The Rich Roll Podcast - How to Thrive & Perform Athletically on a High-Carb, Low-Fat Vegan Diet

Episode Date: September 30, 2013

Ask and ye shall receive. Today is Durianrider day on the podcast. And he has a message for you: Carb the f$%@ up! Aka Harley Johnstone, “Durianrider” is a self-avowed health vigilante committed to increasing public awareness of the benefits of a high carbohydrate, low-fat whole food plant-based lifestyle. A lifestyle modeled upon Doug Graham's book The 80/10/10 Diet*, or what is more commonly referred to as fruitarian — a dietary protocol based predominantly upon eating copious amounts of fruit. Let's just say it's not uncommon for Harley to proudly devour upwards of 70 bananas a day. In this regard, Harley is not alone. Although still on the fringe in terms of mainstream awareness and popularity, the 80/10/10 program is one that is gaining popularity (check out my podcast interviews with Michael Arnstein and Mac Danzig for more). But what distinguishes Harley from fellow healthy lifestyle advocates is his unique, personal style. Outspoken and unequivocal, Harley doesn't mince words. At times acerbic, and often on the perimeter of completely outlandish, Harley is a lightning rod for controversy — a role he relishes. Proponents of “fad diets” hawking unhealthy and unethical programs or snake oil products get called out. Taken to the mat. And on occasion, name-calling is involved. And don't even get him started on how he feels about the currently über-popular low-carb / no-carb / ketosis-based diets pushing high protein and copious amounts of fat. His fans are passionate. His critics equally so. But make no mistake — behind the larger-than-life personality, Harley is in many ways a regular guy leading a simple and active life, committed to helping people feel as good as he does, primarily via his YouTube channel. A guy frustrated by all the confusing and misleading health, diet and fitness information penetrating the internet, he's like Howard Beale (Peter Finch) in the 1976 movie “Network” screaming, “I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!” Durianrider may not be everyone's cup of tea. I get it. So does he. And he's fine with that. But regardless of any preconceived opinions you may harbor, I implore you to listen with an open mind. His message is powerful. And for the record – I like the guy. I hope you enjoy the show! Rich

Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, Episode 53, with the infamous Durian Ryder, a.k.a. Harley Johnstone. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, Rich Roll here. This is the Rich Roll Podcast. Welcome to the show. What do we do here? Each week, I bring to you the best and the brightest, the most forward-thinking, paradigm-busting minds in health and fitness and wellness and athleticism. I've had doctors, I've had nutritionists, I've had health professionals, I've had yogis, I've had meditators, and I've had entrepreneurs. And the common theme in the message is this, think outside the box. The idea is to bring to you the best information. You can sort through it. You can take what resonates with you,

discard the rest, but incorporate into your life the message that makes sense, that resonates with you, so that you can unlock and unleash your best, the message that makes sense, that resonates with you so that you can unlock and unleash your best, most authentic self for optimal, long-term, sustainable wellness. And when I say wellness, that means a harmony of mind, body, and spirit. So today on the show, I have a guy that certainly fits the bill, the infamous, the outspoken, the lightning rod for controversy known as Durian Ryder, aka Harley Johnstone. Now, many of you who are listening to the show, you've probably heard of Durian Ryder. Maybe you've seen one of his videos. He's a very, very popular YouTube channel called Durian Riders on YouTube.

I think he has a number of YouTube channels and, uh, quite regularly he posts little short videos, mostly featuring himself or his girlfriend, where he, uh, advocates on behalf of a low fat, high carb vegan diet. Essentially he's a proponent of the 80, 10, 10 diet, diet, which is very fruit-based. If you've been listening to the show, you might have heard my interview with Michael Arnstein, elite marathon runner Michael Arnstein, who has professed his adherence to this diet and advocates it not just as a very healthy way to live, but also as a way to perform exceptionally as an athlete.

He's an elite marathon runner. He was the fifth American at the New York Marathon a couple of years ago. He also produces and hosts the Woodstock Fruit Festival every year, of which Durian Ryder is a regular attendee, they're friends. And also I had Mac Dancing on the show, who for the last, I don't know, four or five, six months has been playing around with this 80, 10, 10 fruitarian diet. And if you remember his interview on the show, he was, uh, talking about how good he felt and how, how, uh, he felt like his body was performing very well on it. So, uh, this may seem sort of marginal to a lot of people to basically just eat fruit all the time. But here's another guy

who's going to come on the show and tell you how he is thriving, not just as a human being, but as an athlete as well on this diet. Now, Harley is no stranger to controversy. The guy is very outspoken. He calls it like he sees it. He, like I said, is a lightning rod for controversy. He is not afraid to call people out by name or take other health advocates to task for the message that they're putting out there, particularly when people are trying to, in his opinion, dupe consumers or sell them products that they don't need. And he's got thick skin, I got to tell you, because I don't know that I could entertain the kind of controversy that he invites into his life, but he's very passionate about his message. And he has quite the following too, very rabid, loyal, and vast global following

of people. And I was glad to give Harley the microphone and let him tell his story, particularly for people out there who may have never heard of him or have never seen his videos. He's a speaker, he's an activist, he's an athlete, quite a fast runner and a cyclist as well. And he's essentially on a mission

to raise public awareness of the benefits of this high carb, low fat, vegan lifestyle. He's also a strong advocate of simplifying your life, of getting rid of all of the material possessions that don't serve you and just living closer to nature. And I think that's a message that we can all benefit from listening to. And so whether you agree with Harley or you don't,

or you see things differently, or you have a different perspective on nutrition, hey, that's fine. Try to find the commonalities and try to set aside maybe the drama that swirls around Harley and listen to what he's trying to tell you. Because essentially what he's saying is, look, people, we got to eat more plants. We're in a healthcare crisis. And this healthcare crisis is not focused just on North America. As a matter of fact, when this podcast airs, I'll be returning from DC. I'm going to Washington DC to speak at the DC VegFest, which I'm really excited about. It's my hometown. But then I'm going to go

almost directly to Pakistan. I'm speaking in Karachi, Pakistan. And that's really exciting. I've never been to the Middle East. It's a part of the world. I'm really excited to experience firsthand. And I was doing a little bit of research into the state of health in Pakistan. And I figured, well, their obesity rates and heart disease rates and diabetes rates are probably a lot better than they are in America. And I was surprised to find out that they're actually experiencing most of the same problems that we're experiencing here as the Western diet starts to spread its tentacles worldwide. And they're not immune from heart disease. The heart disease rates there are going nuts right now as our diabetes rates. And you look at China,

which is a country in certain parts of China that have really never experienced heart disease. And now with KFC and Burger King and fast foods and the Western diet kind of proliferating worldwide, China is having an obesity crisis for the first time. So this is not just about North America. It's not just about Australia. This is a global problem.

And what can we do about it? Well, it starts with personal responsibility. We have to make the best choices for ourselves and for our kids and think about what our legacy is and what kind of planet we wanna leave behind for our kids. It's not a joke, it's something to take seriously. And sometimes it's hard to think, well, I can't make a difference.

Look at what Monsanto is doing. And what am I supposed to do, take on McDonald's? But the one thing that you can do is control what you put in your mouth and how you move your body and don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. And this is a guy, Harley, who's coming on the show today who's going to echo that in very strong, unequivocal terms, the great Harley Johnstone. Before we get into it, a couple of little things I wanted to mention. I wanted to give a shout out to my buddy, Pete Goddard from KBL Eyewear. Pete reached out to me on the internet because of the podcast, essentially, which is a great thing about the podcast. I get to meet so many cool people. Anyway, he sent me an email and was like, hey, man, I love what you're doing. I love the show,

but you've got to get rid of those glasses that you're wearing, those Warby Parkers, man. You're in the public eye. You're getting a picture taken. You've got to get rid of those cheap frames. Why don't you come down and let me hook you up with something decent? I like that they provide a cost-effective eyeglass for the consumer, especially when eyeglasses can be so expensive. And as I was thinking about that, I realized I could barely see through my lenses. They were so scratched because I bought cheap lenses. And anyway, I went down and saw him down at his office in Venice, and he hooked me up with some super sweet frames, these matte black finish frames that are beautiful. And so thank you, Pete, KBL Eyewear. You can find out more about KBL Eyewear at kbliwear.com. There's a list, there's a menu item on there to find out where the optometrists or the eyeglass stores near you are selling them.

Pete hooked me up and my wife up with some sunglasses and I bought another with some sunglasses and I bought another pair of sunglasses for my stepson and they're really high quality frames. Really, really nice stuff. So if you want to see a little bit about what we got, check my Instagram feed. Put a couple pictures up there of me in the sporty new frames, which are awesome. So thanks a lot, man. Really appreciate that. So check those guys out. I love supporting people that support the podcast. What else? Plant-based nutrition enthusiasts, maybe after listening to today's interview, you're thinking twice about your

paleo diet or maybe looking to take your plant-based nutrition routine to the next level. If you want to learn a little bit more about how I do it and my wife does it, we have an online course, The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition. It's at mindbodygreen.com. It's three and a half hours of online content broken down into five to 10 minute videos, each very specific to a subject that is, I think, pertinent and based on questions that I get all the time. Like, what do you do when you travel? What do you do when you're in hotels all the time or airports? And how do you deal with friends that are trying to tell you you're on the wrong path?

And how do you raise kids on a vegan diet? And what do you eat before you work out? What do you eat during your workout? What do you eat after your workout? All those things. We made videos and addressed all of those questions, including all of the kind of broader questions that arise around eating this way, the environmental concerns and the ethical concerns and what's wrong with paleo and all that kind of stuff. There's also an online community where you can interact, ask your questions, and Julie and I chime in there, answer them, and the community jumps in as well, help each other out. So it's a win-win. Check it out. What else?

Oh, the Plant Power t-shirts. Yes, lots of questions about the Plant Power t-shirts. We have them in stock, but they're not up on the website yet. They should be up in the next two weeks. We're just having to reconfigure the site so that we can sell these things. I'm bringing some with me to Washington, DC. So if you're there, grab one. But I think by the time I publish this, that will be over with. But anyway, hopefully by the time you listen to this, they'll be up and for sale. They're pretty groovy. So

I will keep you posted on that as well. Uh, if you want to learn more about durian rider, you can go to his website, durianrider.com. He also has an online forum called 30 bananas a day, uh, where people interact with each other and post a lot of stuff. It's a pretty interesting, uh, community there. And what else? Oh, his YouTube channel, Durian Riders. He's on Twitter too. He's not that active there. He's Durian Riders on Twitter and Durian Rider on Facebook, I believe. But anyway, let's just get into it.

We'll let him tell you all about it. get into it. We'll let him tell you all about it. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices.

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The health vigilante, the one and only, only the controversial the lightning rod for controversy ladies and gentlemen i'm proud to bring you my conversation with harley johnstone aka durian rider thanks for taking the time man a lot of uh demand to get you uh on the show i think like every single day i get an email like when are you gonna have durian rider on the on the podcast so by popular demand and the funny thing too is i feel like uh like every other uh guest i've had on the show it seems like lately has been uh Ozzy. So you're continuing the, uh, the trend. I wanted to bring you on and I just, I want you to, uh, spin your yarn, man. Don't pull any punches. No, no, uh, no rules. Nothing is out of bounds. I just want, I want to hear it straight from the source. Cool. And, uh, you know, I've been, I've been following you for a long time.

I can't say I've watched every single, uh single video, but I've watched quite a few. And you're an outspoken bloke and you're not afraid to speak your mind. And I respect that, man. I appreciate that. We have different styles and how we approach things, but there's a need for guys like you. But yeah, man, I wanted to kind of peel back the layers a little bit. I mean, we want to talk about all the stuff that you're passionate about, but I think I wanted to kind of, you know, peel back the layers a little bit. I mean, we want to talk about all the stuff that you're passionate about. But I think I wanted to start with talking a little bit more in depth about something that maybe you don't talk as much about, which is how this whole thing started for you. Like what was going on?

