The Rich Roll Podcast - From Eating Disorder To Olympic Glory: Dotsie Bausch On Defying Age & Championing Compassion

Episode Date: March 23, 2018

We tend to think Olympic athletes live perfect, charmed lives. Genetically gifted, they inhabit a world beyond mortal challenges — physical specimens oozing talent so rare, it effortlessly skyrockets them onto the global stage. I would stridently challenge such a notion. I don't think that is the experience of any Olympian. And it’s definitely not the experience of this week’s guest – an Olympic silver medalist with an almost unbelievably improbable story. A very human story of struggle and pain that underpins her athletic accomplishments, fueling them with a fundamental sense of purpose and meaning. A 7-time U.S. National Champion, former world record holder and two-time Pan American gold medal winner in track cycling, Dotsie Bausch earned silver in team pursuit at the 2012 London Olympics. Not only was she a long-time vegetarian at that time (she’s now vegan), she was almost 40 years old when she won that medal – the oldest ever in her discipline and one of the oldest athletes to ever compete in an Olympic Games. Dotsie's accomplishments are extraordinary. But more remarkable is the hard-fought road this exceptional athlete trudged to achieve such heights. Because Dotsie's greatest achievement isn't athletic. Her biggest victory is the battle won to resurrect her life from the depths of an eating disorder so severe, it very nearly claimed her life. Now retired, Dotsie is a public speaker (check out her TEDx Talk, Olympic Level Compassion), a mentor to aspiring female professional cyclists, and a color commentator for NBC Sports. But most importantly, she is a role model for women and men around the world in their battle to return to healthy eating and living habits as an ambassador for The National Eating Disorders Association. I know Dotsie through the vegan athlete world as a staunch advocate for animal rights and the health benefits of plant-based eating for health and performance. She is also the force behind a recent anti-dairy commercial that aired during the closing ceremonies of the recent PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games. Entitled Switch 4 Good, think of it as an anti- “Got Milk” campaign featuring an array of former Olympic athletes. Disordered eating is a subject I have been wanting to explore on this podcast for quite some time. I just needed the right guest. Dotsie delivers. Her experience as both a sufferer and survivor of this surprisingly common malady is as powerful as it is instructive. This is a conversation about facing and overcoming a disease that affects up to 30 million Americans and 70 million individuals worldwide. A disease so formidable, it drove Dotsie to a suicide attempt. It’s an exchange about the bewildering nature of that disorder and the process she undertook to rebuild her life – from fashion model to athlete. It’s a conversation about her most unlikely route to Olympic glory. It’s about eating plant-based for performance. And it’s about advocacy – what it means to live in service to your ideals. If you suffer from an eating disorder or know someone who does, this is appointment listening. Towards that end, Dotsie conducts a free mentorship program for those in need. Her door is open to any and all reaching out for help. To contact her, click here. Delightful, engaging and strong, I adore Dotsie. I love this conversation. I hope you do too. Watch & Subscribe on YouTube: http://bit.ly/dotsierrp Peace + Plants, Rich

There truly is a way out once an anorexic, not always an anorexic. There is freedom on the other side. There really is a pathway, whichever pathway you choose, to have freedom from it. So many eating disorder sufferers that I met, that's the one thing that they just don't really believe is true. And it is. There really is freedom. And if you let this disease run its course and you die from it, you're not going to be able to do anything. You're not going to be able to have an impact on the world and you're not going to be able to do anything for the greater good. And you're definitely not going to be able to do anything healthfully for the greater good

while you're sick. So allow that to be your bright guiding and shining light out of this. Let that come to the top of your heart and let that guide you. That's Dotsie Bausch. And this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast.

We tend to think Olympic athletes, Olympic medalists, live these perfect, charmed lives, genetically gifted, superior physical specimens, oozing talent that simply skyrockets them effortlessly onto the global stage. Well, I'm here to tell you that that is not the typical experience. In fact, I don't think that is any Olympian's experience, and it's definitely not the experience of this week's guest, an Olympic silver medalist with a most unlikely story, an almost unbelievably improbable story, and also a very human story, a story of struggle and pain, a pain that predicates her athletic accomplishments, provides a foundation for them, provides those accomplishments with a fundamental sense of purpose and meaning. My name is Rich Roll. It's raining out pretty heavily.

Can you hear it on my rooftop here? Sorry about that if it's distracting, but that's neither here nor there because today I'm pleased to bring you a conversation with my friend Dotsie Bausch, a seven-time U.S. national champion, former world record holder, and two-time Pan American gold medal winner in track cycling. Dotsie earned silver at the 2012 London Olympics in an event called Team Pursuit. But here's the amazing thing.

Not only was she a longtime vegetarian at that time, she's now vegan, she was almost 40 when she won that medal, the oldest ever in her discipline and one of the oldest athletes to ever compete in the Olympic Games. And all of that is extraordinary. It's awesome. It's amazing. But honestly, what intrigues me the most about Dotsie is that hard-fought road she trudged to achieve such athletic heights, because Dotsie's greatest achievements are not athletic. Her biggest victory came from resurrecting her own life from the depths of severe eating disorders, which threatened to take her life 20 years ago after a promising modeling career in

New York City. That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this week's guests. There's a ton more I want to say about Dotsie before we dive in. But first, I hope I can indulge you a bit because I have an announcement that I really want to make. As many of you guys know, about seven years ago, I released Finding Ultra, my first book. For those unfamiliar, it's a memoir. It's sort of a redemption story about addiction, sobriety, middle-aged malaise, and ultimately plant-fueled feats of athletic prowess. Well, that book not only changed my life, it went on to have a really huge impact on a lot of people, more impact than I could have possibly imagined. And in fact, every year that book sells more copies than the year before.

And I'm super proud of all of that. But over the last couple of years, I couldn't shake this feeling that the book is incomplete because it failed to tell the whole story. Because in truth, what has transpired in my life since 2012 when that book came out is equally, if not more dramatic and perhaps more relatable. So I decided to rewrite it because I had so much more that I wanted to say. I've changed, I've evolved, and somehow the book felt lacking without bringing it up to date in that regard.

So over the course of the past year, I completely overhauled it from page one. It's now 100 pages longer and the new edition features about 30 to 40% brand new material. It's got a new forward. It's got a new forward. It's got a new 50-page prescriptive chapter that chronicles my journey to present and also lays out all of the specific tools, practices, and strategies that I employed to transform my life, not just physically, but in mind, body, and spirit. It also has a robust recipe section, a seven-day eating plan.

It has my cleanse protocol, and also a robust and updated series of resource appendices to take your discovery further. And finally, it's frankly just better writing throughout. I mean, you know what it's like to go back and read something you wrote six or seven years ago, so it's sort of like that. And I'll close by saying that ultimately, this is not a book about running. It's not about how to become a better triathlete. It's really a book for anyone, specifically those who feel stuck

because it's about refusing to settle for less. It's about the path towards a life fueled by meaning and purpose. It's about accessing untapped reservoirs of potential. It's about self-actualization. And really, all told, it's about how to become our best, most authentic selves. And finally, I would say that it is now, after all of this, the book I always wanted it to be.

So even if you read it and enjoyed the original version, I think you're going to find the revised and updated edition more than worthy of your attention. And for those that enjoy audiobooks, I also re-recorded the entire thing with downloadable PDF files of all the new appendix materials, which is something the first edition unfortunately lacked. So if you have benefited from my free content over the years, it would mean the world to me if you trusted me with a purchase. It's now available from your favorite booksellers on Amazon. I just checked earlier today, it's selling for only $7 and 67 cents. So perhaps that's the best place to get it. And also signed copies are going to be available through my website. That's coming in the next couple of days. Perhaps by the time you're listening to that, that will be live. We're just configuring it all right now. In any event,

thanks for indulging me. I am really proud of this and so excited that it's now out in the world. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment.

And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide.

Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Dotsie. Dotsie's so inspiring. Now retired, she's a public speaker. You should check out her TEDx talk. It's called Olympic Level Compassion. It's great. I'll link it up in the show notes.

TEDx talk. It's called Olympic Level Compassion. It's great. I'll link it up in the show notes. She mentors young women cyclists. She serves up color commentary duties for NBC Sports Network. And more importantly, she is a role model for women and men around the world in their battle to return to healthy eating and living habits as an ambassador for NEDA, the National Eating Disorders Association. But I know Dotsie through the vegan world, through the vegan athlete mafia, as a very staunch advocate for animal rights and the health benefits of plant-based eating for athletes, and anyone, really.

She's also the force behind a recent anti-dairy campaign, a commercial campaign called Switch for Good, which features former Olympic athletes that ran, well, it's sort of ran, but I'll let her tell that part of the story, ran during the closing ceremonies of the recent Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games. So this is a conversation about many things. It's about facing and overcoming an eating disorder so severe that it led her to a suicide attempt. It's about the nature of that disorder and the process that she undertook to rebuild her life from fashion model to athlete. And it's also about

her most unlikely route to Olympic glory. It's about eating plant-based for performance, and it's about advocacy, what it means to live in service to your ideals. Dotsie was delightful, super engaging. I adore her. I love this conversation and I hope you do too. So let's talk to her. All right, Dotsie, so nice to see you. Thanks for coming up all the way from Irvine to do the podcast.

This is a long time in the making. So I'm delighted to talk to you today. Thank you very much for having me. It was an easy drive. We'll see how the way home goes. I know, it might be a little bit different going back, but you're here now and I'm gonna hold you prisoner for a little while. Okay.

So cool, so many things to talk about, but I think the most kind of top of mind thing is this anti-dairy ad that you worked on with a bunch of other Olympic athletes that was intended to air during the closing ceremonies of Pyeongchang. So tell me a little bit about that. Yeah. So, well, the campaign itself is called Switch for Good. And the, you know, kind of the inspiration for me was I was just sitting on the couch watching Olympic trials, like probably, you know, two and a half months ago now. And the Milk Life ad came on.

The Dairy Board is a sponsor of the U.S. Olympic Committee. And it says nine out of ten Olympians grew up drinking milk, which is probably true because our grandparents- Because probably nine out of 10 people grew up drinking milk. And people are all saying all sorts of things like, so did nine out of 10 serial killers. I mean, clearly that's just wildly misleading in terms of what you drink when you're growing up has anything to do with whether you're going to become an Olympian or not. And then it says that milk has natural proteins, as if there's any other kinds, and balanced nutrition in the ad. And my blood just started boiling. I mean, I just thought, just for truth's sake alone,

we have to answer this. This isn't truthful advertising. Well, right. Welcome to Advertising 101. But it just, yeah, it made my heart hurt and it made me mad. And I just, I started thinking, okay, how do we answer this in a really intelligent, backed up by science way with a group of Olympians, because that's the best way to answer it, who are telling the truth and have really interesting stories to tell about their dairy-free lifestyles. So we just, we went to work

and we whipped this puppy together in a really short period of time. And Louie, you got Louie involved, right? So he directed it? He did, yes. Yes, Louie Facios, director of the cove. So yeah, that was just, I had worked with him on The Game Changers.

So I knew him and was used to his style and his directing style. But yeah, he's mesmerizing to be in action with, yeah. Yeah, it's cool. So I saw it, it's on YouTube. Adweek picked it up. There was a lot of press around it. And I know you did like a Twitter chat the other night

that I chimed in on for a moment. And I shared that on my social media. And it's cool because when you think about the power of the dairy lobby on the consciousness of the average consumer, it's kind of astonishing. I mean, it's sort of diabolically genius the way they've been able to infiltrate their message across the board in public institutions. I mean, there's posters in public high schools that say milk does a body good with guys bench pressing and milk mustaches. And then they get involved in the sports community by sponsoring at a very high level, things like the Olympics. I know there are a title sponsor of, I believe, Ironman, I think, or triathlon. They are built with chocolate milk. They're very integrated into the endurance community. And they've done an amazing job of sponsoring athletes to get behind this. And so if you follow many an athlete on Instagram,

you'll see them doing ads for chocolate milk, which has been, they sort of figured out a way to position as some kind of athletic recovery boosting elixir, which is kind of insane. And I don't begrudge these athletes who are trying to make a living, you know, just trying to pay their bills who get involved with this. But when you kind of stand back and look at it from 10,000 feet, you're like, what is going on here? Yeah, well, I mean, other Olympic sponsors are McDonald's and Coca-Cola.

Right, yeah, exactly. So, you know, follow the dollar bills. That's all you ever have to do. Have you been to the, you've probably been to Colorado Springs, right? To the training center? Oh, sure, oh yeah, yeah. I was there, I couldn't believe what,

I think they've improved it this past year. I saw a news piece about they've gotten much better with the food that they're serving. It's a bit better. It's kind of insane. I've been back since I was training. I was there like a year and a half, two years ago, maybe. Yeah, it's a bit better.

I couldn't believe it. But there's an actual entire McDonald's restaurant inside of the eating facility in the Athletes Village. It's free, right? It's free for athletes. Yes, yeah. And I mean, sadly, the entire Eastern block is in line because it's free McDonald's. We're like, oh, gross. Or, you know, we have

McDonald's, but, and it's cheap here, but it's the saddest thing you've ever seen. Just that total mind bender on, you know, you're at the Olympics. I mean, you're pretty sure that people are- All these Ferraris lined up to put sludge into their engines. Just the nastiest. Yeah, yeah. It's so crazy. All right. So this PSA, so tell me about the impact of this, like what happened here. Yeah. So, well, we're- A little bit of a snafu, right? Yeah, we have a little hiccup, to say the least.

