The Rich Roll Podcast - Plantpowered Dietitian & Author on Blue Zones, BigFood, Straight Edge Punk & Eating For Ultra-Endurance Performance

Episode Date: January 16, 2014

Matt is a cool dude. Can't believe it took the podcast for us to finally meet in person. Not only do we have plenty of common points of interest and intersection — plant-based nutrition, eating for performance and ultra-endurance athletics topping the list — Matt knows from whence he comes. With a Nutritional Science degree from Pennsylvania State University and a Public Health Nutrition degree from Loma Linda University (yes – that “Blue Zone*” Loma Linda where everyone eats plants and lives like forever – don't worry we get into this), as well as certification as a Registered Dietitian ( the only professional nutrition credential available ), Matt has distinguished himself as a leading expert in the field of vegan nutrition. In addition to working one-on-one with clients and athletes, Matt is the Past-Chair of the Vegetarian Nutrition Group of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics , and co-authored both the No Meat Athlete book with RRP #54 guest Matt Frazier and the best-selling cookbook Appetite for Reduction* with Isa Moskowitz. In his spare time, Matt is an accomplished athlete who races marathons, iron-man triathlons, 200+ mile cycling events and 24-hour races (see full athletic resume ). During the course of our conversation we dig into all of it – the paleo vs. vegan “debate”, how to eat for ultra-endurance performance, modern advocacy in the world of our broken food system, and how corporate interests use marketing to obfuscate fact, undermine informed consent and confuse consumer choice. But quite possibly the most impressive thing about Matt? He lives in Southern California yet refuses to own a car. Now that is commitment. Listen with an open mind, and may the conversation raise the vibration & inspire your best self.  Enjoy! Rich

Welcome to Episode 68 of the Rich Roll Podcast with Matt Resigno. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, people. Welcome to the show. My name is Rich Roll, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. What do we do here? Each week, I bring to you the best and the brightest, the most forward-thinking, paradigm-busting minds in health, fitness, wellness, diet, nutrition, athleticism, what else? Entrepreneurialism sometimes,

and a few other curveballs in there. Anyway, with one goal in mind, to help you unlock and unleash your best, most authentic self. So I've had all different kinds of people on the show, doctors, nutritionists, entrepreneurs, world-class athletes, ultra-athletes, strength athletes, dieticians. Did I already say that? Doctors, nutritionists. I don't know. All different kinds of people.

Anyway, thanks for tuning in. If you've been listening, thanks for tuning in again. We love the support. We appreciate the support. And thanks, everybody, who took the time to vote for us for a 2013 Stitcher Award. We've been nominated for Best Health and Lifestyle Podcast. I might even go up to San Francisco to the big party, find out who wins. So anyway, I thank you guys for the support. And also thank you for all the great feedback on last week's episode with Charlie Engel. He's certainly a special guy, for sure. One of those guys that

I feel like I can just meet and have an immediate shorthand with, you know, we speak the same language. And so doing that interview is really fun, but also really easy for me. There's just a sense of immediate kind of friendship that I have with a guy like that and that kind of experience. So it was wonderful. And I can't wait to keep you guys posted on his progress as he gets ready to, uh, cross the United States on two feet, trying to break the world record for fastest man to ever run across the United States of America. It's so crazy, right? Uh, anyway, today on the show, we've got a great guest, Matt Resigno. Matt's a guy who I also had never met until I showed up to do the podcast with him, but also one of those guys that I feel like I know.

He's kind of a recognized, well-known, plant-based, vegan, registered dietitian, and has co-authored a number of books, including Matt Frazier's book, No Meat Athlete. So you know Matt. He was a guest on the podcast, I don't know, this past summer. He authored No Meat Athlete, the book. He's been on the road, or he was on the road last summer, kind of going city to city with it. Matt stopped in on some of the cities with him. But anyway, Matt is responsible for the nutrition components of that book. And he's a logical guy to have on the podcast. So I was pleased to be able to sit down with him and hash things out for a couple hours. So he's also a master's in public health and also interestingly, a a fellow ultra-endurance athlete. He has done the Furnace Creek 508 three times solo. The Furnace Creek 508 is a 508-mile bike race.

For people that also listen to Vinny Tortorich's podcast, America's Angriest Trainer, Vinny's also a veteran of the Furnace Creek 508. But Matt has also done it as part of a relay a couple times on a Fixie bike. And I think that might be the only relay or people that have ever done the 508 on Fixie gear bikes, which is crazy. He's done some ultra runs. And I didn't find out until after we finished the interview and I turned the recorder off. He goes, oh, yeah, you know, I forgot to tell you. And I turned the recorder off.

He goes, oh, yeah, you know, I forgot to tell you. I also did the Norseman Triathlon, which is considered to be one of the most difficult long-distance, Ironman-distance triathlons in the world. It takes place in Norway. I want to say – no, yeah, Norway. I was thinking Sweden, but I think it's Norway. Very far north, you swim in unbelievably cold water and cycle through snow-covered lands, and you ultimately run up this mountain. I don't know that much about it. I've seen videos of it, and it just looks epic and extraordinary, something that's definitely on my bucket list. And I couldn't believe that I didn't know that he had done it until after we'd stopped recording,

as I would have loved to have talked to him about it. So maybe I'll have him on again. But anyway, we get into all sorts of stuff, ultra distance training, vegan nutrition for the athlete and kind of how he counsels the athletes and the every man's that he works with to try to help them dial in their plant based nutrition to optimal levels. So plenty to talk about. I think we chat for about two hours. Good one. And yeah, that's it. Happy to have him on the show. Happy to have made his acquaintance. And he's a good egg, man.

I think you guys are going to dig this. So open your hearts, open your minds, open your ears. Listen with an open mind, even if you're not vegan, if you're paleo, whatever sort of dietary preference you come from. Just the only thing I implore you to do is to listen with an open mind. And if it doesn't resonate with you, hey, man, that's cool. You can move on. Not every guest that I have on the show is going to be somebody that you're going to agree with completely.

So I'm just trying to bring you a whole bunch of different people. Pick and choose what resonates with you. Discard the rest. Again, the idea is to help you access, unlock, unleash onto the world your best, most authentic self. So anyway, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoy today's interview with Matt Reseek. 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.

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To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. I'm not one for rants or venting generally, so I'm going to call this a monologue instead. But I think you're the perfect foil for this. In fact, when I wrap this up, you're going to end up being my therapist, I think. So are you ready? Ready. All right, cool.

