The Rich Roll Podcast - How He Dropped 75lbs on a Plant-Based Diet and Became an Ironman

Episode Date: September 13, 2013

Today on the show I chat with Thad Beatty, guitarist for the multi-platinum country duo Sugarland. In so many ways, Thad's story closely mirrors mine. The details are distinct, but no matter — the journey is all too familiar. I first came across Thad's story on Ironman.com and — struck by the similarities in our journeys — knew I had to have him on the show. Just a few years ago, Thad tipped the scales at 230 lbs. Overweight with raging blood pressure and alarmingly elevated cholesterol, the touring musician lifestyle had him headed in the direction of irrevocable health problems in his mid-30's. His decision to turn his life around snapped into focus the day he found out his mother had been diagnosed with colon cancer. In support and solidarity with mom, both Thad and his brother decided to clean up their act. It started simple — ditch the lousy processed foods and start eating more fruits & vegetables. One thing led to another, and before he knew it, Thad found himself a convert to the PlantPower lifestyle. Not long thereafter, Thad shed the weight – 75lbs in all — down to a trim 165 lbs. Life was good. But then came another moment of clarity. Sugarland's guitar tech was diagnosed with advanced lymphoma. MusiCares came to his aid, but it was too late. Kevin Quigley unfortunately passed away in March 2012. It was at this moment that Thad decided to focus on service — giving back to his beloved profession. So was borne his dream of completing an Ironman. Not for himself, but to raise money for the foundation that had come to his friend's aid. Thad achieved his dream, finishing the Arizona Ironman last November, raising funds along the way. But that was just the beginning. Thad decided to take his service game to the next level, ultimately establishing his own foundation — Music That Moves– dedicated to improving the holistic health and fitness of his fellow musicians beyond the stage through various means, including sharing the lifestyle principles that changed his own life. And this October he's taking his game to the main stage — this time not as a musician but as an athlete — lining up in Kona to compete at the Ironman World Championships as part of Ironman's Kona Inspired program. I'm hoping we'll all catch a glimpse of Thad and his story when NBC airs the race broadcast. I hope you enjoy the conversation! Rich NOTE: There are audio quality issues with this Skype-recorded conversation. Apologies. Just when I think I have it all figured out, technology rears it's ugly head once again. The good news is the quality improves after the initial 30 minutes of the conversation. I did my best to clean it up, but it is what it is. As always, I promise to continually improve, but these things happen. Go easy on me. Here's a little video from Thad from the Kona Inspired site to get you pumped.

Welcome to episode 48 of the Rich Roll Podcast with Thad Beatty. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey people, Rich Roll here. This is the Rich Roll Podcast. Welcome to the show. What happened? Why was there no podcast episode uploaded on Monday? I need my Rich Roll Podcast. Welcome to the show. What happened? Why was there no podcast episode uploaded on Monday? I need my Rich Roll Podcast. I've come to rely on it every Monday. Well, here's what happened. I was in Toronto. I was in town for the Toronto VegFest, which is, I believe,

the largest VegFest in the world, internationally., massively attended, thousands and thousands of people convening on the waterfront in beautiful Toronto. I had the good fortune of speaking there last year. They invited me back. And my plan was I brought my portable podcast rig, which now I have all this great new equipment. I've got this special briefcase that I keep it in. I was so proud. And I went and I thought, I'm going to sit down with all these people. I'm going to have these amazing conversations with so many influencers in this movement. I'm going to come back from Toronto with all sorts of episodes that I'm going to be able to upload over the next couple of weeks. Well, you know what they say, you know how to make God laugh.

You tell him your plans. Well, that was my plan. That's not what worked out. What happened was I got to Toronto, and the demands on my time were so extensive, I literally was rushing around the entire time that I was there. I didn't have five minutes to sit down with anybody to have any kind of conversation longer than five or 10 minutes. So unfortunately, I just did not have the bandwidth to do in-person podcast interviews with the amazing people that I found myself spending time

with, which was very painful. It was great and exciting and amazing to be in the midst of so many inspiring people, people that have inspired me and that I think will inspire you and amazing to be in the midst of so many inspiring people, people that have inspired me, and that I think will inspire you, and to be unable to find the time to sit down with them. But that's life. That's the way it is. But I will be interviewing a lot of the people that I met over the weekend, either by Skype or in person, over the next several weeks. So you can look forward to that. But it was still nonetheless an amazing weekend. I delivered my keynote on Saturday night. It was pouring rain. They were worried about people turning up. But we filled the theater, which was amazing. And I think they had to turn away like 30 or 50 people or something. So if you showed up to hear me speak and you

didn't get in, I'm so sorry. There was nothing I could do about it. I wish the venue had been a little bit bigger. But hopefully I will be returning to Toronto sometime in the next six or eight months or something like that. And you'll have another chance to come and hear me speak. One of the exciting things that happened in Toronto was that I am involved in this documentary project. My friend James Wilkes, who if you've been listening to the podcast, you know he was a guest several months ago. He's the MMA UFC fighter, ultimate fighting champion who's plant-based. He speaks very eloquently and intelligently about the science behind plant-based nutrition and his

advocacy of this way of eating for athletic performance. And he decided he was going to make a documentary about all the plant-based athletes out there. I was one of the first people that he interviewed over a year ago when he was really just trying to figure out how to make a documentary. He'd never made a film before and he was kind of bootstrapping the whole thing. Fast forward a year later, him and his main partner in the project, Joseph Pace, have come a long way. They've raised a bunch of money, fully budgeted, and they're working with the producer from Forks Over Knives, and they're kind of under the tutelage of that organization.

It's not clear that it's going to be put out under the Forks Over Knives, and they're kind of under the tutelage of that organization. It's not clear that it's going to be put out under the Forks Over Knives banner, but they sort of are, the Forks Over Knives crowd has been very supportive of this project and helping sort of guide it. And now he's got a tremendous number of amazing interviews with all sorts of fascinating people. And him and his crew, Joseph and James and their crew, were in Toronto doing a lot of filming. And I had the good fortune of being able to participate in that a little bit. They filmed my keynote. And a few conversations that I had with some of the other plant-based athletes that were in town, which was fantastic.

The most amazing and notable of which is this guy, Patrick Baboumian. If you follow me on Instagram or on YouTube, you probably saw the pictures that I posted and the video that I posted. But basically, Patrick is an Armenian. His descent, I think he's Iranian and Armenian, but he lives in Germany and he's a strongman competitor. He's one of those guys that lifts unbelievable amounts of weight. They have those TV shows and those competitions where these guys lift an unbelievable amount of weight and run like 10 meters with it on their back, and they see how fast and how strong they can be. And there's a whole number of events,

and he's one of the kind of top guys in this world. And he's vegan. The guy's on a plant-based diet. He looks like the real-world Wolverine. I've never met anyone in real life that actually rocks the Wolverine beard, but this guy pulls it off and he looks like the Wolverine the way he looks in the comic book, sort of a stout, shorter guy who's just unbelievably strong. And Patrick came into Toronto to attempt to set a Guinness Book of World Records for most weight lifted and carried.

So as I understand it, and I could have my facts off a little bit, but in these strongman competitions, they have an event where they place a tremendous amount of weight on this yoke. It's like a bar scaffold thing where they can put plates on it. And then they lift it up on their back, on their shoulders, and they go 10 meters. And in these competitions, they see how much weight they can do and how fast they can go 10 meters. And Patrick thought, well, I'd like to try to see if I could just lift more weight than anyone else ever has. And as I understand it, the current world record is held by somebody who lifted 540 kilos. Do the math on that.

I don't know what it is, like 1,100 some odd pounds. And he said, well, I'm going to try to top that. I'm going to do it with 550 kilos. I'm not going to worry about how fast I can go the 10 meters as long as I do it under a minute. I just want to lift more weight than any human being ever has, or at least lift more weight over 10 meters than anyone ever has in the history of humankind, at least as documented. And so on Sunday at the Toronto VegFest at this outdoor stage called the WestJet Theater, which is right on the harbor, right on the water.

It's this beautiful outdoor amphitheater. I posted a pic on Instagram of it in front of a crowd of several hundred people. I don't know how many people were there, but there were a lot of people. in front of a crowd of several hundred people. I don't know how many people were there, but there were a lot of people. I was on stage with James and Joseph and also George LaRock, who I'm going to tell you about. He's an NHL player, also a vegan. We kind of helped get him sorted out and set up, sort of assisting him.

And he went for it. He lifted 550 kilos, which is 1,216 pounds, and he carried it for 10 thing for a runner or a triathlete, an endurance athlete to adopt a plant-based diet and perform. You know, these are endurance athletes. They're not very threatening. But it's another thing altogether when a strength athlete decides he's going to try this. And Patrick couldn't be more different in his athletic prowess from the kind of things that I pursue. And yet to see somebody who is subsisting on a plant-based diet lift more weight than anyone else has ever lifted before, that's a very impactful moment. So it was quite an honor to kind of be there in person to witness that and, uh, and to see him, uh, impact so many people. He's an inspiring guy. He's a funny guy. And I would have loved nothing

more than to sit down with that guy for two hours and bang out a podcast with him. But like I said, you know, our time was spread very, very thin and I talked to him and he's more than happy to come on and do it on Skype because he's unlikely to be in Los Angeles anytime soon. And I really want to get his story out. It's inspiring. So that was one guy that I had the good fortune of meeting that I want to share with you. The other guy is George LaRock, who is a former NHL player, NHL star, Canadian hockey player, who lives in Montreal. He's of Haitian descent, a big, strong guy, 260 pounds, and was known in the

NHL as a brawler, like he got into a lot of fights. And he's a very eloquent, well-spoken gentleman who is now a politician, in addition to running several businesses. I think he has two raw vegan restaurants in Montreal. He has a kombucha company called Rise Kombucha. He's written a book and he's currently running for office right now in Montreal. He's in the Green Party. So he was another fascinating guy that I'd heard a lot about and knew of certainly, but had never had the opportunity to meet. And he's getting ready to run his first marathon. So we hit it off talking about endurance stuff. And I think I talked him into attempting an Ironman next year and he's trying to rope me into doing it with him. So more will be revealed on that. But I ended up hanging out a lot with

these guys and with James and working on the documentary project, which is really exciting. It's going to be another year before that thing's done and out, but an honor to be included in that project. But long story short, the point being that my plans, my big plans for recording all these podcasts just didn't happen. And Monday came and went and no podcast went up. So I'm sorry about that. But I'm now committed to playing offense and starting to record a lot more of these so I can bank them and release them in a more calm and organized fashion coming up. Today on the show, I'm pretty excited to have Thad Beatty, who I've been talking to over a number of months and have been wanting to get him on the podcast.