So we're just 48 hours in as of today. Media-wise so far, we're at like 25 million impressions and in 48 hours, 35,000 views on YouTube. So we're going well off broadcast, broad perhaps television, But we had a bit of the snafu the night that it was supposed to air on closing ceremonies at 7.15. The USOC was able to get it pulled from NBC because they're a client of NBC's and follow the dollar bills again, because they said it was a direct attack on one of their sponsors. And there was an Olympic IP

issue that they saw in the final card of the commercial. So that is what it is. Yeah. It's not surprising, right? I mean, I'm sure you could have foreseen this, right? Once they get wise to what's going on, like their bottom line lines being threatened by this. It's in conflict with their leading sponsor or a leading sponsor. But the good news is there's something called the internet, you know, and there's a way to still get the message out. And I think it is getting out. So I think it's cool. It's a first stab at counter-programming and there's a story in and of itself. The fact that it got pulled can create a new story that can create additional interest

in what you're trying to accomplish. Yeah, because just like the early years of tobacco, as they went along, people started realizing something was being hidden from them. And people get pissed when they realize something's being hidden and someone's lying. Were you on the receiving end

of a little backlash online? No, no, no, no, not yet. No, ours has been really positive. But what I'm saying is, is now that we're bringing forward how dangerous dairy is and that it's not a health food, it is not a health food, like they are saying it is. And we have many of these really inspiring anecdotal stories and a lot of science backing it up.

People, the general public, as they look deeper because they have something like the internet, like you said, they're gonna start looking deeper and they're gonna start realizing that they've been lied to, that dairy is a health food and it makes for strong bones and that it's good for you. And people aren't gonna like that. So that's good.

Yeah, that is good. That is good. So the athletes, you got Rebecca Soni, who's a friend. Yeah. Kendrick Ferris. Yes. Who else is in the spot? Yeah, yeah, those two are both just amazing.

I love their individual stories. Seba Johnson, who is the first African-American ski racer in history, also the youngest ski racer ever. She is vegan since birth. So she's never had a glass of milk. And in her ski racing career, she never broke a bone. And I don't even know a ski racer that hasn't broken a bone. Yeah, I would imagine most of them

have broken a bone at some point. She did after her ski racing career in a very bad accident. But in her ski racing career, she's never broke a bone. Carol Lang, who's a Canadian soccer player and a mom. She's got a great story. Malachi Davis, who's a sprinter, was a sprinter for Great Britain 2004. And Kendrick is a weightlifter. Yes.

Olympic weightlifter. I can't remember. Did he medal? No, but he was seventh. He was seventh. He did quite well. He was the only U.S. male weightlifter to qualify for Rio. So he was the only one that went.

People don't really realize, I don't think that you, countries have to qualify their spot for Olympic games. And then the country themselves, the coaches pick who will fill that spot, which is not always the person that qualifies the spot. It is in weightlifting for him, but in other sports, which is lots of layers of politics

that people don't necessarily realize goes on. But you have to qualify the spot. It's not like just because you're a country, a big country that you just automatically go to the Olympics. It's not the way it works. Right, right, right. Got it.

All right, cool. Well, let's take it back. I mean, there's so many layers to your story. It's an amazing story. I mean, you's so many layers to your story. It's an amazing story. I mean, you're quite an unlikely Olympian in some regards. You know, I mean, that was not the trajectory that you were headed on as a young person. Most people who end up at the Olympics

are people who've been harboring that dream, you know, since they were an infant, just dreaming of being on that podium. But you were living a very different life as a young person. Just a wee bit. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't. I mean, you did sports, right? You did, you rode crew in college. I did for like a year until it was like messing up my, my party scene. Cause you have to get up at four 30 in the morning. But, um, and I did, I grew up in Kentucky, so I grew up riding horses, but you know, the horse is the athlete,

not you. But I did grow up in like a competitive, I had a competitive nature about me. And I competed in saddlebred horse riding from a young age. So I think I had that part of me and my emotions in my mind that really loved the competition aspect. But then I, through high school and college, it just kind of got away from it and definitely went wayward. I mean, it was a deep dive into the underbelly of New York City and the modeling world. I'm familiar with that underbelly. Yes. So let's explore that a little bit. I mean, you know, something that I can relate to in your story is, you know, you're in college, you're an athlete. And at some point the veneer fades with the early

morning workouts and all of that. And there's this social partying life that kind of enters and starts to take center stage. So I I'm projecting on you, but I'm presuming that at some point in college, this is what was, this is what was happening. point in college, this is what was happening. Yeah. Yeah. I was kind of living two lives because I got okay grades in high school, but I really, really loved college because you're finally learning and doing what... You're free. You're free, but in school, in the actual classes, you're doing what you're interested in. Right. So you're not... So I was getting really great grades and studying really hard and loving my classes.

And then at the same time, just that part of me that I think felt like I hadn't been able to be let out of my shell before had the ability to do that in a way like never before, which almost every single person that's gone to college has experienced that. It's not like that's a rare finding. I mean, growing up, were you, like what kind of an environment was your family situation? I grew up in a pretty traditional, like Midwest, solid family, like great, just, yeah.

So it wasn't like you're rebelling against your parents or anything like that? No, no, no, that we were close. We're still close. Yeah, that time was frigging rough for them, especially as I got more and more towards my deathbed when I got really, really sick with anorexia. Because by that point, I was 20, 21. They don't have any control, right? I'm not 10.

There was really nothing they could do. They tried some interventions that were very unsuccessful. So yeah, it was really tough for them. Well, addiction, alcoholism, sobriety, recovery, these are constant themes of my podcast. And I've had plenty of people come in and share their experience, strength, and hope in this regard. But I've never had anybody on to share about eating disorders.

And there's been a lot of people who've been wanting me to explore this topic, this subject matter on the show. So I'm really glad to have you here because I think your story is very powerful and what you had to face and kind of how dark it got and how you overcame it is pretty empowering. So where does that begin? Where does the dysfunctional relationship with food start to enter your life? Well, it starts with a dysfunctional

relationship with yourself. You said you've had a lot of people on that have had drug addiction, suffered from alcoholism and alcohol abuse. And it's really not too dissimilar. It is a clinically recognized disease. It is an illness. about some kind of issue that they were grappling with, and then they tried a drug or they drank too much, and they realized that they could escape or fall into an ulterior universe and leave that pain that they were in.

Eating disorders really exactly the same route. I was in a significant amount of pain in my life, in confusion and fear. Part of it was stemming from, I felt like a real lack of control as I was graduating college. I had majored in journalism and thought I wanted to go into hard news and realized at the very end of college in my internship that I hated it. And that was one of the first times I recognized how much control big business has over everything that we do. It had a lot of control over news. This is Philadelphia, KYW. And it was like, wow, I don't want to do this. It's controlled the whole time. And so I was

freaking out that what I had just studied and majored in in college, what was I going to do with my life? So I started to, it just very much started kind of slowly in the beginning where I just started to assert some control over my food restriction. Because it's really, really hard to starve yourself. I mean, you know, and that made me feel powerful. Empowered. Empowered. One thing that you can control. Absolutely.

And you can, right? You do, you have the ultimate control over what goes in and you're eating it. Sounds like kind of, you know, almost meaningless or trivial, but it really started to make me feel like I had everything under control. And so how old were you at this time?

19. 19, yeah. And is there kind of a euphoria that's associated with that? Like in the same way that you get a hit from cocaine? Absolutely. Yeah. It's better because I did a lot of cocaine. Yeah. And there's some aspects of this that in my life I've been a little careful with talking about because anybody that is in the midst of an eating disorder, in the throes of the suffering, just as I did, will tend to use some of these ideas that I'm presenting to fuel. So I like to be kind of careful with the, the, um, uh, celebrating it, if you will, in a way where, yeah, it was a

high. Yes. It's when, when you're, when you're starving yourself, you there, you hit a point where, um, you, uh, feel like you're on a substance, um, and you're kind of floaty and very, uh, very, I mean, your brain isn't working. I mean, you know, you're, you're every, every aspect, every organ is being starved. So things start to shut down. Towards the end, and that was what was happening to me, your body starts to eat its own organs. I mean, you know, it will do anything to stay alive. So your brain is an organ.

But I think it's important to acknowledge the fact that, you know, if it didn't work for a while, you wouldn't keep doing it. Like it works until it stops working, right? So one of the first sort of things to confront is just acceptance or acknowledgement of the fact that it was doing something for you, right? And that's what fueled you to continue

or to dive deeper into it. I mean, I don't wanna trigger anyone either, but I think like developing an understanding of how powerful it is and how it really did give you a sense of control in the midst of this feeling of powerlessness that you were experiencing is, I think is important to recognize.

Yeah, no, you're right. And then conversely, discussing the true power that comes with freedom and being well is, you know, that there is no comparison from now to then as far as the actual power that I feel in my life now. But that is, you know, it's a dark, scary place that you keep chasing just like you do a drug because you want that feeling again. But it becomes more and more difficult to access that feeling, right? In the same way that you become tolerant to a drug? Well, you just start eating less and less, right?

You start eating less and less, right? So you're chasing it and then you get to the point where obviously if you're not eating anything, then you're hospitalized and then the whole, yeah. Right. But yeah, you do chase all the way until where you're at zero calories. Yeah. So this begins in the early stages of you sort of attempting to pursue a career in journalism, but at some point modeling enters and it's almost like a perfect storm, this confluence of the New York modeling world,

converging with eating disorders and this fast paced lifestyle that's a perfect recipe to really dismantle you. Yeah, no doubt. I mean, there wasn't any aspect of the modeling world that was necessarily fueling it. You know, I really had my own deep-seated reasons and was really pretty far into my eating disorder by the time that I was modeling in New York. But I had just started modeling in the late part of college in Philadelphia and then moved to New York with an agency. It was just like, okay, well, for me, it was like, well, this is interesting for a while.

We'll travel some. It just was happening. But it wasn't anything that was single-handedly fueling me to get skinnier. I didn't really have any kind of, you know, kind of outwardly connections with what I looked like, or if there was fat here or there, or if my butt was big or not. It wasn't, so many people think that it's really just an exterior view of yourself. And, you know, you have body dysmorphic disorder. You know, Most people do. I probably did, but it wasn't outward facing at all for me. It was just the continuing to assert this control. That's interesting because I would

imagine that you were surrounded by plenty of enablers who are saying, look, you got to get skinnier if you want to book this job or what have you, and surrounded by a community of people, other models who are trying to be as skinny as possible, right? Yeah. Yeah. One thing about that I found in the modeling industry, I mostly did, I'm not that photogenic, I mostly did runway, is that, and so especially the runway models, they're complete freaks of nature. Yes, there's those that have eating disorders and are starving themselves. And clearly we've heard those stories.

But by and large, these people are, they come out of the womb that way. Their whole makeup, it doesn't make any sense. They eat whatever they wanna eat, whenever they wanna eat it. They eat at McDonald's all the time and they just look like that. These bizarre creatures.

Yes, it's wildly frustrating, but it's true. You know, they're not all just not eating. There are many, many, many of them that I would travel with. It's like they had very normal eating and they ate crap, which wasn't great, but it just wouldn't show up anywhere. But nothing shows up anywhere on you when you're 16 or 17 or 18, 19 anyway, so.

And are you keeping this a secret, like living this private, 19 anyway, so. And are you keeping this a secret, like living this private double life where you're hiding all of this kind of behavior? And was it bulimia also or? Towards the end it was bulimia, yeah. Where you kind of, your body just, well, really, I guess it's more your mind sort of snaps into this realization that you're starving

but then you eat and then you can't deal with that, what that feels like and looks like and is. So, yeah. And maybe I think it would be instructive for somebody who's unfamiliar with this, or maybe somebody who's listening who has somebody in their life who suffers or has suffered from this, to maybe bust a few myths? Like what do people misunderstand or not get about what this disorder is all about? Yeah, that's a great point. Like for parents and friends and family, that question, I get asked that question a lot. And I think the most, the biggest myth is that it is exterior facing and that if you talk about to the person,

you're too skinny or you're looking skinny or you're too fat. Yeah, or just even using those terms as if you're looking at the person as just the only thing that's important about them as if they're skinny or fat. So completely removing that rhetoric and talking to them from a place of love and concern about their health, right? And just

their ability to be in society and in the world and what their talents are. So remove that language. And also so many people, every person really that doesn't understand an eating disorder is just like, Lucy, can you just eat a cheeseburger? Snap out of it. Yeah, like just eat a cheeseburger, it'll be better. It'll be so much better if you just do that because we have to eat food every day, all day long.

So unlike drugs or alcohol where you do have to just completely remove that, right? You know, in three hours you have to eat again. Yeah, it's harder because you have to just completely remove that, right? In three hours, you have to eat again. Yeah, it's harder because you have to completely reframe your relationship with this thing that you need to survive. Yes. So if family members, you have that said to you, can you just eat a little something? So that is another thing that people need to dive in and learn a bit more about what eating disorders actually are and come to the person with a place of love and not mention how they look and not mention what they're eating. That's not what's going on.