I mean, I know you were a very different guy when you were younger in terms of your diet and your fitness and what you were into and all that kind of stuff. But how did it all begin? Tell me about what your health was like before you started this journey. I think as a kid, I was always sick. I'd go to hospital for digestive and breathing issues like asthma and Crohn's disease. And so when you're sick, you want to feel good.

And then you get the days where you feel good, but it never lasted. So I just became obsessed about trying to pinpoint, connect the dots of what made me feel good and what made me feel bad. And it took me, I think, until I was probably maybe 1996 or something like that, 98, 98, where I actually started to make the connection between diet what you eat and how you feel before that it was just like genetics or bad luck or some virus or some gastro thing getting around but it never occurred to me i think it's about 96 98 those two years um i remember getting a voucher for mcdonald's and eating a lot of burgers and just

telling my friend one time i don't feel so good. And I said, I think it might be the burgers. And she said, do you really think what you eat determines how you feel? And I'm like, maybe. I reckon maybe it does. And we laugh now. It's a radical concept. I mean, Crohn's disease is no joke, man. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, Crohn's disease is a serious deal. Like, you know, talk a little bit about what it's like to have Crohn's disease is a serious deal like you know talk a little bit about what what it's like to have Crohn's disease yeah just you know just

you gotta have a bathroom nearby you're crapping blood and it's just a lot of pain didn't didn't have a good time but I didn't really

talk about it too much because as a kid or teenager you're sort of a bit embarrassed about it stuff like that so you keep it

pretty private yeah it's it's definitely something that people I mean I think now people talk about it more but when I was younger no one really talked about it, stuff like that. So he kept it pretty private. Yeah, it's definitely something that people, I mean, I think now people talk about it more, but when I was younger, no one really talked about it because yeah, it's like embarrassing and all that kind of thing. I mean, what were the doctors telling you when you would go in for, you know, stuff revolving around having Crohn's? They just said to my mom that I was making stuff up and things like that. The asthma,

they could tell I had the asthma and stuff. So they gave me heaps of steroidal medication, things like that. But the digestive system was often I wouldn't go in anyway because I was too embarrassed to talk about it. But occasionally when I did go in, they did x-rays and stuff and got me to consume this radioactive stuff. And they just said, oh, we can't find anything, Mr. Johnson. I think your son's got a bit of imagination going on. Oh, so they didn't even believe that you had it. Correct. Wow. So how did you finally figure out that that's what you had?

I mean, you couldn't have self-diagnosed yourself with Crohn's at that age, did you? Or how did you finally figure out that that's what was going on? That was only when I basically got over it that I worked out, well, that's what's happening because I looked at the symptoms and I was like, okay, that's my symptoms, blah, blah, blah. And then a few other doctors later in my adult years said,

yeah, you've got some digestive issues, stuff like that. I started to clean up my diet a little bit and the symptoms got a lot better and then I started doing sport. Sport definitely helped a lot but it still wasn't perfect. And then once I went vegan, like everything just lifted and i was like whoa this is how i meant to feel but what what motivated you to try a vegan diet like what was the impetus for that i had chronic fatigue you know i just i started getting into cycling started getting the sport and i'd go train i'd be all excited i wouldn't do much training but

i'd just get burnt out i'd just be so fatigued i just couldn't get out of bed and i was like what's going on and so i'd have to take time off a few months off riding and stuff and then met this guy one day this little sort of naturopath herbal sort of health freak mark hock and uh he just said just try a vegan vegetarian diet and i'm like what the hell is that i don't want to be a hippie and he just said well you're pretty sick mate and you're only young so if you keep going what you're're doing, you're going to get cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, mate. So, you know, I don't care how fit you might think you are,

but if you keep eating the crap you're eating, you're going to get sick. And I said, well, to be honest, I'm pretty sick right now, Mark, and I'll try anything. And after a couple of days, that was it. That was no turning back, and I've been vegan ever since. Right. Yeah, I mean, I don't think I wasn't as sick as you, and I was been vegan ever since. Right. Yeah. I mean, I had a, I mean, I don't think, I wasn't as sick as you and I was certainly older,

but what I remember about making the switch was just how dramatic it was in such a short period of time. You know, it didn't take very long for the body to respond and that's like,

it's like a watershed moment where you connect the dots all of a sudden on something you never really thought about before, like that connection between what you're putting in your body and how it's making you feel.

That was powerful. Right, right, right. I mean, when I started, I don't know what it was like for you, but I didn't know what I was doing. I just tried it almost on a whim. It wasn't like I read a bunch of books or all the books that are out now. It was almost accidental.

I didn't even have anyone telling me, you should try a a vegan diet i just sort of experimented with it and was like whoa there's something going on here definitely definitely and there was a lot of defining moments a lot of people who contributed and sort of little seeds got planted people would say stuff about what's in mcdonald's burgers what's in meats pies and you know how meat doesn't digest in your colon just sits there for years or whatever just little seeds of truth that i heard that eventually just became a full-grown root in my consciousness and just it took hold and grew uh-huh so so you have this experience where you suddenly start to feel bad were you overweight then no no i wasn't overweight so yeah yeah but

you weren't you weren't that athletic then. I was wanting to be. As a kid, I always wanted to be one of those fit kids. I always get picked last on a sports day. And a lot of my friends from school now, they can't believe how fit I am. They're like, hang on. No, you're Harley from school. You're the guy who got picked last on sports day. You're the guy who all the girls ran faster than.

You're the guy who couldn't catch the ball or whatever. What are you doing now? You're running marathons. You're winning running races, all the girls ran faster than you. You're the guy who couldn't catch the ball or whatever. What are you doing now? You're running marathons. You're winning running races. How does that work? So I always wanted to be athletic. I really admired, I'd watch the Nike adverts on TV. There was no finish line, stuff like that.

And I'd always want to be like the kids riding the bikes around and be strong and stuff and have fitness and energy. I just wanted to have energy, but I never had it. And then so suddenly, so now that you have this sort of new lease on life by changing your diet this way, so I guess you're saying that that's what gave you the energy or the resurgence of vitality in order to kind of then pursue that? Definitely.

I think that's why I'm so evangelical and so passionate and so consistent and nagging because I've felt so crap and I feel so good now and I want everyone to feel how good I feel. Right. Right. And so then how has it evolved since that first kind of experience? I mean, because you've continued to experiment and play around with different things to kind of where you're at right now, which I want to get into in a minute. Just sort of stumbled into raw foods, eating more fruit, understanding that fruit was actually a good option rather than just a snack.

The concept of having fruit for a meal versus just a snack after a meal, that was definitely life-changing as well. And just talking about getting more about, learning about low fat and how many grams of carbs to eat and how to be properly hydrated when to eat you know things like that sleeping patterns were you like reading a bunch of books then or just sort of experimenting on yourself both just reading reading reading talking emailing so what were some what were some of the books that you were reading that you found helpful? One of the first ones, my friend Paul Reed

gave me a copy of Fit for Life by Harvey Diamond. And that was a real, very good book to start with for me. Talked about eating fruit for breakfast and lunch.

And I started doing that. Boom. Just felt great. Then got a book about raw food by Paul Neeson. And that book, it was a pretty confusing book because it talked about breatharianism and stuff like that but and they had an interview with doug graham in there

and i was like wow of all the interviewers all the interviewees that paul nixon has interviewed this doug graham guy he's the only fit looking person in the whole book everyone else looks like crap looks like they couldn't run around a block surely nice people but i wanted i wanted energy so i'm like hey this thick guy he looks like he's got some energy and uh so i just started doing some google searching on doug graham and read some of his blogs and internet posts and then eventually started getting an email contact with doug and went from there so was that before his 80 10 10 book came out or that was 2002 right and 2002 is when you first got in touch with them or i can't remember when his book came out 2002 i got in contact with him briefly 2003 i bought his uh actually 2002 i bought his books creating health programs stuff

like that he's uh how much fruit's too much fruit cd CD. Basically bought everything Doug had on sale at the time and just listened to it over and over and over again. I'll do like 200K bike rides, just listen to it. Repetition and then got into contact with Doug on email and he helped me out a lot for free as well. Very generous. And went from there and then... So it was pretty quick like evolution

from just sort of saying I'm a vegan to really getting on board with the high-carbohydrate kind of subset of being vegan, right? That was a pretty quick process. And you've never looked back. So it's been 10 years, 11 years now of doing this? Yeah, 12 years being vegan, 11 years into the high-growth foods, vegan lifestyle.

Right. And you continue to excel athletically and win races and get faster. I mean, how old are you now? 36. 36. It's a bit of a late bloomer. Have you been racing this year? Running races I have, yeah.

Uh-huh. How's it going? Yeah, good. I set my best times last year. I was doing a bit more training this year. I've been a bit lazy, but last year definitely set my PBs from marathon to 5K to the mile.

Right. Still in about 10 miles a week, average over the year. And quite a bit of cycling. I mean, I know like this past, was it last January when the Strava Challenge happened and you logged more miles than anybody else on Strava for that

how many K's did you end up riding that month? 6,190 and I mean for people that don't know Strava is a sort of a social network an online community for it started for primarily for cyclists and I think it's still predominantly

for cyclists but it's still it's still predominantly for cyclists, but it's still, it's open for running and other fitness related exercises, but it's, it's your way to kind of share your workout and you can see the map and see the data. If you upload your stuff from your garment, et cetera. And, uh, and it's pretty popular with professional cyclists. Like there's a lot of professional cyclists that are logging their rides on Strava and they love to mix it up on there as well. And January is the time of year when they're putting in a lot of base miles. So you're basically logging miles when there are guys on, you know, the Garmin team or, you know, Liquigas or whoever, who are also, you know, doing it at the same time. So that's no small feat to be logging the kind of miles that somebody who's

doing that for their profession is doing yeah it's a big ego challenge for me i remember what i like about strava it's a big community it's like facebook for cyclists and runners and it's for everyone doesn't matter how fit or unfit you are or how fit you're getting strava's for everybody i remember training with andy schleck in january with the radio shack trek team and i met him in the city you know like oh you've been riding this morning you know you look like you're already sweaty i said yeah i've done 100k already they're like hey it's only eight o'clock how'd you do 100k so i got on the bike at four o'clock this morning you know they're like no way no way show me the garment show me the garment and they're like like andy schleck and

jen's voice is going bullshit how are you riding so much, man? What's up with that? And they were tripping out. All the teams were tripping out. And then they started talking about it because I was riding a bamboo bike. And they're like, is that crazy vegan guy on his bamboo bike? And he's doing like 100Ks before he meets up with us

and then he does extra afterwards. It was definitely a tough month, but it was good. Who was the runner up in that um some guy from uh guadalup who was uh it was a bit it was a bit of a controversy there i was trash talking a lot of guys trying to get in fight i was shocking shocking man and uh so so a few guys didn't want me to beat him so they started doing manual entries and a manual entry for those who don't know it's just you can just make up a number what you rode that day, but you don't have to GPS verify it.