I'd held off because I thought that he was going to be in Los Angeles and I wanted to do it in person, but his trip to LA got canceled. And so rather than continue to wait until when he might be in town, I just wanted to get his story out there. He is the guitarist in the wildly successful country music band Sugarland. These guys are huge. If you're not a country music fan, just to put it into context, they have sold, I believe, like 8 million albums. There are multiple Grammy award-winning band. They've won CMA awards, ACM awards. I mean, they're huge, right? So he's a guitar player in the band. And his story, in many ways, the details of his story are different than mine, but the kind of essence is the same. This is a guy who was 70 pounds overweight,

mind, but the kind of essence is the same. This is a guy who was 70 pounds overweight, had terrible cholesterol and blood pressure in his 30s. And when his mother was diagnosed with colon cancer, he decided it was time to make a change. Ultimately, he ended up adopting a plant-based diet and he became an Ironman. He did his first Ironman last year at Arizona, He became an Ironman. He did his first Ironman last year at Arizona, Arizona Ironman. And he's part of the Ironman WTC's program, Kona Inspired, where they select a few people with inspiring stories and give them a spot at the Kona Ironman World Championship race. So he's getting ready to participate in that race. And he's got a really powerful and great message. And he's a guy who's tremendously into service and giving back. And I just love his spirit. I love his message. I love his story.

Who doesn't love a great story of personal transformation? He certainly fits the bill. So it's a great interview. We're going to get into it in a minute. A couple notes about it. We did it by Skype, and so whenever you use Skype, you might run into a few technical issues, and I certainly did. So the first 35 minutes of the interview, the audio is a little bit spotty. It's a little echoey. My voice sounds like I'm in an echo chamber. It's not great. And then the hour that follows that is a lot better. So breathe. I'm continuing to learn. I keep thinking I have all this audio stuff figured out and then I run into problems. I actually lost an entire episode a couple weeks ago. I sat down with my buddy John Moffitt. We

had this epic conversation. It was amazing, and the audio file was corrupted. It didn't record at all, so it's frustrating. Believe me, I am doing everything I can to avoid these pitfalls, but they happen. So please don't be so hard on me. Bear with it. It's not terrible. It's just, you know, it's not the greatest audio. That's all. But then it gets better. So I promise I'm going to keep getting better at this. I do have new equipment. I just have to figure out this Skype thing a little bit better than I have. So I am going to be in Tucson coming up on September 21st as part of the Healthy You Network. If you want to learn more about that, go to healthyyounetwork.org. I'm looking forward to that event. There's going to be some other cool people speaking there like Dr. Michael Greger, my favorite, who's been on the podcast, and Colleen Patrick Goudreau, who's also really cool.

So check that out. What else? I think that's it. Thank you for all the support, you guys, for the podcast. When I was in Toronto, I was signing books after I spoke. And basically every single person, they just want to talk about the podcast. Oh, the podcast this, the podcast that. And it just blows my mind. It blows my mind how powerful this medium is and that I can go all over the place and have this sort of shared commonality with people that have been listening to the show. So I dig it. I love it. I'm going to keep going, and I appreciate all the support.

If you want to support the show, the easiest and best way to do that is to click on the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. It's on the blog page. It's on the podcast page. We're actually doing a little web revamp so we can put it on the homepage too and make it a little bit more visible. And also we're redoing it

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Buy whatever you're going to buy on Amazon, like Finding Ultra, the paperback. And Amazon kicks us a few pennies, and it doesn't cost you anything extra. So, thank you for doing that. All right. I've been going on for like 20 minutes. I could do a whole ad about my MindBodyGreen online plant-based nutrition course and our products and all of that. But if you've been listening, you know about that stuff. All I ask is that if you're enjoying the show, tell a friend, help spread the word,

and know that I really appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for all the support. It was really hammered home to me when I went out of town and met so many cool people. And it means a lot to me. 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

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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 and 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. So without further ado, let's just get into it. All right, ladies and gentlemen, Thad Beatty. I'm so bummed because you emailed me a little while back and said you were going to be in L.A. I guess your wife was going to be playing on Leno or Kimmel or something like that? Yeah, she's doing it. They did Leno yesterday, and then they did Ellen, I think it was today.

So they're out there having fun times. So they're out there having fun times. And I was planning the wonder trip of going to Vegas and doing some stuff at the Iron Man Foundation at the 73 Championships and then just hopping over to L.A. and had stuff in Nashville I had to get done. So I wasn't able to make it. So I'm pretty bummed about it. Well, Iron Man calls. They're putting demands on your time, yeah. I know.

It's pretty exciting, though. It's fun for a silly musician to have all these crazy different obligations that are, you know, completely outside the norm of what we're used to. It's awesome, man. I think it's super cool. So you were there to watch the 70.3 World Championships? No, I didn't get to make it because we were in the studio in Nashville, so I had to end up postponing that trip, and then we were going to go and do some stuff on the Ironman live broadcast for that,

and so I had to stay home and didn't get to be a part of it, so I was sad about the whole thing. So your wife, she plays bass in Sugarland, yeah? My wife plays bass in Sugarland, but. My wife plays bass in Sugarland, but, uh, our singer Jennifer has done a solo record. So she's doing some, uh, some, some press for that right now. So they've been going and doing, you know, the whole press circuit. Uh, so about two weeks ago they were in New York. They did the good morning America and, uh, uh, Kelly, uh, and Michael Strahan show. And now they've hopped over to the West Coast.

But we have a studio in town in Nashville, so I stay in town doing that. So my wife just hops around. She's going to be on tour with an awesome singer-songwriter named Amos Lee all fall. And so I'm pumped about checking her out with that, too. That's cool. So Sugar Land is not touring right now.

You guys are in the studio? Right. Well, Sugarland is off right now. Jennifer, our singer, had a baby, and so that was kind of perfect timing for me to kind of hop into this Ironman world and do some stuff with the foundation, and the timing really worked out perfectly. That's great.

So I want to get into all this stuff, but before we get going, I have this nagging question I have to ask. Yes, yes. I'm going to be disappointed. My brother-in-law is a guitarist that lives in Nashville, so I'm dying to know whether you guys have ever crossed paths. His name is Stuart Mathis. I've never met him, but I heard on one of your other podcasts you made mention of him. And so now I've been stalking him, seeing if I can find him at any local haunts or anything like that.

He shouldn't be too hard to track down. You guys run packs right now. We definitely are in packs. It's just kind of finding his pack, and then it'll be off to the races from there. Who is he working with? I remember you mentioned a band I had heard of, and I was like, oh, that's awesome. Right, yeah, he's in the Wallflowers now. Oh, okay.

Yeah. That's awesome. It's cool. I mean, he lived in L.A. for many, many years and was kind of a journeyman guitar player and played on tons of different albums, and it took him a really years and was kind of a journeyman guitar player and played on tons of different albums. And it took him a really long time to kind of get his traction. And then he started touring with quite a few acts. He was Jules' guitar player for many years and went out on tour with her.

And he was with Five for Fighting, and he played for Liam Rimes for a number of years also on a couple tours, I think. Okay, well, we definitely have plenty of connections. Yeah, there's no question. I mean, he moved to Nashville maybe two or three years ago, maybe longer. As I get old, I lose sense of time. But, yeah, a number of years ago, he moved to Nashville, and his wife, uh Holly is also a musician as well I'm sure at some point you guys are going to cross paths so make sure you say hello I will I think we'll

have to you'll need to uh connect us via email and we can go and and have the traditional Nashville coffee date yeah absolutely I will I will definitely do that um for sure so so anyway so you know I know a little bit about kind of what your world is like because every time Stewart's out on, on tour, you know, every time they pass through LA, we get to go to the show and go backstage and have the fun experience of, you know, meeting whatever band he's playing with and doing all that. And, and, you know, he is always telling stories. So I feel like I have a general sense of, of what your life is like,

but it's a crazy, exciting, in certain respects, life. But also there's a lot of kind of mundane, not so rock star aspects of what it's like to be on the road. I mean, can you kind of paint a picture a little bit about what the day to day is like? Absolutely. I think you painted the picture in your brief description perfectly. It's filled with ups and downs. Most times you're getting on a bus at midnight from Nashville. You're heading out to wherever you're going. You wake up in a city, and when you're in a bigger arena- type tour, you're just waking up at the arena.

So you wake up on the bus in the parking lot of a basketball or a hockey arena. And then your day starts by wandering in, finding your locker room, which is now your home base for the day, and then hoping you can find catering. It's very sexy and rock and roll. It really is. I mean, there's nothing quite like showering in front of your bandmates in an open-stall shower, and same with the full restroom facilities. Everybody's been in a locker room, so that's what it is, locker room lifestyle full go.

So that's what it is, locker room lifestyle full go. And, of course, we are co-ed, so we lost all senses of modesty many, many years ago. And so I've been able to fit in well into the triathlon community going to the local YMCA or wherever. Not afraid of a deck change with a towel around you in front of a thousand people, you know, getting ready for an Ironman. Right. That's it. And that's, and sometimes I take tremendous pride in that. And then other times my wife is usually the one that will remind me subtly in those times that there's certain places where Speedo is not appropriate.

The Speedo is appropriate everywhere. It's how you rock it, man. Come on. That is my take exactly. And I think she's getting used to that now. It's interesting that you tour with your wife. So how is that?

That's relatively unusual. It has been one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me we we met in the same audition for sugar land you know a little over uh eight years or so ago so in the same audition uh so we had the that same gee i wonder if i'm going to get this this gig i wonder if they like me uh conversation uh while we were doing the audition. And then shortly after we both got the gig, then we're the two new people on the job. So we created bonds of friendship that lasted

a number of years as we were on tour. And about two or three years into it, Jennifer sat us down one day and basically said, hey, you're not fooling anybody here. I just want you to know you have my blessing. You're not going to meet anybody unless it's on the road, and you two clearly have a strong bond, so you have my blessing. Go for it. So we dated for a couple of years and got married, and the whole band was there, and it was an awesome experience.