So a little thing went down on Twitter yesterday. And usually when like little Twitter spats come up, I just, you know, I sit on the sidelines. I really don't like to engage in that kind of stuff. It just, it never ends up well for anybody, you know, a little like bickering back and forth. Um, but, uh, uh, a guy called, um, Brian McKenzie, who is a friend of mine and has been on the podcast. He's a CrossFit guy. He's a paleo guy and he teaches CrossFit endurance. He's a strength coach, interesting guy with interesting theories, some of which are controversial. And he was an early

guest on the show and he was great. And we got along really well and I respect him. And, and I believe that he respects me. And he had, um, reached out on Twitter and said, Hey, you know, I wonder what it's like to be an RD. And, you get your degree have to kind of relearn what real nutrition is, which was an interesting question, right? And it's one that I'm sure you have many, many opinions about. And I think in earnestness, somebody on Twitter said, oh, you should check out this podcast episode that Rich did with Andy Bilotti. He's an RD and I always an RD. And, uh, I always forget, what's the other one? There's always the RD dietitian and nutritionist. He's a registered dietitian. Okay, cool. So yeah, when, when Andy was on, we talked a lot about all that kind of

stuff and it really wasn't a conversation of vegan versus non-vegan. It was really about kind of, um, corporate lockdown and government lockdown on, on policy and how that influences food choice and the foods that, that ultimately end up in the grocery store and how they're marketed towards us and all that kind of stuff. And Brian, Brian's kind of had a little bit of a flip response, which was, uh, I'm not interested in, you know, two vegans talking about nutrition. I need something more open-minded than that. And I was like, oh, okay. All right. So, you know, sort of issue aside of whether that's a closed-minded thing to say or not. And again, understand, like, I like Brian. There was sort of a debate ensued that I made a choice to kind of exempt myself from. And the details of which aren't that important, but it kind of devolved into

vegan versus paleo. And then it kind of got into the gutter even a little bit more. And it just, it just, it disintegrated and it disappointed me. You know, it's sort of like, I'm always trying to bridge this gap or create some kind of common ground or kind of avoid the controversy. But it seems that no matter what, no matter what you do, it always ends up paleo versus vegan. Right. And I was thinking about that today. I was like, well, it doesn't have to be that way. And I know that your experience with Matt Frazier writing this book, it was, you know, Matt's position is all about like, let's find some common ground and all this sort of thing. And, you know, it's kind of a bummer to hear somebody say, well, if it's, you know, two vegans in a room is one too many for me.

And, you know, I don't really know what to do with that. I mean, you know, what do you think? All right, therapist time. You know, it's tough. People feel so strongly about nutrition and, um, it's hard to say with someone like that, that thinks they are absolutely right. I don't claim, and nor does Andy. Andy's such an open-minded person. It's really hard to attack him to say that one way is absolutely right. And Matt Frazier, you know, he says this,

that, you know, paleo and vegan, like you just said, have a lot in common. And there's a lot we can learn from that. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the other kind of comments was, you shouldn't be giving advice or pontificating on an issue that you don't have experience with. And there are a lot of people, former vegans who become paleo, but then there was a comment like, but how many, how many people go from paleo to vegan, you know, hashtag crickets. And, you know, I know some that have, you know, and maybe they're not as vocal and maybe they're not as many, but they certainly exist. And I just, that's sort of provocative barb, you know, is just something that's going to further divide the camps.

Right. I mean, our health system and nutrition is in really bad shape. And I think both are improvements, you know, sort of the ethics aside between the difference between paleo and vegan, that they are improvements. And anyone who goes from the standard American diet and cuts, you know, refined sugar, refined flours, excess oils, they're going to see benefits, whether that's via paleo or vegan. Yeah, of course. I mean, there are bigger issues that we should be concerning ourselves with. I mean, I suppose these sorts of arguments exist between the low-carb people and the ketone. I don't know, whatever.

I mean, I find it all to be to be somewhat masturbatory, quite frankly. And I'm much more concerned with the general public. I've been traveling a lot. I'm in airports all the time. And I look around and I go, these people aren't worried about vegan versus paleo. These people are in line at McDonald's. And they're not healthy. And there's a lot of young people, seemingly able-bodied people who are in wheelchairs or in go-kart, you know, those little motorized, you know, carts through airports.

And that's devastating to see. Yeah, it really is. And I think a difference, if we really want to go down this road of the difference between the two, is that paleo in a way is a selfish diet, right? Most people are doing it for themselves, and they're seeing benefits. And I understand that. And it is true, they are seeing benefits. But vegans are more of an activist, because it tends to be a bigger thing when you talk about animals and the environment in addition to health. And so I see why vegans would have this reputation of preaching, because there is an activist component to it. Yeah. And I mean, I think people get into it for different reasons and some are

more, you know, activist oriented than others for sure. I mean, I'm the first to admit that I got into it for selfish reasons. I've become more sort of conscious in my decisions and, and you know, how I kind of perceive the world and animal rights and all of that for sure. That's changed a lot for me, but that's not how it began. But I think that people who aren't coming from that place are easily miffed by people that come at them with that perspective, and it can be off-putting, I think, because there's very much a holier than now,

um, aura that takes over. Right, right. It's, it's, it's true. And I get it. And there are plenty of annoying vegans. And, um, and I see, you know, what I have, what I'm up against as soon as I start talking, cause I've defined myself as a vegan. So how did it all, so where does it all begin for you? Like where, what happened? You know, um, where did it go wrong? You know, I have like John Joseph and his community of like hardcore punks to thank, you know, mid nineties and music scene. And I found out about this thing called veganism. And I said, wow, this is for me. You know, I was the kid who like got into fights because like someone would step on a insect and i would be mad about it

you know so i was like wow this veganism thing is for me and i jumped right into it as a 17 year old wow so like a straight edge kid yeah and this was in pennsylvania yeah yeah i was going to new york city for shows and that whole scene really influenced me and at the time it was it influenced a lot of people who are still active today who were what were some of the bands that you were going to see you know you know like earth crisis is a big one and they're still around and like they've become friends of mine and you know chokehold is another one they're canadian band you know um that's off the top of my head two big ones i can think of right that's funny i i mean my experience was so different i'm listening listening to like REM and like Morrissey. I'm for, I'm so thankful.

I mean, just those politics of like DIY and where, um, it resonated with me of like, first and foremost, we need to try to make the world a better place, you know, animals, environment and people. And like getting that influence as a teenager, you know, where it's like tied in with rebellion was, was great. You know, it's transformative. It is a weird thing, this sort of, uh, this, this rebellion, this punk ethos, uh, and how it's wed to the sort of ethical issues and the whole straight edge movement. Like they're so, they're such unlikely bedfellows. Yeah. Like where, what is that about? Like, where does that come from? You think, you know, I don't know. I mean,

I would love to see that history sort of laid out, you know, and, um, I'm not sure, you know, and I think it, it fits in with like straight edge, like not drinking and not doing drugs in order to make the world a better place. I mean, that's how it was sort of pitched to me. So, I mean, was this, did you come out of the womb with this level of sensitivity or were you a kid who was like a loner kid looking for a group to identify with or what, what was it that attracted you to this to begin with? You know, as, um, I got into BMX and skateboarding at like five years old, just fortunate to have like the neighborhood kid who was older, who like influenced me with that. So I raced BMX at five years old and that's just like

a different community. You know, it's, it's not as quote jockey as say football or baseball. And that just put me on a different path. So punk rock kind of fit right in with that. Right. It's pretty similar to Mac Danzig's, uh, background. I mean, I think he was in rural Pennsylvania as well and found skateboarding and that was kind of his thing. I mean, pretty similar kind of crowd of people, right? Yeah. And as soon as you learn to start think different, to think differently, some, you know, concept like veganism in the mid nineties, which was obscure and so pretty extreme, it seems pretty normal. You're like, yeah, I can do this. You're used to being different and it's a huge advantage. So is the veganism happening at the outset or with the introduction to the music or the trips into New York City?

