The Rich Roll Podcast - James “Lightning” Wilks: From Ultimate Fighter To Plant-Based Crusader

Episode Date: February 7, 2013

UFC / MMA / BAMF James “Lightning” Wilks joins the podcast to talk PlantPower nutrition, what it's like to grapple in the UFC, his experience winning Season 9 of “The Ultimate Fighter”, his thoughts on “low carb” and Paleo-style diets, updates on the development of his documentary on plant-based athletes and how he fuels for performance. Not only is James quite intelligent & extremely articulate, his knowledge and passion when it comes to plant-based nutrition is palpable. I hope you enjoy the interview. Also, thanks Ed Gutentag– cinematographer extraordinaire — David Kitay and team for dropping by the garage to film today's episode. At the moment, this is a rather low fi version of the HD film. Given that it is a video in excess of 90 minutes it was the only way to get it up without a 48 hour upload time. However, I'm a luddite when it comes to properly configuring HD video for YouTube, so I'll try to get this figured out and swap it out for a better resolution version. Apologies for a few audio tweaks in the video – a humming noise for a few minutes in the middle — this is our first attempt at video and we'll get better as we go. And if you have a moment, we'd love it if you could toss a quick review up on the iTunes page. It's most appreciated! Thanks for the support and hope you enjoy the show! SHOW NOTES “Is Distilled Fish Oil Toxin Free?” — NutritionFacts.org eCornell Online Professional Development Program: Certificate in Plant Based Nutrition James Wilks Wikipedia James Wilks Website PlantAthlete.com Website PlantAthlete on Facebook

the rich roll podcast chai lifestyle james you use any uh supplements what do you how do you feel about supplements right now i do uh a protein powder um you know brown rice or a pea hemp cranberry right uh protein and then still do some creatine right now because I'm just trying to put on a little bit of muscle again. Other than that, I do an algae-based DHA. Explain to people what DHA is and why that's important. So that's basically a type of omega-3, which is an essential fatty acid. And you can get essential fatty acids, omega-3, from flaxseeded but you'll get more of the ala and so some bodies don't convert that very well into epa and dha so you can get it from the original source a lot of people take fish oil or eat fish for their right uh for their dha and epa but you're getting all

the toxins with it so fish is one of the of the highest toxin foods that there are. So mercury, for example, there's a little bit of mercury in the ocean, and then the algae's got a lot more than that per gram, and then the small fish that eat that, and then the bigger fish that eat that. So humans and the American bald eagle have the highest mercury content in their bodies. So if you take the algae, you're getting the DHA, the omega-3, without all the negatives of the toxins that are found in the fish. Right.

A lot of people are super gung-ho on fish oil and believe in it completely. And this came up when I did Joe Rogan's podcast. He's like, I take fish oil. I know I feel better when I take it. What's wrong with it? And I started to talk about this issue of toxins. And he said, well, I get the kind that says toxin-free. And I did a little bit of research because I was like, okay,

I'm going to look into that a little bit. And Dr. Michael Greger has a great video on it where he says, even the ones that are labeled toxin-free or have that disclaimer on them, when they studied it uh they realized that even those had had uh some concentration of toxins yeah making false claims some of them had just as much as uh the ones that didn't claim that so right a lot of toxins in there so it's basically the same principle overall which is another good reason to eat a plant-based diet is that the lower on the food chain you go, the less toxins you're going to have. So the same principle applies

with all these other persistent organic pollutants, PCBs, furans, dioxins, as well as the mercury in fish. And basically those bioaccumulate in the bodies of animals and biomagnify as you go up the food chain. So if you want the least toxins possible, in fact, I just wrote an article on toxins. There's probably one coming out in Fight magazine in the next month or so.

In terms of athletic performance, you want to eat as low on the food chain. Just from toxins alone, the toxins bind to some receptors in the white adipose tissue and it signals, it actually alters your DNA to produce more white adipose tissue

and therefore you actually get fatter from these toxins. That's just one thing alone, as well as all the inflammation and other things that go along with it. Wow, amazing. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety.

And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more.

Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery

to find the best treatment option for you or a loved one again go to recovery.com ladies and gentlemen have you ever heard a more articulate intelligent ufc mma fighter than mr james lightning wilkes in the house. How's it going? Good. Good. Thanks for coming today. Oh, thanks for having me.

We met a couple of years ago. I think that you, I can't remember exactly how it happened. I think you reached out to me because you were just starting to put together this plant-based athlete documentary and you wanted to come down and chat and you came over and we taped a little bit of an interview and that project's been ongoing and I've been tracking it. I'm pretty excited to hear, you know, where you're at with it and what's going on with the documentary. Yeah. I mean, it's taking longer than expected, as I expected. Yeah. As all good things do.

Right. So I never sort of set a time on it, but I knew things would take a while, you know, meeting the right people, together proposals and the uh the outline and that sort of thing but yeah basically we're examining um the myths of meat not only you know the protein content because i think it's if people are listening to these types of shows or reading you know the plant-based material they probably know by now that you know protein is is not uh we don't need to get it from me you know there's plenty there's still a lot of confusion though. I mean, people, even people who read the articles or whatever, I still think that they're kind of

maybe willing to take the leap, but they're still scared or uncertain or fearful about the protein issue because it's so deeply ingrained. You know, ever since we were small children, we've been told we need, you know, X, Y, and Z to build muscle and be healthy. And, you know, since we were small children we've been told we need you know x y and z to build muscle and be healthy and you know to suddenly flip that equation is it's challenging for people to absorb that message sure but even those that do get the message and understand the

science you know as i've been researching this documentary we've realized that it's a lot more than that for men it's a lot about self-identity, personal identity, and social identity. So eating meat is seen as more manly, and not eating meat is seen as more feminine. So we've kind of got to change that perception. And it's really silly, if you think about it, because it's not like you're going out and hunting this animal and putting it on your shoulders and bringing it back to the homestead and throwing it on the hearth. I mean, you're going to the Safeway or the Vaughn's or the Albertsons or the Ralph's and, you know, buying a cellophane packaged, uh, you know, packaged, processed ground beef or whatever, and putting it on your, you know, back in your backyard barbecue. So how that equates to somebody being more masculine is, is a little bit confusing, but, you know, that's, that's the way it is it is right i think it's just you know it's roots in hunting and that type of thing

but um the reality is it's actually detrimental for masculinity uh sexual drive um also erect artist function you know you're damaging uh the arteries uh athlosclerosis is created by animal fat and also animal protein and so the arteries that supply your heart you know those arteries also supply your penis so if you uh you know if you want to perform well you don't want to be eating the animal protein yeah absolutely if you're having trouble getting it up i mean it's one of the early signs of of heart disease and the solution is not to go to your doctor and ask for a viagra prescription. The solution is to change your diet and your lifestyle habits because Viagra is just masking something that is going to continue to get worse

unless you address the underlying cause. And that gets to the heart of our healthcare system. It gets to the heart of how we treat disease in this country and the lack of focus on preventative medicine and the way that we handle sick people and just people in general who want to get healthier. Right, and the only way to reverse atherosclerosis that's been shown in the study has been a plant-based diet.

So taking all these drugs is just masking the symptoms, basically. Right, and I think it's interesting. It's one thing for an ultra runner or a triathlete or you know a marathon or somebody like that to start espousing the virtues of a plant-based diet you know they're kind of very unthreatening athletes uh and and what's so you know amazing and interesting and unique about you and why i'm so excited one of the reasons why i'm so excited to have you here today is that you come from a different a very very different world of sport, you know, the world of UFC and MMA. And, you know, this,

this is the world of the super masculine, the warriors, where speed, power, agility, and balance, and all of these things are critical to success. It's, it's almost, you know, yes, you know what I do and what you do, or they're both sports, but incredibly different with different focus. And for somebody to come from that world and start talking about a plant-based diet and espousing the benefits of it is pretty compelling. So I wanted to get into how this whole journey began for you. how this whole journey began for you?

Well, for me, I'd actually got injured training for a fight. I was supposed to fight Amir Sadala, who was a winner of another season of The Ultimate Fighter. And just to interject for people who don't know, James is a very accomplished MMA, UFC fighter. He was the champion in season nine of The Ultimate Fighter. If you're a fan of the sport, you probably saw him. So he's done quite well in the sport and is a name. he's now retired and we can get into that a little bit but um he knows

from whence he from whence he talks i suppose is what i'm trying to say yeah so basically i was training for a fight um sparring with fabrizio vadum which was probably a big mistake since he's you know 100 pounds heavier than me um but i tore my knee pretty bad and usually i was training twice a day and doing all the things that go along with it chiropractic or massage or physical therapy because you're always getting injured you know that was taking a lot of my time when i tore my knee obviously i wasn't training and i was recovering so i wanted to spend that time productively and as an athlete i've always paid some attention to my diet but i'd really got

my information from blogs and you know fitness magazines and things like that hadn't really spent the time researching nutrition so i thought that would be a good thing to do and you know started looking into it and first of all i realized there was problems with the conventional beef so i switched to grass-fed beef primarily because of the omega-3 omega-fed beef, primarily because of the omega-3, omega-6 ratio, but also because of the hormones and that sort of thing that they add to the meat. And then I found problems with the poultry, which was that the United States has been banned

to be exported to the European Union for the last 13 years because it's dipped in pure chlorine, which is a known carcinogen when you use pure chlorine. And then so I just started looking further and further. And the further I looked into it, I realized I'd been duped and that we sold all this advertising and marketing and then what your parents teach you, you've got to eat meat to be strong.

And I started realizing all the problems. So I started, what is the best food to eat? And from there, it just went further and further and it became more plant-based until I realized going 100% plant, what is the best food to eat? And from there it just went further and further and it became more plant-based until I realized, you know, going a hundred percent plant-based is the way to go. And so how long have you been on this journey now? It's been, it's been almost, uh, almost two years. Yeah. And, uh, you know, when I switched, surprising, I lifted more weight than I'd ever lifted, um, within two weeks of switching and my endurance got better so so

yeah and how did you so you just felt it just based on your performance in the weight room and what you were used to suddenly you had this this breakthrough yeah i mean i've never been very strong at bench press i was doing a dumbbell press so i had uh 105 105 pounds in each in each hand which is not massive but it's i mean it's okay for someone that fights 170, I guess. And that's the most I've ever been able to get to with extensive training. Switched my diet. Two weeks later, I was able to do 115 in each hand. So that's a pretty rapid increase within two weeks.