Right. So they were just saying, yeah, I rode 350 kilometers today or whatever, and they're just trying to piss me off and overtake me. But in the end, I still won. And this year, I was speaking with Strava, some of the admin at Strava, and they said this year for the 2014 Base Model Challenge, we're going to have no manual entries. So it can only be legit GPS verified data

if you want to be in contention again. So that's going to make it more fair. So you're going to hit it again. Yeah. All right, man. So, you know, I want to get into like where you went from sort of experiencing this on a personal level, like this resurgence in vitality that we're talking about to be, to stepping into this kind

of not just an activist role, but, you know, your self-proclaimed like health vigilante kind of status on the internet. Like how did that blossom? Like what was the beginning of that? And, and, you know, you know, I want to get kind of i want to pull the the the veil back a little bit on like what motivates you and inspires you to kind of pursue your activism in this way i just i'd meet people in real life and it was always a letdown you know they'd be like writing books on health and they'd be smoking cigarettes or whatever it wouldn't make them bad people well hang on how can you make say fruits bad but you're smoking You know, they'd be like writing books on health and they'd be smoking cigarettes or whatever. It wouldn't make them bad people.

Well, hang on, how can you say fruit's bad but you're smoking cigarettes or you're eating at McDonald's or whatever? They'd be saying fruit's bad. So I just wanted to like let their followers know that basically what you're getting taught isn't always correct. I mean, was there a day where, you know, you posted online for the first time or, you know, I mean, how did it kind of begin? I mean, when did you start your YouTube channel? June 2008, I started it. It wasn't that long ago, actually. No.

I thought it would have been back a little bit further. Yeah, freely. And other people said, you should do YouTube, you should do YouTube. And I'm like, I don't want to get involved with that stuff. You know, I just want to be like fruit-telling and hang out in the jungle. Right. But then I realized, hang on, that's not going to help anybody. So I started YouTube. But you made this conscious decision that you wanted to help people.

Yeah. Right. So what was that about? That was just, did that grow just out of the frustration of seeing people professing something that you believed wasn't working or the confusion that was out there or the misinformation or what was it specifically? It was both frustration and misinformation, frustration on people lying for marketing reasons,

frustration on a lot of different levels, just seeing people getting ripped off. Right. And so you've come to this place now where, I mean, can you articulate like your basic message to people out there for somebody who might be listening who isn't familiar with kind of the work that you've done? Basically, I promote a drug-free, 100% vegan, fruit-focused, high-carb, low-fat vegan lifestyle,

promote going to bed as early as you can, drinking your water, focusing your life purpose, living that, and just being part of the solution versus part of the problem. So controversial, Harley. I can't believe people are upset with you. Come on, man. Let loose a little bit. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, when you watch, and I'll put this in the show notes too, and I'll do an introduction ahead of time, but you know, you have a really powerful, like your intro video on your YouTube page is just like, this is what I'm about. You know, there's a lot of BS out there. There's a lot of confusion.

There's a lot of people with vested interest and having you believe that eating a certain way is good for you. And it's nonsense. And you know, I'm here to set people straight. I'm not here to make friends. And you know, you always provide the caveat, like, look, I'm not here to make friends. And you always provide the caveat like, look, I'm sure they're good people or I'm not saying somebody is a bad person, but I disagree with this person. And then you're very, very frank. You have the courage in the spine to be a lot more frank than most people are willing to be. And you welcome the criticism because if you read the comments below your YouTube channel, like I'm a thin skinskinned guy, man. Like I don't know if I can handle like people coming at me like they come at you.

And you're just, you're wired for that. And like I said, like I respect that. But I mean, how does that, does that bother you at all? Or you just, I think you're just, you're a guy who just, you, on some level, you're enjoying this, right? Definitely. You have to be.

Yeah, I wasn't wired for it though. I had to stay up late one night and get a soldering iron out there and a TIG welder and wire myself up. I put on a little bit of a battle wiring because I wanted to help people and I realized I can't help people if I'm taking it personally, what people say about me. I can't help people if I care more about what they think about me versus getting information to them.

I can't help people if i'm being soft or taking it personally i can't help people if i take things personally so i just quickly got over that and so all right this is the job this is a goal nothing else matters it's like riding a bike you get a flat tire you fix it and you keep going you crash you get on your bike you keep going you break a pedal you get a spare you keep going and so i just keep focusing on my goal so it never ever gets me down if it starts to get me down a little bit it means i need to get more sleep water sugar in simple as that i remember one time i did a bike race and afterwards this guy was talking he goes oh you got that guy from youtube like what do you you know he started

laying into me and i started getting a little bit offended i'm thinking hang on i'll never get offended and i'm like hang on i need some more water. So I said, wait, I'll be back in a second, mate. So I grabbed a bottle of water, smashed it down, grabbed some dates, smashed them down, said, all right, I can answer your questions. And I was a different person within literally a minute of getting some water and sugar in, different person. So I didn't take it personally. So I know if I'm starting to take it personally, I need more sleep, water, sugar, Personally, I need more sleep, water, sugar, or three. So you begin to post these videos, and was there one video in particular that went more viral than the others?

Or was there a moment where you thought, wow, I'm actually getting, you know, like when did the audience start to arrive? My first few videos, I got about 5, 10, 20 views, and my channel was pretty dormant for about three years and then i started doing videos critiquing like daniel vitalis dave wolf susan shank etc just disagreeing with information and just sharing my my opinion and that sparked a lot of controversy in the health food movement because in the health food world they're like hang on don't judge people just

accept everything how it is even if it's bad information just accept it and i'm like well that's i disagree with that and this is my opinion, and I'm going to share it. I'm going to use YouTube and social media as a platform to share it with. And that went from there. Right. So did it begin with David Wolfe? I mean, who was the first person that you kind of took to task?

I think it was the recently deceased Agenus Vonderplanets. That's not his real name, but that's his author name. He was talking about Agenus. Who's that? It's this guy who promotes eating raw feces mixed on raw meat. True story. Like, look it up. Primal diet.

I've never even heard of that. He died recently, apparently from heart attack. He had a heart attack and fell off a roof in Thailand. Rest in peace. So I did a critique on agnes's book and agnes tried to sue me for that claiming a copyright claim and stuff like that and which i got that overturned um and that was my sort of first taste and then i went after david wolf and then he tried to sue me and then and then i was like hang on i'm getting sued for telling the truth i'm gonna keep i'm gonna for telling the truth i'm gonna keep i'm gonna keep telling the truth then well as a lawyer i could tell truth is the ultimate

defense to you know any of those kind of claims right so i mean did you did you successfully get all these claims dismissed or what what happened well i just realized that it was civil versus criminal and i talked to a few of my lawyer friends like there's nothing they can do harley like it costs so much money for them to try and do anything this is just scare tactics just just you know just waste their time and they'll give up and they did and now i learned that were they actually like suing you or just sending you like cease and desist letters and i've got one from supreme court of san diego um from dave wolf and stuff like that so yeah but at the time it's like oh my god oh my god and

then i realized i think this is a scare tactic there's nothing to be worried about and now i actually i enjoy when i get some legal paperwork because what i do is i i read it and throw out the recycling bin and then uh send an email to that lawyer firm whatever say actually i got the paperwork but i lost it could you send out another copy? And I just keep doing that until it racks up, you know, a few hundred bucks, a few thousand bucks for whoever's trying to sue me. Eventually, they get the message and they stop sending it out to me. All right, man.

So, I mean, we're in a situation, I don't know what the stats are in Australia, but in North America, you know, the health statistics are just appalling. One out of every two Americans is likely to contract heart disease. One out of every three can suffer a heart attack. Childhood obesity rates are through the roof. By 2030, I think 50% of Americans will be diabetic or pre-diabetic. 28 million people all over the world suffering from cancer. I mean, these are crazy, crazy statistics. And then we have all of these people professing this diet and that diet, and this is how you're going to lose weight and blah, blah, blah.

And there's a lot of confusion out there. And I think that the food companies enjoy it that way, because the more confusion there is, then the more likely people are to just keep doing what they're doing and saying, well, if these people can't even figure it out, then, you know, we're going to remain golden. And you've taken this sword and you're trying to cut a wide swath through all of this stuff. And there are all these, you know, I'm like conflicted because there's all these warring kind of factions within the health food world. You have the, just to sort of state the obvious, the low-carb, high-fat people, the paleo people, the Atkins people. You have the raw food people. You have the primal, these tiny distinctions between paleo and primal and then the raw milk people and the vegan people who are doing it for

ethical reasons versus the people that are doing it for health reasons. And then we have, you know, people like yourself and Michael Arnstein and Doug Graham who are, you know, succeeding and doing well with this 80-10-10 diet. And you're, you know, you're the third person I've had on the podcast. I had Michael Arnstein on and I had Mac Danzig on more recently who was talking about how he's been doing it now probably four months, five months, and he was feeling great and couldn't say enough nice things about how great he was feeling

and how he really believed that this was a good path for him. And my conflict really is, I'm focused on the people that are still eating McDonald's. And when we, when we go and we kind of go to the mat and we're fighting amongst ourselves, are we helping that guy or are we hurting that guy? And I'm not saying I have the answer and, you know, my, I kind of come from a much softer place from you than, than you do in terms of trying to bridge the gap. Whereas

you come at it hard and you have this massive following of passionate people. So what you're doing is working. We're different. I think we have the same goals. I mean, is that accurate? Do you think that that's fair? 100%. I don't think I know that there's different demographics out there.

We need every single demographic represented. So we need people professional like yourself. We need clowns like me. We need everybody representing at some level that appeals to all the many demographics and subcultures and races and religions out there so i think it's everyone's doing their what they should be doing i don't think any anyone's style is right i think maybe a style is right for that demographic but not for every demographic right so i think we all need it was like it was it was funny was funny because when my book came out,

somebody emailed me and they said, oh yeah, you know, Durenrider, he reviewed your book. You should check it out. They sent me a link and I was like, I had like a panic moment. I was afraid you were going to like attack me, you know? And you were very kind. I appreciated the kind words that you said about my book.

It meant a lot to me. But I was like, I was like, Harley makes me nervous, man. I don't want to get on the wrong side of this guy. He's going to attack me. No, that's a good book. I did a 200K ride on that book. I was like,

Finding Ultra sounds like a good book to listen to while I'm riding my bike on big rides. I did a 200K ride June or July last year in the Gold Coast, Australia. And you're talking about this Springbok facility you went to. And just as you said, Springbok book i'm riding past the spring book sign to the spring book national park uh that's crazy just as you said it man and i like she was up my spine i was like yeah this is so i did an eight hour ride that day listen to most of the book and then

finish off next day and i was like this is good stuff so I think I saw um well thank you for that um and that's cool I like when little the universe gives you little yeah just like that um I saw one video it was a while ago I can't remember when it was but you had mentioned that you were going to be that you were working on a book yep is that is that going on still going on and I think this book's definitely gonna get me sued because the good thing about self-publishing a book is I can write whatever I want to write. There's no YouTube policing or Facebook policing or Instagram policing. So this book's going to be, it's going to ruffle a lot of feathers. And I've got stories I'm going to put out there.

I'm just going to put it all out there in this book. I know Michael Orenstein's working on a book too. Yeah, he is. Fruit is Fast Food. So yeah, it would be great to, you know, get your voice out there and, you know, get it in writing and, you know, go beyond YouTube and, uh, get something that people can put in their hands and read from your perspective. Cause it's, you have a very, very powerful point of view, you know, and, uh, and it's reaching a lot of people, man, and you're doing a lot of good

and you are ruffling feathers, but, you know, it's, uh, you know, I think there's a big part of me that's like, we need a revolution. People are really sick and it's like I've been traveling a lot lately. I'm in a lot of airports and you just see really unhealthy people and the line at the McDonald's in the airport is a mile long and there's no healthy options and you just think like, what is going on? We're just upside down on this whole thing.