Or where does that creep into the straight edge ideology? You know, I mean, they're kind of one in the same, I guess. It's hard to split them. Like you buy a new record on vinyl and you open it up and the lyrics are about these things. You say, wow, you know, I love my dog. a new record on vinyl and you open it up and the lyrics are about these things and you say wow you know i love my dog you know i'm i'm sad when i see deer being you know up on the side of the road oh the animals that i eat have suffered and just never crossed my mind uh-huh yeah that's similar to john joseph a little bit i think just in how he you know how revelatory the the bad brains you

know lyrics and sort of hanging out with those guys were for him to introduce him to something that was so completely foreign to him previous to that. Yeah, definitely. And it says, hey, there are these things in the world that are wrong, and we need to do something about it, which is nice that it has that second component of taking action. And for some people, that was starting a band and going on tour with you know empowering lyrics which people may

say may not do a lot but hey it's influenced a lot of people so how come you didn't join a band and do that or did you no i have no musical ability no not at all that i i don't know that that stops very many people in the hardcore movement yeah i don't know that it's all that important yeah uh i might get some shit for saying that but uh um truth in it yeah um no so that so it wasn't going to be music you were just drawn to the scene yeah so what were the clubs in new york that you're going to hang on man i mean cbgvs before it went under you know um gosh so many places like abc no rio those types of places and did you what you know what was the home front like when you're like hey i'm going to the i'm gonna go to manhattan and go

to cbg what are you like 17 years old yeah yeah you know my parents being from brooklyn and uh they're the only ones in their families to move out of the city so they were comfortable with me going oh wow and i was going i was going pretty young like starting at like 14 15 wow and i would take older kids from my high school and show them around new york city because i knew it from going there with my family so you had serious like social cred when you went back to school for that yeah yeah wow how far out of the city did you live just an hour you have brothers and sisters no only child oh only child wow our only child is child is going to CBGB tonight at age 15. Yeah.

Pretty lucky. I just don't see something like that happening. I guess stuff like that still goes on, but. Yeah. Yeah, you know, and I didn't think twice about it. I mean, again, it was BMX, like, really got me on that path of just, like, going out and doing your own thing. You know, we did the same thing, like, piling into a van and driving five hours to go ride some skate park. Mm-hmm. We did the same thing, like piling into a van and driving five hours to go ride some skate park. So it wasn't really about escaping some kind of home life that wasn't suitable for you.

It was just a scene that you wanted to be a part of. It was just a bored teenager, and these things were exciting. And I think we have a lot of bored teenagers now, and we don't have enough outlets. Or we have too many outlets. Too many distractions too many i mean it's too easy to open up the the uh ipad right you know who's gonna drive into new york city when i can just sit on my couch and right you know what i mean or build bmx jumps in the woods which is a lot of work that's too much work who's gonna do that now like i'll take the bike to the guy at the shop and he'll do it for me.

Yeah. Or I'm like, go ride a skate park, you know? Right. So I often wonder, like, given that,

given this sort of culture of convenience and immediacy that we live in, like what it would take for a movement, you know, sort of a palpable, emotionally driven movement like that to occur again or to strike a chord with the youth. Yeah. You know, I'm the old man role over here. Yeah, I know, right. I mean, like grandpa with the youth. Old man role over here. Like grandpa.

The youth. So like, what happened? Yeah, it's true. I mean, that is the question. Yeah. I mean, you go to New York now and there's a Whole Foods in the Bowery. So like, what does that make you? Like, that's sort of a weird double-edged sword for you. On the one hand, you're like, oh, cool. This thing that I preach and study has a foothold in this neighborhood that means something to me. But at the same time, it's kind of the end of something else that was possibly more impactful and meaningful. Yeah, yeah, it's tough.

It's a big question for sure. You don't have the answer to that. No, unfortunately. All right. So what happens? I mean, are you like, okay, I'm going to live in New York City after high school or where, where do you go? You know, it's funny. I, um, my parents didn't go to college and I was like, what am I going to do? You know? And I decided I wanted to go because I could work less if I had a college degree. And I literally, a friend dragged me to Penn State, you know, and said, Hey, you should come here with me. And I flipped through the book and I thought, Oh, nutrition, this would be useful. And I just

picked it out of the book. Oh, wow. And that was it. I had no idea. I didn't know what a registered dietitian was. I didn't know that I was doing basically pre-med. I had no idea what organic chemistry was. And, um, I just signed up for it and then just went with it. You know, I was lucky. I had a good high school education and was able to get through it. And so from the very beginning, that's what it was going to be for you. Yeah. And I always thought, and I say this a lot, not to jump ahead too much, but sure, I'm vegan and I have that as my background, but I'm very careful in my wording about the benefits. You know, I want to exist as a resource for people who want to be a healthy vegan. You know, and I try to go through the research.

I'm not cherry picking research. I'm finding the research you might not hear about in order to get it to the people who need it. And so when you work with clients, I mean, are you working with, do you work exclusively with people that are on a plant-based diet? Or do you work with all sorts of different kinds of people? The majority of people I work with find me and say, I want to be vegan or vegan-ish, and you seem like a person to help me get on that path. I see. So they're already inclined to kind of move in that direction.

Right. I see. And, all right, so you graduate from Penn State, but you went to grad school, right? Right. So did you do that right away? I went and lived in Central America for a little bit uh with a girl of course you did right right and then um then i rode my bike cross country oh you did wow cool yeah it was great

for like a charity thing or just to do it just to do it solo on a bike i bought for 100 bucks one of those deals yeah with like panniers and the whole thing yep and it was awesome i mean just to see kansas and you know all these places and and to do it as a vegan you know and um what year was that 2001 yeah totally you were totally alone totally self-supported alone i had a friend meet me for a few hundred miles in pennsylvania but otherwise alone and uh so someone would you know, the natural question would be, well, you did that. Like if you were doing that as a vegan, like what were you eating? Especially if you're alone and nobody's there's no RV, you know, crew crew person handing you bananas or whatever it is. Like what were you eating?

You know, is this like it really taught me to plan ahead. You know, it's like, OK, Joshua Tree. I leave Joshua Tree and I have a hundred miles of nothing. I need to plan ahead. You know, it's like, okay, Joshua tree, I leave Joshua tree, and I have 100 miles of nothing, I need to plan all of my meals. And you know, fortunately, I have nutrition to create some, some experience in this. And just to be able to cook dinner, you know, make noodles and broccoli and tofu on the side of the road in the desert. You know, it's great, great experience. So you just would stock up your you go to the grocery store and just stock up in your panniers, whatever you cook for that and i mean even in quote like the middle of nowhere you can find

stuff i remember writing to my friends over email from a library because it's pretty cell phone for me and saying kansas has soy milk in the grocery store uh-huh what year wait what year was 2001 oh yeah okay yeah yeah so all good. So yeah, it was great. I mean, wonderful experience, like fortunate privilege to be able to do that. And then got done and decided I wanted to go to grad school. And I looked at Loma Linda University, which is well known for their vegetarian nutrition. Right. It's one of the blue zones, right?