I've never seen anything like that from any other supplements or changing my diet in any other way, which I've tried in the past. And then endurance-wise, we do the battling ropes you got the 50 foot rope you're swinging up and down and uh you know i struggled with five minutes 10 minutes before was tough and at the gym that i trained at in costa mesa innovative results if you get 10 minutes you get your name on the wall and if you get 20 minutes you can put that in parentheses and that's the most anybody had done um you know a couple months after i changed my diet tried it again and i hit uh over an hour so wow you know that's obviously just anecdotal and you know it's possible it could be other things

maybe i was sleeping an extra half an hour a night who knows right other things i hadn't taken account for but if you combine the uh scientific evidence out there in the current literature and then the anecdotal experience of myself, but all the other athletes as well that I've been speaking to. It's fairly clear to me that a plant-based diet is not only better for health, but also for performance. And then this led you to the idea of making this documentary and kind of sitting down with all these different athletes and from all different disciplines and hearing more about what they had to say. And so tell me about that. Right. So I just woke up at two in the morning. One night I was wide awake and I thought,

why is it that I've believed this all this time that I had to have meat for protein, milk for calcium, fish for omega-3, beef for iron? Why have I thought this? Because I'd remembered a couple couple years before walking into a restaurant turns out it's a vegan restaurant and i looked on the menu and i said where's the meat they all don't have any meat and i remember just walking out because i thought well i'm an athlete you know i can't have one meal without meat in it or some animal product um so i thought this is crazy then i jumped out of bed i couldn't go to sleep went on the internet started searching well there must be some plant-based athletes that have done well.

So I just started Googling and starting seeing, oh, wait a minute, Carl Lewis, his best. He's considered the Olympian of the century by the International Olympic Committee. And he was saying that his best performances were on a vegan diet. So then I started looking more and more i couldn't believe all the the athletes that are out there you know some of them aren't talking about it too much but there's a lot of athletes out there that say they've performed their best on a plant-based diet and that's what that's what started my journey um in this documentary and i wanted to get the word out there to other people. Cause you know, in 2011, I spent over a thousand hours just looking at peer reviewed medical science on

nutrition. And was that part of the E. Cornell plant-based nutrition course? No, I took that as well. Yeah. No, on my own. Yeah. I took the, I was kind of in the middle of it. I did the, they have a plant-based nutrition course, which is good, but no, aside from that, I was also looking at just looking at all the data that I could. Right. And I just decided I want to get the word out there. So I started interviewing athletes and doctors and scientists, and that's kind of where we're at now.

Right, and I think the last time I ran into you was at the VegShores Healthy Lifestyle Expo. That's right. And you were sitting down with a few people there and we chatted for a minute. But it sounded like you've really hit, you know, you've hit all the stars in the field, all the doctors and, you know, a bunch of the athletes. And so kind of where are you with the project right now? We're putting it together we're still working with some uh people that you know not not that are not top athletes we're trying to look at follow some people that uh just regular everyday guys that have got certain goals whether it's lose weight whether it's get much stronger we're kind of you

know following those people and obviously that takes a little time just to you know see how they're doing with it and because otherwise people people could say, well, they're an elite athlete anyway. They've got good genes or whatever. So we want to just take some regular guys. Right. How can you say that it's because of the plant-based diet you would have done? What if you had eaten paleo? Maybe you would have been better.

You know what I mean? It's impossible to scientifically quantify all of that. And that's another thing we're looking at with the documentary is the, the whole paleo craze that's going on right now. Yeah. And I want to talk about that because this is something that, uh, you know, I get asked about every day.

I'm sure you do too. Uh, you know, right now the paleo movement, they have the microphone, you know, in a big way. And it's,

it's kind of the latest, you know, I don't want to say diet craze. It's a little bit unfair and there's a lot of good things about it. You know, it's spawn's kind of the latest you know i don't want to say diet craze it's a little bit unfair and there's a lot of good things about it you know it spawned this crossfit movement which i think is fantastic and certainly eating paleo is much better than the standard american diet you know they they issue dairy they issue processed foods and you know there's there's a lot of things to like about it it's very popular. It's captured the attention of, you know, a lot of athletes as well.

And when I'm asked about it, I mean, that's essentially the answer I always give. And I have my reasons why I believe in a plant-based diet. But at the same time, I have this nagging thing, which is, you know, I just have a hard time with somebody who is, who has the microphone saying, you know, knock yourself out with bacon and eggs for breakfast. And maybe I'm being unfair to the paleo people and I'll get some comments about that or whatever. Uh, but, uh, you know, when 600,000 people, 600,000 Americans are suffering heart attacks every year, I find it a little bit irresponsible to be pushing this sort of higher fat, you know, high protein ketosis based, uh, low carb

scenario. I mean, you know, where are you coming down on this? Well, I mean, for me, I think people like eating meat. And again, like I said, especially for men, it's part of their identity. And so they like to find excuses to eat that way. Now, obviously obviously you know people have benefited from going paleo but i think it's more what they're excluding from their diet the processed foods and the dairy and so forth than what they're including and in the short term they might be doing okay with it but the scientific literature is quite clear if you look at the preponderance of evidence that um the saturated fat the cholesterol, as well as other things that are cooked

during the processes of cooking meat, such as the heterocyclic amines, which are cancer-causing, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, all these things that, when you're cooking meat, are produced, causing inflammation and causing atherosclerosis. So the scientific evidence is quite clear,

although they're getting- And then the paleo people will say this saturated fat argument is is untrue and has been debunked right so there's like a few small studies that were not very well controlled that might have shown um you know some sort of benefit but you've got to look when you look at science you've got to look at the overall um picture and you've got to look at 1500 studies otherwise um so the paleo people tend to take studies of uh processed refined carbohydrates raising triglycerides and causing some sort of atherosclerosis and they'll attribute that to all carbohydrates in general maybe the exception of a few vegetables. But it's wrong to do that.

You can't take refined white sugar and refined white carbs and say that that applies for everything else, such as whole grains or yams or rice or whatever it is. I think that's what they're doing. They're happy eating that way. It tastes good. It's appealing because, like you said, it appeals to that, you know, drive for masculinity, the caveman, you know, analogy or what have you.

You know, eating meat, eating organ meats and all of that is sort of, you know, very, you know, rah-rah masculine. And it's also having your cake and eat it too. Like you get to have your, you know know bacon for breakfast and all of that and you know you will lose weight because you are causing your body to undergo ketosis but and so it's effective in that regard as a weight loss technique but not as a sustainable long-term healthy solution i mean ketosis is a dangerous thing to uh you know cause your it's a dangerous state for your body to be in and protracted in the long term.

I mean, it's related to kidney problems and kidney stones and a whole variety of issues. And in addition, it's certainly not optimal for athletic performance. I mean, our bodies run on glucose and we perform much better with a good amount of carbohydrates as well. So in that regard, I certainly wouldn't recommend it for athletes. Right. Although there are plenty of athletes out there doing it.

My buddy Vinny Tortorich, who's a trainer, and he was on the podcast two weeks ago, something like that. And he's actually going to be coming back on Friday. And he's all about low carb and all of that. So I want to get into it a little bit more with him. But you must get out. I mean, with the athletes that you're, you know, the MMA fighters and they must be asking you about this all the time. Uh, yeah, they do. Um, you know, and like you said, there are people out there that do it, but I think they're doing well in spite of what they're doing, not because of what they're doing. Um, I don't think there's

good evidence that it, uh, it's great for athletes. You can certainly get lean, but I don't think, um, I've seen huge performance increases. And these guys tend to be on loads of caffeine for their energy, rather than having that natural sort of energy that you get from plant-based foods as well. And at the same time, the plant-based movement

does have a pretty strong foothold in the MMA world. I mean, there are lots of guys that are kind of jumping on board with this the the diaz brothers you got mac danzig you know jake shields and simpson aaron simpson exactly which is interesting you know of all the sports you know aside from endurance sports because that's kind of its own little world but in the more kind of traditional mainstream sports to see uh to see these guys uh realizing the benefits of doing it and understanding and embracing this idea that a more alkaline-based, plant-based diet is allowing them to recover

more quickly. And they're still strong, they're still fast, they're still powerful, and all of that is fascinating. Definitely. And the guys that I like to see are guys like Patrick Baboumian from Germany. He was Germany's strongest man. He's got three world records, one in the front hold, one in the beer keg lift, and one in the log lift. The beer keg lift. Who even knew that was a world record, right? But these are super strong guys like that, working on a vegan plant-based diet, it just shows you can build muscle on it and be super strong as well. Right. What do you think some of the other big misconceptions or myths about nutrition that you have come to understand better as a result of reading all this peer-reviewed research and doing the eCornell program? And just for the listener,

if you are interested in learning more about plant-based nutrition and really rolling up your sleeves and understanding it at its core, Cornell University offers an online program. It's part of the eCornell sort of after, I guess, what do you call it, like adult education or whatever, but you can get a certificate in plant-based nutrition through this program that was started by T. Colin Campbell, who wrote the China study. And James did it. Did you, I've considered doing it.

I haven't done it. I really should do it. Yeah, it's only about six weeks long, but it's pretty informative, covers quite a wide range of stuff. But it's also good, you know, just take some regular nutrition classes if people are interested.

