. And at least you can put like a favorite and at least put some relative walking distance to where you're staying. And then you can start to think about that wherever you go. And then you can even look those people up with respective apps or even on Google and has reviews and you can understand they've got images, images tell everything. Even an iPhone, if someone's taking a photo and put a review up on google you'll know whether it's going to be a good one or a bad yeah yeah yeah um here's one for you so right after we wrap this podcast i gotta split jet down to lax catch a flight i'm flying to austin for one night like really quick in and out i don't land in austin until midnight and i haven't

eaten that much today because this is two podcasts in a row i like i want my energy high I don't land in Austin until midnight. And I haven't eaten that much today because this is two podcasts in a row. I want my energy high. I don't want to eat. I don't want my blood going down to my digestion. So I've kept it like super light. And I have very little time after this before I got aboard the flight. And I'm concerned about, I'm going to land there at midnight having not really had dinner and then having to figure out what I'm going to eat at midnight having not really had dinner and then having to figure out what I'm gonna eat, what's open. This is a setup, like this is a recipe for disaster. Yeah, this is tough.

Like, what do you tell me? Like, what is the counsel, Dan? Well, I would- How should I solve this problem? I would have said, if you knew- See, if I was smart, I would have prepared. I would have had, here's my thing. I'm bringing it on the plane. I'm all taken care of.

This is not my life. This is my bad. I should have, you here's my thing. I'm bringing it on the plane. I'm all taken care of. This is not my life. This is my bad. I should have, you should have told me. I would have brought a meal, dude. That would have been easy. Prepare my meals for the next 24 hours and deliver them to me, Dan. I would have had a full brand. I would have had rich rolls.

Like, oh man, my bad. Okay. So I would get one of the team members right now who are around. There's a couple of them to look at key from here to LAX. How long is it? About 50 minutes? Yeah. It depends on triathlon. I would just say, yeah, get them to research bowls, right? Or poke and get like an assortment of low GI. So essentially like veggies, grains, and some sort of a base tofu. And I'd have sauce on the side because you don't know when you're going to get there.

You're going to mix it yourself. So real basic. So boys, if you're listening right now, let's make sure you get there. This sounds complicated. Basically, you're saying find some place to deliver whatever to the hotel like well in advance of me getting there

while it's still open? No, I'd say you guys get something right now, order it, and you pick it up on the way. Dude, I'm out of here shortly. That's not going to happen. That's not going to solve the problem. Next time. Where was it? Next time. Better planning. Yeah, better planning. Better planning. You know, it's like, you know, I'm just chasing my tail right now. I'm going to do the best I can. I'll figure it out. Like I always do. I travel a lot

too. I always figure it out, but I'm just trying to imagine like the less than ideal circumstances that like a lot of, you know, people who are listening or watching like. Yeah. What I would do is look at the distance between here and wherever you're going and look at a spot on the way, order ahead and pick it up on the way. And then you go. What is the mission that you're on, Dan? What are you trying to do here? I'm here to change the world through food, bro. That's what I always say. I really am. I always say I'm here to change the world through food. And what does that mean? It's very broad. I'm like, I'm here to help people cook more, cook better, and ultimately see the impact that food has on your overall life and performance. The thing that I find challenging

in what I do every single day is that people don't look at cooking in the same way they look at the idea of building and developing. The first time you cook, you may cook something and you didn't do a good job. And so you don't never do that recipe ever again. But if you went, how often did you tie your shoelace and just stop the first time? And same principles of habitual nature. How often did you write the alphabet out and take practice and time to do that? Driving a car. If you treat it the same way that you treat every skill you have to learn, it's so manageable. And in fact, it helps you save time, cost, and also washing up time. So what I would say is like, I'm here to help people inspired to

create their habits and routines to live a healthy lifestyle. So if you look at maybe giving the challenge of picking a meal to cook every Tuesday night for the next three weeks in a row, if you look at maybe giving the challenge of picking a meal to cook every Tuesday night for the next three weeks in a row, if you can, I guarantee if you do it every Tuesday night for the next three weeks, the third time you do it, it'll be much cheaper, you won't have as much washing up, and it'll be much more enjoyable. And if you take that into the same routine of eating this healthier lifestyle, and you'll realize like, hey, I could actually do this. And then you're inspired to maybe go to the gym the next day.