But just for my day-to-day, the day-to-day piece of it, we, you know, everything we know about relationship is in the airport or on a tour bus or in catering or at a... I mean, what's that like when a tour is over and then suddenly you find yourselves at home, you know, sitting at a dinner table staring across from each other? Well, that's exactly what it is. You're sitting there staring, wondering what time catering's up. And then you realize you don't have a caterer at your house. And yeah, that's been part of my whole journey that's not too dissimilar from your story

and what you talk about in your book is you wake up one day and you used to be somewhat healthy and somewhat organized, and then the next thing you know, some years later, you're significantly overweight and stressed. For us, it's definitely a learning curve. We would come home and the first thing you do is, heck, I'm not going to go buy groceries for two days of being home. We go back on the road. So you eat out every meal. Right. And you set a social time, and it definitely is tough, you know, more tough being home.

Well, I think that, you know, I want to take a step back and let you kind of, you know, tell the whole story of how you got from overweight to where you are now for people that don't know the story. But before we get into that, I mean, I think one sort of point of commonality with maybe the average listener is, you know, in one respect, you know, you live this very unique lifestyle. But, you know, a lot of people say, well, I'm too busy to eat right or go to the gym or stay fit. But I would imagine that the time pressures on you are extraordinary. I mean, you don't even get to go home, and your time really isn't your own. And even if you're on tour, you step outside, and then you have to deal with people that know who you are.

It's very tough to find a private moment to just take care of yourself. to find a private moment to just take care of yourself. Yeah, it really is. It was a learning process that went two directions. And you learn how to kind of stay inside and do what you need to do. And from a food standpoint especially, you know, you're just doing what's convenient or what's in the moment or what's in the airport. So you learn a series of habits that way. And then to turn it around and kind of unlearn those and relearn healthy habits has been quite a journey.

Right. And I think that if you can do it, you know, on the road, then there's got to be a way for the average person who's working a 95 job to do it. I mean, you can't even get in a car and go to a grocery store. You probably don't even know where the grocery store is. You're in a different place every day. And on the one hand, you have the convenience of having a chef who's preparing meals for you, which sounds fabulous. But, you know, it's not like you can just get on your bike and go out for a three-hour ride on a Saturday.

on your bike and go out for a three-hour ride on a Saturday. And for so, so long, you know, the first, you know, as it started out, as we were just beginning, the first couple of singles are starting to hit. You know, you're opening for everybody. You're playing at every fair and festival and, you know, on trailers in the middle of nowhere. And the majority of our year was, or years early on, were spent in cities that no one had ever heard of. So, yeah, there's no grocery store.

Sometimes your food options are, here's some meal tickets for the fair. Go on, head out. A little cotton candy and some popcorn. Yeah, or we've got this really special thing where they take two Krispy Kreme donuts and they put a cheeseburger in the middle of it, and you can have a deep-fried Snickers to go with that. That sounds excellent. I wonder if you ended up 70 pounds overweight.

So let's step backwards, and if you could just briefly kind of summarize your story. And in many ways, it's so similar to mine. I love it. I'm so excited to get into this with you. Well, when I read your book, it was shocking. And I got chills quite a few times just because the context was different profession-wise, but the story was very much the same. You know, the context was different profession-wise, but the story was very much the same.

You know, I've spent the last 16 years in Nashville as a producer, writer, and musician. And so that kept me in and out of the studio, you know, late hours at night, and then on the road. And it's all about a different level of convenience. It's about, let's get, okay, we've got this session we've got to get done. It's 2 in the morning. The only thing you can get is pizza. So you can do that. And then over the years of touring, you have, like I mentioned, you have catering. You have, you know, the way that it usually works on tour is they'll have three meals catered,

and then they have after-show food, which is basically, you know, you play at 10 o'clock at night, and they basically bring you a fourth of dinner. And so you're doing, you know, chicken wings and pizza and hamburgers from wherever. pizza and hamburgers from wherever. And so my story is over, I started traveling, started touring, was reasonably fit, and was, you know, active just because I had done some sports stuff in college. And then slowly over time, you just wake up. And, you know, you're a new person and not in ways that you want to be and for me it was we were going through a series of pretty heavy tour dates and my mom called one day

and let me know that she had gone to the doctor, gone in, they'd done a colonoscopy and she had colon cancer and for us this was out of the blue. And we were in Birmingham, Alabama, doing a show there, and I can remember just kind of being floored. And around the same time, I had started to have some side effects, some health stuff, all of which I thought was, you know, just stress-related. all of which I thought was, you know, just stress-related. So I had just before that gone to the doctor where I found out I had, you know, cholesterol was getting dangerously close to putting me on medication. I had high blood pressure.

I was having kind of, I started having physical symptoms, you know, tingling in my hands and my forearms and, you know, bouts of being lightheaded and all of these, the signs that are just connected with just being not as healthy as I could be. How old were you at the time? I was early 30s, so I was probably 33 or 34 at the time. And so for me, that led to, you know, my profession comes from my ability to play guitar. And now I'm having numbness and tingling in my hands, which led to more stress, which led to more, you know, kind of the cycle begins. And then at the point where my mom calls and says that she has cancer, it was kind of we as a family hit the line where it was, okay, and that's enough.

We have to rally together and get this thing figured out, not only for her health, but each of us individually. My brother was overweight as well. And so we all went on a journey together. And it was, you know, it just started with let's hop on the internet and see what what we can find uh anti-cancer foods anti-cancer diet right and i love the fact that you bonded together as a family to try to be i mean you were doing it kind of for yourself because you knew you needed it but really it was your what was going on with your mom that was the wake up the true wake-up call that catalyzed the initial action? One hundred percent. And, you know, looking back, there's, I'm so, I'm so thankful. It's one of those things where it was probably the single greatest and worst experiences of my life kind

of all wrapped up into one. And so for us, it became really about family. I've been on the road, my mom was in Mississippi, and my brother had gone to college, and we kind of had separate lives as a family. You know, you talk every couple of weeks and say all the niceties, but, you know, I would get home and see them maybe once a year when we're not on tour. Did they live in Nashville? Where did they live?

My mom was living in Mississippi, and then my brother was even further south in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. So even holidays you're trying to, you know, I'm thinking I was just on the road for 300 days this year. Wow. The last thing on my mind is wanting to hop in the car and drive around to see all of my family. Right, right. So the diagnosis comes down, you go on the internet and you're trying to find the ultimate anti-cancer diet and what's popping up in your Google search?

Well, the things that we started noticing were certain amounts of raw foods affecting it. And, of course, that leads us to Netflix when we become immersed in all of the worlds of the documentaries. You know, this was before Forks Over Knives and some of the really popular ones now. So it was, you know, just the beginnings of kind of some fringe stuff. And my brother stumbled upon something that said if you can eat 51% raw, then studies show that that has a pretty good effect as far as dealing with some of the cancer responses and things like that. So we as a family just kind of committed to, okay, let's figure this out, 51% raw.

Of course, it's daunting at first, and you think, how can we even do this? But it was a trip to the Costco and a Vitamix later, and it was pretty simple. So we started with making smoothies for breakfast and then having tons of greens and salad and any veggies we could get into, kind of lunch a lunch salad and then you kind of eat normal at night and before we know it we're easily we're easily making it down the 51% raw route and you start to notice well this is this is I'm feeling better I feel good about what we're doing and then the next thing we stumbled upon was this idea of crowding out, which is if you drink more water, you don't have room for soda in your stomach. If you eat more greens, you don't have as much room for french fries in your stomach.

If you eat more lean proteins, then you don't have as much room for fatty red meats and the other things. And so slowly over time, it was, you know, we started that process. I went from a guy who would pretty much eat and drink anything to a vegan now. I like that it didn't start with this idea of, okay, I'm going to be a vegan now, or I'm going to put a label on this. It was just, hey, let's try to get more raw foods, you know, let's try to get better foods foods. Let's try to get better foods into our systems and just go from there and start

to feel different. And then that motivates greater change. And it really just started with the incredible transformative power of the Vitamix. No doubt. I can remember we came home from that run in Birmingham where my mom had shared everything with us.

We went on our Mad Ram page on the Internet, got the Vitamix, and then we flew out. We flew to L.A., and we always go, there's that in-and-out burger that's right there, you know, maybe half a mile from LAX. I know. Okay. So here we are, you know, it's a group of the band and then our crew, you know, so we're flying with, say, 20 people. So we're flying with, change and then we go straight to

in and out burger and you know it's it's uh here i am and my first level of of trying to figure it out okay i'll just not eat red meat in an out burger so i remember the one of the first things i did was i just didn't have the in the uh hamburger i went with the grilled cheese you know okay here's a one small step for man and um uh i remember having the conversation with the grilled cheese. You know? Okay, here's one small step for man. And I remember having the conversation with the bandmates there, okay, I'm going to try to do this 51% raw thing. And they're, of course, supportive, but

you know, everybody on the road has so many wild hairs about things that they're getting into that it's just, oh, somebody else is into something crazy now. So from then on, it was you a, Oh, somebody else is into something crazy now. Right. So, uh, from then on, it was, uh, you know, slowly you just, you, uh, red meat and refined sugars and things like that were kind of the first to fall off, uh, soda and any, you know, diet Cokes, artificial sweeteners were, were, uh, were at the top of it next. And then it was, uh, I'm eating more lean proteins and,

and, uh, vegetable protein sources. So chicken, uh, chicken was next. Um, uh, especially after I read, uh, Jonathan Safran Fourier's book, uh, eating animals, or I think that's what it was called, uh, uh, at that point. So I lost, uh, I lost any desire for chicken. And then, you know, one day it's just, hey, I have Greek yogurt once a week. And then just kind of dropped that, and here we are. You woke up one day, and you're like, oh, my God, I'm a vegan. I know. It's still even, you know, it's still kind of funny.

I've adopted from you, you know you using the term plant-based because there is so much. When you say, oh, I'm a vegan, well, that means I'm doing animal protests on the steps of the Capitol building in Nashville. Yeah, I mean, it's a more neutral term. And, you know, I have the good fortune of living in Los Angeles, and it's a very open-minded community when it comes to that kind of thing. I mean, what is that like in Nashville or in the South? I mean, if you were to walk around with a T-shirt that said, you know, I'm a vegan, what kind of response would you get? response would you be would you get i think in in nashville we we you know we're uh we have our share of uh trendy places we're starting to get you know there's two two vegetarian restaurants

in town now um but you know it's still the heart of the country music industry and there's a lot of uh you know uh you know eating a big steak is part of the industry. What about in Mississippi or Hattiesburg? I haven't spent much time there with my family because they've since relocated up to Nashville. It's very, very difficult. People, of course, look at you weird and try to figure out what you're doing and why you're doing it. And, you know, my father spent his entire profession in the drug world, not the cartel, but the pharmaceutical world. Right, right.