Like right now, there's an organization called Coursera.org and it teams up with a bunch of Harvard and MIT and stuff and offers free courses. And there's one actually right on right now by University of Florida, Fundamentals in Human Nutrition. So it's not focusing on plant-based,

but it just really gets people to understand nutrition, not what they've seen in magazines and read on blogs. And that's a totally free course that you can go and take. Right. But a lot of the nutrition courses that are available there are still very influenced by the dairy and meat industries

who kind of pay for a lot of these studies that find their way into these curriculums. Definitely. So you've got to take everything with a grain of salt, but you can still understand some of the core principles of nutrition as long as you keep in the back of your mind you know who are funding these things for example um the american dietetic association which has now become the academy of nutrition and dietetics uh one of its number one sponsors is the dairy council you know and talking to juliana heather she said when she was going through school it would say you should have three servings of dairy a day and at the bottom of the

handout in university and it says the dairy council right exactly she was on the podcast just last week and she was talking about that yeah it's amazing right so you've got to take that into account from you know everything you're learning but um no it's good just to learn to to inform yourself about the you know you can look out on the internet. You've got to be careful of your sources. But it's good just to go and learn the basics of nutrition. And so getting back to my question, though, some of the other big misconceptions or, you know,

misconstrued facts about nutrition, I guess particularly for athletes. There's a lot of athletes that listen to this, endurance athletes, runners, you know, people who are trying to, who are grappling with this because we're getting inundated with mixed messages, you know, everywhere you turn, it's confusing. It causes a lot of vertigo and people just want, you know, they, they just want to be told the straight truth. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously one of the things is protein, but not just like whether it's animal protein or plant protein, but also the amount of protein. I think that's a big thing that there's a big misconception.

And some people are taking sort of three grams per pound of body weight per day because these are guys that want to get big and build their physique and muscle. So the amount of protein is definitely a factor. People think that your body goes catabolic and your muscles start breaking down, and so therefore you need to add more protein. But what people don't realize is that this does happen, and so you do need to get sufficient amounts of protein. But after glycolysis, which is when your body is taken from glycogen stores

and using that glucose throughout your body, a process called gluconeogenesis occurs. And basically what that is is that your body breaks down muscle tissue because it needs the amino acids to form glucose so it's not that your body is breaking it down because it needs more protein it actually needs more glucose to fuel the body and the brain the brain takes up a lot of glucose as well so when your muscle tissue is breaking down one of the primary reasons is that you haven't got enough glucose in your body. And where does that come from?

It comes best from carbohydrates and where the carbs come from, from plants. So that's one of the big exceptions. People think, well, my muscle tissue is breaking down, so I need to add more protein. But it's really the glucose that we need to prevent that catabolic state and to prevent those amino acids breaking down to form the glucose. Interesting. So in other words, I guess that could be considered an argument

against the low-carb diet approach. Definitely. I mean, we run better off glucose. There are other ways of operating, but the most direct source to get glucose is from the carbohydrates rather than storing it as fat and then breaking the fat down or having it in the muscle and then the muscle breaking down the amino acids to form glucose molecules.

Right. And what about minerals like calcium, iron? Yeah, calcium, obviously dairy. People think you need dairy. But you actually absorb it better from green leafy vegetables um you have to be careful with certain like spinach for example has oxalates in it which inhibit the absorption and if you drink tea for example or coffee with when you're having greens within 30 minutes you'll inhibit some absorption right the tannins in the

in the coffee and the tea whether it's caffeinated or not uh interfere with your body's ability to absorb the iron in the food correct so you know there's problems with there are there are issues within absorbing some of the calcium or the iron in plant foods as there are with um absorbing it from animal foods but um you actually absorb calcium uh at about 50 percent from plant foods rather than about 30 percent from dairy um so you get and you got to remember that food's a package deal so it's not just where do i get my calcium from it's what other nutrients um am i getting from from that package and in the case of green leafy vegetables getting all the phytonutrients and the fiber and so forth whereas with the dairy um you're getting the saturated fat and the cholesterol right it's a

package deal so the best place to get it, and seeds are a good place for calcium, for example, sesame seeds. But green leafy vegetables are my primary source of calcium. And what about this argument that because there are two different kinds of iron, there's heme and non-heme, and the heme iron, which is sort of considered superior,

is only available in animal products, and non-heme is the variety that you get from plant-based foods. That sort of creates a platform for certain people to say, well, it's an inferior form of iron. And if you really want to make sure that you're not iron deficient, you really need to eat meat and dairy. Yeah, that's not really true either. So basically, the body has a better regulatory system for non-heme iron so i don't know if you've watched any of dr gregor's videos yeah i have yeah um but basically um you know if you take heme iron you could your body doesn't regulate it very well

so you may be absorbing more and storing more but you can actually have too much and especially for men um you know it's not a good idea to be getting too much that heme in your body uh does just fine with the non-heme and again your body regulates that much better so interesting and vitamin b12 b12 so that's the big one yeah so b12 is not uh formed by animals but rather by bacteria um and we actually form it in our own gut but it's typically not very well absorbed so that is one supplement that i do a sublingual once a week 2500 uh micrograms right and um you know actually it's i gotta get you i have a vitamin b12 supplement i gotta get you some technically we're still in technically we're still in the ad for jai lifestyle we haven't even gotten to the podcast yet right we're still're still wrapping that up. I'll have to check that out. So what is,

what type of B12 is it? Methacobalamin. Right. Yeah, which is the better, more bioavailable version. Most of the, for people out there, most of the forms

of vitamin B12, I mean, if you're on a plant-based diet or not, a lot of foods out there are vitamin B12 fortified, like breakfast cereals and plant-based milks and the like.

But it's the cheaper form of B12, which is the cyanocobalamin, which requires a physiological process to break down and make it available and make it possible for it to pass the brain barrier and usable by your body. So if you're looking for a vitamin B12 supplement and you don't want to buy mine, make sure it's methylcobalamin. That's the version you want. Right.

Interesting checking it out, for sure. Yeah, I'll get you some. Some of the B12 supplements have the artificial sweeteners in, so it probably depends on the sweeteners and things like that, right, when people are looking at them. Right, and they come in different forms. I mean, you could take it in a capsule. Mine's a spray, which also aids in the absorption ability of it, bioavailability.

So whatever. The more important thing is understanding that that's important. If you're on a plant-based diet, you do want to make sure that you're getting it. And if you don't want to take a supplement, then nutritional yeast is actually a very good source of vitamin B12. A lot of people sprinkle that on their salads or use it. It adds kind of a cheesy flavor to your foods. And people that aren't on a plant-based diet

and eat a standard American diet, actually there is a proliferation of of uh vitamin b12 deficiency in just the normal person as well so you might want to especially as you get older especially in those over 50 for example um you start losing intrinsic factor which helps your body absorb b12 and so in studies um plant-based eaters are shown especially over 50 to have a better b12 levels because they are supplementing whereas the meat eaters are not right um so as you get older it's even more important but it is critical for people on a plant-based diet to have a b12 supplement for sure right and definitely from dry lifestyle that's right there you go man you can come back to the podcast anytime with that um so the this

i'm not sure if it's the paleo movement but there is a sort of anti-plant-based nutrition uh you know i don't know if you would call it cabal or a group of people that are saying this is not a healthy way to go if you undertake a plant-based diet, you're going to be nutrient deficient. And by the way, that China study book you read, it's been debunked. And there's all these websites out there that try to undermine what the China study was trying to say, which in other words, if you haven't read it, establishes a link based upon a ginormous study that went on for years and years and years that uh identified a link between animal proteins and a variety of congenital diseases most particularly cancer sure and you know a lot of the criticisms of the china study is oh it's a correlation it's not causation

correlation doesn't prove causation which is true um but the the results from the china study weren't just a correlation they weren't even just a statistically significant correlation they were a highly statistically significant correlation that were backed up by animal studies and the study was undertaken by Dr. D. Colin Campbell who has written many peer-reviewed

scientific studies so it's not just like some random guy went out and found some correlation like for example one of the typical ones people talk about is studies so it's not just like some random guy went out and found some correlation like you know for example one of the typical ones people talk about is um as the number of pirates has gone down there's an inverse correlation between global warming therefore therefore the lack of pirates has caused global warming obviously that's that would be a loose correlation there'd be a very loose correlation obviously correlation doesn't equal causation but there's actual biological

plausibility from studies so when you do, but there's actual biological plausibility from studies. So when you do animal studies, you can get biological plausibility, combine that with not just statistically significant correlations, but highly statistically significant correlations. And for those that don't really understand that, they'd have to look and understand statistics a little bit. But the argument is as convincing,

if not more so than the fact that smoking, you know, is indicated in lung cancer. So it's easy to throw out some criticisms without really understanding the science. Right. So you're basically saying you're backing it. Yeah. What he has to say. Well, okay. So what I would say is that nothing can be proven absolutely other than mathematical formulas in life.

So we don't know anything for sure. We could be living in the matrix. And so we have to, you know, the studies that we do. Julie was here. She would say that we are absolutely living in the matrix. Right. So, you know, maybe we are. So we don't know anything for sure other than that mathematical formulas,

for example, if we take one and its value is one and we add that to another one, we know for sure that A equals two. But outside of mathematical formulas, mathematical example, if we take one and its value is one and we add that to another one, we know for sure that equals two. But other outside of mathematical formulas, mathematical proofs, we don't really know everything for sure. But I would say that the China study is very, very convincing as is smoking and being indicated in lung cancer, you know, so, right. Yeah. I would certainly be behind the china study for sure and how do you feel about these different kind of camps that are cropping up within the plant-based nutrition movement i mean you have the uh you, sort of the forks over knives, engine two contingent who are very low fat, no oils, no, you know, no nuts or barely any nuts, no avocados. Then you have like the fruitarians who are the 30 bananas a day people who are, you know, eating fruit all day long. And then, you know, kind of more middle ground people, which I guess I would consider

myself a member of, you know, I eat avocados, I have nuts, I try to eat them sparingly, but, you know, I'm also training a lot more than the average person is. So I'm interested to hear kind of your perspective on where you would fall in that spectrum. Yeah. So I think, you know, in terms of like, for example, heart disease, if you looked at Dr. Esselstyn's work, So in terms of, for example, heart disease, if you looked at Dr. Esselstyn's work, it's only been a low-fat diet that has shown to reverse heart disease, but that doesn't mean that having a little bit more fat wouldn't have also done the same thing. In some studies, in quite a few studies, nuts have been shown to have a positive benefit on heart health and arterial health as well.