Really think of it maybe as a disease like an alcoholism, and that helps people to reframe the reference because then they understand alcoholism. Most people are like, okay, yeah, I get that. But in they go, oh, that's the same type of psychology. Then it helps them to frame speaking to a friend or family about their eating disorder. Yeah, it's a very interesting and bizarre psychological framework because just from my own experience as a recovering alcoholic, psychological framework because,

just from my own experience as a recovering alcoholic, for many years I knew I was an alcoholic and I knew what I was doing was destroying my life. I was powerless to change it, but I had the self-awareness and I would imagine yourself or somebody who's struggling with an eating disorder has some version of that self-awareness along the way, but there's this weird twist, which is the body dysmorphia

and the bizarre, very strange psychological twist that comes with that, which is you're looking in the mirror and what's being reflected back to you is not reality. Like your perception of what you look like is so twisted and divorced from what is actually true. That is like very hard for somebody to relate to or understand. Yeah, it is. I think, you know, in your subconscious, I think that you are a bit aware of, you know, it's like I would have like moments of clarity where it was like, oh yeah, I'm really sick. This is really bad. This is not like, why

are, you know, now these pants aren't even fitting, you know, is it like, oh, what happened? That was just like a week ago. But then you, you sort of snap out of that and you're, and you're back into your then reality that you're, that everything's fine. And you don't, you don't really think that you're sick from anything. I mean, most of the time it's like, no, this is normal. This is fueling me. This is what I want it to be. And for me, again, it wasn't connected to the mirror. For me, it went from a feeling of wanting to be in control to a feeling of I wanted to disappear from the planet. I didn't want anyone looking at me.

I didn't want any attention. I didn't want people talking about me or how I looked because being in the modeling industry, that would be a common conversation, right? I got to where I wanted to get so small that I would disappear off the planet. Well, a couple observations about that. First of all, you're in

a profession that is the antithesis of that. And ironically, the more you shrink, the more attention you're drawing to yourself out of concern from others, right? Yeah, but not on the street, right? Because you're not, you know, you get wildly unattractive. I mean, my hair was turning gray. It was falling out. My teeth were turning black. Like you get pretty gnarly there towards, you know, well, whatever. Well, you're going to get a different kind of attention. Like people are going to look at you strange on the street. Well, yeah. Or they just don't notice. I mean, I had a lot of like people just started,

stopped noticing. I didn't like being gawked at by whatever, the construction worker in New York City or whatever they were doing in there. You doing. And I started feeling like I wanted to disappear and it was a way to disappear. People stopped noticing me and it worked. Did you do that thing where you look in the mirror and you pinch your skin and think that that's fat that has to be lost when you didn't do that? That's a common thing though, right?

I think it's less common than we think it is. I mean, yes, some people it's just a direct relation to what they're looking at in the mirror. But if the people that are pinching their skin and going, I have to get rid of that, they're dealing with a lot of inner pain, a lot of self-hatred, right? And beating themselves up for so many more reasons

than just that fold of skin that they're pinching. Right. It's gotta be a very painful, lonely place to be in, I would imagine. Yeah, just like you. I mean, you know that space. Yeah, it is and you thrive off of it for a while until you don't.

Yeah, it has its own energy to it, I think. So where do you hit bottom with this? I mean, you get down to like 90 pounds, 100 pounds or something like that. Yeah, I got below that. I tried to kill myself. So that was I ran out in traffic on the 76th freeway in the middle of the night. How old were you when that happened? 22, I guess.

22, was that in New York? 21, 22. Not in New York? No, no, no, I was back in Philly. I went back and forth for a while. And, you know, obviously it didn't work. So, but that was rock bottom for me. But that was rock bottom for me.

So how do you then begin to pick up the pieces? I mean, what is the process of addressing this look like for you? You know, I had this moment where I really clearly remember seeing a fork in the road. I knew that if I kept going, that I was gonna die from this and I was gonna get so deep down that road that I wasn't able to pull back out and it was gonna take my life. And that was a sobering moment of what,

who would do that to the few people I had in my life that really loved and cared for me at that period of time? And I always say to people, yes, eventual recovery has to come from within, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that first catalyst. And for me, it was my family. I thought, I can't die. That's so lame on my part for them. It's so wildly selfish. So I know I'm not going to get better, but I'm going to try a little bit because I have to at least show them that I tried. And then if I die, hopefully they won't be as sad. I mean, you think of the craziest shit, right? But that's what I was thinking. I mean, just going to show them some effort. So I started trying to get better. And that sense of self-hatred, that feeling, that desire to disappear, like,

where do you think that comes from? I mean, growing up with parents that love you, it's not like, Where do you think that comes from? I mean, growing up with parents that love you, it's not like, oh, I was abused. I think that's another thing people struggle with, struggle with really understanding like, oh, well there must've been some incidents in your childhood or something like that. It doesn't necessarily have to be connected

to something like that. 30 to 35% of eating disorder sufferers had severe abuse in their early childhood years. So that's extremely common. Yeah, that's a real thing, but it's not necessarily determinative. Right, right. But I mean, that's, it is common as what, you know,

so there, and there was none of that in my life at all. And I don't, you know, I think some of it has to do with just the, you know, the makeup of who we are. I'm an extreme introvert, which no one believes, but I am. And I, to this day- That is hard to believe. I know.

But if you really understand introversion, extroversion, it's not just like, oh, I don't like to talk or something. I have so many charismatic people that come on this podcast and explain to me how they're so introverted. And I always have the same reaction. Right, but it's not as anything to do with charisma, right? It's how we kind of recharge.

But I think that I just, to this day, I really, I would like to just live out in the middle of nowhere on a farm with like 200 animals and never speak or see anyone ever again. Like I have a deep desire for that, but I know that that's not how I'm gonna save any animals. That's a consistent theme with alcoholics too, that desire to isolate, you know, to cut yourself off. Yeah. So I think that's, it was my personality

that was just coming through back then as it does now, but I'm able to say, okay, well, no, you're making a conscious decision to not go isolate because I don't think I can do much good if I isolate. But back then, I think that's really more what it was. And so did your parents, I mean, your parents must have been terrified. Terrified. Yeah. I mean, your parents must have been terrified. Terrified. Yeah. I mean, just.

They're trying to help you. Beyond, yeah. And they're doing interventions. My mom flew to Philadelphia to do one intervention that I distinctly remember and I ended up, I don't have very many regrets in my life. This is one of them. I took her to the Philadelphia airport.

I don't even think she had a ticket. Like I just didn't want any of this to be happening. And I literally physically threw my mother out on the street corner at the airport. Like what, who does that? That's the power of, that's addiction in a nutshell. It's like, it's not you. It's not you.

It's a demonic behavior that's being driven by this disease that's compelling you in a way that transcends who you fundamentally are as a human being. Yeah. You're a complete outer body. I was so sick by then. It is demonic and it is completely outer body. Now it feels like that was another human being that I can't relate to. And she still loves me, my mom,

that's also, that took a long time to process through of why she would still, she just kept coming back. She just kept loving hard. So you get to this point after this sort of failed suicide attempt where you have the willingness to finally accept help. So what does that help look like? Well, it wasn't great in the beginning because I had been in and out of rehab facilities and group facilities and things like that early on that I was not successful at because I didn't, you know, was not successful

because I didn't want to be there. But I went through a few therapists that I didn't connect with, I guess you'd just say, you know, it wasn't the right, we weren't going to be the right people. So I had moved out to LA. By this point, I was doing production for commercials and music videos back when those were a thing.

People actually did that. No. And so we came out from the East Coast to do a three-week job here in LA. And it was like the middle of January. And I was like, is this 78 Sunny thing? Like, is this normal? Everybody's like, oh, yeah, it's always like this. And I was like, okay. So I just moved. I was like, this is insane. And I hate cold weather and really

just living in New York City anyway. So I moved out and I just came upon like a little teeny tiny ad in a newspaper, in a coffee shop, that there was gonna be a speaker on fear in the basement of a Borders bookstore. I mean, random. That is, yeah. And went down to listen to her speak. And I just went up to her afterwards and I said, can you help me?

She was phenomenal. She was a shrink? Yeah, phenomenal. She was a shrink? Yeah. Yeah. She does a lot of fear-based work, was very busy after 9-11 when nobody would get on a plane. But a lot of what was inside of me was fear really, right? You realize it and you learn that at the end of it all. So we got to work and she was, yeah, she blew my mind. What's interesting about that is that you're the one who made the decision, right? It was your own willingness and impetus

to like seek this person out and pursue her as opposed to somebody trying to compel you to do that. Yep, yep, yep. And you can't manufacture, you were ready when you were ready. as opposed to somebody trying to compel you to do that. Yep, yep. You know? Yeah, that's it. I mean, you can't manufacture, you were ready when you were ready. Yeah, and that's the hardest part for families of someone who's suffering from an eating disorder.

I do a free mentorship program. So I just, you know, I've walked down the road with a lot of eating disorder sufferers, just as somebody who's been in their shoes and encouraged. And I get a lot of outreach from friends and family that are just, they're just so desperate. And it's so hard for them to just really let it sink in that they can't do anything until the person's ready.

That's with everything. That's with every, it's alcohol, it's all, and it's just. But it's so in your face with addiction. Yeah. It's so, cause it's alcohol, it's all, and it's just. But it's so in your face with addiction. Yeah. It's so, cause you can just see it. It's like, you cannot compel somebody to be willing. They have to be willing themselves. They've got to walk this path until they're ready.

And until they're ready, it's not gonna stick. And that's a sense of powerlessness that the loved one of the addict has to embrace. And that's a very difficult thing. My parents went through it. Your parents had to go through that. It's an awful place to be because you can see the healthy path forward so clearly.

And it's so confounding and confusing and painful to watch as somebody self-destructs right in front of you when you know what the answer is. I know, I know, yeah. So you find this person and what was it about her that worked for you? Like what was her process of trying to unpack this? She put me to work.

The every other therapist and psychologist that I had seen before, would sit in the chair opposite me with their yellow legal pad and their cool pen and would just be writing a lot and go, okay, well, let's dive deeper into that. Okay, well, and they're writing. I'm like, what the fuck are you writing? And this therapist, her name's Chris, from almost the third time I saw her, I mean, she spent a couple of sessions trying to hear my story, right? She put me to work. And I'm very coachable.

I like to work, and I like tools, and I like steps, and I like tools and I like steps and I like ways of doing things. And she was very action oriented. Nobody that early, especially in my therapy, had said, okay, this is your work. Her basis was meditation therapy. So putting me to work would look things like, okay, when you are, at this point, I'm deep into the bulimia because we're towards the end. And so she said, okay, when you are having the urge, you're going to go, well, first of all, you're going to go to the store and you're going to buy little blue dots on sticky papers that you can, little sticky blue dots from the drugstore. And you're going to place them on your trigger areas. And so let's say the refrigerator is, you know, okay, a trigger. You're

going to, if you're going to binge and purge, you see the blue dot, you have to, and I won't go into details, but you have to stop. You have to do this very specific 30 second meditation. And it would walk through a series of questions that I had to ask myself and answer. And if you still wanted to binge, and this would be the same thing with the blue dot on the toilet if I was going to purge, you can go ahead and do it. You have complete freedom. Go ahead and binge. But first you have to do this work. Well, you can imagine how that progressed. I was sitting in front of the refrigerator meditating for an hour before then I would decide.

And then eventually you decide, I think I can not do that today. Well, I don't know how tomorrow's gonna go, but for today. So that's just one example of all the different types of work and tools. Like a visualization or like a mantra based, not mantra, but like some sort of thing that you would tell yourself,

like a story or whatever as part of that? It was more accessing what I was feeling, which I never accessed before, because that's what you do as an addict, right? Whether it's drugs or an eating disorder, which were both poisons for me, you're doing that to get a high to not feel what you're actually feeling. So it was accessing, first it was just accessing where am I feeling anything? Is it in my right fingertip of my pointer finger? Is it in my

foot? Is it in my gut? Is it in my chest? Where do you feel it? What does it look like? What does it feel like? How big is it? Does it feel sore? Does it feel sharp? Does it feel painful? What does it look like? What does it feel like? So that was like, at the beginning, when I did that meditation with her before I would have to do it on my own, I'm thinking, this woman is cray cray. Like what? Because you're so violently disconnected from yourself when you start getting better, when you start this work. And to start to connect with that was like, it just felt nutty in the beginning. Yeah, but that's the process of integrating

because yes, the fridge is the trigger and you have the blue dot on the fridge, but the trigger isn't really the fridge. It's the emotions that the fridge catalyze within yourself. Exactly. And learning what those are, where they come from and what they're about and what's behind them

is the process of rebuilding yourself and recovering. Right, right, yeah. Yeah, that's powerful. Yeah, she's remarkable. It's the first one that ever even went in that direction. And a lot of times I would access painful, different types of anger. And she had this anger stick that she had me made, and it was just a bath towel that we'd rolled up to like a snake and put rubber bands about two inches apart all the way down the bath towel. And I had this literal,

like, I would get on my knees and slap the anger towel on the ground over and over and over again. I mean, I'm glad I don't have any video of this. To release that anger that I couldn't figure out what to do with, I mean, it was just brilliant stuff in my opinion. It was a completely different person after releasing that anger. Okay, we gotta put it somewhere. Otherwise I'm gonna binge and purge.