And so, you know, he's always very reluctant of, you know, hey, we're going to fix our health with, you know, I'm going to get rid of my cholesterol by not eating meat. And he's always reluctant. Well, the only thing that can fix that is, you know, Lipitor or some drug. Right, which actually doesn't fix anything. It just sort of deals with the symptoms. Right. And so it's been a joy because my dad, you know, a number of months ago called and we had a huge conversation because he's watched us go through this entire transformation and then really kind of solidified into a lifestyle. My dad called to say, hey, you know what? I came to a point where I feel like the profession that I was in has been misleading me all these years,

and I decided to give it a go. Wow, that's huge. And so he and his wife both, after 90 days of kind of living a more plant-based diet, both got off their cholesterol and blood pressure medications. That's amazing. They're cholesterol and blood pressure medications. That's amazing. So he hasn't just bought in, but he's seeing the effects, and his life has changed because of it. Yeah, that's an amazing arc when you take somebody who's from that other world that is propagating a very different message. And then he experiences firsthand a transformation in the other direction.

That's amazing. And it's powerful. You know, it was reinforcing to me just for him to call and say, I believe so strongly in what you're doing. I've spent, you know, the last 40 years of my life where the only solution was medication, and now I think that, you know, that led me astray. Here I am. This is kind of fixing it.

It's really, really, really powerful for me who's even living it on a daily basis. So it's pretty awesome. Amazing. All right, so you start blazing this path, and the animal products are starting to fall by the wayside as you move forward. And I assume the same is happening for your brother and your mom. I mean, this was about three years ago. Well, it was a little more than that now.

I think my mom had her diagnosis in, I want to say, 2007 or 2008. Much like you, the older I get, the harder it is to remember it. But it was a nice, long, slow transition. Like my wife and I got married three years ago. We have our wedding picture in our house. And I started this journey, I was 230 pounds. When we got married, I was 200. And so I was 30 pounds down.

And now I'm 165 or so, and so another 35 pounds or whatever it is down from there. That's amazing. And it's just a slow, steady thing. And it's not like there was a level of, okay, I just need to eat 600 calories a day. It was, I'm just going to eat plants and vegetables and things that are that are real foods and my body kind of just self-regulated it just said this is where i'm comfortable uh it just stopped losing weight and uh it's it's been it's been it's been a slow process that's been really really uh it's been amazing to see yeah it's i mean a couple things

i mean first of all looking at your before and after pictures on the internet, you don't even look like the same person at all I'm like, are you sure that's the same guy? you look so dramatically different, the change is extraordinary, and then I love what you said about

this idea of it being not a starvation protocol or watching cat you know um limiting myself to 600 calories i mean it's it's really a lifestyle switch and it was one that didn't happen overnight and one that it sounds like you didn't really make too many rules about you just were slowly kind of moving in a better direction over an extended period of time and allowed your body to kind of adapt and acclimate to this new way of eating until it's just part of who you are. It doesn't involve like a lot of thought after time. It's not like people say to me all the time, well, you know, what's your percentage of this to that to this and how many calories of this?

And what do you know, they get really up in their head and very technical about it. And, you know, my message is always, let's just start you, you know, they get really up in their head and very technical about it. And, you know, my message is always, let's just start eating, you know, more vegetables and fruits and, and you will balance out, you know,

you don't have to stress yourself out with all of these equations. Just do more of this. And your body will, like you said, self-regulate. And I, I really, you know,

I really, I, what I found was, was, uh, as I was going on that on that journey it was it was not that i felt drastically different you know it's not like you lose 10 pounds and you go oh i feel so much different now it's happening slowly you don't know uh until you uh you go somewhere and they're serving dessert and you eat something and you eat too much of it and then you wake up the next day and go, God, is this how I felt every day? Was this my normal?

And then, especially now, I have all these theories that I call guitar player science, where I just, I try to, to use my, uh, my limited, uh, you know, I don't know my multiplication tables anymore, but I can, I can, I can figure out the world of, uh, highly complex, uh, nutrition and evolution. I just feel like now I've, I've stayed off so much sugar and so much, uh, you know, just simple white, you know, white stuff, whether it's flowers or any of that stuff, that when I do stumble upon something that's super sweet, if we're somewhere and they have a treat and I decide to try it, then it turns on something deeply carnal and deeply evolutionary in me. And I started thinking about it.

It's like, you know, back in the day, a gazillion million years ago, a prehistoric man is fumbling through the wilderness, and it's very rare that he stumbles upon something as sweet as a Krispy Kreme. Or, you know, maybe they find a beehive and it's filled with honey. Or, you know, just in nature, there's nothing that sweet and that concentrated. So I think, you know, they're wired to say, hey, we found this. We need to eat as much of it as we can because who knows when we'll find it again. And I sense in myself, you know, that that's deeply wired into my DNA. It's like, okay, we're at a cocktail party and I had a cookie and then it triggers that deep thing.

And then the next thing I know, I've had 47 cookies and I'm sick. And the next day I'm having a nice reminder of why I don't need to be doing that. Right. But there's that primal sort of thing that takes over that's beyond the thinking mind that says store the chestnuts, you know, take as much as this stuff in as possible. We don't know when we're going to get it next.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's really, it's, it's overpowering for me at times. So I have to be really aware of it. It's, uh, yeah, it's really fascinating as we, as we kind of, we, we, we were lucky to have some kind of real world examples as we were trying some of this stuff, you know, and I think it's not, it hasn't been, uh, well, let me read this on

the internet. It might be Hocus P, and I'll give it a shot. Everything that we've done along the way has had benchmarks that have been real and true. So my mom had, when she had her colon cancer, they go in and they just lop off a huge section of her colon. And at the time, she had kind of straightened out her diet and after year one after after her surgeries she has to go in and they have to check out uh she gets her scans they see okay there are any signs of cancer there how you doing is it healing is it is it uh you know anything we're looking for she gets there and does her scans and she has so much inflammation around her colon where they sectioned it back together that the doctors can't

tell. So then they have to go into scope and stick the camera up there and go sort it out and they finally go, wow, yeah, it's healing. It's hugely inflamed. We're going to do the scans in six months just so we can be sure. Well, right around that same time is when we were starting this transition. We had gone kind of vegetarian at that point in time, but we still were doing gluten and wheat and a lot of those type things. And we said, let's give this a shot. Apparently, too much gluten is supposed to have some inflammatory responses in us,

so let's just get rid of that and see what happens. So my mom decided, okay, I'll go gluten-free. She fought that one. That was a fight there. That was one of the ones where we said, we're going to do this, and it became a fight. And she, she fought that one. That was a fight there. That was one of the ones where we said, we're going to do this. And it became a fight, but she did it.

And six months later, she goes in for scans and the doctors said, what the heck? It's, it's, it's clear as a bell. You know, there's no reason for us to do anything.

And the only, only change was no gluten. And so so for us that was enough to say huh maybe there's you know we might not have celiac but there's enough to this that that says you know our joints and our tissues and and things are happier without it so let's uh let's keep going without it yeah that's quite amazing i mean uh to to see that equation between what you're taking into your body and how your body responds to it it's a really powerful thing you know i mean it's there's no there's no way around recognizing the impact of that. Yeah, and that's why I think we got so lucky that as we were doing this, my mom was kind of still in the middle of her regular doctor's visits. And so they were able to check her out

with her vitals along the way and we were able to say, oh, my goodness, this is working. You're seeing it in the weight that you're losing, but you're also seeing it from blood tests and PET scans and big-time science. So it was a pretty good motivator along the way. So walk me through what happened with her cancer. So walk me through what happened with her out. They, uh, and at the time she just had a colonoscopy scheduled. And, um, so they, they go in, uh, for that, find, uh, find some, some polyps, do the, you know, the normal biopsy and say, Oh, uh, it's cancerous. And, you know, I didn't know how it worked. You know, I didn't know that you go in for a colonoscopy and, and they can snip it and kind of tell you in the

moment. So you go in thinking, I'm just getting this done. And you leave an and, and they can snip it and kind of tell you in the moment. So you go in thinking, I'm just getting this done. And you leave an hour later and they say, Oh, you've got cancer. So she, um, finds that out. And then the next series of tests and the scans and everything that goes on. And she had a little bit of, uh, uh, just a touch of, of, uh, uh, kind of leeching into her lymph stuff. So I think she was a two, maybe A or B. I don't know which one it is. Stage two, you know. So she was past stage one, which is enough for us to go, uh-oh. So she went, you know, we didn't at that point in time.

She just went full traditional route. She did, you know, we didn't at that point in time. She just went full traditional route. She did, you know, chemo, radiation, ended up having surgery and having all of the bad junk removed and more rounds of chemo and radiation. And then she did oral chemo for, you know, who knows how many months after that. But this was, she was a schoolteacher. She taught high school for 40 years. And she went to school every day. And, I mean, it's no understanding of how she survived and how she did it and how she pulled through just as far as going to school. But, yeah, so slowly over that, that's when we started going,

we're going to get this diet right and figure some things out. You know, it's difficult. You can't just wake up one day and them stick you on chemo and radiation and say, you know what, the only thing I want to eat today is salad. Because I think at that point your body says, you know what, the only thing we want to eat today is salad. Because I think at that point your body says, you know what, the only thing we're going to let you eat is bread. Or you can have a potato. Because she couldn't hold anything else down.

And it's amazing to see the thing that my brother and I really kind of stuck to was, okay, what is the doctor telling you to eat? There's got to be some science to it. The doctor is going the doctor telling you to eat? You know, there's got to be some science to it. The doctor's going to be telling you to eat broccoli because broccoli, you know, helps you get rid of cancer or whatever. And the doctor's like, well, whatever, you know. You know, don't eat Metamucil or anything too fibrous, but anything. Whoops.

Hello? Nutritional guidance or advice or anything. I lost you there for a second. Okay. So basically the doctor – what I'm gathering is that the doctor was not hugely inspirational when it came to what she should or should not eat. No, not even the slide spin. Right. So it came down to us and the beacon of all truth, Wikipedia,

for how we're going to figure out what to do. And this was before Forks Over Knives came out. Yeah, yeah, it was. Right. And you start looking at some of the stuff online, especially in the cancer context, and there's a lot of fringe stuff out there. I mean you start to feel like some kind of crazy conspiracy theorist. Oh, absolutely.