So I'm a little bit higher fat than fat than um the 10 sort of low fat low protein guys um and i do think that athletes probably need a little bit more obviously as they have more calories they do have more fat and more protein um i'm not a big fan of the oils i don't think that you know i still have a little bit i'm not saying i don't have any at all but i don't right but this idea that that coconut oil is a panacea and it's going to solve all your problems. I used to think that before I did much research. I'm saying I used to think olive oil,

and I'd pour it all over myself. Basically, I don't think extracting anything from any one food is generally going to be that healthy. So if you're extracting sugar or extracting fat from its natural environment, I don't think that's going to be that great for you. But I know guys that are doing well. that healthy so if you're extracting sugar or extracting fat from its natural environment i don't think that's gonna be that great for you so i know guys that are doing well uh buddy of mine ryan vance you know super ripped six foot 200 pounds eats 30 bananas a day sometimes 50 bananas

a day right and this is doing great he's having some salad and maybe a few seeds but no nuts no avocados yeah there are people that are doing great. I mean, there's a guy called Durian Ryder, you know, Harley, who's a very outspoken guy on the internet. He throws up YouTube videos almost every day and loves to roll up his sleeves and get controversial and all that kind of stuff.

But he's very passionate about his diet, which is essentially of, you know, fruit based diet. I mean, he's, you know, I think he eats other things, but you know, he's, he's eating a lot of fruit, right. And he has a website called 30 bananas a day. And he just won this, uh, challenge on Strava. Strava is the website where you can track your cycling and running. And they, they put up these sort of contests every once in a while. And one of the contests they put up last month was called the base mile challenge. And it was who could ride the most miles in the month of January and of everybody who participated in this,

of which I think there were thousands. Um, you know, he wrote some ungodly number of, of miles on his bike and, and he's very competitive in five Ks and 10Ks and he's fast and he loves to talk and espouse his point of view and it works for him. And there are other people too. There was a guy who did Epic Five, which if you read my book, you're familiar with. It was the event that Jason Lester established that I participated in in 2010 where we did an Ironman a day on five separate Hawaiian islands. Each of the Hawaiian islands, we ended up doing it in a week. And he has turned it into a little bit of an event.

And every year takes five or six people on this journey. And this past year he did it. And there was one guy, a young guy, I think he's in his early twenties who did it. And he's South American from chile or whatever and essentially did the whole thing on like bananas and coconut water like five ironmans in five days yeah i mean bottom line is glucose is what you need especially for long long distance events but but actually well it's a little trickier than that because when you're going long and we've

talked about this quite a bit on the podcast, uh, you're trying to enhance your body's ability to burn fat as a fuel, which is a much more efficient fuel source and sort of getting off the glucose teat, so to speak. I mean, your brain needs glucose, you gotta be feeding it sugar or whatever, but it's about, um, developing that aerobic engine through aerobic training so that you are a very efficient fat burning machine as opposed to requiring or relying on glucose for going long right no i'm sure there's definitely both but i think it would be tough to manage it with um with that alone would you say yeah without any carbohydrates oh no no and i've not you know yeah i'm not a i'm not a low carb you know no carb guy

at all right i mean when i'm when i go out for my long rides it's sweet potatoes and bananas and you know things like that so no obviously i think you've got your body i mean you know more than i do about training your body to burn fat but i imagine there's some sort of balance between burning the carbohydrates that you're taking in and obviously the fat as well right that'd be true yeah yeah absolutely it's a spectrum you know what i mean like you want to enhance your body's ability for this particular discipline you're trying to enhance your body's ability to burn fat as fuel but it's not that you're burning zero glucose you're just burning less and as you up your intensity then you start burning more and more you know you start relying more and more on glucose on sugars for your energy system so yeah anyway so what else man what are the other big misconceptions

that we can help uh set people straight on here that you've learned through reading all this peer-reviewed research and all the work that you've done and the experience that you've had meeting with all these athletes and doctors in the in the making of your documentary yeah i don't even i don't even know why there's such uh controversy really controversy how do you guys say it in america i say it say it the british way i can't see i've been here so long i don't even i've been here so long it sounds more intelligent yeah i don't know which is the british and which is the american anymore uh windshield or windscreen well first of all let's back up here a second how does a how does a a fine young gentleman from the united kingdom who's who you know is well educated

become a ufc fighter good question uh how does that work how did you know how did your parents feel about that um yeah i don't know if they liked all the injuries particularly, but my grandfather faked his birth certificate in World War II and was 14 when he was dropped behind enemy lines. Wow. And then he came out once the war was over and used to fight a lot in the bars and the pubs in England afterwards. So he was kind of a fighting type of guy anyway, and my dad was kind of the same way.

So maybe it was in the blood or something i'm not sure but you know i got into martial arts at an early age my uncle was a karate champion in england got that 1986 got the fastest knockdown 4.6 seconds the spinning heel kick to someone's temple wow um so it was kind of in the blood a little bit i think the fighting you know, um, you coming from a long line of street brawlers. Yeah. Which is strange, you know, cause I, you know, I come from a good family and, uh, I was fortunate enough to go to private school and boarding school and things like that. So, right. You're not like a, you're not like a soccer hooligan or anything like that. No. So, um, I was really fortunate, had a great upbringing and, you know, all of my peers at school probably would not expect that anyone from the school that I went to would end up doing cage fighting.

Did you go to like an Eaton-type boarding school? Yeah, basically. Right. Something like that, yeah. I played Eaton, a game of fives, which is basically a game of racquetball that's played with your hands. But yeah, so that type of school. How very proper of you.

Yeah. Look at me now. um i don't know you know i went to university did lots of martial arts ended up doing more martial arts than i was spending on my course that i was doing and then came out um to train with uh paul vunak who was a navy seal and a combat instructor who taught jeep kundo that's bruce lee style and uh just went from there i planned to come out for six months you know to train and i just loved it so much and came back again for another six months another six months but it was the idea i mean was the end game that you were going to get into this world of of the ufc or you were just interested in martial arts i came here to get better i've always been and still am mostly interested in reality fighting for the street and self-defense and that sort of thing.

But the more you train, I guess if you rode a lot one day on your bike, maybe one day you think, hey, maybe I'll enter a race. It's that type of mentality. So with the fighting, I was just training to fight, training to fight, but there was no fight. And I'm not going to go out and look for fights on the street. That'd be unethical. So MMA was the closest thing to reality. So although it's got rules, no eye gouging, no biting, no kicking the groin,

it's one-on-one and that sort of thing. It was the closest thing. It's a regulated street fight. Yeah, basically. It's the closest thing you can get, you know, basically. And so I just wanted to test myself. So this is like in your genes. There's some drive from your grandfather to your father to you you have this this desire where you just you need to go out and beat the crap out of somebody yeah

and my journey in martial arts really is i was always seeking the truth you know which is turned out when i once i came across jeet kune do and bruce lee's philosophy is that's what he was doing is seeking the truth in combat what what works and what doesn't. There's a lot of people out there telling you to block a certain way and put your hand on the hip or do certain techniques. And basically, they're teaching you how to swim, but they've never been in the water. And so the arts that are in mixed martial arts, boxing, kickboxing, Thai boxing, judo, jiu-jitsu, wrestling these are all arts that have developed efficiently because they've been full contact albeit within their rules

and so those arts actually work and that's why most people in mixed martial arts train in very similar arts they don't do like San Xiao or maybe, sorry not San Xiao let's pick Northern Shaolin Kung Fu or I used to do Taekwondo but most people don't

study that extensively for mma because they're not very efficient and uh it's funny because when i came across the nutrition stuff and i started researching that i realized i hadn't spent the same time researching nutrition and giving it the same thought as i had with martial arts so now my journey really has been putting the same emphasis in searching for truth as I had in combat and now doing that in nutrition. you know because well executed it really is an art form it's a it's a beautiful expression of the human body uh at its most you know efficient and lethal and and all of these things and when it when it comes together by somebody who is expert at it it's an amazing thing to watch and i talk about this a lot on the podcast too that i think that when you are when you are sort of tapped into your higher self and,

and, and living authentically and, and true to your kind of, you know, higher purpose for lack of a better term, um, that anything that you do that is an expression of that really is an art form. You know, it is your art is your personal art. And, and, you know, part of, I feel strongly that, you know, part of all of our jobs here on earth is to kind of find that thing inside of you and express that more fully. And then that becomes your art. And in your case, it's the martial art. And now it's the art of expressing this message of health or what have you. But I was like, I never really thought about that.

I was like, martial arts are arts. It is an art form. And why is it not called the art of cycling or the art of running or the art of swimming? And these are all disciplines that require a certain level of skill. And people spend their lifetimes trying to perfect like a golf swing or whatnot. And they are art forms. And they should be understood as such, I think. Yep, definitely. I think so.

So you come here, and you start to get interested in this, and so where does it kind of turn into a profession? Well, yeah, I was having professional fights, but I never considered myself a professional fighter. One, I wasn't taking it too seriously, and two, being a professional fighter at the low level really can't be considered a professional because it really doesn't pay anything i mean what are you getting when you when you first start out and you go okay i'm gonna go do one of these five i mean what does that look like you go into some high

school gym or what no they pay 50 bucks or yeah they pay you like 300 bucks i mean i've seen it in the movies but what is it like in real life? Yeah, I mean, now there's an amateur league that you can fight in as well. So people kind of work their way up through that. But yeah, basically your first professional fight. A lot of times for me, they were on casinos, in casinos on Indian reservations. Because at the time, it wasn't legal in California. So obviously, Indian casinos were on their own land technically.

So I was fighting in California but on Indian reservations. And they still have fights on the reservations, but obviously now it's legal in most states, not all states. So you basically go, you get paid basically nothing. Or they'll try and pay you a percentage of ticket sales. So you'll sell... I mean, how many people are showing up for these fights at this level? Some are small, like a few hundred,

but some, you know, there's some shows that'll have a couple of thousand still, but you still don't get paid anything. Right. Basically, you're paying them to fight, right? So you'll sell $2,000 of tickets and you'll give them, you know, $1,600. Right, right.