Right. Or go out for the night and do whatever. Yeah, it was amazing. I still have the anger towel. Oh, you do? Really? How often do you use it? I don't anymore. But what's cool about that is the fundamental difference between, you know, sort of traditional therapy of like, well, let's just talk forever versus very proactive behavior-faced, action-based, tactile things that you can actually do that will begin to shift your awareness

and create new neural pathways and connect you with yourself and develop that self-awareness, but in a way that is actually propelling you in a different direction because it's behavior-based. I know. It really is. I mean, we've all known people

that have been in therapy for like forever. And I'm just one person and this was just my one experience. And sometimes other types of therapy work for people, but sometimes I'm like, oh man, it's like, you gotta get down, you gotta get dirty and gritty and dive into, really, I would just go insane if I was like, oh man, you know, it's like, you gotta get down, you gotta get dirty and gritty and dive into, you know, really, I would just go insane if it was,

if I was like still in therapy, you know, you can always access some of it. I, you know, I've done some, you know, emergency phone calls to her throughout my life. But because we did all of that super solid work, I never have one inkling of a fear that I could ever go back into my eating disorder again. I always have like, no, I did way too much work. It's not even possible. And the emergency calls

to her that I've had in my life that were other stressful situations, we were like done and dusted in one session or two. I was like it was like, oh yeah, right. Okay. That, okay. You know, because your, your, your memory comes back and you, you, you, you have the tools that are embedded in you now. You don't lose them. And it would just be her, her, you know, kind of redirecting. Okay. Go back to this. Remember? Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. I've got this, which is just so cool. It wasn't like, oh, I got to go to 50 more sessions now. I got this screwed up in my life and yeah. What's also different or distinct from substance abuse. I mean, you get sober, okay, this is my sobriety date.

I've crossed this line. I don't go back. I kind of, you know, etch in stone, like this is the date that I got sober. But like with eating disorders, it can't be like that. Like, because you're recalibrating your relationship with food and you have to be eating along the way. So I would imagine it was a more graduated process

of trying to, you know, get on top of this thing, right? Like, so how long did it take before you felt like, okay, I'm getting a handle on it? A little over two years. I mean, that's not, by first section, first session, I thought, oh my gosh, I think I'm going to get a handle on this. But it took a little over two years before I was a hundred percent and I knew I would never go back. And I knew I was, I was really, really well and healed. And this is, it wasn't even, I got asked all the time in my cycling career,

you know, do you think you're just replacing this, replacing the eating disorder with your athleticism? And it was like, no way. There's no possibility that that, I don't know if something else will be a problem later, but it's not gonna be an eating disorder. Yeah, I get that a lot. Like, oh, well you do these ultra-marathons. It's like, well, you just shifted your addiction.

And I think for me, it's a little bit different. I have to like, I wanna dismiss it, but then I have to go, well, am I? I guess probably on some level I am, but I'm doing it in a healthier, different way. We are who we are. So that's parts of your personality. Yeah, it's taking some aspect of who I am

and trying to channel it for self betterment and the like. There is, I'm sure there's an addictive aspect to it, but it's different because it's not destroying my life, it's improving my life. There you go. It could destroy my life if I had a different kind of relationship with that, as it could for you with cycling, it could have.

No doubt. But once you've done that work, you have a different framework for it, I think. Yeah. But it isn't, you know, like, you know, perhaps this is a good, now we can segue into the cycling. I would imagine initially, like the prospect, because overexercising is symptomatic of an eating disorder,

because overexercising is symptomatic of an eating disorder, did you have an impulse early on like to take that sort of manic addict energy and channel it into something else that wasn't necessarily food? Yeah, well, I had severe overexercise disorder with the anorexia, like nine hours in the gym on the Stairmaster. Right.

That was your early cycling career, right? Yeah, I was getting fit for the stage races. Stationary bike for hours and hours? Yeah, you didn't know it at the time. Although it wasn't a bike. I never, for whatever reason, I think I didn't think it was gonna burn enough. It's like, you gotta have the whole body moving here.

So Stairmaster, that was your jam? Running or the elliptical, I don't know, it's like, you've got to have the whole body moving here. So Stairmaster, that was your jam. Or running or the elliptical, I don't know. Yeah. But when we finally got towards the end of my therapy, my therapist, I think she knew me very well by that point. And she recognized that there was a competitor in there somewhere. And that ideally, if I was able to act out on that competitive nature, that would be the most healthy. And she also knew that I would not consider myself healed. I told her this in the beginning until I could move my body in a healthy

way again. Because I knew I liked to move my body. I knew that about myself, but I was doing it very unhealthfully for so long in my eating disorder. So she knew that I had that goal. And so she said, you know, I feel like we're at the point where we're really ready to kind of pick something for you to be able to move your body in a healthy way again. But I want to just completely detach from any sort of negative connections you had with any type of exercises. So what's something that you just really have never done before? And I said, what about riding a bike? Cause that was not anything that I had done in the eating disorder.

And I had not written a bike since I was, you know, 10 years old on the banana seat bike and the with the flag in the neighborhood. So she said, perfect, great. It's super interesting because it could have gone the other way where look, exercise is a trigger for me. So I'm just gonna not, I'm gonna avoid that for the rest of my life because that could pull me back

into this downward spiral. But I think it takes courage to say, no, I need to go back into exercise, but I need to figure out how to have a healthy relationship with it. Yeah, I just knew that wasn't gonna be authentic me. And then again, that's not total healing if I'm just deleting parts of myself.

Yeah, it's still living in fear and it's still being a prisoner to this disease. So you enter into that, it's so crazy. Like this is just basically an experiment to become a whole human being, not to like, I'm gonna be a competitive athlete. Like it's, I mean, first of all, how old were you at this point?

I like that, experiment to be a whole human being. That is 26. 26, okay. So you get a bike and what, you start pedaling around the neighborhood? Yeah, pretty much like Griffith Park Observatory, I was like, that's where I was. And I got a bike that was like a mountain bike,

but I got slick tires put on it so I could ride on the street. So I was bouncing around with the shocks. But I started riding around Griffith Park Observatory and then all of a sudden, I noticed there's like these groups of really fast people that would come by me and I'm like, oh, I think I can stay with them.

And then I kind of could. And then they were like, what are you doing? Because I just looked all sorts of wrong, right? The clothes, everything. And so I met someone on those group rides that was going to do the California AIDS ride. And I thought, well, that's cool because I can do something good. Back then you had to raise, it's probably a lot more now, but you had to raise $3,000. And I was like, well, this is 96, 98 is when I did it.

So this was 97. And I thought, oh my God, that's so much money. How am I going to write letters to everybody I've ever met and raise the money? It's like, I'm going to do something good. And it went from San Francisco to LA, but it's like almost, you know, 700 miles

because they don't go direct. And that was, that was, I was like at the front with the head guys and I'm still on my mountain bike with the slick tires. And like the fourth day

and they were like, what are you, who are you, what are you doing? And how long had you been riding a bike at this point? Like just a matter of months. I mean, just not any period of time at all.

And I was- And that competitiveness, like I gotta be up front. I guess so. I think too, like, I mean, I used to like to suffer. I don't like to suffer as much as I used to, but I've always liked to suffer. And the suffering that I went through in my eating disorder was just so much more

massive than any suffering I was going to ever experience on a bicycle. So it just didn't feel like much. I mean, I knew I was suffering and it was definitely an aspect to that, but it just, it wasn't that bad. And the best part of the cycling was I knew the suffering would end. I mean, I knew there was a finish line. I knew there was going to be tents and warm showers and yummy food and it was going to end. So it was like, this is going to last an hour or five. I mean, I knew there was a finish line. I knew there was gonna be tents and warm showers and yummy food and it was gonna end. So it was like, this is gonna last an hour or five, I'm not sure. But that ability to dig that deep and suffer that hard

was definitely was trained quite well in my eating disorder years. And I think I for sure use that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. High pain threshold. Yeah. From psychic pain to physical pain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, high pain threshold. Yeah. From psychic pain to physical pain. Yeah, and physical pain

and your eating disorder though too. I mean, yeah, pretty extreme. All right, so you do the AIDS ride. I mean, are the lights going on? Like, how is this, are you thinking, hmm? No, I'm thinking nothing. And the guy, I mean, I just, I'm like, I don't know that it's weird

that I'm at the front with these guys. I don't know anything. You know what I mean? I know nothing at this point. They're just nice guys that I'm like, I felt like I was- Do you have clip-on pedals at least? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But mountain bike shoes, so they're not even hard sole. So I'm losing some watts through those puppies. So we finished the AIDS ride and a couple of them were like, have you ever raced? I'm like, no. Have you ever thought of racing?

I'm like, no, what race? We just did a race. They're like, no. Have you ever thought of racing? I'm like, no. What race? We just did a race. They're like, no, this isn't a real race. This is like a... They had to explain that to me. I'm like, oh, I thought it was a race. Could have told me that day one. I could have taken it easy.

So they said, I think you should try like a race race. You know, you've got to get like a license with like USA Cycling. And I'm like, you know, where do I do that? They're like, well, here, let's go on the internet. They literally bought my license for me. And I tried my first race. And yeah, that's the rest is history. Right. And this starts to happen pretty quickly, right? Oh, yeah. It was like two weeks, you know, like the next week or something. Yeah. It was like, okay, I'm going to get a license. And then my first race was up in Monterey, California. Criterium or like a road race?

A road race in the pouring rain. And it's the most scared I've ever been on a bicycle. It's still to this day. It was absolutely treacherous. And I, cause I have no skills. That's the thing. You know, now I'm like 20, you know, whatever, 27 and a half or something, you know what I mean? And I have

zero skills. And you're with people who have been riding, you know, in the women's peloton, they don't start quite as early as the men do, but, you know, they've been riding at least since high school, you know, for sure. And, you know, I didn't grow up with any of that, those, that eye hand coordination, those motor skills, the technical abilities. A lot of that is really at the high level. It's intense, the technicalities. I mean, it's just like you're centimeters from each other's handlebars in packs of 150, climbing up the Alps, descending. I mean, we've all watched the tour.

Those are the descents you're doing. the Alps descending, I mean, you know, we've all watched the tour, like those are the descents you're doing. I had zero skills, zero ability to control my bike or be safe or, I mean, it was a disaster. Yeah, not just safe for yourself, but safe for everyone else too. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely.

You're like a liability. A complete liability and I was treated as such for quite a while in the women's Peloton. So it wasn't like you enter your first race and you win. No, I got like 12th or something in that, yeah. It was like a cat four or was it like, it was a cat four? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.

All right, but did it get its claws in you? Like, were you like, oh man, this is gonna be my thing? Yeah, right when I finished, I remember going to the van and trying to warm up. It was freezing and changing my clothes and calling my mom and going, that's the most horrible experience I have ever had in my life.

I wanna die. That was so dumb. And within hours, I was like, where's the next race? Right. It could have been like, I'm hanging it up. Like that's not for me. It was, yeah, yeah. But then you just realize that's bike racing.

It's awful. But you It was, yeah, yeah. But then you just realize that's bike racing. It's awful. But you move up pretty quickly, right? From Cat 4 to Cat 2. And how long is this process? I moved up from Cat 4 to Cat 1 in less than a year. So it was, again, that's cool. But I was a liability still at this point because I'm now a Cat 1

and just scary to be around in a Criterion for sure. And by this point, I'm now a cat one and just scary to be around in a Criterion for sure. And by this point, I've bought a bike that some people will know is a soft ride. So it was those old triathlon bikes where you're like boing, boing, boing, boing. And I'm in a crit doing that. And people are like, you have to get a bike that doesn't bounce around

as we like go through the corners at warp speed. But where does the, I think I read somewhere like that you sort of said to somebody that you were a professional cyclist before you were even a professional cyclist. I did. So I decided that if I was going to do this, I think I came back from the AIDS run. I was like, I got to get more miles on my legs. Like these people I'm going to be competing against, you know, they have been doing this a long like, I got to get more miles on my legs. Like these people I'm going to be competing against, you know, they have,

they've been doing this a long time. I need more miles on my legs. So I lived in Venice. So I decided if I got a bike messenger job in downtown LA, then that would give me almost 60 miles a day because it was 25 miles to ride there, 25 back, right?

Then you have messenger. So I go downtown LA, I get a bike messenger job. I'm the only girl. I'm the only one that doesn't smoke a tremendous amount of pot all day long. Wow. And so I did that. And I started to get those miles in my legs.

And that was the- And skill, probably like technical skills too. I started to a little bit. Like, yeah, the guys were starting to teach me stuff. I said, you know, I'm racing I'm, I'm, I'm racing. So I, you know, I, I, I need some help with this. And I learned, I, yeah, I learned some things. I mean, it's, you, you can learn it, but then to do it as kind of a whole nother, you know,

they always say in cycling, like just follow my line. If I can do it, you can do it. That's not true. Don't believe that. Even to this day, mountain biking, my husband's like, if I can go down these rocks, no, I can't because you have just a better balance and awareness of your body weight. And it's like, you know, you have to be, yeah. And that's just time.

I mean, that's just time in the saddle, right? Exactly. Right. Yeah. So it's, yeah, which I didn't have time. You know, that was kind of one of the issues. So, but I got a lot of, I did get a lot of miles in with that messenger job and then, you know, rode in every Saturday and Sunday,

just with the group rides in Santa Monica and got lost. I took cabs back from the Simi ride, like multiple times, because I didn't know where I was and what was, where is it? You probably rode by this house. I think the Simi ride comes by here all the time. Oh, for sure. No, when I was driving here, I was and what was, where is it. You probably rode by this house. I think the city ride comes by here all the time. Oh, for sure. No, when I was driving here, I was like, this is my training ground for a year.