Right. Can you explain what that is for somebody who might not know? The blue zones are areas where people on average live longer. And Adventists are well known for living longer. Seventh-day Adventists. Seventh-day Adventists because about half of them are vegetarian. Not all of them are. About half of them are.

And even the ones who are not vegetarian are eating very, very vegetarian. And so they live longer because of it. And, uh, and there's a famous book called the blue zones, right? What is it? Do you know? I can't remember the name of the guy who wrote that book, but anyway, it's essentially, it's a primer on these specific regions, um, across the globe where people seem to live longer and be healthier. And they're, they're, they're mostly like exotic places like Okinawa, right? Or, you know, Southern Greece. I can't even remember what the other blue zones are.

But then in the midst of all these kind of very, you know, places that are kind of untouched by time, where culture kind of exists the way it's existed for hundreds and hundreds of years, and people live very simply. And then there's Loma Linda, California. And you're like, what, what is that? You know? And then, and that's when it became clear that this sort of, um, religious philosophy, uh, promoted a way of life that was allowing these people to live longer. Yeah. Loma Linda is definitely not an exotic place.

No. And so, so that, but that's where you're going. I'm going to the blue zone to study. Right. You know, and I'm like, Oh, this is going to be great. I'm going to learn so much about vegetarian nutrition. It ends up, I could have taught the classes on vegetarian nutrition. They're just eating what they're given. And, and, um, you know, through undergrad, I was that vegan who obsessed over all the research I could find about veganism.

And that's what led me to Loma Linda. Um, but what I did learn there is I did a public health degree, which is sort of the psychology and education behind nutrition. And it was so, so helpful to have a nutrition degree and then learn how to get information out to people. And that's where Loma Linda was a fantastic place. So explain that to me, the psychology behind. Like changing behaviors is hard you know like 98 of people who lose weight put it back on within two years that's

a horrible failure rate right because changing behaviors because of our environment and a lot of the things that you spoke about with spoke about with andy is difficult our environment isn't good for exercise or healthy eating and habits keep us doing what we want to do and what we've been doing. And so how do you get past that? And that's the big question. And so what is the answer to that question? How do you do that very slowly and methodically and with a good plan? And most people don't do those things. Right. And in other words, trying to modify behavior over time in a way that will be sustainable within the context of somebody's lifestyle. Exactly. And in steps, people say, well, I'm not happy with this step. So they don't want

to take it. So they want to skip three steps to where they want to be. And they want to do that immediately. And then it's hard. And then they fail. And then they want to be. And they want to do that immediately. And then it's hard. And then they fail. And then they fail again. And then they say, this is too hard. I give up. Right.

All right. So how long does it take for you to get your graduate degree? Two years. Two years. And would you say that your academic experience was similar to Andy's in the sense of the curriculum revolving around studies and sort of, how do I say this? The curriculum being oriented around kind of promoting a big food, big corporate kind of agenda without being too – I was trying to think of a way to say it without sounding like a crazy conspiracy theorist, but essentially this idea that most of the studies that are conducted are conducted by these big food companies

who have a vested financial interest in promoting the increase of ingestion of whatever product it is that they're selling, right? And so these are the studies that find their way into academia, and this is what people are studying when they're trying to get their RD. Well, I disagree a little bit, and people would say this, how can you be a vegan at Penn State, a land-grant university? It must be so hard. And I would say, well, actually we very rarely talk about diets. We talk, you know, we're doing nutrition metabolism, we're doing physiology, you know,

we're doing epidemiology and all of these hard sciences that prepare you to then later talk about diets. So veganism didn't really come up. And then in terms of like corporations have definitely influenced studies and those are the studies you hear about. But what I always tell people is that there are thousands of studies that come out every month and you need to look at the big picture of those. And you know, that's the problem with the dairy industry. Some of the fun studies, because I don't think that they're actually changing the results of them most of the time, but they have the ability to spend $10 million on advertising one study that, you know, so that's the study that you end up hearing about,

even though there actually are studies being conducted, right. That might say something different. Absolutely. And there's, there are so many research journals out there. It's like unfathomable. And so do you stay on top of all that stuff now? Like Dr. Gregor, who's like, he's staying up all night reading these things. No one can do it. Yeah. Um, yeah, I do what I can, of course. Right. Um, so, so, so, I mean, you, it sounds like you're coming at it a little bit more mild than Andy who, I mean, Andy's really on, I mean, you follow him on Twitter. He's on a mission, man. Like every day it's like, here's what Coca-Cola said. Here's what, you know, he's really caught him and Marion Nestle are really calling these companies out and trying

to hold them accountable and taking them to the mat. And it's great because somebody has to do that. But it sounds like you have a little bit of a different, not to say that you disagree, but you have a different kind of temperament or a different perspective on how you're kind of working with people or what your advocacy is all about. Yeah, it's just kind of a, you know, different side of the same coin where I agree with, I agree with Andy 100%. But I think sometimes it gets a little twisted in the public where people say, Oh, did you hear that Coca Cola teaches dietitians? And we're like, No, no, no, that's not what's happening. Yeah, I'm sure it gets it gets perverted. And all I know is what what I, I, I'm not an expert and I read this and I don't know whether it's true or not.

You know, it's so easy to, to be misled, I suppose. I mean, my friends laugh at me because they'll ask me nutrition question and they say that I always start with, well, it's complicated. Yeah. But that's, that's good, right? It shouldn't be, it's not a black or white thing. And I think that, that leads me to something that's been on my mind too lately, which is there's what's popular and there's what's correct. And those two things aren't always on the same page. Probably more often than not, they're not on the same page. And right now there are certain things that are very popular.

This low-carb craze this ketosis you know this obsession with ketosis this idea of saturated fat not being bad for you that you know we you've been lied to and everything that you know about fat or saturated fat throw it out the window. It's all new now. Sugar, grains, grain brain, all these kinds of things. And, you know, so, you know, what's true, what's not, what's hype, what's being used to sell a certain diet or a book and what's real? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's complicated. It's complicated. Yeah. Rich. You know, it takes in science, and what's so great about it is it takes a lot of evidence to overturn what was previously thought of as true. thought of as true and sure we may learn more about saturated fat later but until i see really concrete evidence that overturns decades of research hundreds of thousands of studies i'm gonna go with what i know which is that saturated fat you know leads to clogged arteries

yeah i mean in every every cardiovascular, cardiologist that I've spoken to still adheres to that. But then there will be the outlier who says, yeah, but they didn't study nutrition. And have they read this book? And have they read that book? And it's all new now and it's all different. You know, it's always changing. And it's just, it hasn't changed that much and and you know the saturated fat criticism is that people who replaced saturated fat with refined carbohydrate did not see much of a drop in their cholesterol levels okay that's like elementary i mean that's okay i you know yeah of course right but then when they

replaced it with plant-based fats they did see it you know so therefore you can say that it is better as far as we know now to replace you know animal fats with plant fats and what would be you know for somebody for somebody who's not fully up to speed or indoctrinated i mean what is the difference between animal fat and and plant fat you know it's complicated yeah it's complicated um you know you're looking at the actual structure you know saturated and unsaturated are just two categories for these different fatty acids. And each one of them actually acts independently on your cholesterol, on your serum cholesterol, you know, in your blood. And, you know, some saturated fats don't raise your cholesterol. It's crazy, right?