It's so easy now with social media i'm trying to target the the young yet the young kids out there the sub 20 or the sub 25 year old girls and guys that's my target audience now because i feel that's the next generation coming through and they're the most easy influence because they want to look good and be slim and lean and or whatever unfortunately that's why i think they also have a lot a lot of them have parents that are overweight or sick or whatever and they're seeing that and they're like i don't i don't want that you know what what can i do to be different to not be suffering the way that my parents are especially the girls i mean most of my talks is a female audience because they're like

well i want to get skinny i want to get slim and got like freely i want to lose the weight what do i do you know and they're sick of the starving or the thyroid drugs or whatever and they just want to get slim and still feel sane so that's we used to focus on health and health's good but unfortunately people are more motivated by aesthetics than health today so i understand that but the good thing is our aesthetic message is is the best message for health as well. So I can get totally down with 80-10-10 and I've talked to enough people that are experiencing great results like yourself on it. So I have no problem with being on board with that

as something that is advisable because I've just seen too many people that are thriving on it. And Michael Orenstein just can't say enough great things about it. And like I said, Mac Danzig, et cetera. But I will say, like I saw, so I've been, I watched a few videos

and I've been watching the ones where now you're experimenting with all this processed sugar and you're pouring all this sugar on your cereal. And then I'm like, yeah, I don't know about that. So tell me what's going on with that, man. Come on. You pour like half a bag of sugar on your cereal.

Yeah, like half a pound or more. I just want to help people understand the concept. In the raw food world, it's like fruit's bad because fruit's got a lot of sugar in it. In the low-carb world or the standard American, standard Australian diet world, people are like oh fruit's bad it's got a lot of sugar in it I mean there's so much sugar from fruit for over a decade and I've got more blood tests my hemoglobin a1c and my blood sugar levels testosterone all my thyroid everything's all perfect with no medications so fruit's good and I'm lean as and I

don't do much training compared to guys I have have no problem saying fruit's good, but can we create a distinction between fruit and the processed sugar that you're pouring on your cereal? Or are you saying that it doesn't matter? I say it doesn't matter, but fruit is obviously a better choice because it's got all your enzymes and nutrients and fiber with it. I want to help debunk the myth that sugar causes obesity or whatever. And by pouring some sugar on some cereal in a YouTube video or in my smoothie, I can help create a little bit of a wave there.

But I honestly do consume that much sugar if I can't get enough sweet fruit. When I'm in Thailand and the US, the fruit's a lot sweeter there. So I don't really have to go to the sugar. But in Australia, if I'm a bit strapped for sugars sugars from fruits then i'll just smash in some organic processed sugar on some uh on some fruit or some rice or some sort of low sodium cereal with a bit of organic rice milk or whatever i have no issue with that at all and i want to give people options so anyone can eat healthy anyone can eat lean and clean foods. And obviously the sugar, processed sugar has got a very, very bad stigma. But I'm so sensitive.

I can only eat really, really clean food. So if I can get away with that, then anyone can really. But the problem is that there are people, you know, drinking Big Gulps left and right or drinking, you know, 12 Cokes a day. And, you know, and that's kind of like their go-to thing. And these people are contracting diabetes all over the place, right? They're obese. They're just on the high fructose corn syrup like all day long.

And I mean do you worry that when you put a video out like that, that it will get misinterpreted? Definitely. Everything I do is going to get misinterpreted by someone. But at least they're thinking about it and maybe create a bit of discussion. Like, oh, that Dune Rider guy, he's crazy. But it creates a bit of discussion. If you look on any health forum on the internet and type in Dune Rider, I'm there.

People are talking about it. So I want to create discussion. But with the big gulps and stuff, the issue, I haven't drunk a Coca-Cola since September 2000 when I was watching the Sydney Olympics. I believe Coke is poison. It's not because of the sugar.

It's because of the frosty uric acid and all the black stuff in there and the nasties in the Coke. I don's not because of the sugar. It's because of the froschook acid and all the black stuff in there and the nasties in the Coke. I don't think it's the sugar. The sugar's fine, but it's what people have with the sugar. Generally, when people have a big gulp lemonade or whatever,

they're having like ribs or chicken wings and all this fat with it. So they're putting all this fat in their bloodstream and then they're having some sugars and it's skyrocketing their blood sugar. But I've got some friends who are heroin addicts and they all just live on candy and like lollies, not chocolate, and it's skyrocketing their blood sugar. But I've got some friends who are heroin addicts, and they all just live on candy and lollies, not chocolate,

but just lollies and soft drink soda, and they're slim as. Obviously, they're not healthy by any means. Right. I mean, yeah, like I don't know what you're – yeah, I don't know any, there aren't very many overweight heroin addicts. No, but. There are some. You're right. There is some.

I have met some overweight meth and heroin addicts, and they're the ones who eat the sausages and stuff. My experience with drugs, I used to do a lot of drugs myself back in the day, in the 90s. Most people do drugs, I've found out, for weight loss. Most people are addicted to meth and that because they want to get slimmer or coke and stuff like that. It makes you feel good good but then you start getting slim you think well i'm sort of looking a good bit better that's probably another topic but the the whole process sugar

is a non-issue it's what people eat the sugar with and i wouldn't drink coke because it's got all the phosphoric acid and all the nasties in there but i'll pour organic sugar into my banana smoothie or organic coconut sugar in there, no worries. But if you hand me a can of Coke, I'll say no thanks. I mean, it's definitely controversial because you have on the other side of this coin, you have this whole group of people and a group of people who kind of really have the microphone right now who are saying sugar is bad. Not only is sugar bad, all sugar is bad, and your body can't distinguish whether this sugar is coming from fruit or processed sugar. It's all bad,

and you should not eat any fruit either, and that this is evil, like coming from the Robert Lustigs and that kind of camp. So your response to that is what they are correct sugar sugar pretty much like my diabetic friends when they have sugar from fruit or sugar from coke whatever pretty much works the same if you've got a little bit of fiber it's a bit of a slow release but it pretty much affects your blood sugar the same if you're eating a high fat diet but if people go on a fruitarian eating 10 style diet they reverse their type 2 diabetes in a few days or a few weeks they get to cut the fat out and the protein out their blood sugar has come down to a normal level same on the neil bernard reversing diabetes program where it's just rice rice rice rice rice pasta etc corn

high glycemic foods whatever just high sugar they still reverse the type 2 diabetes type 2 diabetes clinically so it works but people like Robert Lustig, the overweight guy, and there's that Richard Johnson guy, the nutrition expert. He looks like Barney from The Simpsons. I'm going to swear he's an alcoholic or whatever. He sounds like a nice guy, but it sounds like he's drunk at his presentation. He's saying, sugar's bad and it's going to make you fat.

And I'm like, no offense, Mr. Johnson, but if you look in the mirror, you must be a closet fruitarian. So my goal is to appeal to that younger audience and be of a shock tactic and go hang on this guy's eating 30 bananas a day or 50 bananas a day or 100 bananas a day or whatever and him and his girlfriend they look like they're stepping out of a concentration camp and i follow them on a strava and yeah they do a lot of training in january but the rest of the year they're not doing that nothing that no one else is doing what's going on here maybe there's something in this high sugar diet maybe there's something in the fruit and maybe the fact that sugar is sugar pretty much whether it's gmo high fructose corn syrup or bananas it's

going to affect your blood sugar pretty similarly obviously gmo i'm not supporting that at all but the notion that people are getting fat from fructose, that is just absolute rubbish. So then how would you articulate how people are getting fat? We just go to McDonald's and look what they're eating. And they're having the Big Gulp and they're having Big Mac or something. And they're having all these high insulin index foods like the beef and the dairy, these things that spike your insulin growth factor, they spike your insulin. That's why professional bodybuilders,

non-diabetic, they inject insulin because insulin is one of the most anabolic hormones around and it's legal. It's very dangerous, but it's legal and it's so effective. So they've got guys in the gym shooting up insulin

who don't have diabetes. It's very dangerous. People die from it. Every year, some local bodybuilders die or get put in a wheelchair from a diabetic coma because they inject too much insulin. So these people are eating the beef and the dairy and the whey and stuff like that,

and they're just spiking the insulin levels right up, which is okay, but what happens is the insulin levels stay up. They stay high, so they have an elevated high insulin level, a baseline. It's always high. So they become this anabolic machine. That's why the women are massive and the men are getting bigger. And it ain't muscle, it's just mass. So people are just getting bigger and bigger.

If you inject yourself with insulin, then you're going to be hypoglycemic, right? I mean, it just pulls all the sugar right out of your bloodstream. Correct. Essentially, you're telling your body that i'm not giving you any glycogen and you're gonna have to figure out how to function you're gonna have to find a different energy source to get done what you need to get done whether it's in the weight weight room or anywhere else right well that's what the top bodybuilders and athletes they carry like jelly beans in their pocket or

bum bag you know so they don't have to go into like a hypoglycemic shock or have some fruit on hand or something like that so some sugars but that's that the secret to mass one of the biggest secrets is high insulin levels and even robert lusted gary taubes dr atkins they all agree and all three of them overweight but they all agree high insulin is a necessity for a high body weight and every pro bodybuilder will say that i can't do a fruitarian diet because my insulin levels will get too low and i'll be like a skinny dude like one of the triathlete guys or something one of those kickboxers i want to be like 250 pounds so that's why it's impossible to be a high body weight on a fruitarian or high carb vegan lifestyle because your insulin levels are going to drop down to a nice, healthy, normal genetic blueprint.

That's our primal blueprint is low insulin levels. But people are doing the primal diet, paleo diet and spiking the heck out of insulin and just getting massive long-term. Unless they're doing like intermittent fasting where they live on a salad a day, a slice of bacon for breakfast and they go, well, I'm doing the paleo diet.

So now you're doing the starvation calorie restriction diet. And again, that's not sustainable. They look at the long-term primal paleo people, Lauren Cordain overweight, Robert Lustig overweight, Richard Johnson overweight, Sally Fallon overweight, Dr. Atkins overweight, dead with heart disease. I'm sure nice people just critiquing their physiological response there to that diet is dangerous.

So sugar is an issue. Yeah, I mean, I've noticed that with a lot of those guys, they rubber band. Like if there's something going on and they're going to be in the media, then they trim down. But you catch them in between book tours and their weight fluctuates. Like it's because there's not – I mean, if you've created a sustainable lifestyle for yourself, then you shouldn't have these peaks and valleys and ups and downs. I mean, certainly you'll have periods like in the off-season

when you're not training as much or if you're an athlete or wherever when you're going to go up and down a little bit. But the swings seem to be pretty profound with a lot of those guys. Exactly. It's normal for your body weight to fluctuate between a healthy baseline 10 15 that's normal but what's not normal is when people go wow like what happened to them man holy mama like sally fallon the westnay price lady the photo she has in her book isn't what she looks like in real life and doesn't make her a bad person but it's very misleading to think that people go wow look at sally's book she's very slim. And I'm like, yeah, Sally's a nice lady, man, but she looks like she's ready for a heart

attack and she's on knock on the door of clinical obesity. Get up to speed. Yeah. I mean, if you could take a picture of Neil Bernard any day of the week and the guy looks exactly the same guy, the guy never looks, he looks, I mean, and he has like, he's drinking from the fountain of youth because I don't know how old he is now, but you know, he's incredibly youthful looking. And every time I see him, he looks the same. And he's got a high stress job. feel like I vacillate between being despondent and being frustrated with trying to get people to kind of understand what's going on and then being wildly optimistic because I really do feel like there's a movement happening right now and people are really interested in finding a real solution like a sustainable solution for their health and their fitness they're starving for it

they're yearning for it I mean just just simply by the number of views that you get on your YouTube channel or the number of downloads that I get on this podcast is pretty powerful evidence of that. And yet at the same time, we're kind of in this situation where we're having to confront this other movement that has a little bit more momentum right now, which is this low-carb kind of paleo lifestyle. I mean, in the United, in, uh, you know, in the United States, there are CrossFit gyms everywhere and the paleo diet is kind of interwoven with them. And there's a lot of momentum there. And part of me is like, well, people are interested in CrossFit. That's great because if they weren't doing anything previous to that,

then at least they're getting active. And I have no problem with that. But at the same time, we have this paleo diet that is super popular here. And there are aspects of that that I'm fine with. And there are other things that I disagree with. And then there's the perversion of it, which gets translated into you should have bacon all day long. I think people misunderstand certain aspects of that and then pervert it to their own needs. And so I guess my question to you is, let's talk about paleo, let's talk about low-carb, let's talk about ketosis.