Yeah, every road up here. So was there one race that like kind of clinched it for you where somebody noticed you and said, hey, we can develop you? Or like, how did it transpire to you then becoming professional? Yeah, so I was on a small team for a couple of years and that team, we went to US Nationals in,

I don't remember what year, but probably 90, probably 2000. Yeah, year, but probably 2000. Yeah, I think 2000. And I got fourth at US Nationals. And that was- Your first US Nationals. Yeah. After riding how many years at that point?

No, honestly. Three years? Yeah. Three years. Yeah. And so then that- In the road race? Exactly. Yeah. I was in Redding, California. So then that's the national team called and said, you know, come to the training center and have some testing.

And you're kind of old, but, you know, come anyway. It's like, thanks a lot. And then I did testing and they were like, oh, yeah, you're old and you're not that talented. They were like, the testing was just super, like I don't have a lot of deep well of talent. Like I recognize I'm more talented than the next person on a bike, but I don't have like really great lung capacity

or high end. So it wasn't like you were someone who was just walking around on planet earth with no idea that you had this unbelievable amount of talent that just needed to find its way there. No, no. It's a lot of, it's just a lot, like a large capacity to suffer a lot, I think is really all that's in there. Because, yeah, so they were like, ah, you know, okay, we'll take you to a few races. Like, you know, clearly clearly visually disappointed on their face

I could see after the testing was over. And I was like, oh no, this is a one-time ticket to, we were in Chula Vista at the training center down there. But then I started traveling with the US team and, you know, was a darn good domestique for a long time there. And, you know, was a darn good domestique for a long time there. And, you know, I had so much to learn. I mean, I was on the team with like, you know, real serious badasses. I mean, these women were fighting it out for, you know, World Cups and World Championships and Olympics. And that's who I was on the team with. that's who I was on the team with. It's interesting that mainstream audiences have no,

myself included, have very little understanding or awareness of women's cycling. Like we watched the Giro, which I wanna talk to you about, you know, Tour de France, all that kind of stuff. And we have some sense of what it's like in the men's world, but this world of women's cycling just goes completely unnoticed for the most part. Well, kind of welcome to the world in general, Rich.

Yeah, no, I know. Yeah, right, it's a bigger, it's symptomatic of something larger, of course. But how many women are in this sport and where do they typically learn how to do this? Yeah, well, so as you know, and everyone, cycling is wildly popular in Europe and not here in the States. So when we're over traveling in Europe and racing, you know, there is an awareness and there is an excitement about it and there are

fans and it is something that people recognize and understand the women's side of the sport. You know, why it's not as recognized here as it is with the men is symptomatic of something else, like you said. But, you know, over in Europe, I think they do definitely a much better job of the awareness of who the women are. But nonetheless, it's still a very small peloton compared to the men. I think women in general, the men tend to start much younger. The little boys on bikes seems to be much, much younger whether they want to or not. And the talent ID camps over in Europe will select these young boys from 10, 11, 12. Women tend to find it as an outlet in high school or college or something,

or maybe they're on a club team in college. They've gone to college and had entire education before they even really start racing professionally. It's just a completely different entry and it's a completely different exit then. The women definitely end up on the top in the exit because you come out and you have a college degree and this was a really fun and interesting part of your life, but you're ready for the next adventures and you have the education and the ability. The men come out and they are completely lost. Right. Because they've been living in Belgium in a dormitory since age 16. Right. And if they made it all the way through, then maybe they've made it onto some really big professional teams and they've done the tour,

you know, multiple times. I mean, there's a handful of U.S. riders that are making a, you know, a good living now, you know, you know, Hincapie and, and, and, you know, that, that, that crew. But, but many, many, many hundreds more that the, or the career's over either because they have a horrific crash, right? And it just ends right then and there, or just because they get a bit older, what, like 31, 32, and then what are they going to do? So it ends up being a very male-centric sport in general, because what do they do? They go right back into cycling. They're managers, they're soigneurs, they're mechanics. That's what they know. Because that's what they know and they don't know where else to go. So that,

you know, you just see it kind of like, you know, cycle itself. Right, right. Yeah, that's interesting. I wouldn't have thought that. So you end up on like T-Mobile, right? Yeah, right. And you ride the Giro. Yes. You ride the Giro. What year was that? Oh, God. Let's probably, oh, 2003 or four, I would say.

Yeah. That had to be amazing. Yeah, for sure. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, they still have rules in women's cycling to this day that we're trying to change that you can only ride a certain amount of kilometers.

So I don't know what they think is gonna happen to us. Yeah. that you can only ride a certain amount of kilometers. So I don't know what they think is gonna happen to us. Like at the- Well, it's the same as swimming. Like they don't have, they have shorter events for women. It's crazy. It's really getting silly at this point. So I'm just saying that because the Giro that we're thinking of that the men do,

we could clearly do, but that wasn't, you know, it was like- It's a different course. Yeah, it's a different course and just different lengths, right? We're only allowed to do so many kilometers. So, and it's 15, it was 15 days. I think it's shorter now, but right. The men's is obviously three weeks, 21 days.

Right, you frail women. We don't, we- Oh, I don't know, yeah. Little flowers. That's amazing. Yeah. Okay, so you kind of take this road cycling career essentially as far as you feel like you can.

Like you're at your peak, where are you at like in the Peloton? You're kind of like in the middle of the Packer there? No, I got a bit better than that. Like I won some domestic stage races and won some big single domestic stage races and won some big, and some big single day stage races, and won some stages of some big European races. So you prove those people wrong who are like, eh, you're a little old and you're not- I think I might have.

Yeah, okay. Right. Well, we haven't even gotten to the coup de grace with that, but all right. So you have this road cycling career and then, you know, basically what? You're thinking about retiring? Yeah, I was. I was about 35 at the time and I was, I mean, quite frankly, I was just getting kind of bored. I get bored fairly easily still. And I just thought, you know, gosh, I mean, that was just obviously way more than I had ever imagined it ever could be. I mean, wow, what a ride that was. What a great adventure. And it's been nine years since I had first gotten on a bike.

And I thought, well, that's enough. I think I'll see what else is out there. And I had just won a prologue at a major international event in Australia. a prologue at a major international event in Australia. And my coach at the time said, you have a really unique ability at this 10 minute or so effort output. I was never really great in like 20K, 40K time trials. I was always like, okay, ninth or something like that. But it was never, I would always get, well, quite frankly, bored in them. Like, oh my God, we're still going.

I could never do what you did. Oh my God. So I had this and do this, you know, there is where that natural talent lies in that middle distance sort of aerobic and anaerobic combined effort. And so he said, I think you should try, I think you should try the track. I think you should try the pursuit, like just give it a go. It's that you've got like a really intense talent

in this distance. And so I did. And I thought, well, this is kind of cool because it's something different. I went to the track for the first time and was scared out of my mind. Never been on a track before. No, they had tried to put me on a track many years before.

And I was so scared that I literally got off the bike. They continued their training. And I went and did running wind sprints out in the parking lot because I thought, well, at least I'm like training, but I couldn't wrap my head around going up on the 45 degree banking and my tire sticking. Like it just, it made no sense to me, still doesn't really.

And so it was like, this is so amazing because I am so scared doing it. I mean, it just felt like I was coming alive again on the bike. All the way through to the Olympic games, I was petrified of riding at the top of the track. Even during the Olympics. I remember the very last time. So, in my event, you only are at the top of the track in training. So, our event is done from a standing start on the black line, and you do 12 laps. And you do exchanges, so you fly up there and down.

And that wasn't scary in the event. And you do exchanges, so you fly up there and down, and that wasn't scary in the event. But just riding as you're kind of working into an effort, we call it, you'll do two or three laps at the very top of the track, right? So right next to the rail. And you're going kind of slow because you're preparing for a huge burst, right? burst, right? So, but you can't go too slow on the track because you'll slide off and, you know, get pretty horrible wood burn and splinters. I have splinters in my hips from crashing and they're still there. And so it doesn't feel good. So some of my teammates were, you know, track trackies and track sprinters even used to, they used to be, and they were a bit larger and you stick better on the track if you're larger than if you're a bit lighter. And I was coming from

road racing. So I just, you know, I wasn't skinny, but I just wasn't a, you know, a sprinter. And so it would scare the living daylights out of me because they were going creeping around the top of the track. And I'm going, maybe you're not going to slide, but I am getting ready to slide. And I could feel like my back will just sideways. So the very last effort we did before Olympic games, like the day before we did a 1500 meter effort and we finish it, I come down and my teammate says to me, she's like, you never have to do that again. Cause she knew how bad it scared me. And then, and when you're in competition tracks, there's all these other teams whirling around. So you've got traffic on the 45 degree banking,

which just is like, yeah, I can't even describe how scary it is. All right. But it's mesmerizing to watch. It's like this crazy ballet and very beautiful. Like, but for somebody who has no familiarity with this at all, like you do team pursuit, you're in a velodrome, they have these crazy banked turns that look 45 degrees,

how high up is the highest bank? It's like four stories, I guess. Four stories, wow. And how fast do you have to be going to kind of not you know, not fall and when you're going, the faster you're going, the more perpendicular you are to the ground, right? I would imagine. Yes, like I've never had a speedometer at the, on the bars of my track bike, believe it or not.

That's kind of like something you, like we always kept our, our SRM or our watt meter was connected to our seat because you can't read anything when you're in any kind of effort on the track. But it felt like, you know, I mean, sprinters are gonna laugh at this because they would probably say like five miles an hour. But for me, it's a little closer to 15 to feel safe because I never slid off the track because I was going too slow. Cause that just, I mean, you know, so yeah, it's, it's a bit more of a clip than you would like to just be doing recovery for sure. And although it's, you know, both road racing and, and track cycling are on a bike, they're incredibly different. Like your road cycling is all about, you know, efficiency and how you're meeting out your energy over an

extended period of time. And there's surges, et cetera, and things like that within the context of that. But in track cycling, it's about massive bursts of power. Yeah, it is. Being able to maintain gigantic watts on a gigantic gear. Yeah. And also all the crazy strategy and tactics that go into when you make those surges

and when you make those moves. So you do have efficiency and economy of efficiency happening in team pursuit based on the team and what the rider's strengths and weaknesses are and how you're gonna use them to the team's best ability. Like you can change how many half laps, laps, lap and a half, two laps people do. Um, you can feel that off of the rider in front of you, um, and recognize that they're actually going to take a short turn or that they might go a bit longer, which usually

never happens, but that they're going to have to peel off in a short term, like in the, in the Olympic games. Um, and there's some me that, I will say there's a little bit of ego connected to that. You want to be able to do your full turn. But my fourth pull, I was supposed to do one lap

and I knew that my teammate, Sarah Hammer, had an extra gear. I could feel it from the two laps before that and And I just instinctually knew, I got to get out of the way. We got to get her to the front for these last couple of laps. I knew we were behind with Australia. This is to go into the gold medal. I didn't realize we were 1.7 seconds behind and that is a deficit in team pursuit that has nobody's ever come back from.

Yeah. Nobody ever has. And so it was, that was an instinctual and, and, and my teammate behind me, Jenny Reed says, I had no idea that you were going to pull off. Like you weren't slowing. And I knew I wasn't slowing and I could hang, but I knew I was just going to keep the same speed. And I knew Sarah had another gear. So I came off, came back on and we ended up being in Australia by eight one hundredths of a second. So it was definitely releasing that ego for the team. Not at that, you know, that you, you had that at that level in the Olympic games, like I have to do my full pole or whatever, but you kind of do in training and you know, it you, you had that at that level in the Olympic games, like I have to do my full pole or whatever, but you kind of do in training and you know, it was, you normally would swing off if you're starting to die. And I knew I wasn't, I just knew that we had another gear with, with another rider. So anyway, incredible amount of, of, of, of tactics, tactics and savviness and thinking, and then just subconscious thinking, you get to know each other so, so, so well.

Right, you have to be so in sync with your teammates that that subtle, like that subtle intangible thing that you're aware of that allowed you to make that decision in that moment that made the difference. Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. I mean, how long do you have to ride with your teammates

before you can kind of develop that awareness? Well, we'd been on that journey together, I guess, for four years. I mean, I had ridden with her before that. Like she was the person that I met her and her husband, Andy Sparks at the LA track for the very first time when I tried it, when that coach I had said, had said, try it.

So I had ridden with her for even more years than that, but, but the real push to 2012 Olympics was, you know, we'd, we'd, we'd, we'd been at it for, for years. And, and just to be clear, like team pursuit is basically you and your team, there's four of you, right? Yeah. So my, in 2012, they did the women, three women, three kilometers, you couldn't lose anyone. Now they do it just like the men, it's four women, four kilometers, but you can drop someone.

So totally different tactic, like completely different. You're rotating who's pulling. Exactly, yeah. So the tracks are, they're 250 meters. So in three kilometers, you're doing 12 laps. You know, four kilometers, you're doing 16. And you start from a dead start. So track bikes are fixed gears, no brakes.

So you start, the starter that's taking the most load from the start is in a gate. And then the other people are up track being held by a person that is acting as a starting gate. And so you're in a gear that is big enough that when you get up to speed, you can go fast enough. So it's really, it's about 800 watts of power out of the starting gate, which is a gnarly way to start a race.