But overall, we're seeing that people who eat more saturated fats have these end results, which is cardiovascular diseases. I see. Irrespective of whether it's animal or plant-oriented. Yeah. I mean, coconut is one of those issues. I mean, me and Andy have talked about this at length. It was probably very boring conversations about is coconut good for you or not? Because it has the medium chain. Right, yeah, exactly. I wrote a blog post on my site called Coconut Oil,, you know, panacea or artery clogger. And,

and I wrote it in reaction to a Dr. Greger video that went up that kind of provoked a little dialogue on Twitter. And I had an hour to kill and I just did, you know, just wrote it out. These are my thoughts. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a dietician. This is my experience with it. This is what I, this is what I think is right. And that's been, I think that post has more page views than anything else on my website, like ever. You know what I mean? And I wasn't even really saying that much because I wasn't being definitive either way. So people really want to know. Like coconuts, suddenly like, you know, it's all about coconut milk and coconut oil and coconut water and all of that.

Well, is this good for us or is this bad for us? So what are the cliff notes of your conversation with Andy? I mean, you know, where are you coming down on this? You know, what we both end up saying, which is funny, is that it's not about one food, right? And it's your overall like diet pattern. And we've seen people who are consuming you know coconut fat and having low cholesterol you know and so that's an outcome that you want to see that's positive and then but theoretically they would have high cholesterol so is it then something else and that's that's

when it gets really complicated right i mean my understanding and maybe this is wrong is that the fat in coconut oil is lauric acid which is easily converted to a readily available source of energy that ends up being something that you use for your metabolism as opposed to just getting packed on the the, which is probably a very simplistic way of saying something and maybe completely incorrect. But, you know, it depends, right? That's my other answer. Come on! And I'll say, I'm kind of going to punt on that one right now, without giving some long rambling answer that may or may not make sense. Use sparingly, right?

Use sparingly and what is happening overall? You know, I am not totally, I'm not against fat. And if you are eating the exact amount of calories that you need for the day, you will turn any fat into energy. But if it's an excess, you know, refined carbohydrates in excess. If all you ate all day was a teaspoon of coconut oil then you will probably burn that right maybe i mean but if you ate one teaspoon exactly extra every day and it was of coconut oil that would be just as

likely to turn into fat right okay i got you well you raise another interesting issue, which is this kind of, you know, there's this camp within the plant-based movement of the no oil, no fat camp. You know, the sort of Dr. Esselstyn Engine 2 crowd that are saying, you know, get rid of the avocados and the nuts and the oils. And then other people that are like fats, you know, knock yourself out with avocados. So do you have a, an opinion on that? The shy of, uh, of, uh, it's complicated. Well, my answer is complicated by something different, which is, um, I'm actually been talking with the engine two people and I may be doing some work with them. Okay, cool. And, um, yeah, I think, you know, engine two is onto something where they are treating people who are sick and they're looking at what are the absolute best foods to be eating all of the time. And, and I think it makes sense that they wouldn't

include added oils. You know, I see that, um, for sure. Yeah. And I think I had, um, chef AJ on the podcast, you know, her too. So she made a pretty compelling case about that as well. I don't overindulge in oils, but I do have coconut oil. I eat avocados. I eat nuts. And I find that particularly when I'm training, I feel a little bit better when I do have some of those fats in my diet. Again, yeah, and it's just different scenarios for different situations. And, um, I do work with

vegan athletes and vegan ish athletes. And one of the biggest problems I see is they're simply not getting enough calories to fuel their workouts. And I think to bring this back to paleo is that people say, Oh, I added eggs and I feel so much better. And it's like, well, you were also adding a few hundred calories a day, which could have been the difference of what you needed right and and calories that are metabolized differently yeah i would imagine then eating you know three bananas or something like that yeah uh have you ever worked with anybody who's eating a fruitarian diet i have um i worked with a guy who is actually training at the Olympic Center in Colorado for modern day pentathlon. Oh, wow.

Yeah. As a fruitarian. Yes. Interesting. Yes. And he is an amazing guy. I do a little video series with vegan athletes called Day in the Life, and we did an episode with him. Unbelievable amount of training. I mean, this is a guy who can get close to running a

four minute mile, maybe has run it. Wow. And, you know, just, um, was thinking, how can I get into the Olympics? And he looked up this crazy sport of modern day. Do the thing that no one does. Yeah. Right. Right. He's like, well, I can run and I fenced in college. So now I'm just going to add horseback riding, shooting and swimming. Yeah, only a few. Right. And I was blown away by what he ate. I mean, the 30 bananas a day thing, no problem whatsoever for him. And then this huge iceberg lettuce salad at night.

And what does everyone say about iceberg lettuce, right? It's mostly water. But when you're eating 40 servings of it, you know, and there's 2% iron in one serving, it's like, wow, suddenly you're getting 80% of your iron from iceberg lettuce. Interesting. And, uh, and how long had he been, he'd been eating that way prior to that, or he adopted it to try to make the Olympic team? You know, he had been eating that way for years. And, um, he said he was like 99% raw or something. and they were adding

some cooked food because they were living in colorado and previously they'd been living in california where it was a lot easier uh-huh and uh and killing it as an athlete and no deleterious effects or you know none that none that um i noted or and he said he was still improving and now we're gosh we're two years out from that video and actually just communicate with him recently. And he said, all his times have improved and he's really focusing on 2016 to get into the Olympics for this. It's so interesting. There are more and more fruitarian athletes cropping up and it's like, I've never tried it. I don't have a, it seems so crazy and extreme. And like Michael Armstein is the first guy to say,

yeah, it is extreme. And it's expensive. He's like, you should see how much money I spent. And I have two fridges at home. And I have to go to the wholesaler with a truck and all this kind of stuff. But that guy is full on. And there aren't too many people that can run like that guy. And so who am I to say, who are you to say

this isn't working? You know, I don't know. Yeah. We did, um, an episode with him actually when he ran bad water. Um, so we have that episode as well, which is great. He's great on camera. It's a good person for that for sure. I mean, is there anything in your academic back background though, that kind of gets kicked up when somebody says, all I'm eating is fruit that makes you say, yeah, but you might be missing this or you might be missing that or yeah i mean it's funny like my gut reaction is the same thing people say to me about veganism and it's like well wait a minute are you gonna get enough protein you know i i don't say it out loud of course but um i actually looked at this i had a friend who was racing the furnace creek 508 which is the 500 mile bike race kind of the sister race

of bad water and he did it raw he had been raw for about a year and a half and i trained his crew on I had a friend who was racing the Furnace Creek 508, which is the 500 mile bike race, kind of the sister race of Badwater. And he did it raw. He had been raw for about a year and a half. And I trained his crew on how to keep a diet record so they could look at what he ate in the span of the 36 hours that he raced. And you know what? His numbers were like right on where they should be for carbohydrate and protein. Because nature's just rigged it that way right like if

you're just eating what's available to you in nature and if you're eating just fruit you're gonna have to eat such a massive volume of it that ultimately all those sort of micronutrients are gonna add up is that the idea oh i mean his micronutrients were like they were off the charts i mean it is because your fruits and vegetables are the most nutrient dense things you can eat you know that stuff isn't a problem at all. I honestly was looking at his protein and he was getting, if I remember correctly, about 12% of his calories from protein while he was riding. So that's fine. Right on.