Maybe you're inspired to go for a walk. And maybe you're a happier person because of the things that you're getting in personal development. And if I've done that to one person who can then share it to the rest of their family and instill a routine like my dad did to help me cook more, that's my mission right there.

That's a beautiful mission, a catalyst, a change agent. Yeah. And you do it in so many ways and you do it with this infectious energy and optimism. You really are a people person and everyone who spends time around you, like feels good. Like you, you leave your encounters with Dan, like not only like, I like that guy, but like, I feel better. Like I feel, I feel like uplifted by being in your energy. You know what I mean? Thanks man.

The book is, we should mention like is also interactive. Like you have all these QR codes and you can scan them and then it's Dan preparing the recipe and telling you all about it and answering your questions. Has anybody ever done that before? I don't know. It's like, it's pretty interesting. You've got the QR code, which shows the videos. Then you've got the AI, uh, eat like a legend, which you've, you have chat GBT. You can take a photo of your fridge and it'll tell you what you can cook from it. Oh, wow. So like, I've really wanted to make cooking all the more easier, irrespective of this book. I want people to like, be able to type it out, take a photo and all of a sudden they're like, oh, that's a sick idea. I'll just do that. As opposed to cooking's hard, what do I have in my fridge? I don't have to cook,

Postmates, which I get. But over time, it's like you need to learn how to get some of these foundations and fundamentals. And so every resource that I try to put out, whether it be this book or the AI piece, whatever it is, QR codes, YouTube, TikTok, I'm all about helping people make their life a lot easier in this health and wellness space. You are like on every platform doing this. And it's like, pick a lane, dude. I don't know how you, it feels exhausting. Yeah. I mean, is this sustainable? I'd say if you didn't have a team, it is a hundred percent not sustainable. That's part of how I'm able to do all this. I either

film the videos or someone else films me. I then send it to someone who then consolidates and shares it with a couple of editors and then they kind of work it out and then they get feedback. And that's the cycle. Then we have a schedule, a plan. It's like a business. You have to think about it that way if you want to be able to do it. And that's how I've been able to scale it. business. You have to think about it that way if you want to be able to do it. And that's how being able to scale it. So I think that's one thing I'd say is like in this world of content, some people don't treat, again, themselves with respect of being able to actually, how do I scale this and do this long-term? Well, one, you can't do it on your own. So you have to invest in your team. Then once they do that, you have to invest in the systems to help support the

scalability. There's no way we were able to grow our platform the way we did if we didn't have a system in place. So we actually did this whole cool thing of an application process for interns. And like, then they became our editors and it was, it was a lot of fun and games, but you have to think about if you're going to scale anything you do, what are the systems in place to help you win? Do you still work with individuals like you used to? Do you coach people? Do you dabble in that at all anymore? No, I get phone calls and I give advice, but nothing on the professional level. That takes a lot of your emotional energy and not that I don't want to do that.

I just can't give them a hundred percent because I'm drawn into some of my own stuff right now. Right. So, you know, like I still get to work with athletes under companies and stuff like that, but it's not as specific. If it was a really cool project, I'd consider it, but I'd have to pause everything I'm doing because their job is to be the best physically in their chosen field. And if I'm not giving them 100% allowing them to improve by that two to 3% to get on that gold medal stage, then it's hard. Right. You think you're in New York City to stay? Dude, we just bought an apartment.

Oh, you did? Oh, wow. Yeah. Which I'm going to renovate. Same neighborhood that you were living in before? Yeah. So downtown and I want to be constantly building all these resources. And we found that if you are not, particularly in food, it's really expensive to find a studio

kitchen. If you're going to do a podcast, the same thing, particularly in food, it's really expensive to find a studio kitchen. If you're going to do a podcast, the same thing, particularly with cooking. And so now like having my own place that I'll renovate and build out, I also want to have a cold plunge and a hot sauna. Of course you do. Yeah, so. It wouldn't be right, Dan, for you not to have those things.