And I want to hear straight up where you're coming down on this whole thing. It's crazy, but I'll just quickly say that the CrossFit community, I've got some friends who do CrossFit, and I think it's good, but I'm not a fan of they're doing it against the time and people doing the bad form and stuff like that. So what I've done is... Yeah, I think what happens is people get excited and it's very competitive,

and they're pushing really hard, and they're not ready to go that hard. And I just read an article. I'll send it to you. I'll send you the link to it. There was a blog on medium.com that somebody I follow on Twitter posted about this thing that's starting to happen in CrossFit where people are getting what's called rhabdo. Have you heard of this? Rhabdomyolysis,

which is this weird like sort of condition where the muscles are cannibalizing themselves because people are getting pushed way too hard and they're like eating themselves and they end up in the hospital i def i'll see it all the time with the paleo the paleo crossfit crew just pumped up with 500 milligrams of caffeine zero glycogen in the tank and just pre-workout powder on top of that maybe a few lines of coke whatever just and just go out and doing cleaning jerks like never before. Just, yeah, rotated cuff, slipped discs, a cruciate ligament torn in the knee. It's crazy.

Right. It's crazy. And again, just to be clear, I'm good with people going to the gym and getting active, and if they're excited about CrossFit, then that's a good thing. But I think everybody needs to sort of be judicious and cautious about and be honest with themselves about what their fitness level is and not get over your head and take your time as you build up and not like go gung-ho too soon and get

into trouble. I was talking to a guy in New York recently. I said, what's the deal with steroids and CrossFit? He said, what do you mean? I'm like, what's the deal? He goes, everyone who's good is doing them, Harley. I'm like, I thought so. It looks like it.

Some of the CrossFit women, like, you can't, I mean, you can tell they're a woman if you can see their face, but if you look from behind, you can't tell if it's a man or a woman. Just the amount of testosterone some of these people must be using is, I mean, you're going to get some gains now, but long term, I'm concerned the amount of rod usage that some CrossFit people are doing. It's, you know,'s is yeah that's a that's another it's an interesting topic there but yeah i'm not i don't know anything about that

i mean it wouldn't surprise me i guess we just have to look at their face like i was first introduced to alimonic steroids back in 1997 at a friend's kitchen he was uh shooting himself up some uh d-bowl he's like harley you know if we gave you some of this mate you'd be smashing up the climbs on your bike i'm like i don't know about that you know so i've been in the steroid scene for a long time not taking but just being around it friends dealing it friends taking it friends taking epo etc so i'm aware of what to look for than the side effects of people who are on it women's easy to tell because they start to look like men. Right, right. I used to live right around the corner

from Gold's Gym in Venice, which is the birthplace of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno. It's funny, you go in there and there are people that just, they come in at eight in the morning and they're there all day. They clock out at five

and the professional bodybuilders that are in there and the women, it's pretty extraordinary to see these women in there yeah it is and i've got friends who take steroids i don't think it's a bad people bad i think it's a bad health choice long term i don't think they're bad people but it's good for the public to understand how much steroid use is actually in the crossfit world the paleo world you got you know paleo i won't know many names but you got people writing books about paleo primal, obviously doing human growth hormones, steroids, testosterone, D-Bol, Winstrel, Anovar, Clenbuterol, cutting up for a photo shoot. And then they put that all over Amazon, whatever.

And then the naive public go, wow, look at that person. He's like 60 or whatever. He looks really good. And it's like, he's going to probably get 50 grand of human growth hormone and Clenbuterol a year. And he's going to look aesthetic, but that's not how he looks all year long and that's not how he's going to look in a few years time but that's what sells in the books so so let's talk about low carb paleo ketosis like what's what's you know what's your uh you know what's your perspective like why is this unhealthy for somebody because there's a lot of people that eat paleo that listen to my podcast too. It's kind of an all-comers thing.

So I just want to try to provide a different perspective on this diet or give people a couple things to think about who maybe are vacillating between the idea of eating a vegan diet or a paleo diet. Just a couple things that they should bear in mind or be aware of. Do this experiment in like two days, all right? The first day, actually, it's probably going to take a bit longer than a day because you're going to have to recover from the paleo diet.

It might take longer than a day to recover from the paleo diet. But let's just say you do the paleo diet for a week. You eat as much dead flesh, pig flesh, bacon as you want, as much coconut oil as you want, smashing the caffeine. No, cut the caffeine out, because if you're using stimulants, it's really hard to see the effects of the diet.

So no stimulants, all right? No coffee, no tea, no chocolate, no clenbuterol, no EPO, no Coke, whatever. We just eat as much bacon and coconut oil or lard as we want and throw in some kale leaves and that's your paleo diet essentially they say rice makes you fat fruit makes you fat blah blah blah whatever don't eat free fat so when you're on your bike drink coconut oil instead and go and do a thousand miles in a week and then the next week or the next month or whatever when you recover from the paleo diet when you're feeling healthy again when you come to hospital

or whatever when you can function probably do the vegan diet as much fruit as you want as much rice as you want as much water as you want and again don't use any caffeine so you don't get too uh too confused there keep the variables the same regarding the stimulants and just see what happens and the reality is there's not a single person on the planet no athlete on the planet ever who does the paleo diet which is basically low carb ketogenic diet because people say oh no that's not true rice and fruits good on paleo no no no it's not if you read all the books rob wolfmark cis and gary torbs lustig uh wheat belly guy the meat belly fat guy william davis they're all saying

carbs are bad you know a handful of blueberries isis they're all saying carbs are bad you know a handful of blueberries is okay they're all saying that the body's peak performance is in ketogenesis ketosis that's what they're saying it is so we've got to stick with that that is the low carb power there's no sneaking uh super starch like peter adia does or cliff bars or glucose shots or whatever that's that's high carb diet There's not the paleo diet. Paleo diet, it says sugar's bad. There's no athlete in the world who's doing better on that low-carb ketogenic diet than they would on a high-carb vegan diet. Zip, zero, nada.

I said to Peter Adia. I'm getting excited now. I said to Peter Adia, the ketogenic. I want you excited. This is what I've been trying to get you to do. Peter Adia, guys. Peter Adia, yeah. I want to hear about this because you hear the name peter attia and you hear gary taubes get

thrown around a lot and uh you know so what's going on yeah peter confused attia and gaby tubby taubes sure nice guys but i did a video of peter attia uh critiquing his information where he's saying ketosis is the best state for cyclists i said all right next time in the usa i'll bet you fifty thousand dollars us i can beat you up mount washington i've got no response now if someone said to me during writer i'll bet you fifty thousand dollars i can beat you up mount washington and you don't have to pay me if you lose, but I'll pay you if you win, which I said to Peter, I'd do it. Right, but in fairness to Peter, he's not a cyclist. But he is a cyclist. He says he's an elite level cyclist.

I didn't know that. Yeah, he says he's got huge, if you read his blog, he does a bit of cycling. But he's not even on a Strava. I said, Peter, maybe show a little bit of a power data. If you use a power meter, put it on a Strava, let's see what your watts per kilo is. No response, nothing.

Just totally ignored. So Peter is a cyclist. I'd even bet any of those paleo weightlifter people, I'll lift more weight than you in an hour than you ever lift. I think, didn't Ben Greenfield just do an Ironman where he experimented with that diet to see how it would go? Do you know Ben at all? Yeah, I know Ben.

Ben, he sort of changes his trend every week. He changes his diet like he changes his jocks. One week he's doing light carb, one week he's doing high carb, one week he's like, I don't use labels on myself. So Ben, I think he's sincere, but he's obviously sincerely wrong. He likes to experiment a bit and

I read his little nutrition chart and he says don't eat lemons and cucumbers because they contain sugar and make you fat I'm thinking if you say lemons and cucumbers make you fat I'm not sure if he was trolling a lot man but I seem to confuse people out there and then you got Vinny Tortorny who just unfortunately overcame cancer on his diet I'm thinking if you get into the candy

I know Vinny I mean Vinny is like a training partner we're like neighbours out here yeah so Vinny sounds like a nice guy and I was listening to that podcast

where he was critiquing my diet and saying that coconut oil is better than sugar for training I'm just I can't believe people are saying that

I can't believe and now let's look up photos and google images of vinnie and he's eating like uh drinking coke or eating like sugar sorbet ice cream or something and i'm like hang on like i thought coconut oil is and bacon's the best training fuel but you're eating sugars oh okay interesting that's that's right i mean he's he's a big proponent of of ketosis and you know know, I love Vinny. He's a friend and we go way back and we spent lots of time on the bike together, but we have completely different perspectives on nutrition. And the thing that I just can't wrap my brain around

is this idea that like, when did ketosis become like this thing that we should all aspire to? When really it's this this it's really like an emergency scenario in your body your body is going into like this condition that it doesn't want to be in it's insanity so this is like when did dr atkins become a sports nutrition expert when did dr atkins say hey you know i could probably line up the Tour de France. Dr. Atkins died obese. Rest in peace, Dr. Atkins, 258 pounds.

Autopsy reports indicated chronic heart disease, coronary thrombosis. He wasn't in good shape. Why is there not a single Tour de France rider drugged up to the gills, whatever, EPO, clenbuterol, ACAR drugs, the peptide hormones they use. Now, why aren't they doing low-carb if low-carb's better performance? A lot of them are playing with the fruit

and the vegan diet, though. I'm hearing that. I've got friends in cycling circles and I hear them all the time because they want to lose the weight.

These Tour de France riders want to get so skinny. They're not doing ketogenic diets. They're not even like bodybuilders. They want to get super skinny, super lean, get that body fat level right down. Chris Froome in the 2013 Tour de France almost got dropped because he ran out

of sugar. He got Richie Porte to go back to the team car and get some sugar. Right. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how you could be a competitive professional cyclist without, I mean, you need glycogen. That's your fuel, you know? So, so i mean i guess i could sort of understand when you're in training trying to uh trying trying to get your body to become more fat adapted in your aerobic state when you're training but when you're pinning it and you're you're above your aerobic threshold and you're anaerobic like you need glycogen and there's no way around it like how are you going to compete otherwise you can't impossible even in the power lifting is glucose derived atp gives you the most strength

that's why guys like a lot of guys do testosterone because they can store more glycogen it's all about fueling red blood cells red blood cells running glucose your red blood cells don't enough fuel they start dying off it can't work properly your performance goes down even sprinters using epo to boost their red blood cell red blood cells give you power the notion that ketosis helps red blood cells is is bogus phagocytosis which is basically your immune system where your phagocyte cells can engulf the the bad cells or the toxins or whatever that is dependent on your level of glucose so the less glucose you have in your system, the lower your immune system is. That's why in cycling, we always get taught, never go hungry,

because if you get too hungry, if you run out of sugars, you can thrash your immune system and get sick. Yeah, you're putting your body into a crisis state. And the other thing that never gets really addressed or talked through is this idea that when you're eating this high-fat diet and all these animal products, you're creating a tremendous amount of inflammation in your body as a response. And all that's doing is slowing down your body's ability to recover in between workouts

and creating a scenario in which you're more likely to get sick and fry your immune system in this state of chronic acidosis. So then I guess my question is, so given all of this, like, why is this so popular? I mean, is it just because people, they want to eat that stuff and they just love hearing that it's good for them, that, that, that they can do it and, you know, bacon all the way. I mean, it's just weird how suddenly it's like, everybody's so excited about eating bacon all the time where, where it's like, I mean, it's just weird how suddenly it's like everybody's so excited about eating bacon all the time. Whereas like, I mean, for the last 50 years, we're all pretty clear that like, it's probably not a good idea to eat bacon. It's not good for you. And then suddenly everybody's

praising it like it's the second coming. I remember in 1998, I was a bicycle courier and I was talking to this overweight receptionist, lovely lady. She's like, hi, I'm doing a new diet. Wish me luck. luck i'm saying what's the diet search because it's dr atkins dot i'm like what's that she's i just eat bacon and steak all day long and lots of cream and eggs i'm like you gotta get fat man i wouldn't eat that stuff i'm a cyclist and i'll burn it off but it's gonna make you fat and give you heart disease because no no apparently it's pretty good so that was back in 98 people love to hear good things about their bad habits i said said to this lady, why do you want to do that? She goes, I love eating this stuff.