Because if you think about it, when you start a time trial, you start in a spinny gear a little bit till you get up to speed so you don't load your legs. So it's this really gnarly load the first five seconds of the race. Just a lactate cascade from moment one. Like just blast. And then you're up to-

Welcome to team pursuit. Your cadence is up to like 122, right? Yeah, that's what we averaged. Yeah, exactly, yeah, in the race. Yeah, that's unbelievable. averaged. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, in the race. Yeah, that's unbelievable. In that monster, monster gear. So for trackies, we rode 102s at the Olympic Games, which is pretty big.

And what is the training like on a daily basis? What does it look like? The training is a real combination of aerobic efficiency and anaerobic power. So it is very much like that. I compare it to the 800 meters or 1500 meters track runners. So we're doing five and six hour road rides. We're doing gnarly gym work and we're doing really explosive track work. I mean, people don't realize in three and a half minutes, I mean, that's not anaerobic. You need oxygen if you're going for three minutes,

16 seconds. So it's a combo. And if you don't have that efficiency and if you don't have that base and you don't have that economy, you can't ever go as fast as you go at that level if you don't have that set in your system. It's like the hardest equation to solve

because you have to be incredibly proficient as an anaerobic athlete and as an aerobic athlete. I think the 800 meters, it's because you can't, like if you're running the 800 meters, you can't go all out the entire time, right? There is some pacing and some strategy involved with that, but you have to be a sprinter and you have to be an endurance athlete.

Yeah, but at that level, at the Olympic level, you are. I mean, I would say from our race, like you always die. Like you never, we've never did a race that we increased or I should say decreased our lap times. So you literally are building a system that can go all out for three minutes and 16 seconds. And that training involves longer endurance training on the road, and then also super

high output on the track, right? Just busting it as hard as you possibly can. And another thing that people don't realize is how much raw strength is involved. Because with the one gear and with that big of a gear, you have to have the strength to keep that gear turning over at 122, right? So the cadence. So the fastest anyone is going to go on a bike is the highest cadence and the biggest gear. So a lot of people look at track cycling, they're like, oh, wow, they're spinning so high. You know, they're at 122, but you're in a monster gear doing that. And to keep on top of the gear, as we say it,

you have to have an incredible amount of strength because you can't fall off the gear. Because once you fall off the gear, it's over. You're dropped. Because in road cycling, you can shift if you're kind of falling, you know, that feeling, you're kind of falling off the gear, it's over, you're dropped. Because in road cycling, you can shift if you're kind of falling, you know, that feeling, you're kind of falling off the gear and it's like, whoa, I got to spin this out and move through some lactate.

Right, you can recover and then regroup, right? So you can't do it on the track. The track athletes, track cycling athletes look totally different from the road cyclists. They almost look like they're very thick and squat and incredibly strong. They almost look like wrestlers, you know? Yeah, especially the sprinters, right?

Like the sprinters totally look like that. I mean, they look like, I mean, to track cycling, it is so similar to track and field. You've got the sprinters and you've got the middle distance and you've got the endurance. And they, you know, they tend to look the part to each one of them, yeah. What's that crazy event?

Like the, I don't know what it's called, the Dolly Madison or something like that. Oh, isn't that Madison? The Madison, right. Like I still don't even understand what that is. It's insane, yeah. So they sling each other. I mean, you're in a team of two

and you basically rotate laps and they use each other as a propeller to go fast into the next lap. So the person that is coming out of the race onto the relief line, you know, swings the next person down in. And then they race and race. And then it's, yeah. It's really fun to watch, but it's really confusing. It's really hard to figure out. I'm like, I don't know what's happening. Who's winning? Who's, yeah, yeah. But it's pretty, yeah. It's really fun to watch, but it's really confusing. I mean, it's really hard to figure out. I'm like, I don't know what's happening.

Who's winning and who's, yeah, yeah. But it's pretty, yeah. It's like watching cricket. Right, yeah, exactly. Like watching cricket. That's just what I was thinking. How come you didn't do, did you try to pursue individual pursuit?

I did. I started, that was like 2007 that I did my first individual pursuit. But in 2008, Beijing Olympics was the last time that they had individual pursuit in the Olympic Games. So then they changed the, they do this a lot in a lot of sports where they change the program,

trying to get the audience excited. I mean, individual pursuit is an amazing event, but watching it, if you don't know what's going on, it can put you to sleep because it's just like a rider riding around in circles. So they took the individual pursuit out of the program and added in the, for the women, women's team pursuit, it was already in for the men and they added more parody to track cycling. So it was equal events, men and women. I see. So for endurance track,

all they had was Team Pursuit and the Omnium, which is, yeah, a whole nother event. It's a whole other world. Yeah, it's a whole, right. Yeah. All right, so what year was it that you started? 2007 was your first time on the track? Yes. Okay.

And then you ascend pretty rapidly here, right? Like you ended up winning like seven US titles, something like that? Yeah. Right. Over the course of the next couple of years. So first race on the track, what was, did you win that race? Like what did that look like? I did. You did? Yeah. It was an individual pursuit. And it was nationals actually, because I went- First race on the track was nationals and you win. Yes, but our most decorated female individual pursuer

of all times in the United States was injured. So I will say that. Don't diminish it. But she was- Come on. She was helping me. But so I got a little lucky that year. But in the final of that race,

like you do qualifying rounds and then you go into the gold medal final. And in the gold medal final, at that track is the Home Depot Center, right now StubHub Center. And they'd had X Games in there the week before, which had created this like incredible amount of dust. And there was like this layer of dust

on the track that was making it really slick. They were crashing a lot in the days before. And like monster energy drinks. Exactly, right. Still, yeah, but I would have taken some sticky, but it was, so I'm in the gate and we take off, you know, the gun goes off for the gold medal ride and I crash immediately.

Like I literally take one, try to take one pedal stroke out of the gate, which is a really powerful pedal stroke, right? And just slide out and fall. I mean, just zoom, just right underneath myself. And I didn't know enough to know, cause this is literally six weeks after the first time I'd gotten on the track.

And I was on it for like a week. And then the person that was helping me, Andy and Sarah were like, Nationals is in like five weeks. Let's just go for it. I'm like, okay. So here we are. So I slide out and this very decorated person I'm talking about that's won world championships and everything at this point had already been to an Olympic game. She comes up to me, runs up and she's like, don't worry about it. It happens all the time. And I'm like, oh my God, wow. I'm not retarded. Like, oh, this happens. They come out of the gate, people slide, you know,

I take off again, you get a second, you get a restart and I won. And right after the race is over, I come up to her and I was like, that was the best news ever. Like it completely relaxed me. Like, okay, this is normal. Cause I don't know anything about tracks. Like I've never even been to an international track race. And she's like, I've never seen that happen before in the history of tracks. And I was like, wow, you're like a psychologist, aren't you? She knew I needed to hear like, oh no.

Okay, we'll leave it to me. Oh my God. I can't. And then you win. That's so insane. It felt insane for sure. That can't. And then you win. That's so insane. It felt insane for sure. That's crazy. Yeah. All right. So fast forward to 2012 Olympic games, London, you're 39 at this point. Yeah. 39. Are you the oldest person on the, on the cycling team? I'd be one of the older

athletes in the USA Olympic team in general, I would imagine. Right, probably so. Yeah, it's amazing. And the cycling team, yeah, yeah, I was. Wow, and so going into that, what were the prospects of meddling? Like where did you guys fall in the pecking order? We were total underdogs.

I mean, total, I mean, so track cycling again, right, is not wildly popular here in the United States. We don't know a lot about it, but it is the thing in Great Britain, in Australia, in New Zealand. I mean, these are deep, rich track cycling countries that have respected it for, you know, a hundred years. I mean, literally. So we were up against giants in this sport. I mean, you know, it would be like, I mean, literally is like, you know, Jamaican bobsledders beating the Germans or something. It was like, we were major underdogs.

The bookies had us at the very best at fifth. And we just thought maybe if it's our best day ever, there would be a scratch of a possibility we could get a bronze. Like, you know, there was, we were, we was, we'd never beaten the British or the Aussies before. They're, they're A teams. We'd beaten like their B teams, whatever, but, ever. So how did this happen? Oh my God. I'm still not entirely sure. It was, you know, it's, that's the thing about sport at that level is you, you know, you do it your whole life or whatever, and you train and train and train, but it's all about delivering in that one moment on that one day in that one month in that one, you know, it's, it's, it's not, uh, it's not something

that is, you could ever probably repeat again, or that would have ever happened again. A lot of the really amazing Olympic moments, right. That we watched that we just watched in Pyeongchang, like, um, the, the skier, the girl that had never won a world cup or anything about, it's just like, we had one of those moments. We just rode completely outside of our skin. Two of us on the team, Jenny Reed and myself have never ever performed or been able to put that output out on the track ever in our history. And we probably couldn't have done it the next day.

It was a moment in time that the three of us put together. We had a lot of love and a lot of respect for each other. And there's something about team pursuit or any really ton of team sport where you're not lining up for yourself. There's this whole other layer, this whole other beautiful layer that I loved about team pursuit more than I ever loved anything about road where it was, it wasn't about self. It was about, it was about others and it was about, you better make sure that you're showing up a hundred percent because you know that they are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like relay swimming. It's like relays and swimming or in track and field. I mean, there's something really beautiful and powerful about that. And that's what's

magical about the Olympics when moments like that occur. I mean, there's something really beautiful and powerful about that. And that's what's magical about the Olympics when moments like that occur. I mean, it's so cool. What is being an Olympian? What does that experience mean to you? I mean, now it's been a couple of years as you reflect back on that. Well, you know, there's something great

about being 39 and a half at the Olympics. It's awesome. Well, it just decides that it's rare or whatever, but I was a grown woman and I was really, really hyper aware that I was at the Olympic games, that this was not going to be an experience. I would be repeating that I was representing my country. And I specifically got selected to go deliver for my country and my team and USA Cycling. And I was able to just be there and be super present and soak up every single moment where I think if I'd gone to the Olympics at 20, you're like, oh, this is cool. Awesome clothes. I'm going to be here 10 more times, which you're not necessarily, first of all, 20-year-olds, right?

You don't know that that's the case. But it was just a magical experience for me in every way because I allowed it to be. And I went after it being that experience. And just, I had done a ton of sports psychology because I struggled with really big time nerves in track cycling. But I felt like I got there just really fully, completely,

mentally and emotionally present and was able to have that full experience. And so it's almost like fairyland when I look back on it. It really is. I'm very grateful. It wouldn't mean as much to you if you were younger and weren't able to like have that presence of mind and connect with that gratitude. And no perspective when you're young, right?

Yeah. Either like there was just no, and I had a ton of perspective and had almost died. And this was really just felt like a complete gift that this was even in the realm of possibilities that I was now experiencing this in my life. It's crazy when you think about it. A little nutty.

From like wandering out into the middle of an interstate to being on the podium in London. I mean, it's extraordinary. Yeah, well, that's- It's really quite something. Thank you. Did you see Icarus, that documentary Icarus? Yes.

Yeah, what do you think? Like as an Olympian, now we're in the midst of this conversation about state sponsored doping and kind of this cloud that is hovering over the Olympics itself. And as somebody who is an Olympian, like- And the Russians have had some doping violations

and this Olympics sounds like they're not gonna be invited this summer. Well, I know, and you had him on the podcast, I think. Yeah, I had Brian on. So I have, I think, a little bit of a different view of that movie than some other people that I've spoken to about the movie. If he hadn't have been

very specifically seeking out his own systematic doping, he would have never have run into that doctor and that whole part of the story would have never unfolded. The second half of the movie and that, the systematic doping and how it is interesting, it uncovers a lot of truths that were not uncovered, but as a Olympian and as a clean athlete, and as someone who, uh, you know, was very conscious about being clean, uh, the movie really kind of angers me because he was setting out to cheat very

complete, full consciousness of cheating. I don't care if it's just a grand Fondo or whatever, you're going to go to the line. There's a lot of people there that lined up in all honesty and clean. And the fact that it didn't work gave me some pleasure. But yeah, I'm not a big fan of the movie because of that. Like, I don't love watching stories of people vindictively, dishonestly going to the start line. I don't have any respect for that. Yeah, I get that. I get that. You know, as somebody who is in a sport that has,

you know, a cloud over it as well, right? Sure. And somebody who is clean and fighting clean and all of that, I can understand, you know, that emotional response to that for sure. It is fascinating to see what's happened though on the geopolitical stage as a result of that second and third act of that movie though.

And I think more will be revealed and hopefully this will lead us to some higher ground here. Yeah, and I think that's, I mean, that was why it was, that part of it was like, you really got a good full view of the underbelly. Again, how, you know, how it all, all of the hidden secrets and how it's all, how it all unfolded. And that's, you know, unfolded in many countries that way.

It's bananas. East Germany. I mean, that's a whole nother level what's going on from Russia right now. I mean that. Well, I remember the East German swimmers from back in the 80s. Yeah, exactly.

I mean. It was something else at the time. All right. Well, I remember the East German swimmers from back in the 80s. Yeah, exactly. I mean. It was something else at the time. All right, well, let's talk about the diet. Okay. How long have we been talking? Hour and a half into this, the word vegan has not been uttered one time. I know, it's horrible.

When are they gonna talk about the fact that she's vegan? All right, so vegan athlete. Hopefully they haven't tuned out yet. No, no one has tuned out. It's been riveting. So when did you turn vegan? Why did you turn vegan? You were vegetarian prior to that.