Yeah. I was impressed. Amazing. But anything like brain function, any kind of minerals or vitamins that end up getting... You know, I worry about omega-3 a little bit. Um, it's crucial, not just as a, as a, a nutrient, meaning that it's required, but as there's benefits to eating more omega-3s. Um, but if they're eating large amounts, I mean, cows has omega-3s, right? So if you're just eating massive amounts, massive amounts, um,

yeah, you can get it that way. then b12 of course and this is an issue that's definitely contentious among a lot of raw food folks as they say oh the dirt and no it's nature and it's like no you have to make sure you're getting b12 yeah no i had uh tim van orden on and he said that his b12 levels if i recall correctly um he said he's supplemented on and off i believe but i think that currently he as long as he's sort of eating very organic produce locally grown or whatever and he doesn't wash much of the dirt off you know and you just get some of the dirt on there that the microbes the b12 microbes are there like it was the first i'd heard of that and i've since heard other people say that and i see

you sort of yeah it's possible it's possible to get your b12 that way i think that we used to get our b12 that way 100 years ago because it's not in meat it's in the microorganisms that are in meat right right and so it can be in the dirt that our vegetables are in absolutely but i would not rely on that it's a bad idea just eating handfuls of dirt yeah only organic yeah um well interesting i mean you said uh you know you work with a lot of athletes and you're an athlete yourself and we're going to talk a little bit about that in a minute but um that one of the common pitfalls is that the athletes that are the vegan athletes that you work with, they simply just don't eat enough calories.

And so how do you determine that? You just look at their training plan and what they're eating and say you're not eating enough? And why do you think that they're not eating enough calories? I use their height and weight and their training plan, and I look at and, you know, I can get pretty exact numbers with what I have. And I find that it's just low. It's about, you know, 10% low for a lot of people. And I think it's because we don't realize as trained athletes how many calories we really need. how many calories we really need.

Most people who exercise recreationally overestimate how many calories they need for half an hour on a treadmill. But when you have people out doing two two-hour runs a day, they say, oh, I just need to eat a couple bananas. And it's like, no, you need to eat some pretty massive meals. Well, I think it's important to note that there is some kind of eating disorder stuff that can crop up and some body dysmorphia issues. And people get really into the idea of getting super lean, especially endurance athletes.

And you can get really like, ooh, I can get even leaner and I'll be even lighter on the bike. And then you're basically cannibalizing your body to feed yourself. Right. And I think that a lot of people have given up veganism. That has been one of the bike. And then, you know, you're basically cannibalizing your body to feed yourself. Right. And I think that a lot of people have given up veganism. That has been one of the reasons. Well, they also don't want to be the spindly vegan guy. He's like, but then a lot of the endurance athletes want to look like that. You know, it's a, it's a weird thing. Yeah. So what do you, what other than calories, what do you think some of the other common misconceptions or pitfalls are of the person who's an athlete who's trying to eat this way?

You know, I see kind of both extremes of someone saying, I'm vegan, I'm an athlete, I can just eat whatever I want. And I've seen 4,000 calorie diets with pretty minimal fruits and vegetables. I'm like, okay, you know, the old adage here of eating fruits and vegetables, it's still important. Like a Vegemase with tofurkey and diet cheese on it, sandwiches or something. Like wrapped in a tortilla and deep fried. And I was like, well, actually, this is true for everyone.

It's more about what you eat than what you don't eat. And I think a lot of vegans are confused about that. Explain that. So the benefits of, of being vegan and plant-based diet is eating the plants. It's not that you're not eating meat. Interesting. You know, and I think that's a really important lesson and that's kind of the basis of my philosophy on nutrition. Right. So to elaborate on that, meaning the benefits of the plants being what um i mean the phytochemicals i mean are the biggest thing i mean that's the future of nutrition is

these compounds found in plants that aren't nutrients you don't need them but they have huge benefits i mean like lycopene in tomatoes, right, and cancer. You know, that's the future of nutrition is looking at those sorts of things. Right. And I think also balancing that against, you had kind of peripherally mentioned it earlier, we have this tendency as human beings or maybe the way that we're kind of raised and trained, especially in the sciences, to kind of break everything apart and look at the individual pieces of everything and draw conclusions from that. Um, so we look at food or diet and we say, well, carbohydrates and here's fats and here's protein. And how much of

each of these do we need? Or, you know, whatever it is, the, the, the, the vitamin B12 in this, or the lycopene or whatever it is. And we overlook or we don't really give due credit to the importance of evaluating these things in a meta sense or in the context of the whole. And I know that's the subject of the book whole, you know, T. Kong Campbell's newest book whole that, you know, we've lost sight of how all of these things interact with each other and function as a vast matrix and how that impacts our health when we start to talk about the simple ingredients as opposed to that. Yes. And if that is a valid critique of, you know, the dietetics field right now, it's taking some time for them to catch up with that. And I think Loma Linda is, you know, very progressive with this. They know

this. They know a lot about these phytochemicals and then sort of the future of nutrition. Right. And I think the sort of the benchmark kind of example that everyone uses is the beta carotene study or example. Do you know what I'm talking about? I'm not sure. Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to completely bastardize this, but my recollection, it's something like there was a period of time, maybe it was in the 70s or the 80s, where, oh, we need more beta-carotene, we need more beta-carotene, people aren't getting enough of it in their diet. So then people were mega-dosing supplements on this, but then it was having zero impact on them, or actually it was having an adverse impact on people or something like that. And just as an example of extracting one nutrient out of the matrix of a food because you think that's the sort of miracle nutrient that we all need more of.

And if we just had that, we would be perfectly healthy. And then to realize that it doesn't work. Right, right. And that is a problem when we get into sort of corporations influencing academia and programs is they're like, well, how can this be profitable? You know, how can lycopene be more profitable? Oh, we can put the ad on ketchup bottles? Okay, let's do that. Right.