And I'm like, that's why you want to do it, isn't it? She goes, yeah, you know, I'm not going to buy a book that tells me the truth. And she said it in like a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. But that planted a seed. That's why these books sell, because people with low consciousness or low standards, they want to believe bullshit. They want to believe good things about their bad habits like yeah smoking is good for it makes your lungs stronger or lots of meat clears up your arteries or lots of fat helps you burn fat better this is absolute

rubbish and they will go to talks and they'll buy books some overweight people who couldn't even run around the block without risk of heart attack they'll buy books and people who've got cancer what they don't care they just want to have good things about their bad habits and live in fairytale land that they can eat this crap and come out skinny looking like Frilly.

And that's why on Instagram, we just started off on Instagram, I'll take a picture of Frilly first thing in the morning when she's got all her knickers and lingerie on and she's doing some sexy pose and I'll hashtag it

paleo diet, primal diet, Atkins diet, paleo. So when people search in paleo primal diet, Atkins diet, paleo. So when people search in paleo, primal, Atkins diet, whatever, they'll come up with this picture of Freely, and they'll be like, oh, wow, look, there's a hot chick. She's eating all the bacon she wants.

And then they'll click on her profile and just get bombarded with the truth. The fat you eat is the fat you wear. If you want to smash your endothelium cells and increase your risk of heart disease, eat as much animal protein and fat as you want. Right. I mean, the thing is that people can lose weight on Atkins, but it's a short-term thing. I mean, who sustains that?

It's not a sustainable health solution. It's a short-term way to drop a little bit of weight and damage your body on the way down. I call it make yourself sick diet you lose you lose water weight just stop drinking water for a week and put your kidneys in overdrive you'll lose water weight but it's not healthy i'm we're into things that give you energy and keep you slim without deprivation and starvation i'm lazy as freely's lazy as and what the benefits is lifestyle is pick up some fruit eat it put some rice in the rice cooker put some sauce on it eat it whatever freely's inside making a banana smoothie right now it's just real simple stuff

the vegan lifestyle is the easiest it's not a lot of food prep you don't get food poisoning from eating some peter dog food or whatever it makes sense and when you're in ketosis your mood sucks your breath stinks yeah i was gonna say a bad breath i had a friend one time doing the raw paleo diet and actually she died unfortunately my friend v she did a water fast and died but she got food poisoning from eating some animal products so she did a water fast and then she died of kidney failure this is back in 2009 and uh you know it just it just pains me to see people getting caught into this whole gimmick man of this ketosis and stuff but it's just like people have got a clatter in their brain they can't they see me and freely and doug ram and mcdougall and bernard and yourself they see us out there slim and energy and they see it but but some part of their brain just doesn't make the connection.

They're like, oh, but isn't rice fattening, or isn't fruit fattening? Oh, I've got to eat more bacon. I'm fat from eating the fruit. Actually, I don't eat fruit, but no, I don't know why. Maybe it's just they just don't know. They're making up all these excuses in their head, so they don't have any real action. Well, there's two things i think that

are going on right now that are that are powerful and that are impediments to people seeing what it is that you want them to see the first is our ridiculous obsession with protein this completely misplaced misdirected uh you know sort of marketing message that's been imposed upon us since, you know, who knows when by vested interests who are standing to profit, you know, countless dollars by having you believe that you need a tremendous amount of protein, not just to be an athlete or excel as an athlete, but just to live. And it's crazy and ridiculous and it's killing us, right? So there's that. And then we have this sort of new,

the new like sort of popular idea that fat is not your enemy and everything that you heard about saturated fat is wrong and cholesterol is not bad for you and everything that you used to think about that has been disproved, right? So there's this notion swirling around right now by a lot of these sort of people that are writing these books that are telling people that that's not the cause

of heart disease. And that just astounds me when we've kind of known since, you know, Dean Ornish did his studies, you know, eons ago, that this is what is causing heart disease. I mean, you're on board with that, right? I mean. Oh, people are getting heart disease from organic mangoes and peach pudding. They're getting obesity from steamed rice with pinto beans and broccoli. Right. And, you know, you look at China, the China study, you know, and sort of heart disease rates historically in China,

which were close to non-existent in many parts of China. And now with the introduction of the Western diet to China and the proliferation of KFC and these fast food chains there, they're having an obesity problem and a heart disease problem for the very first time. Bingo. Oh, it's because they're eating rice now. Because they're eating rice now because they're eating rice yeah it's right i mean this is a culture that ate rice and vegetables forever

right and were perfectly healthy though so yeah so i mean right now it's it's cool to put you know butter in your you know grass-fed butter in your coffee and uh and just put copious amounts of coconut oil and everything you're eating and drinking all day long. And there's this, yeah, this like high fat craze that seemingly came out of nowhere. I don't know how that's related to paleo or where that's coming from specifically,

but there are these guys like Peter Attia who are getting a lot of traction and are like well-funded to put this message out there that fat is actually your friend. And there's all this research purportedly from their perspective to support this idea that saturated fat is not causing heart disease, right? I mean, you've probably read more of this stuff than I have. I mean, is that your understanding of like what's going on right now? They're basically trying to debunk Dr. Ansel keys in the 50s who did the minnesota study stuff

like that who's such a pioneer but here's the here's the crunch line none of these charlatan snake oil high fat sellers have ever published a single clinical study with a multitude of people indicating evidence of reversing heart disease but you know what the high carb vegan doctors like mcdougall esselstein ornish they've published their clinical studies they've published the angiograms the photos the the dye and stuff like that showing that the arteries have cleared up in that but none of these hucksters these high fat butter lovers have done that. Who are the guys that are fighting this?

We've got McDougall, we have Esselstyn, T. Colin Campbell, Jeff Novick, Mark Bittman, not really, Neil Bernard, John Robbins. I mean, who are the other kind of champions that are on this side of that equation? Doug Graham. In terms of clinical published studies, I'd say it's McDougall, Esselstyn, Bernard, Ornish, Campbell. Ornish. There's a lot of others out there as well.

There it is, all the high-profile ones. So on the 80-10-10 thing, I heard something really interesting. It was secondhand, so I don't know if it's actually legit or true,

but do you know who Jeff Novick is? Yes. So, Jeff Novick, a friend of mine was saying, oh,

have you heard Jeff Novick's opinion on 80-10-10? I said, no, what is it? And he said that his belief was,

and I'm just interested in what you think about this, was that it seems to work really well for people that are extremely active like yourself or Arnstein and guys like that. But that because the nutrient density of our fruits is so much lower than it used to be, that you have to eat a tremendous amount of the fruit in order to get the necessary micronutrients. And so if you're a more sedentary person or somebody who's not that active, then you're not going to have the appetite to kind of eat the volume of fruit that somebody like you or Mac Danzig is going to be eating on a daily basis. And you might run into trouble with making sure that you're meeting all your micronutrient needs. I mean, have you might run into trouble with making sure that you're meeting all your

micronutrient needs. I mean, have you heard that before? Yeah, I've heard that before, and I agree with that 100%. But here's the thing. Being sedentary ain't healthy. So it doesn't matter what you're eating. If you're sedentary, you ain't going to be healthy. Right.

So the fruit quality isn't what it used to be. I mean, Brian Clement says the fruit's 50 times sweeter than it used to be. Well, that means someone who's eating 30 bananas a day now used to have to eat maybe 50 times, 1,500. Brian Clement says that fruit's 50 times sweeter today than it used to be. So if you're eating 30 bananas a day today, it means back in the day, you'd have to eat 1,500 bananas a day. So some people are saying fruit doesn't have as much sugar as you used to some people saying it's got more i say it's got less because fruit tastes like crap compared to what it used to even 20 years ago in general my

grandparents my mother says the fruit used to be much much sweeter sweeter fruit is nature's way of saying this has got nutrition eat this fruit spread that seed and don't eat the sour stuff and that's the rule of that's and don't eat the sour stuff. And that's the rule of nature. The animal who gets the most sugar is going to get the most nutrients because they're going to have more energy. The body's going to work better. The lymphatic system's working better.

So Novick is correct in saying that if you're sedentary, you won't get enough nutrition. But I say that's like a hypothetical. Like why are we recommending people to live a sedentary lifestyle? That's not healthy. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, in fairness to live a sedentary lifestyle? That's not healthy. I don't know.

I mean, in fairness to him, I don't know that he's recommending a sedentary lifestyle. He's not. If somebody actually is, then that might become an issue. I'd say the issue would be not with nutritional sufficiency, but they're going to have health issues because they're not putting their lymphatic system out there. They're not getting deep oxygen breathing from a bit of cardio.

They're not getting enough vitamin D because they're staying inside. Their posture is not going to be the best because they're sitting behind a computer all day. I mean, that's me. I sit behind a computer all day, but I make sure I go outside and get some fresh air. And I make sure I do some sport just to get my blood flowing because I know it's healthy. I don't have to do – freely in myself, we don't have to do sport for weight loss. We have to do sport for health. Our diet is weight loss.

Right. loss. We have to do sport for health. Our diet is weight loss. Right. And the sort of the Peter Rattias of the world would say that eating the way that you're eating is extremely unhealthy and that's going to lead you towards fatty liver. And what other kind of, I mean, what are the other claims that people are making about the ill effects of eating the way that you're eating? And then I want you to talk about like what's actually going on with your blood tests. Those guys say I'm going to be obese. I'm going on with your blood tests. Those guys say, I'm going to be obese. I'm leaner than all of them. Those guys say, my blood tests are going to be bad.

I've got better blood tests than all of them. In fact, they don't even put their blood tests up. Rob Wolf put his blood tests up. That was shocking. At least he had the courage to admit that his blood tests were shocking. Yeah, I mean, I think it is cool that Rob's at least honest about that kind of stuff.

He's transparent with his own process. I appreciated that. But all the, they say my hemoglobin A1C is going to be high. I've got that tested. It's perfect. They say my hormone levels are going to be out. They're all good. And I don't take synthetic testosterone like a lot of these guys do.

It doesn't make them bad people. But when they put up their blood test, they never have. But if they did and it had good testosterone, I'd be putting a bit of money on it that they'd be slipping in some synthetic testosterone there. Because when you eat a low-carb diet, it stuffs up your hormone levels. It stuffs up your hormone levels so your body starts to – it just can't work properly. They say I'm going to have high blood sugar. My blood sugar is always good.