Well, dude, if you come over now, at least you have me to cook you dinner. You and Julie come over to cook you dinner and you and I can jump in the cold plunge in the sauna together. Why do Australians have short nicknames for everything, Dan? I can't decide whether I'm delighted by this or annoyed. Actually, you're Davo, Jacko, Steve-o, Simo. Simo? You call him Simon, right? Simon. Yeah, I say Simo. Simo. It's not any shorter. Like you don't have to change it.

You know, that's the thing. When the nickname is longer than the actual word. I mean, I feel like I got into New York and most people just say by their first initial, no? Like H or H train, R dog. I don't know what you're talking about anymore. I'm calling you R dog. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Come on, man. My name is, you know, a nickname enough. Yeah. I don't know what you're talking about anymore. I'm calling you R-Dog. Yeah, okay. Yeah.

Come on, man. My name is, you know, a nickname enough. Yeah. I don't need any- Does anyone ever call you Richard? No. Oh, my book agent does. Shout out to Bird.

Yeah, a couple of people do, but it's a weird quirk, you know, sort of like their thing. Or, you know, if my mom was mad at me or something like that, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? What is it that you want people to get out of this book?

What is fundamentally the message that you're trying to convey here? The biggest thing I want is honestly what we talked about with putting themselves first. If there's anything else, it's not the cooking. It's the intentionality about putting yourself first to really get the most out of yourself to then be able to give to others. I can talk about how guys don't cook enough for their ladies, right? There's a great way to get more guys to cook for their ladies, et cetera. It's not about that.

It's a great gimmick, but like, well, not gimmick. It's a great way of selling a book, to be honest. But to me, nothing would please me more than if someone read this book, started applying the principles and said, I'm not just doing it for cooking. I'm doing it for my work environment. I'm doing it for my family. I'm doing everything around it to improve the way that I get up every day, the way that I tackle sleep, the way that I tackle a task and the mindset of living the life that I've always wanted to. And now I'm actually putting myself first and allowing myself to do it.

Can't serve others unless you serve yourself and self-esteem is built through performing esteemable acts for others but also for yourself, right? Dude, that was, wow. Do you honestly think you can change the world with food? I think I can. I really do. But I don't have to be the namesake to do it. So I can influence one

person that can then influence many and who has the ability to make change. And that's one of the things I love about food. I can put a bowl of ramen in front of someone in Japan and we don't speak a word of the same language and we'd still smile and be pleased with the current situation we're in. You know, if I get to build up my profile to the point that I can influence the people that make the decisions on what happens in schools, if I can start to get to enough resources that I can open kitchens in third world countries

to teach people a skill that is so important rather than just giving them the food, if I can support any way of doing that, then yeah, of course, I am changing the world through food. And why should that not be what I want to achieve in the sense that if that's what my honest end goal to myself is like, if nothing makes me happier, I get no more currency than watching someone respond to something that I've said, done in a positive light that's had a great way. That is what motivates me. So yeah, I can do it.

I think that's a beautiful place to end it. But I got to ask, what are the odds on you breaking three in Boston? I'm feeling confident. I'm feeling very confident on my anaerobic and aerobic capacity. It's my knee, but I feel very confident. So pace per mile, what average do you have to hold? About a 640. 640, 645. Yeah,

that's no joke. Yeah. That's for real. Yeah. Did you watch Casey's video about how many times he tried to do this and how long it took him? Oh man, he started from 2000 and what? Took him a long time. I can't believe that. Yeah. But here's the good news. When he hired a coach, he finally solved it. It just took a long time to get to the point where he realized he had to be on a program. And then it only took two times and he did it. That guy can seriously create a story. For sure. It's so true though.