I mean you're trying to decide, okay, we've just read about such and such. We read about such and such. I guess it could work. such or read about such and such, I guess it could work, you know. I mean, did you think, I mean, did you start to think about things like the Gerson therapy and some of these kind of outdated or, you know, sort of protocols that people still do or, you know, things where people go out of the country to get procedures or protocols that aren't exactly fully legal in the United States? Yeah, 100%.

And she was already deep into her treatment by the time we kind of stumbled upon Gerson and stumbled upon some of the clinics that are doing some of those things. But at the time, we had gotten to this kind of 51% raw theory that we were starting to live by. And so some of those things did kind of start to make sense and were things that we investigated. And fortunately, by the time we really got the knowledge of it, she was kind of in the clear with it. Right. But eventually, she basically adopts this plant-based way of eating, right? And we're coming from, like you said, the South. So we're coming from the land of the meat and three where you have meat as the centerpiece and you have butter with vegetable highlights.

This is basically what you're eating. But was she open to doing this or was she resistant or just so willing because of her condition? You know, I think for a while, honestly, she watched my brother and I start down the road and she was just eating whatever she could. She was just, you know, I'm on chemo, and the thought of eating what you guys are eating, I can't handle it right now.

So she did a ton of, like I said, just basic, plain rice and potatoes and stuff that her gut could handle. But once her stomach kind of stabilized, then she was on board with us. And, you know, we kind of, at the time, oh, I had gotten my brother to move to Nashville. And so he was here, and then we went on the mad push to get her up here because I think we talked to her cancer doctor and got her cancer doctor on board to say basically, hey, you can

keep teaching school, you can keep doing the things that you're doing, but you're not going to be able to slow down enough to heal. So come up here to Nashville, let us take care of you. And so I think honestly, I believe so much in the power of community and just getting her here and, and establishing family and, and those things

I think have been so, so, so powerful just in her healing. Right. That's great. So, so where is she now with everything? She is doing awesome. She, we, uh we mandated a tuesday night family dinner and so for the past several years every tuesday night when uh when we're all in town or if we're not it's uh dinner at my mom's house it's turned into be a full vegan full gluten-free shindig and now it's turned into everybody you know friends of ours from TourCom or, hey, friends that I meet at, you know, Master Swim Class now or just whoever. But she's really taken it on and become hugely passionate about transitioning a lot of the recipes that we grew up eating or that my grandmother passed on or, you know, baked goods or any of those things, she's transitioned them.

So she does, uh, she's found wonderful substitutes for all kinds of bread and pastries and vegetable dishes and, um, uh, uh, just ways to do them that are, that are, uh, super healthy, super clean, super light. And to be honest, I, I don't feel like I've eaten this well in my entire life. And it's, uh, you know, and it's, we, we, we sit and gather around food and it's, uh, it's one of those things where it's, uh, I know that it's rejuvenating food and not, you're not worried about all the other junk that's in it. Right. it and uh and so she she's in full remission now she is so she's uh they they they just um they just flipped her over to now uh you know there's

they require scans at six months and they require scans at a year and then they so uh they've uh they've lengthened it out and her she just got the clear from her last scan, and so they don't want to see her back for a while. So we're pretty happy about that. That's great. I mean, I think that, you know, when you look at heart disease and when you look at diabetes and you kind of address that from a lifestyle or diet perspective, people can wrap their brain around that. It's like, hey, if you don't exercise and you smoke and you eat terrible,

you're probably going to get heart disease, right? And if you want to reverse that or not get that, then you have to change your habits because you kind of bring that upon yourself. But cancer is a very different animal. People get cancer because they get it. You know what I mean? Sometimes it's attributable to some kind of decision they made or a lifestyle, but more often than not, it's just you were exposed to some toxins

or you had a genetic predisposition or it just happens. It's not a judgment call on somebody's lifestyle patterns. And when you talk about dealing with cancer with dietary protocols, that becomes a very heightened conversation emotionally. You know what I mean? Like you could talk about heart disease and diet, no problem. People get that. But when we start getting into the cancer discussion, then it becomes a whole different

animal. And I guess my question is, do you run into that or do people get defensive about that in any way? You know, I think it's always been our goal and our mindset is, you know, we don't want to be evangelists for what we're doing. You know, if someone wants to know, then absolutely. And I'm more than excited to share, man, the food we're eating is delicious. And since I'm not eating processed food, I can actually taste different things now. You know, it all doesn't taste the same. Um, so I think, you know, it's, we haven't, we haven't seen a lot of, uh, uh, um, you know, a lot of people with, uh, you know, wondering what the heck we're doing and are you are we witch doctors or something like that? Just because I think they they most people know us from when we were less healthy and now they see us as more healthy and they go, huh. So it's kind of turned into more asking questions, you know, hey, what do you guys do and what do you think about this? You know, what's the simple thing? simple thing? We've once again taken the same

approach that worked with us. It's not a, oh my gosh, red meat's going to give you cancer. We really enjoy this. Maybe try adding some more of that. It's been really great for us. My energy's great. My brain works well relative to me. What was the conversation like when you went back to your doctor after having lost 70 pounds and him sort of taking the blood and seeing where your cholesterol is at and all of that? Well, between the time my two doctor visits, my cholesterol had dropped, uh, well over a hundred points. And, and so, uh, I hadn't seen him since the, you know, the year prior when I did my physical. And so I go in and

he's, he's in shock. And, uh, so we do all the blood work and then I go back to do the results for that. And he's like, you know, honestly, I'm at a point where I'm, I'm kind of having trouble believing this. And then he started asking me questions and started saying, you know, I've been really trying to do some things with my diet and I've been trying to do this. What do you think about this? What do you think? What do you think about this? And then he said, if I have some, some patients that are really struggling with this, do you mind if I put them in touch with you? And I'm thinking, man, all I did was start eating more fruits and vegetables, and now I get to be a doctor. This is awesome.

Right, right. He's like, do I get to charge what you charge? Yeah, exactly. But, you know, it's – and I think the other piece of it is, you know, that was a number of years ago. And, you know, when I go in for my physical every year and I step on the scale and I'm roughly, you know, within a pound of where I was the year before. And to him, it's like, this is a lifestyle change. This is not just a, you didn't get on FinFin and now you've lost, you know, 70 pounds or, you know, you're sprinkling something on your food or whatever. Right. I think that's the most powerful thing is that ability to, you know, maintain the ideal weight over time, over a number of years.

And you just don't see that on other kind of protocols. Yeah. And it's something that honestly has been in the back of my mind. You know, it's one of those things where I think, where I think I don't want to fall off the wagon and wake up one day and I've got 70 pounds gained back. And so whether that's mentally healthy or not for me, who knows? But it's one of those things that doesn't motivate me, but it's one of those things that I think about. And then just to know that I go about my life eating what I want to eat, eating when I'm hungry, and not thinking or worrying about it, and then the scale is standing still is pretty powerful. So where does Iron Man come in?

Man, it's a slippery slope. For all of those out there, Iron Man is a slippery slope. Yeah. Around – shortly after the time of my mom's diagnosis, maybe within six months to a year, stuff started getting wacky in the Sugar Land world. We were performing at the Indiana State Fair, and a giant storm came in suddenly, and we had a stage collapse, and several people lost their lives because of that. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. Where was that?

It was in Indianapolis. It was the Indiana State Fair. And so as a community, we're traveling on the road, and we're family out there. We live together. We're on buses together. We eat every meal together. And this is the 30 or 40 people that are on our tour. 40 people that are on our tour. So within, within, um, uh, within a month or so of that happening, uh, uh, our guitar tech, a long time guitar tech, uh, was, was having some health problems on the road. And then when you're on the road, they have something called a rock doc, which is, you know, a doctor that they can call in town who will come to the local hockey arena and say, oh, you've got a strep, here's a Z-Pak.

So he was having all kinds of symptoms and saw several rock docs on the road, and then eventually one doctor comes in and says, I know what it is. You've got diverticulitis. So we're like, okay, good. At least we know it's diverticulitis. But he ended up still having symptoms. We were in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and he started having some pretty major issues. I went to the hospital. They ran tests, and bam, you've got lymphoma. It's, it's highly, uh, highly evolved already. You can't go back to the tour. You have to stay here. And so he goes, uh, and he's one of these people that you said, you know, you said you can live a lifestyle and, you know, uh, uh, cancer cancer you just get it and he's one of those guys he lived in

flagstaff arizona he ate like a hippie uh he uh was super healthy guy uh you know no nothing it's just out of the blue bam he's got it and uh he did he did uh he did he did treatment for it. But it was already like stage four or something like that at that point? Yeah, he was really far along. They stabilized it, and we thought everything's okay. So he came back out on the road, and then we had our winter break. And this is when about six months of his diagnosis. During the winter break, it came on again pretty aggressively, and he passed away over the winter break.

So my wife and I just said, we need to do something. We need to get involved. We live a life that's, you know, we're kind of isolated. We live on our own. We live amongst our little tribe as we travel around. Uh, we've got to figure out a way to give back. We've got to figure out a way to get involved and, and, uh, use, use, uh, this wonderful gift of the music industry to, to, to share with other people, uh, uh, uh, you know, encourage them in whatever ways that we can. And so as a kid, I'd grown up seeing the Iron Man on TV, and I thought, okay, I know what I'll do.

I'll call Iron Man and say, hey, I'm this dude who lost some weight, and now I want to become an Iron Man and work with the Iron Man Foundation. And here we go. And so they had the same response that you kind of did where they, I call them up, they look online at my pictures and say, whatever, there's no way this dude's doing an Ironman. And so. Because of the diet or because you're just on tour all the time, there's no way this guy's going to be able to train and get ready.

Well, they were looking at my before pictures. they're so they they're putting it all together like okay so you're telling me that you're touring all the time and you're uh this guy we see in these before pictures uh and so they you know it was a really slow kind of process uh and eventually they we were uh we were playing in tampa and the world headquarters for iron man or wcc is in tampa so they said why don't you come by the office and so uh and they said we'll go to lunch and their offices are right on the beach and you can you can go swim and stuff so they said bring your swimsuit so okay so i go to the offices, and we have a nice chat, and they carry me out to the water. And I think – and I know now because I've had the conversation.

It's basically they were, okay, if we're going to get involved with this dude, we need to see if he can hang or not. if he can hang or not. So they stick me in the water with a bunch of the folks from the office to do like a trial swim to see if I can hang or not. This is your interview. Yeah, it's basically my interview for Ironman stuff. And I got lucky because swimming was the only thing I was reasonably strong at at the time. So apparently I passed, and I ended up partnering with the Ironman Foundation.