Well, it defeats the whole purpose. Right. Well, now, and Andy, you know, was talking about this, too, on the podcast. You go to the grocery store and everything. this too on the podcast you go to the grocery store and everything they have studies that say if you put you know protein on the front part of the label it sells more so they'll you know eight grams of protein or even if it's like two grams of protein you know people don't know but it says oh it's a high in protein i must this must be good i should get this people you know those of us who think a lot about nutrition you know no matter which tribe you're in to use andy's

word um forget how little everyone else thinks about nutrition you you know, no matter which tribe you're in, to use Andy's word, forget how little everyone else thinks about nutrition. You know, I taught community college for five years here in Los Angeles. Most of my students were absolutely clueless about any of these details. And so, you know, what does that tell you? I mean, in terms of how you message the people that you work with, or, you know, the audience that might be listening to this podcast, you know, we kind of have to back up, you know, and, and, and what you were alluding to about, you know, taking out certain nutrients or phytochemicals is, isn't what's important, you know, it's eating these whole foods and it's such a simple message as it is. It's like, we need to eat actual whole plant foods, you know,

for many reasons. Where do you, with the athletes that you work with and just in yourself, in your experience, you know, what do you, where do you come down on supplements and do you use supplements or what, what is there, what, what place do they have? You know, I take my B12 and other than that, I don't use any, you may say, um, I use flax oil supplementally. Right. Um, you know, I add it to salads and sometimes I'll just add some rice and add it to rice and beans. Um, and I use flax seeds and I'm using those only for those omega threes. Right. But what about, um, you know, a protein powder after a ride or something like that? You know, I've never used any of that. Oh, you never have? No, no. You never use Vega or Sun Warrior or any with all the ultra cycling and all that stuff that you're doing? You know, I've never had to use

anything. Um, for times I could eat like after a ride, I have used some of the hammer nutrition stuff, like while riding, you know, like 24 hour mountain bike races, I'm just tired of eating. So I'll just drink my calories. And that's like the perpetuum or yeah, exactly. Right. But never like a post workout recovery kind of anything. No, I've never needed it. I mean, I mean, I do my own diet record and analysis when I'm training hard just to see and check my numbers. And I'm oh my protein is great without using that yeah that's that's that's good beans beans lots of beans and yeah then you know I tell people eat beans all the time and then I get complaints about the gas it's like hey man well what do you want you know your body doesn't just embrace it yeah it adjusts yeah I mean I I still use uh post-workout um protein supplement but I don't, you know, it's been an evolution for me, I think.

I don't rely on that, you know, for my protein. And I don't use it every day. I'll just use it when I'm training really hard or I know like, hey, I don't have any beans or lentils in the house. Or I don't, you know, I might not meet that requirement for the day. It's easy and that's useful. And I have worked with athletes who are using, they were using, you know, six scoops a day of protein powder. Right. And I'm saying, this is costing you, like, I'm going to save you hundreds of dollars right now by saying, let's cut this to two. Yeah. But I think, I think it plays into an important issue, which is, is a mental issue as much as anything else, or the psychology that you kind of were talking about earlier, which is even if somebody reads all the books, reads Brendan's book, reads your book, Know Me Not, whatever, they go, I'm convinced.

Look at what Scott Jurek can do. Look at what these guys can do on a plant-based diet. This is awesome. I'm going to do this. But in the back of your mind, you're still like, yeah, but you know, maybe milk does do a body good and maybe beef is what's for dinner. It's very hard to shake that when you've been told it your whole life. Like you had mentioned beforehand, um, that you had, uh, helped Chris Costman with bad water. And, and, uh And I was just, I was crewing there this past year and I was at the awards thing in that high school gym afterwards.

And they're calling the names of everybody that, you know, giving out the awards and all that kind of stuff. And up around the ceiling, all the way around the gym are the Got Milk ads, you know. And there's very healthy looking high school students at the bench press and all that kind of stuff with the milk mustaches. And it's like you realize that even if somebody isn't consciously looking at that poster, they're aware it's there. And if you're a high school student, you're seeing that every single day. And that plants a seed in your head that becomes very difficult to ignore or to kind of move beyond.

And I've had that own experience myself. Like even I was feeling amazing and I was getting stronger and faster every week as I was doing this, you know, back in 2007, 2008, but still I had that doubt. And so my cupboard was full of like every imaginable supplement. Cause I was like, I'm, I, you know, I need to make sure that I'm getting, you know, if I'm going to do this race, like i need to make doubly sure so i spent a ton of money on all that kind of stuff and it's been the last couple years have been a slow process of saying i wonder what how i would feel if i got rid of that one you know i still feel pretty good i can get rid of that one right and i and i think they they have their place i think it's fine and i

think that because people aren't eating the exactly the way they should every single day and not everybody is going to be as diligent as you are it's your profession um but to understand that you should always get your nutrients from food first and foremost right i think you touched on this sort of theme if we have one is is it it's hard to be different i mean some of us kind of revel in it it's like i'm different than everyone else and therefore i'm vegan and I have tattoos or whatever. You're the straight. How many tattoos do you have? Come on.

Dozens of hours. It's complicated. At this point, I have to measure it in hours. So, I don't know, 100 hours? 100, wow. All right. Well, we're in LA. It's normal.

Right, right. And so with veganism, it's the same thing. It's like when you go against the norm, it's natural to have a little bit of doubt. And I think sort of anti-vegan advocates really like pressing that against you. Are you sure you're getting enough protein? Well, it's pretty easy to trigger that doubt or to push that door open and make somebody really doubt what they're doing. Right. And it's hard to trust your own instincts or rely on how you feel.

It's like social pressure is big. It takes cojones and it takes real determination to go, you know what? No, actually, I feel really good. I'm going to continue to do this. I mean, imagine if you're a fruitarian, what you have to deal with. I mean, I can't even begin to do this. I mean, imagine if you're a fruitarian, what you have to deal with, you know, I mean, I can't even begin to, I mean, I can't even begin to imagine that. And yet there are people out there doing it and they're, they don't have to say anything because they're, they're destroying it athletically. So, you know, again, who are we to say?

It's funny. We went to an, uh, an endurance race, cycle, cycling race in Utah. And there were six of us and five of us were vegan. And one guy was raw and we found, we kept making fun of him. We're like, Oh, this is what it's like for us. And now we're turning it on you. Exactly. Poor guy. Yeah. And then we're like, Oh, we're going to get burritos. Can you just eat salsa for dinner? Yeah. What does it, I mean, you have to, I mean, talk about being prepared ahead of time. Right. I mean, for an ultra cycling race, you know, how do you even, you know, begin to approach that? You need many vans or a gigantic RV, I suppose. Yeah, that's funny.

He was the same friend who did Vine Man, which is the iron distance race in Northern California with me. And the next day I was hanging out with some family members and he was making a salad and there were six of us. And my cousin goes, oh, that's a lot of salad. There's only six of us. And he says oh that's a lot of salad there's only six of us and he says oh this is just for me yes welcome to fruitarianism right um no i have a friend who uh do you know evan rock he's a fruitarian guy um lives in la and uh he's a great guy he you know by day he's a very buttoned-up business guy. And he works in commercial real estate, like in the Valley.

And I ran into him at Whole Foods at lunchtime. It was like last year. And he's wearing his nice press shirt and his business suit and everything like that. But he was eating. And he had an entire half of a watermelon just cut in half. And he was just eating it with a spoon. And he's like, yeah, they know me here. Now they get it ready for me when I come in.