They say I'm going to have high potassium levels. I'm going to have hyperkalemia. My potassium levels are always good. They say I'm going to have high potassium levels. I'm going to have hyperkalemia. My potassium levels are always good. They say I'm going to have cramping from not enough sodium in my diet. I don't get cramps unless I have too much sodium because then it makes you dehydrated. They say I'm going to have inflammation. I'm slimmer than all those guys. They say it's bad for women. My girlfriend's slimmer than all their girlfriends and it doesn't make me a better person or whatever. It's just basically whatever they say is the opposite and i say to all the people judged by results versus theory look at my blood tests look how lean we are compared to them where are their blood tests where are their

drug-free athletic results they're not there the the funny thing the interesting thing is that is that uh then the response you get, well, you're too skinny. You look like a Holocaust victim. And it's like, well, what is it? Are you telling me I'm going to be fat or you're telling me too skinny? Like it gets confused with the whole thing. Hang on, which one is it? I won't have enough energy as a vegan,

but during the ride is skinny because he does so much sport. Hang on, but I thought you said vegans don't have enough energy. Now I'm saying I'm lean because I do so much sport. And then you say, oh, I can't do a vegan said vegans don't have enough energy now i'm saying i'm lean because i do so much sport and then you say i can't do a vegan diet because i wouldn't have enough energy but that durian rider guy he's got a lot of energy but he's only slim because he's oh oh um oh what's the next question they just they contradict themselves they're so undercard they contradict themselves all the time guys make you fat you're too thin um we weren't having enough energy as a vegan oh you you train too much it just is it's nonsense and then i think the next thing is that always comes up is well it's just it's just too extreme to do what you're doing you know it's just it's there's no how am i going to you know there's no way i'm going to go about my day and eat you know

30 bananas a day or whatever it is. I just can't imagine myself doing it. So there's a lack of willingness there to experiment, I guess, I suppose. But also just to acknowledge that even when I had Michael Arnstein on the podcast, he's like, yeah, it's extreme. I have to go to the fruit wholesaler and back a truck up and I have four refrigerators and all of that. It's not something that you see on a on a daily basis he's made it work in his life and you have obviously successfully and mac danzig has and others have um and actually i share an office space here with a guy who just finished my buddy greg smith he just did his third 100 mile

race and he's been eating 80, 10, 10 for about two years right now. And this is a guy who was like never a runner, never done anything. And he doesn't even train that much. And he just, he just did the headlands 100 up in the, up in San Francisco the other week.

And he's so excited that I was going to be talking to you. Like he's totally fired up. Like I think I've spoken with Greg on a few emails. Yeah, probably. I mean, he knows Victoria. I think he's had a lot of emails with Victoria Arnstein or whatever, but he was all fired up. I think I've spoken with Greg on a few emails. Yeah, probably. I mean, he knows Victoria.

I think he's had a lot of emails with Victoria Arnstein or whatever, but he was all fired up. And yeah, I mean, he just, and his business, he's an architect and a designer, has exploded since he changed his diet. And he said to me the other day, I am absolutely convinced not only is the reason that I'm able to run these 100- mile races because I've changed my diet, but like my business is better. Like I just, I think, I think more clearly I'm more present in my life. My relationship with my wife and my kids is better.

Like he is, and he looks super fit and he looks, he looks much younger than he is. And you know, there's no way that you can take issue with it. Like he's just a walking example. So you can say whatever you want, but it's really how you live your life and the quality of your relationships and how you kind of walk through your day that are much more powerful than whatever comes out of your mouth. And, you know, this, my friend, Greg is an example. You're an example. Um, but people still say, well, good for you, but there's no way that I'm, that I could do that. Right. I mean, is that, you know, I mean, is there, for somebody who's interested in kind of embarking

on this 80-10-10 way of life, I mean, how does somebody get started who might be intimidated? That's an awesome point. And I wish people would come to me straight up and say that, Harley, I know it all makes sense, you know, but you know what? My family's going to make fun of me. My workmate's going to make fun of me.

I can't do it. And I'll go, you know what? I can totally make fun of me my workmate's gonna make fun of me i can't do it and i'll go you know what i can totally relate i understand you i understand that i get my back up when people make up all those excuses like the cholesterol myth and you know paleo diet growth hormone author book whatever end of the day i understand that people are scared of social disapproval they want to be lean and healthy but like oh i know this sort of rice diet and the fruit diet works and stuff but what's my what's my husband gonna say my wife or my kids and my and they're scared of that but i'll tell you what if you keep living for social disapproval if you keep worshiping the god of public opinion it doesn't matter what you're going to do in life. You're always going to be suffering because you're so scared of what people think about

you. And that was the biggest hurdle for me, changing my diet. I was like, I learned about what was in sausages, like knobs, nuts, scrotes, throats, thyroids, ears, and lobes in sausages. My grandma put a sausage on my plate back in 1996. And I was like, I looked at her and she's like, what's wrong? I said, oh, nothing, nothing. She goes, eat your sausage.

Yeah, I will. But it took me about an hour to work up the courage to say, actually, no, I don't want to eat the sausage. So I was scared of what my 75-year-old grandma was going to say. It's a real issue. And the thing that I always kind of bear in mind with that kind of stuff is most people are self-obsessed. So you project all this kind of thing on other people.

Bingo. And the truth of the matter is they're thinking about their own life. Exactly. They don't really care that much. You know what I mean? And they'll get over it. I'll get over it. So a great example is another guy who I think you know who's a friend of mine out here, Evan Rock.

Oh, yeah. You know Evan? Right. So, Evan is a cool dude. And he got on board the 80-10-10 thing. And he works in commercial real estate. Like he works in a straight up office in a business context where he has to go to lunch with these people or whatever. And I'll run into him at Whole Foods at lunch or whatever.

And he just goes and gets an entire watermelon and just sits there and eats the whole thing. And the guys at Whole Foods, all like, you know, the guys that work at Whole Foods would make fun of him, but now they know what he's getting when he comes in and they get it ready for him. And his, I said, you know, how do your coworkers deal with it? Like he's sitting in a tie, you know, in a suit on his lunch hour from his office and he's eating an entire watermelon. And that's just not something you see in the normal course of going through your day, right? I'm like, so do the guys you work with make fun of you? How does this go down?

He's like, yeah, at first, but now it's just that's Evan. People adapt. And you have to have a strong sense of yourself to take that stand and do that but I think you realize once you do, it's not the big deal that you project upon it. I've got to say, don't take nothing personally and when you go vegan, you learn to be more tolerant and accepting other people's little shenanigans or whatever.

I don't take nothing personally anymore. I have fun with it. Yeah. I don't know if you would be characterized as tolerant though. Are you tolerant? I don't think you're that tolerant. You've would be characterized as tolerant though. Are you sorry you tolerant? I don't think you're that tolerant. You've got a big tolerant I was gonna be punching people in the face when they make fun of the diet. I Know I know what people are gonna say even before they open their mouth just by looking at their face. I can lip-read them

You know, I already got my aunt so my little wisecrack remark already ready You know, it's like even a street fight You already know what side the punch is gonna come from or or you can look at someone's foot stance and know if they can fight or not or i know exactly what they're going to say and i've got like 100 different answers i'm going to have fun with it they're going to have a laugh and end of the day they're going to be empowered i'm going to i'm going to walk away from the situation like yeah that was pretty cool answer harley well done good for your ego but they're going to walk away going you know what that yeah that was interesting i'm going to Good for your ego. But they're going to walk away going, you know what? That was interesting.

I'm going to check that website out. Or yeah, my grandpa died of heart disease. I'm going to look up that book of Mr. Esselstyn. Fruit's good, but I'm not going to read the 80-10-10 book. They're going to leave my conversation empowered 100% every time. And that's my goal. And objection is request more information. So if someone says, hey, you're eating your i'm like yeah you went you rolled your food again

and i'll have a bit of a laugh and we'll have a dialogue a communication yeah everything is an opportunity for a dialogue or a conversation you know and it's just how you approach that i think and um you know so so walk us through like a typical day in, in what you eat from when you get up in the morning and like where you get your food and how much it costs and you know, what, what are the budgetary constraints? What are the logistical constraints of making sure that you have all of these kinds of foods on hand and how do you make it all work? we don't live in a fruit friendly world. So the person's got to, you got to, you got to hunt for it. Cause I can, between my house and my,

the fruit shop I go to, there's about five different places that sell junk food. So I've got to go past that to get to the good stuff. You got to go from the mud to get to the gold. Just quickly though, another topic we're saying about social disapproval. Before I met Freely 10 years ago, when I was into the fruit thing, I used to go and pick up girls just by walking around eating a

watermelon and i just had a mold or whatever and girls would come to me and go what are you doing eating that watermelon it's really healthy or funny or whatever and you just meet women so it's a great way to meet really like-minded people but getting back to the question where do i get my food from how should i spend what i eat in the day breakfast is always fruit lunch always fruit dinner most of the time fruit but if i can't get enough fruit then it'll be some sort of like mcdougall esselstein low sodium low fat starch dish like corn or barley or maize rice pasta whatever. But I do prefer the fruits. I honestly feel best on fruits.

So starch is something I do promote and do consume as more of a backup plan. I don't think the starch diet works best as a staple. I think it's excellent. I just think, I just know that fruit's better. But getting fruit is hard. People say, that's not, what do you mean, man? There's fruit shops all around the place. I can get fruit you can get fruit but it's not edible fruit the fruit sold in most groceries especially in australia it tastes hideous it tastes like pesticide vaseline

and rusty water there's no sugar in it because it's just picked way too early it's grown with crap like potassium nitrates whatever just so to get fruit edible fruit is very challenging and that's why i do promote a backup plan with doogle style diet because i don't want people going oh 80 10 10 is awesome and i eat fruit from their local fruit market and then go man i'm just starving like i'm flopping i'm not getting no calories here where's the burgers where's the meat so i want to give you a backup plan so what do i eat for breakfast my preference is generally banana smoothie lunch banana smoothie dinner banana smoothie or dates blended dates or some sort of rice dish and i'll eat as much as i care for i don't limit my calories i always make sure

i get at least three and a half thousand calories a day at least i'll do i'll do quick math by four o'clock and think how many calories i had today all right i'm gonna get some more in and people are what are you crazy you want to eat less calories man calorie restriction i'll say i disagree i want to feel strong the next day i want to have my glycogen restored the next day or the day after i want to be like ready to go again the day, be it a two-hour discussion on the street with someone I just met and I've just finished a 10K hike or a 100K bike ride and someone says, how are you doing? Yeah, I got internet.

Have you got a second? I'm like, now I've got as much time as you want. Let me grab some carbs, let me get some water. Let's sit down and talk. I want to have that energy I can give to people every second of the day from when I wake up to go to bed. I never want to be starving or listless or thinking about food. I just want to be nourished.

That's why I eat so many carbohydrates because I want that stamina. I'm obsessed with drug-free stamina. The reason why I don't do stimulants anymore, stimulants work, speed works, meth works, coke works, but the next day it drops you because it fries your adrenal glands. I want to have rock-sol solid energy every second of the day in standby and Freddie's

just walking around he's just giving me some blended dates with vanilla powder in there Freddie's walking around in some bike shorts and a sporty

sexy bra top fruit's good for the body so where do I get my fruit from organic wholesalers are good. I heard in LA they've got a good produce market there.