So you're paying them $1,600 to fight and that's how a lot of them operate and you'll go to the show and that doesn't the fight start at say 5 30 and finish at 2 in the morning because basically they sell it on the more fights they can get in if they pay people on ticket sales right that's a bit of a scam really you're paying something to allow us to go and fight right it's like a stand-up comic who has to fill the room in order to justify going up there, and he's asking all his friends to come, and they have to pay cover fare or what have you, or a band that wants to play at the Roxy on Sunset Strip. You can rent that room and pay,

and then you've got to cover the door. That's right. Yeah, exactly. So it really doesn't pay very well. And I was only doing it just to test myself occasionally, and it wasn't until I was turning 30 and I was watching The Ultimate Fighter and I thought you know what I can do that I don't want to look back because the UFC is the premier organization for mixed martial arts

I thought I don't want to look back and say I could have done that so although mixed martial arts was never my primary focus and it was more about self defense and real street you know being able to fight in the street, no rules. Mixed martial arts was the closest thing. I don't want to look back and say, I could have done that.

You know, so all throughout my 12 years, 13 years now in the United States, I've been training, you know, the Marines, the U.S. Navy SEALs, the DEA, U.S. Marshals, and those types of guys. So I was really interested in more like what really works as well as empty hand, gun disarms, nice disarms, stick fighting and stuff like that. But in terms of testing myself,

UFC was the only, the best place that I could do it basically. So while you were in America, just to be clear, you started training other people. Yeah, that was be clear, you started training other people. Yeah, that was my income, basically, was training other people. I got you. All right. And so at the same time, you're trying to develop your career. Yeah, I definitely wasn't really planning on getting in the UFC,

although I sort of stand in the shower sometimes and fighting out of the red corner. But it was just sort of a dream really, but I didn't really think it was real. I didn't really pursue it. And then when I was turning 30, I thought, you know, I'm going to give it a shot for the ultimate fighter. And I got on that show

and wasn't expected to win it, but I did. So what happened? You won a big fight, right? And you got noticed? Or how did that come about? No, basically to get on the show you can either go to the tryout so you can send a video in uh in my case i'd gone and helped joe stevenson who won another season i think it was season three maybe uh of the ultimate fighter and

he'd won that season and i'd gone and helped him train for a fight and uh he said in m MMA he'd never been caught, submitted in MMA training. He'd been submitted in jiu-jitsu training. But he said I was the only person who ever caught him in MMA sparring. And so when they called him, he gave me a great recommendation. He said, look, you've got to have this guy on the show. And I'd recently won a belt at Gladiator Challenge. But it's not a huge show.

It's like a C-level show. And so I just won and I'd won another fight before that because I was just like 29, turning 30. I was like, I just felt like

I was getting old. Right. Time to do something. Yeah. And so it all kind of timed right for me and went to England, fought somebody,

Shane Mills, who's now in the UFC, very good fighter and i was fortunate to win that fight in 30 seconds and that got me onto the british team gotcha and then you know i kind of went from there right and so but you're still kind of coming into this show the ultimate fighter you know it's not like you came in with an accumulation of all these high profile wins right you're a bit of an underdog they're coming out of the show definitely the guy that i fought shane mills um according're a bit of an underdog there coming into the show. Yeah, definitely. The guy that I fought, Shane Mills,

according to all the British people, was expected to win the show. And I only took it to the ground really for that fight and got a heel hook because I thought that the UK guys wouldn't have very good jiu-jitsu. Because when I left in 2000, there was only one black belt in the whole country in jiu-jitsu. And I just assumed that their jiu-jitsu wasn't very good.

And it worked out for me in that fight. But then as I trained with the British guys during that season, I realized that their jiu-jitsu had really picked up a lot. So, yes, I was kind of fortunate I was able to finish it quickly in that first fight. But, yeah, it was really good for me. And so you're on the show and you end up winning you end up winning the show right i mean essentially yeah it was basically there's two weights there was lightweight and wealth weight ross pearson won the lightweight division

um and i fought demarcus johnson also a good fighter in uh the wealth weight division for the finale in uh june of 2009 and uh and won the show. That got me the contract with the UFC. Right. And how long did that go on for? I mean, you had cameras following you around in the bathroom everywhere you went for... The whole thing was about eight weeks, I think.

I went to England. I flew out there. I had a bit of jet lag. And like two days later, I had to fight. And then I had to... It was for the British team. So I was living here, but I flew out to the British team, fought there, then came back.

We had to wait in a hotel for a week or so, waiting for the Americans to fight to get, you know, to choose their people in the show. And then I think we were in the house about six weeks. Right. Yeah. And what was that like to have cameras following you around all the time? Yeah, the first week was quite strange.

You know, you'd be sitting on the toilet, and there's a camera was quite strange you know in the you'd be sitting on the toilet and there's a camera looking down at you kind of weird um but they said oh no don't worry we're not looking at that stuff right of course but it still felt kind of weird and you'd wake up sometimes there'd be a camera right in your face or you're trying to go to sleep and there's a camera in your face and was it that thing where they're trying to create controversy or pit you against other people or people playing it up to the camera? Yeah, I think people were probably playing it up to the camera, but they never, you know, try to instigate anything or make us do anything. They did supply alcohol, you know, which I don't drink personally, but, you know, that probably got people around.

Yeah, get people to turn on each other. Right. But they never tried to make you say anything or do anything. Right. It was pretty organic. They just let it happen. And so how did that, being on that show, sort of change your life and where you were with fighting

and what was going to happen next? Yeah, it was pretty huge. So it was filmed in January, February, and then… This is 2009, right? This is 2009. Filmed in January, February of 2009 then... This is 2009, right? This is 2009. Filmed in January, February of 2009. And then it didn't start airing until a few weeks after that. So I knew that I'd made it to the finale,

but most people didn't know that. So I set up my gym knowing that it would be good publicity. So I still have that gym now. It's been about three and a half years now. That's Lightning MMA down in Orange County. Right, and if you could, for the listener, we got to throw a picture of your car up on the website. He's got the Lightning Wilks mobile.

You got it covered in like a banner for your gym. Yeah, you got to advertise, right? You're driving around. You may as well have a billboard on your car. I know. It's funny, too. Today we have all these vehicles in our driveway. There's a location shoot for some commercial or something like that going on at a house around the corner.

Oh, okay. And they came to us and said, we need some place to park our big semi truck or whatever. We'll pay you 500 bucks. Can we just park some vehicles there? Sounds good to me. No problem. We don't have to do anything. Right. But I was thinking, I was watching you pull into the driveway and there's huge semi semi, you know, 18 wheeler in the driveway. And you're thinking

this podcast is a big deal. It sounded great. We're like, Whoa, this is a big deal. I know. Well, actually it is. Cause we got all these guys here filming us today and working on the audio. Like this has just been me and the laptop trying to figure out garage band and if you listen to my last episode with tim van orden i did it by skype and i completely screwed up the audio it sounds terrible i did the best i could and i was like i don't know what i'm doing man i need some i need some professional james is coming i better get it i know i gotta get it together and now we have a whole team here i feel like it's a real deal so yeah it looks professional cool sounds i know i feel like i'm on i feel like i'm on the ultimate fighter reality show right that's right season what would it be season 12 it's like 15 yeah right anyway cool so

you so you do the show you get out and yeah and then the gym set up you know i was really lucky because uh joe rogan asked me after the win so I heard you've opened up a gym, you know, and then the website crashed because there's so many hits. That guy is amazing. I mean, his followers are the most passionate, hardcore. When I did his podcast of all the things I did for my book, all the promotional kind of travel and blah, blah, blah, or whatever, being on his podcast had absolutely the biggest impact I, on sort of my public profile or whatever. It was the same thing, like crashed my website and my Twitter exploded and all that sort of stuff. I mean, he's building an army there.

Definitely is. A lot of people don't realize that he's actually really good at jiu-jitsu as well. He's very good. And he's the commentator for the UFC. He is, yeah. Have you ever grappled with him or trained with him? No. Quite a few years ago, I said I was going to go up to Eddie Bravo's

and I would like to have trained with him, but I've never got around to it. But hopefully, one day. You should be on his show, man. Yeah, I'll have to hit him up. I mean, you know him, right? But I can hit him up too. Yeah, sounds good.

I'm going to make that happen. That'd be good. Get the word out about plant-based nutrition. Yeah. He was cool. I mean, when I did the show, he was much more open-minded about it than I thought he would be. Like I was worried because he does have that army. And if those

people turn on you, you're in trouble. Right. So he has a, he was saying he has a smoothie every day, right? It was like pineapple. Well, that's kind of how it all happened, you know, cause he was talking about his kale smoothies and all of that. And, and, uh, he had Rob Wolf was a guest on the show. Who's the big paleo guy. And Rob kind of said, you know what, you should ditch the kale smoothie and you'd be better off with bacon and eggs. And even Joe was like, and Joe's a big meat eater and, you know, believes in that. And that's his opinion. But even Joe was like, I don't know, man, you sure about that? Like, I feel pretty good after I drink this kale smoothie in the morning. Actually, nothing

I've ever done my whole life makes me feel better in the morning. I don't know about you. I actually tried his recipe, but I didn't like it too much. Oh, yeah. It was okay, but it's pretty strong. Yeah, because he doesn't, a lot of like ginger and garlic. Yeah, quite a lot of ginger and garlic, right? Yeah.

I mean, ginger and garlic are very, they're intense. And garlic is great for detox but it's not something i would have all the time right you know and your breath will smell for like two days if you put like three cloves of garlic in your vitamix yeah i usually add some garlic to my uh homemade hummus that i made making the vitamix but uh yeah that was strong it was okay my wife couldn't even drink it, but I finished it. Yeah.

Usually I don't care about the taste. I'm just, you know, just get everything in there that I want. But when you're dealing with a lot of garlic and ginger, that's a different beast. Right. So what kind of things do you, you know, what would be like a typical day

in the life of food for you? I mean, that's what people want. And a lot of people who are listening are like, they want to know like, what do I eat in the morning and what do i have before i work out and what do i have after i work out yeah so i uh usually usually have oatmeal in the morning uh blueberries almond butter um sometimes a little bit of steak stevia in it you know sweeten it up uh flaxseed i usually usually do that for breakfast. Right, ground flaxseed for people out there. Yeah, ground flaxseed, definitely.

If you eat the whole seed, you'll just pass it right through at one absorb. So you've got to grind them up. Either get ground flaxseed or you can grind them in the Vitamix. Yeah, I heard that some of the, when they say flaxseed meal or whatever, sometimes they have pressed the oil out of it and sell the oil and then sell you what's left over as flexible. Oh, right. That has no omega-3s in it?