But at this point, you hadn't even started training or hadn't identified a race or hadn't even done a triathlon at all? I mean, where were you in the kind of evolution? We talked about losing the weight and the diet, but where were you fitness-wise? I had done a sprint triathlon in college some 15 years ago. But I was a musician on the road who's trying to lose weight in shape, which means I could knock out a P90 video in the dressing room, or could, uh, I could, I could, uh, take one of the comfort bikes off the, off the, uh, the, uh, the trucks and right around the bike path around the university that we're playing at.

So it was, uh, it was definitely, uh, nowhere near any level of, uh, compete, uh, or even race in an Ironman shape. So it was, uh, kind of hit the ground. So they said, okay, let's do something together. I mean, they were interested after that. Mm-hmm. And so we ended up doing an initiative to support Music Cares. And Music Cares is basically the nonprofit wing of the Grammy Association.

And they don't do any press. They don't do any kind of PR for it. So very few people know it even exists. But when Kevin, our guitar tech, had cancer, he didn't have health insurance. And we put him in touch with Music Cares, and Music Cares says, we got it. And so Music Cares goes in and covers all of the expenses for his treatment, and they've done that for countless, countless musicians throughout the years. So we got involved and just went on a campaign to raise funds for Music Cares

through the vehicle of the Iron Man and the Iron Man Foundation. So it was strictly just to raise money for music cares for them to do with it as they, as they would with the programs they already had in place. And basically it was, uh, my wife and I said, let's do, do what we can to, uh, uh, just to, to pay back whatever we can on Kevin's, uh, Kevin's, uh, medical stuff. So, uh, you know, and then we just got involved. We enjoyed doing, doing the, uh, uh, not only the event, but you know, just everything that went along with it. So we ended up going to Ironman, uh, Arizona. That was the first one that I did.

That would be almost a year ago. And you just skipped over a huge chapter though, which is how did you get ready to race Ironman while you were touring and everything else that was going on? Well, everybody asks that question, and I'll answer this in two parts. One is this year we haven't been on the road, and I've had to do it while being at home. road and I've had to do it while being at home. And so the question I ask is how in the world does anybody come close to training for an Ironman when they have kids and they have a job and they have all the other stuff? That's what I don't understand.

For me, it was, it, it, it, it became amazingly easy. And I'm, I count my blessings and realize how blessed I was that I,

I don't know that I'd be doing it this year if I had to do it while I was home. Uh, but being on the road, you know, our obligations, one of the first questions you asked was, uh, talk about the mundane life on the road. And it's like, well, here's the rockstar life. I wake up on a tour bus and I find, try to find something to do in this hockey arena all day until 4 o'clock found check. And so it actually became – it kind of became something to do. And it was, okay, now I've got to go run. And I've got to find a YMCA or a Jewish community center or somewhere that has a pool.

I've got to go swim laps. Do you have your bike on the bus? I ended up throwing my bike on the bay of a bus. And it was, I can get out a map and say, okay, from this venue, I can get here safely and go for a bike ride. And I had my trainer, my bike trainer on the bus. And so it's, you know, uh, there were countless times where I would set the trainer up on the, on the bay of the, uh, or on the, uh, in the back lounge

of the tour bus. So I'm on my trainer and the bus, I can remember, uh, one day, very, very vividly where, uh, I had this, uh, you know, I had to go for my long bike ride, which at the time, you know, it's like long bike rides, probably like 40 miles or something. And we were playing in South Dakota at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here we are. It hasn't rained in months. It's a dust bowl. in months. It's a dust bowl and there's literally

500,000 dudes with chaps and Harley Davidsons. Is it that many people that show up for that? I think it's close to that number as they all just kind of ride through there during the weeks. So,

the bus is parked behind the stage. On the bill that night is us and ZZ Top. Oh, yeah, yeah. Nice. So I'm like, this is awesome. I mean, this is what it's all about. Rock and roll motorcycles and ZZ Top, and we're doing this right.

So then I realized, oh, I got to go do my bike ride today. And so I'm thinking it through, going, I got to be the dude who puts on his spandex shorts and pulls out his little bicycle and rides through Sturgis. Oh, man. That ended up being a day where I opted to take the bike trainer into the back lounge of the bus and hide from... Yeah, it might not have been a good idea to be on the back roads with all those guys cruising around. But I would think that touring around and having that free time in the early part of the day would be such an amazing way to see America. You get to get out on your bike and do a ride around some new place literally almost every day.

And that's what it was. And like I said, being on the road for so long, for 15, 16 years at that point, and my familiarity with cities, unless we had a day off there, was you go to Kansas City, oh, I can tell you where the dressing rooms are in the Sprint Center, but I don't know anything about Kansas City, right, or anything else like that. So it turned into this wonderful, wonderful adventure where I'm just setting off on my bike, and you get to see these awesome cities, and you find little areas in town where they might have, you know, the main street area with the local restaurants. And so I could go back and tell everybody and then we could walk, walk into town or get a ride into town to see people.

Or same with the pool, you know, and then you meet you meet awesome new folks. And it turned out to it turned out to be such a just a rich, rich experience. Just kind of, you know, was scary you know got lost plenty of times i got had to call back to the venue and and uh get a runner come and pick me up yeah it's like this is where i think i am or get stuck with a flat tire somewhere in the middle of nowhere yes and so it was it was a lot of things like that or like uh you know you get to the venue the first thing in the morning and uh i know that my only time to make it to the – because we have a couple of locals at the show every day that have vans,

and they're there to – some bolts broke on a certain trussing, so they have to go pick that stuff up. Or the truck drivers need to get to the hotel so they can sleep. Or the caterers are out of whatever. They need to go get that. So these people are, like, running important tour errands all day long. And so I'm, like, trying to find windows where I'm looking at the runner sheet and going, okay, this guy's going to the Safeway, and then he's going to Lowe's, and maybe I can get him to drop me off at the ymca on the way and it was uh uh you know it was really it really ended up being

uh you know super super super fun way to kind of go on the road and school so how long did you train for the arizona iron man which you did last that was last november right i i started training for for iron man arizona on the road uh and we started rehearsals in atlanta the first week of february and i started around that time and we got off the road like the third week of October. So I had maybe two to three weeks of training at home after that that I didn't do on the road. Right.

So. That's great. Yeah, it was great. Showed up and you rocked it. How was the race? tell us about the race it was great it was uh you know i uh uh i learned i learned a lot of things quickly and and uh about the triathlon uh community i learned that the you know musicians we have guitar pedals and switches and doodads and bells and whistles and uh you know, tons of effects and knobs and all that stuff.

And then I go to the triathlon world and realize that musicians. It's the same thing. But we have nothing on them. It's like, seriously. It's a black hole, a never-ending pursuit of equipment, right? Yeah. And then it's like, at least I know with this guitar pedal it makes this terrible screeching sound versus if i get this set of wheels then i saved 100 grams or i mean if you're anything like stewart i mean there's my brother-in-law i mean there's there's

no such thing as too many guitars or too many pedals or yes you know i mean he's got an entire room full of stuff and i would imagine you probably have something like that that's the curse that i've carried over to it uh do you have a studio in your house or you have a studio you use in in town or how does that work we um uh we uh we we started collecting stuff like you said i collected uh guitars and doodads over the years and started doing projects and when we got married uh uh the house that i was living in before we got married had almost been fully taken over by a studio that we had kind of set up there so i was kind of living in the midst of a studio and then we got married and i moved uh my wife and i got a place together we just left uh my old house as our studio oh gotcha

that works that's good. Where is your wife on this whole thing? Has she adopted the plant-based lifestyle as well or has she got her own thing going on? My wife is what we like to call an opportunivore. At home, we're full goat. She's fully in we you know uh she's she's all the meals at the house are vegan um but if we're on a on a music business dinner and we go to ruse chris then she's probably gonna want to do some sampling of uh some other stuff but you

know she she grew up in new New Orleans with a shellfish allergy. So she, she knows the, uh, she's good at dealing with, uh, being in a place known for awesome stuff and going, Ooh,

it'll make me sick. So it's been, it's been easy for her. Um, but the, I think the transition, like with the triathlon stuff was, was,

uh, it, it became apparent really quickly that this has to be a family decision. We're on the road doing this together, and if she's not on board, then it's a no-go because it's tough, as you know. It is, and I get emails all the time from people saying, I'd love to do this or I'm trying to do it, but my boyfriend or my girlfriend or my spouse, they're not so into it. How do you navigate that? And I'm lucky, like yourself. My wife is an amazing cook and she's on board and the whole thing. So I've never had to experience that directly, but I think it just, it's not that it's not, you know, eminently possible to do it. I think it just

takes a little bit more effort and kind of resolve on, on your part to see it through. Absolutely. And so I'm, I'm, I'm grateful for her every day. And we've used not only the vehicle of Iron Man to help our marriage, but, you know, just also the food thing. And, you know, these things presented themselves. And we're like, okay, let's use this kind of as a gift to try some things out. Let's, you know, let's use Iron Man as a tool. Let it be our tool to get in shape or our tool to eat better, our tool to know that we have to communicate about schedules. Ironman has been a tool for me to deal with my obsessive compulsive nature or my, you know, all those things where you realize, you know, I want it to be something that helps me be healthy. I want it to be something that helps me be healthy.

Health is not just me losing weight. It's mind, body, and spirit. If it's not doing that, then it's something that's unhealthy. She helps me maintain the balance of all that. I love that. That's definitely the way that I look at it. People will say, well, it's so extreme. The diet is so extreme and the Ironman thing and all the endurance stuff. It's like, it sounds crazy. But for me, it's part of my lifestyle. And like you said, I mean, I'm very similar in that the structure, the kind of day-to-day schedule and being on top of that really helps focus me. You know,

when I have an athletic goal, then that helps me stay focused on my dietary program to make sure everything's in check and I'm less likely to make a bad choice or something like that. Everything kind of comes into – snaps into focus for me when I'm doing all these things. And for me, it's been very much that. me, it's been, uh, it's been, it's been very much that. And, and the other thing, you know, it's like I said, being on the road, we, your family is, uh, is, is who's on the road with you. And so you come home and you have friends, but it's, it's, uh, you know, it's, you come home for two days and you don't want to go, you know, the last thing I want to do is, is go out all night to shows downtown, or I want to come home and see if my grass needs mowing or, you know, but the triathlon piece of it became way less about the races and way less

about the, that kind of stuff and more about the community that I got to be a part of and what I learned about community and, you know, the new friends that I made at, you know, at master's class at swim, uh, that I go in and they don't have any clue what I do for a living or, you know, the guys from the local bike shop that I, you know, you go and you just make friends with. And it's been, it's been, uh, I'm, I'm just so, so grateful for those pieces of it, uh, uh, that I've gotten from, uh, you know,'ve gotten from this whole journey. It's been great. Yeah, it's grounding, right?