Yeah, yeah. Give me the history here. So I just was just hanging out., I was at a race in Minnesota, road race. And it was a stage race. And I stumbled upon a program that showed what goes on behind closed doors of our slaughterhouses every single day. And I felt very confused and of course horrified and all of those feelings, but I felt really confused because I thought, well, I think this is probably from another country because our government protects its people. And that, of course, has to include all of our food sources. And so I thought, well,

I'm going to stop eating animals tomorrow just in case this has any validity. But I think I'm going to go home from this race and start doing research and find out that this is obviously just an isolated incident. So I stopped eating meat the next day, the next morning. And then of course, go home to find out, holy mother of God, this is systematic across all big agriculture, every animal, every species of animal. So that was the beginning of my vegetarian journey. And then as I dug deeper and found out more and looked under more hoods, there was the exposure of the egg industry

and the dairy industry, which are really, in my opinion, wildly more horrifying than the meat industry could ever be. So this began, what year was that? Mid-2009. Yeah. So you're full-on cycling pro at the time. Did you have some trepidation about how this was gonna impact your training and your performance?

Yeah, I kind of did. I had a coach who was a vegan, which is interesting. And I had read the China study. So I kind of heard about this and was like, oh, that's interesting. So I had had a sense that I might not completely, I wasn't gonna perish from being a vegan, like I wasn't gonna die, right?

But I kind of thought this might end my career. Like I didn't know that I was necessarily gonna be able to have the strength and the stamina because where might I get my protein? Right. But I didn't care. I thought, I just knew almost instantly where might I get my protein? Right. But I didn't care. I thought, you know, this,

I just knew almost instantly that this was something that was significantly more important than anything I was gonna ever be individually on a bicycle, that it was so much bigger than any Olympic games could ever be for me in my life or just in general. And I was fully willing to take the risk.

And how did that play out in terms of shifting your diet and then monitoring how you're progressing as an athlete? Well, I started, I mean, you know, when people ask today, oh gosh, how do you do it? It's so hard. And it's like, I didn't think it was that hard. I still am just so confused by that question. Because first of all, there's Google. You know what I mean? I could get like whatever 50 years ago with something. It's like, okay. But it just explodes in your face. Recipes and foods and all these interesting ways to put the foods together and the flavors and the tastes and the spices. And still, we have to remember that our food, our plant food, our spices,

our herbs are what flavor meat food. Nobody's ever just, most of the time, slapped just a piece of meat on the grill. They have marinated it and tenderized it and spiced it. And that's plant food that does that. So when people say, oh, well, it's not going to taste very good. It's like, we are the food that is making your food taste good. So I thought it was interesting. I thought it was fun. I really was interested in the journey of it. And I loved cooking all of a sudden, which I hadn't for all of those 37 years. I just, I mean, my husband and I went out to eat six nights a week. It was like boring kitchen. I don't want to do now. I'm like interested in cooking and preparing food. And then I start to become really interested in, uh, you know, types of nutrients

that I'm putting in how I'm feeling and then what's coming out on the bike. So I'm doing like all these little mini experiments with myself. And then I'm going back to the drawing board and going, okay, a little more of that, a little more of this. You know, it was just, yeah, it was fun. And cycling is a super interesting template

to explore this because it's like this perfectly conceived contraption to quantify human output and performance. You've got the power meter, you've got the heart rate monitor. I mean, especially on the track. You get more data than you could ever. It's like a data mining machine, right? So there's no other sport where you could just lose yourself in graphs and data to really map out like, okay, what's the impact of this on this, right? Yes. So were you like sort of paying attention to that?

Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah. And I had a, I am unfortunately too tall for really awesome aerodynamics. I've got really long legs and a short torso. So I sit up quite high. And so in track cycling, in team pursuit, you have, you know exactly how many watts that you have to put out on the front

to sustain the speed that you wanna go. For me, it was 474. And I know exactly- For people that don't know, that's a really high number. I know exactly how many watts that I have to put out when I am in, you know, relief, quote, right? Which was closer to 340. So that's my rest.

Whereas my teammates, when you're shorter and more aerodynamic, you have to put out less watts. So I had to put out the most watts on the whole team every time I took a pull and every time I was in line. So I knew exactly how much I had to produce and exactly what types of foods were fueling that and keeping that at a consistent level, if you will,

like consistently being able to put out those watts on the front and days that I could or couldn't and what, you know, what was happening. It was connecting almost everything to my input, my nutrition, which before I had just been like a zombie. Like I just ate whatever was in line at the training center, like you said before, which was pretty nasty stuff. And now, which was pretty nasty stuff. And now, it was just so interesting to see all the different plant foods and what would happen. And then everybody talks about this, but for me, it was really important to be recovering because I am 39 and a half and everybody's in a race to recover, right? Because we're only damaging during training

and we're only repairing then during rest. And that's when you get stronger. You don't get stronger in training. So for me, that was my race. The recovery was my race. It's every athlete's race, but especially as you're getting older. And I had started noticing that my recovery was changing,

you know, before I had gone plant-based. I mean, it was deteriorating. And I was like, oh, changing, you know, before I had gone plant-based. I mean, it was deteriorating and I was like, oh, wow, this is, I am not feeling like I used to after the six hour rides. You know, I'm eating the same thing. I'm sleeping the same way, you know? So that was a- And doing the Normatec boots and all that kind of other stuff, right? Exactly. And getting massage and chiropractic. Yeah. I mean, it's 24-7, right? You're doing something. I don't miss that part. Like just thinking about all of that stuff every day,

all day long. You're thinking about yourself all day long, every day. Yeah, it's boring. Well, to be an athlete at that level is a very self-involved thing. Yeah, completely. It has to be. All right, so then going plant-based,

you're noticing an improvement in your ability to recover? That's what we're gathering from this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and that was like in like a couple of weeks. Wow. I mean, that was just so fast where I was like, wait. And I didn't, to be quite honest, it's not something that I connected at first. I mean, I don't know.

It's stupid. I mean, that's the only thing that I had really changed. Right. But you came in from an ethical point. You weren't doing this like, oh, I'm gonna boost my performance. You were doing this from an ethical perspective of this is an intolerable system and I'm opting out.

I'm opting out. And whatever happens athletically is gonna happen. Yep, yep. And I hope that something good will happen because I feel like by opting out, I'm doing good. I mean, so maybe something will come from this. And it definitely did. But it was, I don't know.

The other thing that's so joyful about it is, you know, so many people say when they say, oh, you know, it's hard, it's hard to stick to or something like that. To me, it's like, it's such a joy to sit down at every meal and you're aware that you are choosing conscience over ease, like whatever is just there. And it is so uplifting and so fulfilling and such an empowering feeling. Like I feel so strong every time I'm slightly challenged, let's say at like a business dinner and we're like at Ruth Chris, you know, like whatever that happens once a freaking year, who cares?

But- Yeah, everyone's worried about that steakhouse. Yeah, that one experience where, you know, but you know, people are just, people are really nice. And the last experience I had at Ruth Chris, which wasn't that long ago, they brought in a vegan meal from a restaurant down the street

because they knew, because right now you and I aren't that quiet about it. And the whole table was like, what are you eating? That looks so delicious. And you're like, well, you just have your little dead animal over there. I mean, it's like, you know, it's just, cause it's just, it's just so, it's so

bountiful and so colorful. And so, you know, I thought that was just great. They all wanted some, I was like, no, I'm not sharing. I'm very hungry. That's hilarious. When you were, when you were in the lead up to London, you said you had a coach who was vegan. I don't know if that was your coach at that time. Yeah, he was my track coach, but he was my road coach at the time. I see. And so, it's not just you,

you've got these three other women, right? And so are they going, well, like, you're like, you're going plant-based? Like, how is that gonna impact us? Like, how did that work? I wasn't super vocal about it really. Like, well, by the time I was with them, I was already plant-based.

Like I had, that had happened. The vocal aspect of what you do is a recent development. Cause I don't remember hearing about this during London. Like it wasn't like, oh, Dotsie, you know. No, I didn't do any social media back then anyway. It was like, I didn't even realize it was like, no, no, no. It was like, it was like my husband's and I little, you know, he was,

he had gone pescatarian by that point, you know, and he, and he, so he was like right after London, which he did. And I did, and he didn't even tell me. And then like, I'm literally going to Whole Foods, going to see the fish guy. Like I need the fish that, you know, was just clocked over the head once and it wasn't the one. I mean, this is why I'm going to these links for my husband. Finally, he just stopped eating them. How did this fish get here exactly? I know.

Oh, my God. The guy was like. Do you have a chain of custody? No. And he was probably BSing me, but he would do that. I mean, he would like, you know, okay, yes, we're going to go here. This week, the clocked over the head ones that didn't suffer at all are right here and they're the sea bass. And so, I mean, he would, I still to this day, I'm like, oh, here she comes. Make

your story. Like you're, oh, that's so ridiculous. So ridiculous. But they didn't really, yeah, it was just kind of like, they just, I just ate what I ate. And who was freaking out was my track coach, who's like a larger kind of like chubby version of Crocodile Dundee. Like he's back country Australia. And he was like, what, what? This is what? Why would you do that? You know, like, why is this a thing what I have to deal with? Like it was like putting him out in a way of like this. So, but it did, yeah, it didn't take long for him to be like, oh, okay, this is working.

I don't, you can eat whatever you want. Wow, that's interesting. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, maybe what you do gets unfairly lumped in with like endurance athlete runner type people. But I think people don't appreciate or understand the amount of power and strength required to perform at that sport.

I mean, it's like massive amounts of power, like crazy amounts of strength that you need. Yeah, so I mean, just to give a comparison. So on the, I did a lot of inverted leg sled work because I needed to lift, uh, move an incredible amount of weight that I was not going to be able to move doing squats. Cause I would have crushed my upper body. Uh, and I had a, I had a lot of work to do in a short period of time to get up to that strength that we were talking about because I'm coming from road cycling.

So I went from being able to do about, um, I started at like 250 pounds on the inverted leg sled to 585 pounds times 60 reps times five sets because my coach had gotten to me where we would almost be the length of the event. So the 60 reps with 585 pounds on it would take. Approximate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, exactly. And that's a pretty obscene amount of weight for 130 pound female. Yeah, that's crazy.

All on plants. Right, unbelievable. So when people come up to you and they're like, well, do you think you would have done better on a paleo diet or do you, you know, like what kind of crazy questions you have to field, right? To defend your position on this. Probably the same ones you do. I mean, you know, like what kind of crazy questions do you have to field, right? To defend your position on this. Probably the same ones you do.

I mean, you know, it's like, I think, I mean, it changes the longer you're in it, right? There's, in this movement or speaking about this, you know, people are asking better questions than they were before. But I think it's also just people are becoming a little bit more educated and more aware and, you know, but, you know, it's kind of people are becoming a little bit more educated and more aware.

But it's kind of still all the same stuff, right? People really don't understand not only protein, but they don't understand iron. They don't understand B12. They don't even understand what B12 is, that it's a bacteria and where you can get it from. They think animals make B12. So there's just a lot of misconceptions out there about the different nutrients that they think that you need from the myth that we've been told and lied to about our whole lives, that you can only get that from animal flesh. So it's just those, you know. Do you have, were you taking supplements or do you have to be a shoe of those because fear of

like contamination and things like that? Yeah, I know. That was always a scary thing because in my road career, I was taking more supplements than I probably, or definitely more than I needed to. Being completely plant-based, I was taking a liquid B12 that my doctor would prescribe and I would pick up at the pharmacy just so that I knew it didn't have a lot of fillers in it, right? When you just get them at the store, they have a lot of fillers. So I was taking the B12 and I was taking a Whole Foods plant-based iron because I did my best when my iron levels were higher than they would naturally run. And when my ferritin levels were higher, my hemoglobin levels were higher.

So I would cycle this whole food plant-based iron, which I could easily get from food, but it would be like a large trough of spinach or something. Easier to control it that way. Exactly, exactly. But it was still mega foods, so it was still the plant. And that's it, just those two things. No protein powders, BCAAs and all that kind of stuff.

No BCAAs, none of the amino acid, none of that stuff. I didn't buy, no way, no. I would do some plant protein every once in a while just because you get tired of, you have to, I mean, I was taking in 5,000 calories a day and sometimes more. And so, you know, with ultradurants, you just get tired of eating.

I don't really do protein shakes anymore, but I did back then because it was just like, you just get tired of eating. Yeah. I don't really do protein shakes anymore, but I did back then, because it was just like, I just want to drink something. I think I'm going to die if I have to eat again, because you just, yeah. All right, so 2012, you win the silver medal. You're doing it plant-based, but you weren't a mouthpiece for this movement.

So between then and now, you've made this decision to be a vocal advocate for these issues. Like what inspired that? And like, how do you think of yourself as a mouthpiece for these issues that we care about? Yeah. Well, you know, I didn't,

when I came back from London, I didn't know anything. I didn't know there was a movement. This is a theme with you. You're always like, what's going on? Where am I? Where am I? I'm tipping over on the track.

I'm doing the AIDS ride on my mountain bike. What's happening? I had no idea there was a vegan movement. I had no idea there was an animal rights movement. I didn't know about you yet. I knew absolutely nothing. I'm still to the point where I'm not sharing anything because I don't think there's anyone that cares. And the moment happened when my husband came home one day from doing some shopping. He'd been to

Native Foods and he saw a little cute group of people meeting. It happened to be Mercy for Animals. He got a flyer and brought it home. It was like, look, there's like people that talk about what you talk about. And I'm like, stop it. And I picked up the phone and called Mercy for Animals in Santa Monica and got ahold of Ari Solomon.