Yeah. So I'm sure that's not the case with all of them, but I just grind it myself in the Vitamix. Right. It lasts in the fridge for quite a while. And then, you know, maybe beans and rice I like with salsa and avocado or something. Right. You can see all the

fat i'm having um no i mean that's i have that i mean it's so people say oh it's so you know it's so tricky and complicated or expensive to be on a plant-based diet but like some brown rice some black beans some salsa and a little avocado on it and you know a whole grain tortilla if you want to have a burrito or whatever and you're you're. So I'll make a bunch of brown rice and beans, a big pot of each of them or whatever, and they're ready. So I can either get cold or just heat it up, and you're good to go. Right. Yeah, I'm actually working on a book as well, and I'm trying to come up with a three-week plan

where people can cook on the – spend an hour or so on a Sunday and get as much as they can done for the week. Not everything, but I like to eat yams or sweet potatoes. I'll actually add almond butter to that. I do eat a lot of almond butter, actually. Yeah, that's addictive. I'd get your quinoa cooked, get your brown rice cooked, get some beans cooked. I'll make some burgers out of oatmeal, rice,

and maybe some kidney beans or something with some spices and throwing some hemp seed in there. In fact, I ate some of those on the way here today in the car, some leftover from yesterday. One of my favorites is actually a little bit higher fat. I love the cashew curry that my wife makes. It's on a bed of kale and quinoa. It's made with cashews and tomatoes tomatoes for the sauce and then you toast some

cashews that go on the top so wait so you would would you blend the cashews and the vitamix and create like a butter out of it or yeah my wife actually you could do that as well but my wife just buys the cashew butter and adds to it the tomatoes and then separate cashews are raw and toast them lightly. Um, you know, she does most of the cooking. So I don't forget all the details from her. And then when she's doing it properly, uh, which she does most of the time, she, uh, somehow sorties, uh, some carrots and onions with the flavors, the kale somehow. But if she's in a rush or just you pour that sauce on it tastes good anyway right um you know i do quite a bit of quinoa i do some amaranth you know

sometimes pop it you can kind of pop it like popcorn and right eat that um you know i do a little bit of bread but not much i do the ezekiel bread right sprouted whole grain yeah but i don't i don't do a whole lot of wheat you know sometimes do a little bit of pasta like a rice pasta um and there's different rice like wild rice which is not actually a rice but it looks like rice black rice is good too um it's nutrient dense um you know tempeh i do tempeh stir fry sometimes lots of vegetables i do smoothies i usually put kale bok choy uh red cabbage which is really good uh a lot of antioxidants in it especially for the money um all sorts of different stuff there's a lot more to choose from than there

was when i used to eat chicken every day basically and that's basically all i used to eat but it's like what would you say to somebody who's who somebody who comes to you as an athlete and says, what's the best thing that I can eat after a hard workout to maximize my recovery? What are the kind of things, maybe not specific meals or dishes, but what are the things I want to bear in mind or what's more important? Yeah, I mean, I still subscribe to the sort of four to one carb to protein ratio after workout although i'm not convinced as much as i used to be that that's necessary but i still do that and that's basically the only time that i do um pretty much the only time that i'll do a plant

based protein powder you know i've got a lot more whole foods over the last two years. But I usually do a protein and then I'll do bananas and dates and coconut water. So you want to replenish your glycogen stores. Correct. You want to eat foods that have a high antioxidant value to combat the free radical damage induced by exercise stress. Yeah. You want to hydrate. Yep.

Right? So water or coconut water yeah and i usually throw some kale in i throw kale in every smoothie pretty much yeah kale it always starts with kale yeah kale is like the base even the post-workout um and i like the bananas and the dates and the coconut water because of their relative high glucose percentage compared to some fruits which have got a lot more fructose there's quite a high percentage of glucose in those fruits so i'll do that as well um you know i'm probably not as much as as into it as if i was still fighting i think i'd be yeah a lot more scientifically on the timing and the um you know exactly what i was consuming but

i feel really good on what i'm doing so So I don't really feel I need to change. Where do you come down on this dialogue about soy? You know, there's a lot of confusing information out there. You've been reading all these peer-reviewed studies. Have you come across anything conclusionary about, you know, some people are saying, avoid the soy, the phytoestrogens blah blah blah the non-fermented versions are bad for you other people are saying it's really not a problem

yeah you hear sort of like half truths you know people someone at my gym the other day said you can't eat soy because it's it's got estrogens in it well it does have estrogens in it but they're phytoestrogens yeah they have phytoestrogens which basically means plant estrogens and so they don't act quite on your body quite in the same way. And most of it has got protective effects. And I don't think you want to have too much of it, based on what I've read. Not too many servings. But it seems like a couple of servings a day is fine in terms of actually helping prevent cancer.

um, you actually prevent helping prevent cancer. And, uh, it actually, you know, the estrogen receptors take in the phytoestrogens and actually block some of the estrogen from natural estrogen from coming in. So it's not, that's essentially what Juliana Hever was saying. Right. So you're not, you're not, um, you're not going to turn into a woman if you're a man. God forbid. Right. So then the paleos would really have something to say right so you know i think it's unwanted you know to remove it from your diet personally i think it's it's fine to have it in moderation from from what i've read yeah i mean my kind of general rule of thumb on the whole thing is uh i do have i do have soy but i don't ever do it you know i don't drink soy milk i'd rather have almond milk or coconut milk um and when i do have soy products i generally opt for the

fermented version right not gmo like tempeh you were saying or miso as opposed to just you know the tofu variety and that's not to say i don't have tofu from time to time i just don't go nuts with it yeah i tend not to have it at home because you know in a pinch when you if you you're out somewhere you know that's the only option they have they don't have tempeh so i'll leave the the tofu generally to when i'm out and then at home occasionally have some tempeh it changes the amino acid profile when it ferments and it's a little bit better for you. Obviously, you can have whole soybeans as well. But yeah, I prefer the tempeh over the tofu for sure, nutritionally, yeah.

I had this guy, Tim Van Orden, on the show the other day who is a very accomplished runner and is doing it on a raw vegan diet. And he was a very interesting guy. And he was explaining to me something about protein uptake that I actually didn't know. And I thought it was pretty interesting. I'm interested to know whether you've heard of this or have any familiarity with it. But he was basically saying that rather than sort of shocking your system with a bunch of protein right after you train or taking these protein supplements and these protein powders that where you're literally

like carpet bombing your intestine with protein, you're better off letting it trickle in through a variety of foods throughout the day. Because when you take in a massive amount of complete protein, there are certain amino acids when it gets broken down that are more dominant than others when it comes to clogging up the sort of pathways to the receptors for it or what have you. So the other amino acids that aren't as dominant but are equally important in terms of rebuilding muscle, get sort of pushed aside and are not absorbed or utilized in the way that they should be. So you're actually undermining your body's ability to repair its muscle by taking in massive amounts of proteins post-exercise, or I guess at any time. Yeah, I mean, to counter that, obviously, there's the insulin spike from the glucose,

and then there's that window which you know supposedly helps shuttle the protein to the muscles post-workout but like i said i'm not as convinced as i used to be because having looked at the studies the studies and not very well uh formed and so basically you know they'll have someone um do an intense workout for 20 minutes, run for 75 minutes until complete exhaustion, but they didn't eat since the night before. And so, yeah, no wonder the carbohydrates helped a lot right afterwards and made them feel better and helped them because they didn't eat. They hadn't eaten for like 14 to 16 hours before.

So I think there's more studies that need to be done. I mean, it works for me now i think you know it's hard to change things when it's working well you feel good but um it definitely might be something to do that right yeah it's interesting i'm gonna i'm gonna start reading a little bit more about that i'd like to understand that a little bit better um but but uh yeah i think it's worth considering and playing around with i'm going to experiment myself and see how my body responds to that and there's there's so much in nutrition to look at that i'm still learning all the time oh of course i mean there's no there's no end there's no end and you know if everybody had it figured out there wouldn't be these debates and

all of this so you know there's plenty of work to be done i think to get to the bottom of all of this. So, you know, there's plenty of work to be done, I think, to get to the bottom of all of this. Where do you, I mean, is this really specifically a health thing for you or do you have, you know, ethical sort of arguments that play into this or sustainability arguments, ecologically friendly arguments? Where do you fall in that whole kind of spectrum of dialogue so i started from really an athletic performance point of view when i started looking into it due to my injury and sort of coinciding that was health you know because i was like 32 maybe yeah 32 we haven't even talked about the injury yet so let's make sure we get back to it but um well there was there was an injury that led me to um research and i thought i was going

back and there was another injury that um stopped me from fighting but um where was i at so so uh ethical arguments yeah so basically you know start from athletic performance moved to you know and as well as health. Since I was over 30, when I was in my 20s, I had no care at all, really, about any long-term health. Of course not.

You've got to think ahead. You don't want to wait until it's bad. You go to all these seminars, all these doctors talking about health, and it's always like 50 plus and they're overweight or obese. I think that's not a good time to start. How about starting and planning it a little bit earlier?

So health was definitely a factor. And then I started looking at, when I wanted to look at the processing of chickens, for them dipped in chlorine, I started looking at that and then you start seeing how they're processed. And so it definitely became an ethical thing as well. So for me me then you start learning about you know how it takes uh 20 calories into a chicken to get one calorie out

and it's a waste of resources um and you just start thinking more about things other than yourself and you know whether it's the the health, the performance, the environment. People probably, maybe they don't know, but according to the 2007 United Nations report called Livestock's Long Shadow, the methane from cows was the number one. Contributor to global warming. Greenhouse gases, right. Yeah, at 18% versus 14% for transportation.

So you're damaging the environment by eating that. In fact, Loren Cordain said in his book... Loren Cordain, he's the main paleo guy, right? Right. Yeah, started it off pretty much and coined the term for the diet. He said that basically if everyone ate this way, it would only work, you'd only be able to sustain about one-tenth of the planet.