Yes, absolutely. And for us with a life that we fly around so much, it's been very welcome. So where does Music That Moves come in? You talked about raising money for music carers who took care of your guitar tech and all of that. But at some point, you make this decision to start your own foundation. Right. Well, I think as we were starting to see this, we started getting such a flood, we being my wife and I, such a flood of people wanting to know what we're doing and what's going on and why we're doing it. And it was from our community,

the music community. And as I was training on the road, more and more people started wanting to come along. They wanted to do stuff. Hey, you're going to ride your bike. Can I go for the first little bit? We have this bike here. Or, hey, can we join you and do some form of exercise today? So the next thing you know, the opening bands are going running, and everybody's joining in, or some people go to the pool. And you started seeing that community piece started to grow. And the music community as a whole isn't the most – stereotypically, we're not the – Health conscious. Yes, we're not the beacons of health, physical or mentally.

You can just look at the TV and see we're a kooky bunch of folks. the community was and started to really enjoy being a part of a community that was trying to do something beyond just uh you know going and playing shows and so uh we slowly started to think what if we what if we do this on our own and we kind of become a music community conduit a way for people to to build community outside of music a way for people to build community outside of music, a way for people to get involved, which we started having all kinds of different opportunities. So we started next organizing, let's put a team together to run certain local races. And then whether that's a 5K or we had people do the full marathon, the half marathon in Nashville, and we thought, what if we do it with a service twist? whether that's a 5k or we we had people do the full marathon the half marathon in nashville

and we thought what if we do it with a with a service twist what if we say okay we're going for a group run but we're going to meet at the uh food bank in town and uh we're going to go for our run then we're going to come back and do a volunteer shift and so uh it just really started to start to turn into let's get the music community focused on uh health mind body and spirit and i think uh obviously being physical and being active is a huge part of the physical piece but the the to me uh uh getting involved in some non-profits and doing some service work and doing things like that became really rewarding and really fulfilling and I think

that to me service is something that really helps move you toward kind of getting kind of mentally healthy as well absolutely I mean that's awesome what have you seen in your fellow musicians in terms of the impact that this is having?

I mean, whether it's, you know, bands that you're touring with or just getting musicians more, thinking more about health and their longevity. people that have, that have, uh, uh, it's been very humbling because, you know, just to get an email or to get a story or, uh, to run into somebody at the rec center in Nashville or something that just says, Hey, I read your story. I saw what you did, uh, from a health perspective. And now I've lost a ton of weight or I've done, uh, I've started doing this, or I got involved running these races. So the help thing has been really exciting. But the next piece of it is the way that we're starting to kind of move with Music That Moves is to basically be a toolkit and a resource for people to get involved with some awesome, amazing charities that already have a narrow focus and a niche that they're going after.

have a narrow focus and a niche that they're going after. We have an artist now that's decided to get heavily involved with the MS Society. We have an artist who's decided to, because of some family history of Parkinson's stuff, to get involved

with the Parkinson's Society. St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, which is a, if you're not familiar with it or your listeners here aren't familiar with it, it's one of the most beautiful organizations that I've ever been able to be a part of. Basically, it's a children's cancer research hospital that has been groundbreaking as far as the research that they've done. And they offer their services free to the kids and the families that are there getting treatment. So we've done some things with them and just connecting long-term.

I think, you know, my wife has definitely been the one to reveal this to me. I get excited about something and I want everybody to be excited about it. And so I get excited about, about food or whatever else. And, and she's like, that's great. Uh, but she's not as excited about it. And I'm like, why aren't you excited about this is the greatest ever. And so what I realized was, you know, uh, I can't, I can't manufacture or mandate other people to be passionate about things. But if someone gets there and gets their hands dirty and gets involved in it, then they may see and it may awaken something in them where they go, that's for me.

That's where I need to be. Right. But at the same time, you can't expect somebody to be passionate about something if you're not. And, you know, for you to sort of stand in the light and have that passion and you know you will sort of attract the people that you know need that i mean absolutely so and you're already doing that i mean the story is out there and you guys are doing amazing things i mean it's it's phenomenal you know to see in a short period of time from where you were to, to what's happening now, it's pretty incredible. It's, uh, it's, it's, it's very,

very fun and we feel very fortunate and blessed. And, um, uh, you know, as this journey goes on this year with Ironman and the cone inspired program and all the things we're doing with that, it's, it's, uh, I can't, I can't even, it's hard to put into words how, how, how fortunate and lucky I feel and then how, um, you know, I'm getting ready to do Kona here and whatever it is. I know I wanted to get into that. So, so you're getting ready to do Kona, the Ironman world championships, and you're a part of this Kona inspired program. So explain what that is to the listener. Well, the, the longer short of it is for years and years and years, we've all seen the NBC broadcast for the world championships. And we see the story of the Hoyts or all these inspirational stories that have been highlighted through the NBC broadcast of people overcoming crazy things.

People overcoming crazy things. That's really what – in terms of the broadcast, that's really what it's become about. I mean there's the race and there's who wins. But the reason that that broadcast wins an Emmy every year is because of those stories that they tell that everyone can kind of relate to and be inspired by. And that's why I got into it. And that's why anybody that I've talked to that is not an athlete knows about it because of the broadcast and the stories. So in essence,

a couple of years ago, Ironman decided realizing the power of the stories, wanted to figure out a way to kind of have the stories resonate throughout the year. And so they used the Conan Inspired program as a vehicle to start to select some of the stories that they wanted to highlight throughout the process and give those people a chance to live that Iron Man mantra of anything's possible, you can do it. And so – go ahead, sorry. Oh, no.

So I was just going to say, so they created this program and they kind of cast a wide net right now. And there's a period of time in which you could submit your application video, right? And then they sift through all of these things and they're trying to find those amazing stories. But long story short, you're one of these people and I would suspect are going to be one of those stories that is going to be highlighted in this NBC broadcast when it comes out many months after the race. Well, you know,

if I am, that would be great, but I have to say that getting to know some of the people that are going to be involved and that are going, my road has definitely been easy. And, you know, it's truly, truly amazing. And, you know, the stresses of that race and everything that you hear from it being hot to all the other things

are kind of in the back of my mind thinking, oh, that's, you know, I'm going to be prepared. I'm going to be well-trained. I'll have my nutrition under control. But, man, it's a celebration. And it's to see the journey that the other athletes that are participating in the Kona Inspired program have gone through, the things that they're doing. Who are some of the other people? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Absolutely. Who are some of the other people? Can you talk a little bit about that? Absolutely. I'll speak of two in particular that have become special to me just through relationships. The first, his name is Dean Bullock, and he has had multiple brain tumors, brain cancer. And so he submitted his story, and he has overcome that. He's done several races, done a ton of stuff. And his whole point is, you know, we can pull this junk off regardless of what's going on.

Look at me. I've had brain cancer, and I'm doing it. He submitted his video at the urging of his family and, uh, was, uh, was selected. And then shortly thereafter, it finds out he's got, uh, uh, you know, some other, uh, some other brain issues he's got to jump in and deal with again. So he's very much, uh, not only training for, for Kona, but he's, he's, uh, you know, still going through the everyday bits and pieces of, of dealing with, uh, you know, having, uh, brain cancer stuff. And so I'm just watching that going, this is, this is, it's unbelievable. Um, and then someone else who's become super special to me,

her name is Naomi Cermak. And she, uh, in early 2000, uh, early 2000, had a little spot on her foot and goes in, and she has melanoma on her foot. It's on her foot, so it's not like she was sunbathing too much or anything like that. And they go in and do everything they do, and she said all along, she was, was in her mind was just saying, I hope that one cell didn't get away. Hope they got all of them. So she gets her PhD in sports nutrition, goes to the Netherlands and starts working for a big sports nutrition firm. There's writing doctoral papers and doing all this stuff, uh,

has a car wreck while she's over there. They notice a lump in her groin. Next thing you know, she, uh, uh, the melanoma is back and it's kind of taken over and when they find it she's at stage four and so uh she uh she's one of those that says uh well here we go i can do it and same thing same with her she had uh she knew that the cancer was back when she submitted her Kona Inspired video, but wasn't quite sure how intense it was. So she's fighting away, doing all kinds of crazy treatment,

and has really become an amazing, amazing inspiration to me. And, you know, uh, I don't know, it's transitioned to, uh, it's, it's transitioned from Ironman is something that you do so that you can, you know, you say you're an Ironman and you finished it to, uh, Ironman is really a, uh, for so, so many people, it's a, it's a, it's a vehicle or a tool to do something so much bigger than yourself and so much bigger than finishing a race. The lessons I'm attempting to learn from these people, it's truly amazing. Yeah, and there's no question about it. It's completely transformative. It's not about the race or your time or anything like that. It's about the journey towards it and through it and how that changes a person, their perspective and what they have to offer to other people in terms of inspiration. It's really, really powerful.

I'm hopeful that all the triathletes that are listening out there investigate some of these stories. Even at your local races, I've been fortunate to go to a ton of races this year. Not racing, but just working with the foundation and doing stuff. I just got back from Ironman Louisville, and I got to meet with a couple of different athletes. One of them is in the Navy, and he submitted a Kona-inspired video. Didn't get selected, but he's still going about it. He's like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to get my message out and do my thing. So he's a submariner.

So he's training for Ironman events on a freaking submarine. That's amazing. I think there – wasn't there a story about a guy like that a couple years ago? Maybe it wasn't a submarine though, but it was a Navy ship. Maybe it was a – I can't remember exactly. But I mean the idea of training for an Ironman on a boat, whether you're above the water or below it, is unbelievable. But to be on a submarine where it's – there space, I mean, I can't even imagine. No, me either.