So are you always trying to get organic? One of the things that was interesting when I was talking to Michael Arnstein was I said, what's the percentage of organic fruit that you're eating compared to conventionally grown? And he said that that was one thing that he really could improve on, that he doesn't concern himself that much as to whether something is organic and conventional. And I thought that was a little interesting and surprising because, especially with the volume of fruit that he's eating, you're eating that much conventionally grown fruit. So, you have to

look at the amount of pesticides and toxins that you're probably intaking as a result of that. And I understand that if you were going to do it organic, that's going to drive the price up considerably. But it sounds like you're a little bit more judicious or cautious about where your fruit is coming from than maybe he is. Or maybe it's just not as available to him. I don't know. In the US, the quality of fruit is exceptional because most of the fruit in the US comes from Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, et cetera,

where they've got a better fruit growing culture down there. So the fruit quality is pretty high, even conventional. Conventional fruit in the US tastes better than the top shelf organic stuff in Australia, generally. Oh, really? Why is that? Because in Australia, fruit in the u.s tastes better than the top shelf organic stuff in australia generally oh really why is that because in australia we have virtually no competition for fruit quality because we have the strictest quarantine laws in the world in regards to importing fresh fruits and stuff so basically if you if you go to a fruit shop and you're like these mangoes taste like shit i want

to get some mexican mangoes they're like we'll go to mexico buddy and you're like, these mangoes taste like shit. I want to get some Mexican mangoes. They're like, well, go to Mexico, buddy, because we only sell Australian mangoes. And yeah, you can get some good fruit now and then, but it's not as consistent as the US. The US is much better fruit quality. And all my friends that come over to Australia go, the fruit's so expensive. It's $10 a mango or whatever.

And it just tastes like crap. So you can get some good fruit, but you really got to hunt for it. That's why whenever someone says, oh, I'm doing the fruit diet in australia i just just found out about about it makes so much sense i cringe inside because i think where they're going to get their food from it's so hard and that's why i give the backup plan i like to be realistic i like to say okay here's here's the bath here's the gold standard and here's silver. And just juggle between those two. Don't drop from gold down to lead on the paleo diet or whatever.

Stay up there. Stay with the high-carb vegan lifestyle. Do the best you can to get your fruits. If you can't get your fruits, add in your maize or your corn or whatever, McDougall-style meals for dinner to get your carbohydrate calories in. Because organic means a lot to me. The reason why I get organic in Australia, to be honest, the biggest reason is it just tastes better in Australia.

The conventional fruit in Australia is just hideous. 90% of the time, it's hideous. So I go organic, A, because it tastes way better than the conventional crap in Australia, and B, it's the right thing to do for the planet, C, it's the best thing for my health, and D, it's just logic. Pesticides ain't good for us, and the less we can consume the better but at the end of the day a vegan diet is still going to be lower in overall residual pesticides and environmental toxins than someone eating a

you know a wild sort of let's say someone's out in the bush and they're eating like rabbit dung rabbit guts moose brain, they're still going to have more toxins than someone eating a conventional vegan diet because those animals, all the toxins are stored in the animal fat. So even if you're having organic dairy, all those environmental toxins, the Roundup glyphosates,

that's all stored in the animal fat and tissue, the protein. And if you cook that stuff, you've got the heterocyclic amines the benzopyrenes the advanced glycated end products which can cause in the meat products when it's heated so yeah you might get a lot of pesticide exposure from eating your conventional fruits but it's nowhere near as much as someone consuming animal products right you know the next thing i kind of want to know is is you know where are, where are you, like, where are you taking all this? Like, what's the, what's the goal? Like, what's the next step? I mean, you're just going to continue with the YouTube channel. I mean, you're working on the book. I know that. But, but like, what's the, what's, what's the goal here? Like, what are some of the things that you'd like to be doing or see yourself doing in the future that maybe aren't happening quite yet? the future that maybe aren't happening quite yet. I've got some personal goals. One is Amazon bestseller, New York Times bestseller, just more hits on the YouTube, just create a cult following,

not for my ego, but for the benefit of the planet, the animals and humanity. I want to get people understanding that they have a choice when it comes to health. They have a choice when it comes to drug-free stamina. They've got a choice when it comes to natural weight loss. They've got a choice at the end of the day. They don't have to buy into the lies of the big agro meat military medicine industries that tell people you've got to have your protein, you've got to do all that stuff. That's my goal is just to create world change. Well, I mean, I think that, and that's a laudable goal, of course. You know, I think that and that's a laudable goal of course

I think that one of the reasons my theory or my opinion on why I think your message resonates so powerfully is maybe you don't say it that often outright but really what's behind everything that you're doing is this idea that we all need to be more self-empowered and educated about this, the decisions that we're making. Right. And that it's incumbent upon us to do our own research and to take ownership or

responsibility for those choices and where our dollars getting spent. And, you know, you and I agree that, listen, if you want to do the most, if you want to, the best thing you can do for yourself is to start eating more plants. And in the most basic sense, that is going to revolutionize your health. It's the best thing for the planet. It's the most ethical choice that you can make. There's a whole battery of reasons why this is, you know, in my opinion, really the optimal only human diet if we want to persist as a species. And people can take issue with that and we can argue about that and all that sort of thing. of your decisions and getting people to evaluate what's going on in the world, like in terms of the messages that we're being bombarded with, right? Like what is really going on? Like take a look at what you're being told and peel the layers back and look at why you're being told that

and try to look beyond the message into the motivation behind it. Who stands to gain from this? Why are you being told this? And I think you're really getting people to open their eyes and look at things in a different way. And that's empowering, man. That's a really cool thing. Cheers. Always tell people, when you're getting told something, ask what's being sold. For sure, right? So what are you selling, man? I've got a $2 audio book. Yeah, there you go. What is the...

Well, let's sell some of those for you. What is the audio book? It's just a few more talks. I'm going to have to get my ass in gear and put a better compilation out there with more interviews. Right. But you've got... I mean, how many videos do you have on your channel now? I've got over, I've got about seven different channels. And then there's, and then I want to-

Why do you have so many? Well, hold on a second. First of all, I remember like your YouTube channel got pulled down at one point last year. What happened? Don't really know, to be honest. I had, I've got a few friends in Google and they wrote emails and then the channel got put back up.

So I'm not sure if if they don't even know google is just so big and so it's like a wild wild west out there anything can happen any day of the week your channel can go viral it can get shut down it's just it's the law of youtube so it's back i'm so right but we don't you don't know if there was some kind of nefarious activity where somebody sabotaged your channel? I mean, you probably have your theories about that. So why do you have seven channels? Why don't you just have one channel? Well, I've got the one main channel during the office.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, because if one goes down, there's still... All right. What I've also done, extra trolling, is I've said to anyone on YouTube, I said, you can upload my content, you can monetize it, you can do whatever the F you want with it. I don't care. So now there's people uploading a couple of thousand of my videos

or whatever on their channels. So I can't be deleted off the internet now. It's just out there. I've infected the YouTube community with the positive health message. Right. Excellent, man. Well, yeah, I mean, you get, you know, you've done quite something with your YouTube videos, man.

You're a force to be reckoned with, and my hat is off to you. That's my motivating factor every day, help people. Yeah, and keep stirring the pot, man, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I just want to get people thinking. Right and keep stirring the pot man right yeah yeah definitely i just want to get people thinking right well good man well hopefully uh today we've given people something to think about if people want to uh learn more about what you're up to and want to follow your mission your uh youtube channel is main one i mean i just go to durian right that's the main one that's where i'll blow most of the videos to durian writers there and then uh and and uh you're on twitter at durian writers you're

not that active on twitter though really right now i'm more doing the instagram thing right what are you on instagram durian writer durian writer there and uh and facebook and all that good stuff right yeah durian writers there as well and are you doing like speaking gigs are you traveling around speaking to people? Yeah, we just come back from Woodstock Fruit Festival which is a great event and that's going to be

on in 2014 as well so we'll be there. It's a two-week vegan and fruit festival. That's a really good place to meet people and other crazy fruit eaters and vegans

and stuff like that. That was a great event. Yeah, there was like 500 people there this year, right? Yeah, probably close to 600 and even a lot of people weren't even vegan. They just thought,

I'm curious. I want to learn more about this crazy lifestyle. Let's check it out. So they come and live on fruit for a week. Right. And then Sanjay Gupta at CNN interviewed Michael Arnstein and they gave the fruit festival a little bit of love and a little bit of coverage. And so I'm sure next year it's going to be double the size. And I think, is he doing a second week or they're expanding it, right? As Mike Einstein, you know, if a little bit's good, more's better.

And he's just such a hardworking guy and he gets the team going. He definitely inspires me a lot, that guy. He's just a machine. He's an amazing guy. So if people want to check that out and learn more about the Woodstock Fruit Festival, it's just woodstockfruitfestival.com, right? Yeah, just Google up Woodstock Fruit Festival. Little videos will come up and the website will come up that's a good thing about google now

people don't have to get the exact website they just sort of google it in and it'll come up cool man uh anything else you want to let people know about just life quality is all about sleep water sugar you're not yourself when you're hungry you're not yourself when you're thirsty you're not yourself when you're tired if you take care of your sleep water sugar every day life is going to be a lot better you're going to have a greater participation in your daily reality drink enough water so you're peeing clear every couple of hours if your urine is yellow or straw you need to drink more go to bed as early as you want six seven eight nine p.m that's what we're designed to do is get a lot of sleep look at animals in nature they're getting a lot of sleep and rest. Don't let anyone tell you you're sleeping too much.

Go to bed early and get up with the sun. Get out there and start smashing life. Carbohydrates, eat as much as you want. I recommend five grams of carbs per pound of body weight per day. Or if you're using the kilo system, 10 grams of carbs per kilo body weight per day. So if you weigh 70 pounds, sorry, 70 kilos, it's about 700 grams of carbs a day. If you weigh 150 pounds, it's about 700 grams of carbs per kilo body weight per day so if you weigh 70 pounds sorry 70 kilos it's about 700 grams of carbs a day if you weigh 150 pounds it's about 700 grams of carbs that's 35 bananas or

a two pound bag of dates or two pound bag dry weight of rice or pasta or corn etc just get the carbs in keep your diet low fat keep your sodium intake low so you're having less water retention check our videos out on youtube check our website 30bananasaday.com there's a lot of support out there it's all free you have to buy anything maybe buy a book or something but that's about it you spend 30 bucks 50 bucks on some knowledge and you'd set and just listen to podcasts and youtube videos and embrace yourself in the community spend less money buy less stuff but do more try things out experiment listen be objective write things down do a food journal write down how you felt etc and just take advice from people getting the drug free

results you desire avoid getting caught up in taking advice and people on drugs because it can you can get you get ripped off man because you do what they did you buy their products or their six-pack shortcuts or whatever and you're like, I'm not getting results. It's like, yeah, because you're not on the gear and they were. So just beware. There's a lot of people out there who just want your money and that's all they want.

If you see them on the street, they'll just pass you off, brush you off, like, yeah, whatever, buddy. See you later. If you meet me or Frelly on the street, come and say g'day. We'll give you our time. You got some questions, we'll answer them. All right, cool. Well, I mean, that's an awesome place to uh to to wrap it up and and you know it's hard to argue with that message just beautiful thing that you're doing and uh just keep it up man

keep up the good work and i hope one of these days i get to meet you in person for sure man we'll go for a ride together yeah you ever gonna you ever you ever see yourself coming through los angeles ever yeah i was there last year but there's a bit of a last-minute thing. We'll go for a swim. I'll be on the surfboard, and you can tell me while you're swimming. No, yeah, it would be cool to get out there and go for a run or a ride, or if I'm in New York, or maybe I'll go to the Fruit Festival next year, and we can hook up because I'd love to meet you.

And I appreciate what you're doing. Big respect. Keep it up, and let's stay in touch, man. For sure. go to the fruit festival next year and we can hook up cause I'd love to meet you. And I appreciate what you're doing. Uh, big respect, keep it up and, let's stay in touch, man. For sure. All right.

Thanks for your time, dude. No worries, Rich. All right. Peace. Plants. Thank you. you you you you