And I think now we're going to see everyone's going to run sub three because Casey Neistat put it out there. It's a lot of work, man. He's a talented athlete, as are you, but breaking three is an exercise in humility. It is, man. Just as much as it is athletic prowess, right? You have to go all in. You have to be really intentional with your training. You have to do slow up. This is what I've been telling you all along, dude. I know, dude. You got my back.

Are you going to give another crack at Leadville? Yeah. So what happened at Leadville? So essentially we were about two hours ahead of my mark and got to Twin Lakes. And Twin Lakes is the 38 mile mark. And then I set off and got to the bottom of the hill and started to, if you don't know Leadville,

so Leadville is a hundred mile race and it's a 50 mile out and back loop. So you do 50 miles there, 50 miles back. And you're at in excess of 10,000 feet of altitude. Yeah. You start at nine and a half thousand feet elevation. So I sent, I set off after 38 mile mark feeling really good, like laughing because we were just like this is so well ahead of the pace that I wanted to be. And as you climb up Hope Pass, which is the steepest part of the entire course, there's only really like two flats

that you can run. Otherwise, you're just kind of like poles the whole way up. So I was like, sick, I'm just going to run this part. And so I set off. And as I set off, it shows importance of mind and fatigue I felt good but my mental state obviously wasn't there and I rolled on a rock and the rock was in the middle of like the flat so it wasn't as if it was like hidden so I rolled I tore my did a grade two ATFL tear on I didn't know at the time but yeah so it crept it had a little slight little tear.

And so I'm in agony, but unfortunately, well, fortunately I'm like, I'm not stopping. I'm not going to like go, if I go down the hill, cause I didn't know at the time, I didn't know how bad it was. If I went down the hill, that means you're pretty much cutting your race. You're not going to go back up. So I decided to continue going. So I got to the top of Hope Pass on essentially two and a half, well, say one and a half legs. Yeah. I got to the top of Hope Pass on essentially two and a half, well, say one and a half legs. Yeah. I got to the top of the pass. As I said, I was like two hours ahead of my mark.

And then I was 10 minutes before the cutoff time. So I lost like three and a half hours on that climb. Yeah, wow. And then so, okay, then I realized I had to kind of try and sprint down the other side of the face to get to the 50 mile mark. And to be honest, if you make that mile mark, there's still a decent chance that you can make it back in time because the back is much quicker than the forward. I slipped again, fell down the cliff base and was not happy and then realized I couldn't run. So I walked

all the way to the 50 mile mark and had to call it. Well, actually I got timed out. I didn't get to quit. I didn't quit. Unfinished business though. Dude, that buckle's pinned. You'll be back? Yeah. I'm back, man. You gonna come?

I like the heat. We'll see. Gotta heal up my back. Okay. I'm getting there, man. You're a legend, dude. I love you. I just love your energy.

Whatever you're behind, I'm behind on your behalf. I got you, dude. And I love what you do. I love how you show up in the world. I love how you're modeling a new way of being successful, healthy, fit, all of these things. You're a positive role model for a lot of people and I'm here to celebrate you, buddy. Dude, that just genuinely means so much, my man. And much love back at you. Thanks for leading the way, bro. Right on, dude.

So eat like a legend out everywhere. Dan is a legend. I'm sure you're going to be on all the morning shows and do all that. Like you know how to get on media, dude. Like you figured that out. I don't know. You know, like you and Drew Barrymore

are like thick as thieves and you do Good Morning America and all that kind of stuff. I'm sure everybody will know who Dan is by the time this podcast drops. And are you still doing the podcast and the other stuff? Yeah, dude. We'll bring that back as soon as this is to our projects. Yeah. I'll link up all the stuff. Dan's got, you could just watch his videos for, you know, the next 20 years and never run out and you're always uploading new stuff. So I love you, buddy. Thank you very much. Appreciate you waiting to hang out in New

York City. I still have to come to Osprey. Yeah, make that happen. Yeah. Cheers. Peace. Peace. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, my books Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and or comment.

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