I'm like, you guys like, you like, what, how do you, what do you do? And so he said, come up, come up and see us, let's have lunch. And that was the beginning of recognizing that anybody talks about this and that, and that people listen to them and actually care and are creating a pretty large movement of people that give a crap. Well, it's amazing as somebody who, who not so long ago didn't even know these worlds existed, that you're having PSAs airing during the Olympics and you've created this, um, compassionate champs movement. Like, tell me what that's all about. Um, so I'm learning more and more every day. Uh, but when I started Compassion Champs, it was really, it was kind of more out of a desire

to meld together compassion and strength. I felt like there was nobody really that was having a real conversation about being able to be caring and compassionate and loving and empathetic, but also strong and fierce and badass. And those two just weren't coming together as a group of people. So that's where it was kind of born out of. I'm learning more and more as I am traversing this movement and reading more research and understanding more from being a part of the Game Changers film, which we can talk about. Yeah, I want to talk about that. That, you know, people, and just from my own experience, sadly and really disappointing to me is, by and large, people don't care about the animals. They just don't. They just,

they don't care about the suffering. They don't want to know about it. They don't want to hear it. They don't want you to show them. They don't definitely don't want you to talk about it. And they really don't want you to talk about it when you're all eating. But people do care about their health and they do care about their performance, not just athlete, you know, athletic performance. People just care about their general performance and being better in their life, right? A lot of the people that you've had on here. So the conversation that I'm having is changing a bit more. I think it's, I'm almost feeling more like a undercover animal activist because it's at the core of what I care about the most.

It's the least effective way to change people's minds. Right, the way to impact people is by appealing to what interests them, not what interests you, right? Such a bummer. And I think that, you know, the athlete plays a very interesting role in this movement because what they're able to do with their body speaks louder than the words that come out of many a doctor's mouth or many an activist's mouth. Because when someone sees you with a silver medal on, sees you on a podium or sees you on that

velodrome kicking ass, it's like, wow, how does that person do that? I want to know more about who that person is and what inspires them and what fuels them. And telling that story is a way to impact hearts and minds that I think is different and important. And that's why I think this Game Changers movie that you're a part of is going to be a really big deal. Like I haven't and important, you know? And that's why I think, you know, this Game Changers movie that you're a part of is gonna be a really big deal. Like I haven't seen it yet. I've seen the trailer, but I know it's making a splash.

You were at Sundance. You just got back from the Berlin Film Festival. Tell me what it was like to, you know, see that movie, be part of that movie and to participate in screening it before audiences for the first time. Yeah, it was just a wild pleasure and honor, right? I just feel like, you know, we're kind of at a tipping point of this movement. You know, we're not anywhere anywhere near a large percent of the population eating plant-based, but I feel like I'm definitely having outside of the movement, right? We have to take ourselves outside to really

recognize, but those conversations are at a much higher level than they used to be. People are at least aware now that they've decided that that's for them or not, maybe not. But screening the film at Sundance and at the Berlinale in Berlin, which was the international premiere, it was so many different types of people asking all different types of questions. That's what I loved about it. It was like a wide variety of questions that not just your typical like, oh, where are you getting your protein? Well, they cover that in the film. So maybe that's why they weren't asking that. And people's reaction to it was, it's Sundance. It really, really caught me off guard and by surprise. Normally we're used to people saying, oh, okay, this is interesting, plant-based. Okay,

I think I might try a recipe or I might try meatless Mondays, or I'm going to try this. On slots of people, we do the Q and A after the film, right? There's about 15 of us there, the doctors and the athletes. I'm the only female because the other two females, it's a male, very male-focused film. There's a kind of a bro-heavy. Totally. It's very focused on young men because they are the ones that are resistant to change as far as eating meat and the meat myth. So there's three females in the film and the other two are still competing. So it was the only female there.

So I just got this rush of women, you know, standing in line to talk about this. And every single one says, I'm starting today. What do I, what do I do for dinner? Somebody else comes up and says, I'm going back to the condo and I'm supposed to cook for 10 people and I have chicken in the refrigerator and I can't serve them that it's, you know, it's diseased. She would pick out different parts of the movie that she had learned about all of the gnarliness of chicken. And I can't, in my right mind, serve them that. I don't know what I'm going to do. And I'm thinking, oh my God, oh my God. No, cook the chicken. Let's start tomorrow, it's like, oh my gosh, it was in a completely different type of panic almost

of these people just so moved by what they learned and so moved by the health aspect that they were everyone starting tomorrow. And so I was like, wow, guys, we gotta really be ready for this because nobody knew that was gonna be the reaction. Yeah, you better have your answer like chambered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was really exciting.

Because you got to be able to feed them when the inspiration is at its peak, right? Exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. What was the response in Berlin? How was it different? It was, gosh, people are a little bit more subdued there. You know, I just said the Germans are also questioners. They're much more. Yeah. Yeah.

So we got, I mean, we, yeah, we got, um, there's a part in the film where it kind of goes into, uh, tobacco industry and kind of how they were, uh, eventually exposed even after there was, you know, 700 studies that says smoking kills you, but they had kind of kept them all quiet. And the PR firm Exponent that is known for hiding big tobacco, hiding a lot of chemicals that are in different things that we, lotions and things we put on our skin and are now spinning big agriculture. So that was very, that was an interesting topic in Berlin. Like a lot of people brought that up. What are we gonna do about exponent?

That's not okay. You know, so that was a little bit more. It's a little, a scant of what you were trying to go for. Well, yeah, but I mean, if you'll see it, it kind of, it at least helps people to understand why all of this, how all of this marketing is working, this meat myth is working in the machine that's behind big agriculture and the spin that every time something comes out, like what we're doing with Switch for Good, if we get big enough, which we better, and I hope we

will, there'll be some type of exponent, whether it's them or someone else, doing a quick spin for big dairy. So that is, it's a pretty integral part of the film for people to understand why they're being told this myth, like where it's coming from and how much money is behind that myth. So, but Germany as a whole, and especially Berlin, I mean, Berlin is known as

the vegan capital of Europe. So, you know, it was really people with very open minds too at the film, you know? Yeah. We were talking before the podcast about how amazing Berlin is for vegan food. They have vegans, a full vegan supermarket. And we're like, how come they have that? We don't have that here. Unreal. It would crush in Venice, can you imagine? I thought I was in heaven. I mean, I just couldn't get over myself. Wow, it's wild. So is there a release plan for this movie?

Like would they have the distributor lined up? Can you talk about that? Well, the cool thing is, yeah, well, yeah. I mean, they don't know yet either. So the cool thing is that the distributors are fighting for it. So they're in a great place, a great space to be in. I assume within the next month, they'll hopefully make that decision of who they're going to go with. I mean, their goal is very much eyeballs on the film and they don't

have a monetary goal. Their goal is for 1 billion people to see the film, which is lofty. That's a monetary goal. Their goal is for, you know, one billion people to see the film, which is lofty. That's a big goal. But it's, you know, it's certainly possible. If not, maybe probable. So they, if you keep up with the website, you know, that'll tell gamechangersmovie.com

will tell when it's gonna be released. Cause I mean, everybody is, seems, you know, good'll tell, gamechangersmovie.com will tell when it's gonna be released. Cause I mean, everybody is, seems, you know, good things seems to be dying to see it, but I think it'll do some more film festivals too before. Yeah, so we'll see. Yeah, more will be revealed. All right, so we gotta wrap this up, but I have one final question.

Is anybody still there? I know, we're at two hours, we're good. You have this competitive nature. You have retired from cycling. Where are you gonna channel this energy into this movement, yes? Or how does this, you know, is that? There's no question in my mind that I will do this till the day I die.

It fills every piece of my bursting heart with so much joy and need and fulfillment. And that this is revealing the secrets behind this is very similar to back in the day with tobacco. I feel such an inherent deep need to share truth with people. If they're not being told the truth, somebody has to tell them the truth. Somebody has to uncover. And if I can use the Olympian thing or the Olympics thing that I did and fought really hard for, because you're right, people are interested in what an Olympian eats or what an Olympian does. I mean, that's part of this PSA with the seven Olympians. It's like, nobody's going, oh God, stupid Olympians, put them in the corner. People just kind of are inherently like, go team. And so that platform will hopefully allow us to reveal and uncover these untruths that people

have been told their whole lives from animal agriculture all the way to all the different diseases that the seven top diseases that we're dying from in this country. People are just consuming incredible amounts of dairy while they're fighting prostate cancer. Incredible amounts of dairy while they're fighting ovarian cancer.

It's insane. And so it's the only thing besides my relationship with my husband that I care the most about. It's everything to me. Well, it's beautiful and it's exciting times. You know, I think the awareness is getting out there and there is a growing interest and receptivity to these ideas that I think is only gonna build.

And your role in all of that is prominent and growing. So it's awesome to see. One final thing, if you'll indulge me. Do you have to go? I gotta feed the traffic. So I think it would be great to kind of end this with leaving a few thoughts for somebody who's listening to this,

who perhaps is suffering from an eating disorder or is stuck in the cycle of, you know, a pattern that they can't see themselves through. So is there a lifeline that you could throw to that person or something that they could think about or do that could perhaps be helpful? Well, there's a couple of things. I think that when you're deep into the disorder,

you definitely don't feel like there's ever any way out. And that's especially true with eating disorders because you have to continue to eat, right? You can't just be like, okay, no more drugs, no more alcohol. I felt so isolated by that. And just letting them know that there truly is a way out once an anorexic, not always an anorexic. It's not the same as it might be or how many alcoholics look at it and for their own recovery. There is freedom on the other side. There really is a pathway, whichever pathway you choose to have freedom from it. So many eating disorder

sufferers that I met, that's the one thing that they just don't really believe is true. And it is, there really is freedom. And I think the other thing is that most eating disorder sufferers are fairly type A and most that I've met want to contribute to society. I mean, they have a kind of a yearning, kind of a desire. If you let this disease run its course and you die from it, you're not going to be able to do anything. You're not going to be able to have an impact on the world and you're not going to be able to do anything for the greater good. And you're definitely not going to be able to do anything healthfully for the greater good while you're sick.

So allow that to be your bright guiding and shining light out of this. guiding and shining light out of this. That was a big part of it for me is recognizing that I can't do anything if I'm dead. So let that come to the top of your heart and let that guide you. There is a way out and you can't do anything for the world if you're dead. Yeah, beautifully put and raise your hand and make yourself known and find help. out and you can't do anything for the world if you're dead. Yeah. Beautifully put. And raise

your hand and make yourself known and find help. Find that person that you feel comfortable talking to that you can confide in. And I think that's an important first step in breaking that cycle of denial and that prison that keeps you stuck. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for that. Thank you. that keeps you stuck. Yeah, yeah. So thank you for that. Thank you. Yeah, this was awesome. Dotsie, you're an inspiration.

I really appreciate your time and your testimony today. Yeah, you as well. It's powerful and I wish you well and keep doing what you're doing. I feel like we're saying goodbye forever or something. Will you come back and talk to me some more tomorrow? Right. Cool, so if you wanna connect with Dotsie at Dotsie Bausch on Twitter and Instagram,

CompassionChamps.com. Vegan Olympian on Instagram. Vegan Olympian, oh, that's right. Yeah, well, it's funny, I type your name in, but then it automatically pulls up Vegan Olympian, so. Cool, it's weird no one had that, right? I know, yeah, that is weird, right? I only got it like six months ago.

That's kind of awesome that you have that. I know, yeah, that is weird, right? I only got it like six months ago. That's kind of awesome that you have that. Yes. And it's compassionchamps.com? Yeah, compassion-champs.org. Okay, or.org. And you have your own personal website too, right? Yeah. Dotsiebausch.com.

Okay, dotsiebauschusa.com? Yes. Okay. You got it. All right, cool. All right, well, yeah, please do come back and talk to me again this was great thanks all right thank you appreciate it peace plants

all right that's it we did it and it was good i'm good are you good i hope you're good let dotsy know how this one landed by hitting her up on social at dotsy bausch on twitter and at vegan olympian Instagram. And please check out the show notes for this episode on the episode page at richroll.com for tons of links and resources to take your edification beyond the earbuds. Once again, the brand new and revised edition of Finding Ultra is now available in the US and Canada. Check it out on Amazon, about 35% brand new material. Super proud of it. Very excited. Would mean so much to me if you would trust me and pick up a copy.

And Plant Power Away Italia, our brand new cookbook, is now available for pre-order. You can reserve your copy now. And if you're a female, if you're a woman, make sure to check out the latest post on my blog for a chance to win a free spot on our upcoming retreat in Tuscany, May 19th through 26th, 2018. It's a $5,000 value. The contest is only open through April 24th. So jump on it now. I'm very excited about that. And if you would like to support my work, please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on whatever platform you enjoy this content. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash rich

roll this episode is up on youtube as well all of that really helps with the show's visibility extending reach and audience all that good stuff which makes it easier for me in the future to book the very best people for future shows you can also support the work that i do on patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate i want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today, Jason Camiolo, as always, for his wizardry in audio engineering, production, the interstitial music, help with the show notes. You're stepping up, Jason. Good job. I appreciate you. Michael Gibson on videography and theme music, as always, by Analema. Thanks for the love, you guys. Talk to you soon. Be back here in a couple of days. Until then, be well, reach high, and treat yourself well. Be nice to yourself.

Be nice to other people. What can I tell you? All right. Peace, plants. Namaste. Thank you.