If everybody ate a plant-based diet? No, sorry, if everyone ate paleo. Oh, if everyone ate paleo, because there's not enough grasslands to support all the cattle and whatever. Right. And so basically if you want to follow the paleo diet and you want the world to follow the paleo diet and you want the world to follow the paleo diet you've got to pick nine of your friends and family that you would

like to see fall by the wayside right exactly i'm not sure that's the best diet to follow yeah you know so in terms of there i think there's been some people who have taken that on a little bit but whatever yeah i've seen the counters to it you know and then i've seen the counts to the counters right so there's some you know like but essentially the idea is is that if you wanted to provide enough grassland so that this cattle is not grain fed and and be able to serve people that you know that quality of meat it would take more land than we have available and more water. Right. And so one counter-argument to the meat is that, well, you have to transport the grains and that takes fuel and then you ship away the manure or whatever

from where they're feeding. And so paleo people would say, well, we were to put them on the grass. But actually there's more methane produced from grass-eating cows than there is from grain eating cows and so you actually it actually um looks like it outweighs the benefits from eating the grass in terms of the environment eating the grass makes you fart more potently and more so it actually damages and for those that don't know methane is a

20 to 30 times stronger greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide so you're producing more pollution actually by going grass-fed and then you know people like to think that the cows are just naturally eating the grass that's just been sitting there forever but that's not true i mean there's um there's some good videos on on youtube actually i don't recall them but if you if you have a look there you'll find some counter to the argument in that you're clearing away massive natural habitats to plant a grassland rather than, they're not just eating natural grassland

that was previously existing. You're cleaning away forest areas and really destroying biodiversity. Yeah, you'd have to create grasslands that don't exist right now out of something or somewhere. Right, yeah, you're destroying those habitats. But so much of our grain production goes towards livestock that i mean could that be turned into grasslands i mean i i don't know i'm not a farmer but yeah possibly i mean the bottom

line is no system is 100 efficient so if you think you can put the same calories into an animal and get the same calories out then you don't understand right how things work i mean basically you're going to be you've got there's going to be an efficiency there so and literally in in some cases we're taking grains away from um the countries in which the children are starving to death so yeah it's definitely an issue for me i mean i think you've got some sort of obligation to um help others you know so if you were in a park and there was a child that uh fell in the in the pond and was drowning there's some sort of moral obligation to go and save that child so the fact that that child is living in a

different country doesn't change the moral obligation um it's just it's just less visible and so you know by eating a steak or let's say you eat chicken, and, you know, different reports will say different things, how many calories or how many pounds of food. But let's say 20 calories into a chicken to get one calorie out. And that's basically like eating a plate of chicken and there's 20 starving children around the UK. Right, and to be clear, when you say 20 calories in for one calorie out,

you're talking about all this sort of calories that go into producing that chicken all the you know and and all the fossil fuels that have to be burned for transport and all that kind of thing just the food alone from what i've seen is about 20 calories in to get one calorie right right because that chicken's got to grow and it's wasting energy and and so forth but as well as all the fossil fuels and um transportation and all this sort of thing adding an extra step of taking those nutrients from the original plants and then basically the the animal's body is basically just carrying those nutrients for a while and then

giving them to you but um yeah there's inefficiencies so basically if i think there's some sort of moral obligation to not take food away from starving children basically right um so you know i think there's some really good arguments there's the health argument there's some sort of moral obligation to not take food away from starving children, basically. So, you know, I think there's some really good arguments. There's the health argument, there's the athletic performance argument, there's the environmental argument, there's the starving children argument. So even if you're not fully convinced by one of those arguments alone, if you can combine all the arguments together, it's an extremely strong argument overall it's basically

multi multifaceted so you if you combine all of those there's a very strong argument to hit plant-based diet i don't see i think we should you know i shouldn't really be discussing people why would you eat it i think the real question is why would you not be eating it right and i think it's picking up steam and people are starting to understand it better. And, you know, you're seeing a real movement happening here, but we're still at the very early stages of it. I mean, when you say that, I understand what you're saying, but, you know, 99.9% of the people are not there yet. And this is still, you know, very scary and very fringe and all of that kind of thing. This is still, you know, very scary and very fringe and all of that kind of thing. So, you know, there's a long road ahead to walk. And, you know, what are the things that you, you know, would say could help people feel more comfortable about this or help put their doubts to rest? I mean, you've made this compelling argument.

I don't know if there's anything else that could be said really, but what do you think people's barriers are other than they like meat and they just, they're not ready to let it go? Yeah, I think there's quite a few reasons. One is that personal and social identity, especially for men. I think that's an issue. I think that our tastes, you know, we're driven to, our brain responds us for eating high fat, high sugar, high salt foods. And then there's convenience. You know, it's certainly not as convenient, especially if you had to go and eat out. You've got to plan it a little bit. I was in New Orleans last week for a week and, you know, I go online first of all and look to see what, you know, well, one thing I go and find like a good local market

so I can go and buy some food rather than just eating out. But, you know, I also looked out to see what options were available. So it does take a little bit more planning. But like anything else, I don't base my life on convenience. You know, I didn't travel to America to train with the Navy SEAL trainer because it was the most convenient, you know. I don't go and lift weights right over the road every day at 24-Hour Fitness just because it's a quarter of a mile from my house.

So if you're one of those types of people that bases your life on what's the easiest for me and what's the most convenient, then yeah, it's probably not the diet for you right now. But if you're interested in eating as healthy as possible, eating the diet that's best for the planet, eating the diet that's best for starving people in the world. And if convenience isn't the number one fact for you, then I would say this is definitely the way to go for you.

But not everyone's like that. People want the easiest thing. So there's many factors. They want convenience, there's identity. So it is difficult to overcome all of these things. Well, let's speak to the identity thing. You know, I think that that's what makes you such a powerful ambassador because you do come from the MMA world.

You come from this world of fighting. You're obviously a very masculine specimen or whatever. No, it's, listen, it's a, you know, like I'm just a runner, you know, I'm a triathlete or whatever. That carries a certain amount of weight in in certain circles but it's it's very different from from what you do because what you do is so heavily associated with masculinity and and uh you know gender and all of that um and so it's powerful because it is it is stereotype busting in many ways and yeah well i think you know as these athletes you know like you said mike dan Jake Shields, Aaron Simpson, the Diaz brothers and guys like that, you know, as they're doing it, that's helping change the perception. And in terms of the ethical things i think you know one of the things about

uh masculinity is that they see kindness as weakness you know which it's not you know i think there's a common misperception there but i think that's changing as well i mean society's changing you know is it you think so i think so i mean i think uh 50 years ago or even to this day maybe you know dads don't like to say I love you to their kids. Right, yeah, I got you. But that's definitely changing, you know,

seeing that you can be, you can definitely be kind and also, you know, be very strong and tough and so forth. Have you seen that, the ad that

Patrick Baboumian's in? No, I haven't. Where he talks about, you know, being strong and yet being caring. It's pretty good. It's only like 30 seconds long. I'll see if I can haven't. He talks about being strong and being caring. It's pretty good. It's only like 30 seconds long.

I'll see if I can find it. I'll put it in the show notes. Is it on YouTube? Yeah, I think so. It's actually from Germany, but it's in English. Okay. So, yeah, it's quite clear you can be kind and caring. Some of the toughest guys I know are very kind and caring, but I think those

that aren't really tough, you know, they don't want to be seen as being kind or caring because people might perceive them as being weak. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, I don't know, you know, I'm certainly not immersed in the UFC world, uh, but I know a couple of fighters and, you know, I've spent time with you and I've spent time with mac and i've met a couple other guys and and you guys are so different than what i would have expected you know the the fighters that i know are the nicest calmest guys and you know they're not the guys that are walking around you know with their affliction t-shirts on or their tap out t-shirts on and their hat pulled down low looking like they're ready to fight at any given moment. And I can't remember who it was who said this. I think it was Jamie Kilstein.

He's like, the guy that you should be scared of is not the guy in the tap out shirt who's walking around, you know, just you can tell he's looking for a fight. It's a guy in the hoodie in the corner pulled up who's like reading a book quietly to himself and not bugging anybody. That's the killer, you know what I mean? Because you guys get it out of your system

and you work it out in your training and in your fighting but in your daily life i mean you guys are some of the most pleasant affable people i've ever met right i mean i think you've got you don't have as much to prove whereas guys that haven't fought they're not even sure of themselves you know so they uh you know they want to look tough and appear tough to their peers and women and that sort of thing. But there's really no need for that when you know who you are. You've got a self-identity. You know you're confident.

You don't need to threaten people. Certainly, yeah. When you're doing that, you know what you're capable of. And there's a responsibility with that too, I think. Right. Definitely. And that's a responsibility with that too, I think. Right. Definitely. So. And that's the big part.

Originally with the documentary, the provisional title right now is The Game Changers. And it's featuring guys like you and Patrick and myself. But that was the thing originally, is i just wanted to talk about protein and how you didn't need protein and then i realized that there's a lot more to it than that and my friend joseph pace who's helping me from canada you know helped me realize that as well there's a lot more than just whether you need protein or not because you can tell someone actually you can get protein from that would be a very short boring documentary yeah you can get

protein that'd be like be like a minute. There you go. But, you know, I think it's not enough. There's been some great documentaries, but, you know, for example, Forks Over Knives is really good. But it's not enough just to tell people the science behind it. But that's why I think it's good to showcase some of these people that are very athletic, very strong, confident, powerful, but they're also eating this way. So for whatever their motivation, whether it be ethical or health reasons, we can still demonstrate that it's definitely possible.

Right. And so where are you with the documentary? I want to hear a little bit more about that. Well, we're still, like I said, we're just starting at the moment to get some just regular guys that want to try it and follow their story a little bit. So we've talked to a lot, we've done a lot of interviews. I started this documentary not knowing anything about documentary making. Yeah. When I bought a camera.