So I got to just kind of ask him all these ridiculous questions. And he was hopeful for them to surface every once in a while so that he could actually swim. Right. And then just talking to some of the para-athletes, that group of people are some of the most beautiful, unbelievable people that, I mean, it's so, so, so, I've got chills right now. I talked to a guy who is

close to 30, and when he was 21 years old, um, got hit by a drunk driver, uh, gets paralyzed from the waist down. And, you know, he's a normal 21 year old kid one day and the next day he can't, uh, you know, he can't walk. And, uh, and here he is his first ever Ironman. And it's just unbelievable. It is, man. It's like you were saying. I mean, it's completely transformative when you see these people who are taking on this challenge, which for anybody of firm body and mind is Herculean.

for anybody of firm body and mind is Herculean and to do it, you know, so physically compromised is, is an extraordinary feat. Right. It's really amazing. So, well, that's great, man. So how's the training going? You feeling ready? I think so. I feel pretty good. I've, uh, I've, uh, you know, I'm, I'm fortunate that if the coach that I work for just writes something down, I just go do it. And I don't think about it or ask questions. But I've got the normal aches and pains that I think anybody would. It's been hot in Nashville lately, so I've been able to get out and do my runs when it's, you know, super hot.

You know, who knows? You know, I guess it's one of those things where, uh, super hot and, uh, uh, you know, I, who knows, you know, I guess it's one of those things where, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm, I think I'm ready. Uh, I feel good, but, uh, you know, there's so much about this race that I've read that are just unknowns, you know, as far as how your body's going to respond in those conditions and things like that. So are you going to go out to Hawaii a little bit early to get used to the heat a little bit, or what's the plan? Yes, I'm going out a week early, so I'll go out on the 5th. I guess the race is on the 12th, so I'll go out on the 5th.

And then we're fortunate that we're doing a lot of work at the foundation while we're there. So a bike wheel company called Flow Wheels, they make aero wheels. I found out about them because I was doing research about some of the triathlon companies that kind of give back. And so I found that they had a program they called Bike for Kids. And with every set of upgraded wheels that you bought from them, so basically wheels that have different special bearings and all kinds of stuff, they start a program where they buy a bike for an underprivileged kid.

Oh, that's cool. And so they had a little YouTube video on their page where it's like, hey, we're making bike wheels. We're passionate about that. But here's what we're really into. And so I just called them up and said, I want to be involved. And so they've this year done a path to Kona, and they're going to a ton of races and raising money outside of just the buying wheels thing to get wheels to kids.

So they're going to Kona. We're going to do some stuff with Bikes for Kids out there. And so that will be Music That Moves as partner with them to do some stuff. Um, uh, the Ironman foundation itself is we're setting up some service projects, uh, uh,

to really get involved while we're there. So I think we're, you know, it's like, like I said, you know, the race service machine, you know,

I look at that. I don't amazing. It's just, you know, it's been, it's been, uh, it's been my favorite part of all of this. i know that sounds really really kooky but uh my favorite part of uh getting involved

with doing all this iron man stuff has been the people and getting to go do do some of these fun special things and and you know it's it's really weird and i had to come to grips with this but it's you know we got involved to raise money for Kevin and his cancer stuff. Now that we're doing stuff with Music That Moves and the Bites for Kids program and all the things that are going on, I feel selfish and weird because it's hugely gratifying to go and do that stuff. It's like, man, I thought we were doing this for other folks, but it's like I'm into it. It's great, man.

Well, I can't – we're going to wrap it up here in a minute, but I cannot let you get off the Skype call without letting us know what you eat before a workout, what you eat during a workout, like your long bike workouts, and what you eat after. Because I get this question all the time. Now I'm putting it on you. Well, it's been really interesting. I'm a researching science, looking up online stuff. So I had a really hard time because of thinking I don't do a ton of sugar in the normal days.

So the thought of doing some of the sugar-based maltodextrin-type products didn't really emotionally sit well with me. So I started trying to figure out how to, as much holistic stuff as I could. And it, um, uh, you know, it might be anything from carrying Justin's peanut butter squeeze packs in my, uh, uh, in my bike Jersey to, uh, man, me too. We've got addictive, no doubt. And, you know, it's just a lot of, a normal day it's uh you know i found most times if i'm just doing a casual ride then i don't necessarily need too much stuff i don't i don't uh you know if it's just a couple hours or something it's it's usually water or coconut water or something like that and i'm fine yeah but that comes with experience and getting more

efficient with your training because you've been doing it for a long time, you know, and you realize like, oh, I'm not going to like, you know, pass out on my bike because I, you know, I'm in, I'm fit now. I can go a couple hours without having to like overeat and like be freaked out about not having 20 gels on me or something. Right. So the normal day is, is I will, uh, if I have a, you know, a reasonably short workout, I might, uh, a lot of times I don't do anything before an early morning workout. I'll just go do it and then come back and have whatever we have in the fridge at the time.

I'll throw in the Vitamix. It could be a hodgepodge of vegetables and fruits. If it's there, I'll just throw it in and make my smoothie goulash. Yeah, that's what it's like for me more often than not. I mean, it's not having any one set recipe. I mean, ideally, I have things that I like, but, you know, sometimes we're out of that stuff. You know, I got four kids. Stuff disappears from our fridge like faster than you can imagine.

I think I have something and then I don't. So you go with what you have and it changes every day. And I think it's about being flexible with that and not being too rigid about it has to be like this and two tablespoons of this and what have you. Yeah, there's no level of measuring on my part with the Vitamix. You just hope that it's not overflowing. And then I just go about the same stuff we talked about. I'm probably still pretty close to 50% raw. I'll do a ton of greens and a ton of – I'll have a giant salad at least once a day.

And then at night, we're doing everything from, uh, a stir fry or some kind of bean, something or other, or, uh, we found, you know, some international recipe we found with,

uh, you know, chickpeas and curry or, you know, it's just, you're, you're just kind of going with it. It's just normal life.

Right. Uh, so, uh, for the most part, it's, it's, uh,

it's, I, I, I feel that, uh the fourth discipline of triathlon definitely, but I think a lot can be helped if your fourth discipline happens all the time instead of just on the bike. So if you're practicing good nutrition throughout every day consistently, then your blood sugar is going to be a lot more stable. You're not going to have the effects of all that stuff. And by no means have I got it figured out. And there's countless times where I hit the wall and go back to dial it in a little bit. But you're feeling good.

You feel like this plant-based way of eating and living is serving you fine in your Ironman preparation. That's the thing that like freaks people out. Like they think you must be genetically different or something like that in order to train for an Ironman only on plants. It is, you know, it's been, uh, uh, there's, there's definitely a huge difference between last year when I did Arizona and now, uh, just because I think my body's gotten more fit. Um, and you learn little things that don't work. You know, I learned that, uh, if I go somewhere

the night before and they're serving pasta that has gluten in it and uh it's my only option uh and i do it then it's not going to feel good on the bike you know it it mess it just it uh i have i perform way worse when i have some kind of gluten thing uh but it's it's crazy now to to to to have have built up to it to go for a hundred mile bike ride when it's you know 90 plus degrees outside and uh get home and go, what are we doing today? Uh, right. Right. Instead of, I got to go take a nap or veg out on the couch for the rest of the day.

And so it's, it's the other piece of it, uh, that, uh, feeds my, my, uh, evolutionary, uh, uh, bit is, man, do you get to eat a ton of vegetables. And so the endless desire to nosh, man, this is a wonderful way to do it. So I feel like I get to eat nonstop. I love it. All right, man. Well, we've got to wrap it up, but you are a true inspiration. And I love all the service that you're doing.

I love that you've made that really the focus and the priority of this mission. It's really a beautiful thing, man. And I hope that you continue and maintain this level of passion for it. It's infectious and you're changing lives. maintain this level of passion for it. It's infectious and you're changing lives. And it's great that you're using this sort of, you know, you're in a situation where you wield some influence because of what you do for a living and all the people that you're exposed to.

And to see you channel it in this healthy direction is really a phenomenal thing. So thank you for that. And thank you. I definitely have to confess that around the time your book came out was when I was kind of in the heat of getting ready to figure out Arizona and do all that stuff. And to be able to follow your story and see the things that you accomplished with the diet that you've been doing for so long. It was fuel for me. It helped me, and it really was one of those things that said, okay, we can do this like this.

So thank you. Thank you. Cool. Thank you, man. Thanks. That's nice of you to say. So, all right. Well, the road to Kona.

You're almost there. I can't wait to see you race it. We'll be cheering from afar I won't be there but I'll be following it online So Fantastic and then are you going to be Are you going to be in LA anytime Afterwards at any point

I'd love to meet up with you man Go for a bike ride or something I would love that We're out there multiple times a year So next time I get out there I will just Let you know that I'm coming and we can plan something. Sounds good, man. Let's hook it up. All right.

So if you want to follow Thad or know more about what he's up to, you're on Twitter. It's at MusicThatMoves, right? It's MusicThatMoves1 on Twitter. It's MusicThatMoves1. Okay. And is there a website for MusicThatMoves? Yep, MusicThatMoves1 on Twitter. MusicThatMoves1. Okay. And is there a website for Music That Moves? Yep, MusicThatMoves.org. And then we're getting everything up and running, trying to keep everything current and getting it rolling.

Cool. And you can also find out more about him at KonaInspired.com. And, of course, sugarland music.com, right? If you want to check out the music stuff, when are you guys going on tour again? You know,

who, who knows? I'm at this point. I'm thinking I'm on the 30 day countdown, uh, uh, to get there. Well,

the one more, one more piece of it is Jennifer. Our singer about three weeks ago, uh, gave me a call and said, hey, I've got some friends that have this nonprofit that are doing some stuff. They wanted me to get involved. They're running the New York Marathon. I told them I couldn't do it, but I would volunteer you. Uh-oh. Go straight into marathon training after Kona.

you. Uh-oh. Go straight into marathon training after Kona. So for all of you out there, it's three weeks after Kona. So I will... You can do it. You can just continue your taper. That's kind of what I'm thinking.

I'm just thinking it's a casual stroll through the boroughs of New York. So by then, hopefully I'm not at the Sabarat hot dog stand on the corner of somewhere in Manhattan having a total meltdown eating hot dogs. Right, Gray's Papaya. That's right.

I don't see it happening. I think you're going to be fine. I think so. All right, cool. Well, thanks so much for taking the time, man. It would have been good to do it in person, but I'm glad we did it and maybe you can come back on the show when we're in the same place at the same time

and we can do it live. I would love it and we can bring some instruments because you've got quite the music situation going there, too. Yeah, we do for sure. It would be great to come over and jam. I would love that. That would be great. Well, thank you so much for your time. Yeah, thank you and good luck

in Kona, man. Hey, thank you. Alright, take it easy. Alright, bye. Alright, peace. Plants. Thank you. you you you you you you you