You're going to get a lot of, I think you're going to start getting a lot of messages after this podcast goes up of people who are going to volunteer to be that guy. We're actually still looking for some people. So anyone that's interested in whether it's a similar story to you, maybe they're 40 years old and looking to get back into shape and maybe not doing anything right now. Maybe they'd like to try a little triathlon

eventually in a few months. But I would imagine you want somebody who's who's never done anything like this before who kind of has a lot to you know is it kind of in on the worser side of things at the moment we're looking for a couple of different people you know we're looking for people that have been say they're lifting weights and they you know they're eating a regular standard american diet and you and they're not really getting any good numbers. We're looking for that type of guy that Patrick could come and help

and give a few tips to him and tell him what he eats and then maybe a regular guy that's really not doing much and is on cholesterol medication. So we're looking for a guy who's on all kinds of medications from antidepressants to statins and all that kind of thing. We're looking for a different variety of people so that we can show a variety of things. For example, if we just did, say, a runner

who then went plant-based and he did a little bit better at running, people might expect that the endurance guys could do it. We'd still like to show that, but at the same time, we'd like to see someone try the plant-based diet and get much stronger. If they want to go and compete in a powerlifting tournament

or whatever the case may be, we're letting it be organic so we're not setting anything up so it's fake. We want it to be authentic. If there is anybody out there that's interested in being in the documentary, we want to do it right. That's why we haven't rushed it.

Also, it took me a while. I went and bought a camera and some lights and sound equipment trying to do everything myself I think that was one of your early interviews too maybe we need to re-tape that yours is the worst one oh no

you've got to watch it well let's do it again man what you said was good the camera work wasn't so good but anyway I've got other people on board now helping me out ryan vance who's uh a filmmaker that studied at london film school he's up here in la and joseph pace helping me with uh writing it all out but um joseph's great yeah and so basically you know

we're definitely looking for people and it just takes a lot longer than you know again once we've got hours and hours of footage um following one of my students who uh you know was really overweight he switched uh first two weeks he lost 14 pounds wow you know but that's not his goal to lose weight it's just like you know if you eat healthy and uh eat the right foods the the weight loss will uh the fat loss yeah the weight loss really should be a byproduct of this lifestyle alteration as opposed to an end game or a goal because it isn't a diet it's about changing your perspective on food and how you live your life and if you're walking that path and and making these changes that hopefully have staying power permanently the weight will come off and it's it becomes a non-issue. It's not

about that. It's not a weight loss focused oriented situation. Right. You shouldn't really be focused on the fat loss, although obviously that's a great benefit. But that's where people are at. Most people are, that's where they're at. That's what they want. That's what they're focused on. Yeah, well, great. If they do that, then it will work for them too. But they're also going to get all the other benefits of the health. And if they want to be athletic, the athletic performance benefits, I feel as well. Even if they're also going to get you know all the other benefits of the health and if they want to be athletic athletic performance benefits i feel as well even if they're small for some people i still think they they will exist um that actually brings up for me you know what's the best way to go about it because i think there's two ways you can either jump into it or you can try to take it

gradually i think there's benefits uh to to either way and i think some people will benefit um the book that i'm working on um originally entitled the black belt diet is basically gives you two options i like that yeah so you can basically you know it sort of parallels my um search for combat for the search of nutrition like i said before but also it gives you the option of going straight to being a black belt if you want to once you've read the book know, and you can follow a plan or you can work your way up the belts. So you could go white belt and, Oh yeah,

that's, I like that. And then in that way, you know, you can, you can gradually do it. I think the benefit of going straight to it is that you will notice and feel different right away within,

within a week or two, you're going to feel better. But some people can't make that, that quick jump. I think the decision of, of either or in that regard is a personality thing as much as anything else i mean for me like i couldn't have done the gradual thing i just wouldn't have been i had i had to just jump in and do it completely but i also recognize that not everyone operates like that like my wife doesn't operate like that she would you know she's a gradual person and a lot of people are, and I think they need to feel like that's okay because there is this idea when it comes to,

you know, using the word vegan or plant-based diet that it's perfect or it's nothing. And that's discouraging for people because they just think there's no way I can do it. It's too hard. And then they abandon it. Whereas a gradual process would, you know know conceivably work really well for those people right and um and so that's why i wanted to also give these steps um you know whereas you are incorporating more of the healthy plant-based foods i don't want to think of it as just giving up certain foods but more incorporating moving towards a better diet rather than giving up things that you're used to but as you work up your, you're incorporating more of the healthy plant foods, getting rid of the unhealthy animal foods.

Not just unhealthy animal foods, but also processed foods, refined foods, stuff like that. Working towards that black belt. That's kind of what I've been working on for the book. How far along are you with the book? Most of it's in my head. It's completely written,

which is not on paper yet yeah i'm yeah exactly um it's harder than you think actually and what's oh i know no what's annoying for me is how long it takes to write you know i've been writing a few articles recently uh i just did one for on blood flow um from regarding plant-based diet for vegan health and fitness magazine, which comes out in March. And I've just been doing one on toxins. But I can literally write the information in 20 minutes, but it takes me about 10 hours for the article to go and find all the sources to verify that they're all completely correct

and offer evidence. Unfortunately, the one I just wrote for Fight Magazine, they said that they weren't going to include all my references, which I didn't really like because I don't want people to think it's just my vague opinion, but rather it's justified

and backed up by Simon to forget it. Well, they could at least put a link to your website or a specific page on your site so there's just one hyperlink and then they can go there and you can have them all there. Well, they could at least put a link to your website or a specific page on your site so there's just one hyperlink and then they can go there and you can have them all there. Yeah, exactly. So I need to talk to them about it

before I make sure it's released because I definitely want the citations to be covered in there. So I work on the book and the documentary simultaneously. That's great, man. The book, as you probably know, takes a long time, too. It does, man. How long did it take to write. Uh, well, it's not like I didn't know

the story, you know, but it's not just knowing. No, it was, yeah, it was a lot of work. And I, I, I did it the very traditional route where I, you know, I got an agent and then I did a proposal and I spent a lot of time working on the proposal, like three or four months. Um, and that was the equivalent of like writing a business plan. And I had to write the first two chapters, uh, and you lay out the whole marketing. It's like a whole thing. Right. And I, and I realized that that had to be completely pitch perfect. And I had to thread the needle or there w there wasn't going to be a book unless I was going to self publish. So that ended up working out. And then after that, it was probably a year and a half, um, of writing. So yeah, it's not a small thing. And then I remember, I think I've told this joke on the podcast before, but I remember when it was

all done and I turned it in or, or I got the, um, the galley copies finally. Uh, and it was only like, you know, this thick, like not even maybe an inch or whatever. I was like a year and a half and it's only like, it's so small. Like I feel like it should be this huge book. You should have paid the money and say, can't we make the type size a little bit bigger? I know, yeah.

So like, you know, font 16 instead of font 10. Yeah, exactly. So, but you know, any help that I can offer you. I learned a lot about publishing and that whole world. So, you know, anything I can do to help you out, man, I'd love to see your message get out there as best it can. Obviously, I do or I wouldn't have you sitting here right now. Yeah, I appreciate you having me on, for sure.

Well, good, man. I think we kind of did it. Yeah. How do you feel? Yeah, I feel good. It was great coming up here. Nice seeing you again. Yeah, man.

Thanks for doing it. How do you feel? Yeah, I feel good. It was great coming up here. Nice seeing you again. Yeah, man. Thanks for doing it. If you want to find out more about James,

you can find him on Twitter at Lightning Wilks, and you have your website, which is James Lightning Wilks, right? Yeah, they're not very active, actually. My Twitter's not active at all. I follow you, but you never tweet, so where are you hanging out? Ninja tweeter. I hide my tweets so no one can see them,

which kind of defeats the purpose. What's the point of that? I don't understand people that lock their Twitter accounts. They either do it or don't do it. I just don't tweet. No, the best place really for information at the moment for the plant-based stuff for us is, we have the company called Plant Athlete. And the best place right now is to go on Facebook.

Facebook.com forward slash Plant Athlete. Plant Athlete. And the website is plantathlete.com, right? Yeah, but the best place, yeah, it is as well. And you can subscribe to the blog there. But again, with writing the book and the documentary, we haven't put as much time in. and that's with writing the book and the documentary, we haven't put as much time,

but the Facebook page, we try and put stuff on every day or so about plant-based athletes, maybe some diet tips and things like that. So that's a good place to go. All right, that's good. And if you're sitting at home listening to this thinking, I want to be in James's documentary and I'm a perfect candidate,

please don't email me. Email James. Is there a contact form on your website where they can reach out to you? Jameslightningwilks.com. They can go through there or just hit up someone on Facebook, either way. It won't be a problem to get ahold of me. It's pretty easy. Your personal website is jameslightningwilks.com. Correct. Wilks is W-I-L-K-S. Yeah. That's a good point. it's a nice thought there's no e and then they take the e out of james right like the james wilkes no e and they're like oh okay j-a-m-s-w-i-l-k-e-s welcome to america yeah there we go this would not happen you know before i came

to america my only real experience other than like the movies which i knew weren't real was jerry springer you know and i thought oh that's what I'm going to. It is. The man of Jerry Springer. And here you are. You are in the world of Jerry Springer, right? That's right. You know, you're the one who was on a reality show.

I know. You should know more than most people. Yeah. Right? All right, good, man. I think we did it. Cool. Cool.

So that's it. Thank you so much for joining the show, man. You're great. And I think people are going to dig your message. So check him out. We never finished the Jai Lifestyle ad. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're there.

B12, Jai Repair, plant-based protein. I'm looking forward to checking it out. Yeah, we have a cookbook, e-cookbook, 77 pages of recipes that my wife and I perfected, which when I say that, I mean 99% my wife, but recipes that our kids love. So it's very family friendly and a lot of stuff that I train on a lot of vitamin smoothies and blends pre-workout post-workout and the like, it's only nine bucks downloadable PDF. Julie's got a meditation program called jai release which is uh super effective i can testify to personally and we have some uh more stuff coming up soon we're working on a detox cleanse video series that we're getting ready to shoot which

is going to be pretty cool so i'm excited about that uh James, are you doing any public speaking coming up? Is there, if somebody's going to be out there? The only bigger one coming up is in May, and that's at the Healthy You Network in Arizona. That'll be alongside Dr. Campbell, Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Esselstyn. So that's the next big one. Good, that's cool. Yeah, so they get healthyyounetwork.org.

Go check that out. I've got a couple coming up in March and February, but I don't have the dates with me right now. So on the next episode, I'll, I'll let you guys know about that. And I think that's it, man.

Nice. Thanks for being here. Thanks very much. All right. Peace. Plants. Thank you. you