And, you know, I'm sure the people that he works with give him holy hell all the time, you know, but like he's doing, you know, he's like, no, but this is what I'm doing. This feels right to me. You know, there's something to be said about that. There's, you know, a lot of it is esteem, I think. And, you know, and it of it is esteem, I think. And, and, you know, and it just takes more work to be different. And I think a lot of dietitians who question things like veganism, they don't expect people to do the extra work required. And so they're saying, well, you know, this is hard. And most vegans say, yeah, I think it is hard. And you know what, I'm going to do it because I'm motivated. Right. Well, I think that there's,

there's a condescension with that, right? I think, and I believe Dr. Greger talked about this on the podcast as well, where a lot of doctors, it's not that doctors don't know that if somebody is chronically ill, that incorporating more fruits and vegetables into their diet is going to be a good thing. They just don't think people are going to actually do it. So they don't address it as a viable protocol because they think people just are going to blow it off. But maybe trust people a little bit more or, you know, if you find somebody who seems appropriately motivated, then that should be something that is at least provided as a viable option or one of, you know, one thing to do along

with other things. And that's like sort of the intuition, a good health practitioner should have. Right. So do you ever have people, uh, I'm sure you do that come to you and say, you know, I was, I was vegan, but it didn't work for me. And, you know, I felt lousy and I went back. I mean, you mentioned it, the guy, the person who said, oh, I had eggs and I felt better. I mean, how do you usually respond to something like that? You know, iron is an issue for women, you know, if you're an omnivore, vegan, whatever. And it's something that, you know, vegan women need to think about. And I've found, I've said, you know, I've looked

at the diet record and say, Hey, my numbers are coming up low. You should get this checked. And, um, and I've, I've had clients do that and show low iron, and then we can address that with diet. So iron with women. Yeah. Um, total calories. We already said, Oh, you said if someone came to me and, and they were having trouble with being vegan, I would... Or like, I, you know what, I used to do that, but I couldn't do it. I felt lousy or... Oh, got it. So we started talking about this earlier and said, you know, I've seen both extremes, like a whole day without eating fruits and vegetables. And then the other extreme is restricting, restricting, restricting to like, okay, fat is bad. Okay. Nuts are bad. GMO is bad. Non-local is bad. And you're not left with much because you know, food is politicized and, and this is where it borderlines on eating disorder

because you want to do what's best and you eliminate so many things that you're just not left with enough food to get the nutrients you need. Right. Or it just becomes too much of a pain in the ass. Right. Like, I have to check all these boxes just to have dinner and feel okay about myself. Right. You know, that's exhausting. Yeah. And then if you're only eating vegetables, like it's a hell of a lot of vegetables to

eat to meet your nutrient needs, you know. Have you ever had a moment where you thought, I can't do this anymore? Or have you been full on in since you were 17? Or have you had lapses? You know, I joke that I couldn't imagine at 35, it would be a lot harder to totally switch my diet. But at 17, as like a motivated, angsty punk, I was like, I'm going to do this no matter what. angsty, like punk. I was like, I'm going to do this no matter what. And, um, you know, having an Italian American mother who taught me how to cook and then like buying tofu for the first time and, you know, cutting off a piece and popping it in my mouth and like gagging.

Cause I thought it would taste like something and it tasted like nothing, you know? And then I was so amped on it that this idea of veganism that I didn't care. And I just figured out how to cook it, you know? Right.'s, you've never looked. Yeah. I mean, I haven't looked back. I mean, traveling internationally can be tough. You know, you do what you can, you know, I've been in rural Mexico and I've, you know, rice and beans, rice and beans, but maybe some other stuff that you don't want to eat. Yeah. Good. And the, and the And I just lost my train of thought. Oh, yeah, I know what I want to say.

You said choking on tofu, and it reminded me that another, because you're a registered dietitian, I have to ask you this question because it's sort of like the coconut oil question. Is soy good or bad? There's these different camps on this, too. Like, nothing wrong with soy. Soy is a super food and you know, Oh man, soy and the estrogens and you got to be careful. And, and my understanding has always been, you know, I opt for the fermented versions of soy, non GMO soy tempeh. And then I'm kind of, you know, I don't, I don't drink soy milk. I'll drink almond milk instead. I try to avoid like the gmo soy or the non-fermented versions of that but i'm interested in your perspective yeah i i think you know up to three or four servings a day of soy is totally healthy

i don't think there is really evidence that it is bad for you i think a lot of it you know goes back to the western a price foundation you know and like I was saying earlier about hundreds of thousands of studies about soy and to get a couple that are like, Oh, maybe this means it's not good for you. Doesn't tilt, you know, decades of evidence. So even these people that are saying that it did boost estrogen levels and it can screw up people's menstrual cycles and all that kind of stuff. Are those vetted studies or are those outlying kind of perspectives? Or, I mean, I'm sure you've heard that stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think they're, they're outliers and it hasn't been replicated enough. And a lot of it is like philosophical, like taking a study that shows,

Oh, maybe it does this. And then saying, well, it probably does. Like drawing these strong conclusions from weak evidence because it fits with what they want to say. Right. I see. That's interesting. I mean, are there other kind of long-held beliefs about certain kinds of foods like soy that you feel strongly about? You may be addressing. Maybe not, but I thought I'd ask. You know, I've seen recently this sort of like anti-fruit thing about insulin. Well, that's part of the low-carb thing. So, you know, No Sugar, my buddy Vinny, who I love to death, Vinny Tortoretti.

I just met him. Oh, you did? You met him? Where'd you meet him? I met him at 508. Oh, you did? Okay, good. How'd that go? You know, he didn't know who I was. Oh, he didn't? And, you know, I said hello, and I didn't want to debate with him. And it was funny because I had a copy of No Meat Athlete in my hand to give to Chris Kossman.

Oh, you did? Yeah, and I share a mutual friend with him, and so they were chatting and hanging out. And, you know, I was like, I don't want to argue with the dude. I flipped through his book, you know, and there's no index. I wanted to look up bananas because I'd heard on, was it your podcast that he said bananas make you fat? Uh, I don't think that was on mine. I'm sure it was on his. Yeah, probably. And so I did the race as a team this year with the same team I had done in 2007. We did a fixed gear team, you know, and, uh, so in the middle of the night he was there at some

like turn to make sure people went the right way and our van pulled over and i said oh hey he's like hey how you guys doing i'm like we're great do you have any extra bananas oh you said that to vinny yeah what do you say he said oh no i don't have any i'm like oh i'm like we need bananas yeah well here's the thing i I mean, I love Vinny. We're talking about Vinny Tortoretti, if you don't know. He has a popular podcast called America's Angriest Trainer. And he has this sort of, you know, boisterous online persona. He's very brash and outspoken. And he is that in person.

But he's also a sweet guy. I've known him for years. We're friends. We've trained together. We have mutual friends. We hang out. You know, it's all that. There's a lot of bluster there too.

But kind of one of his sort of crowning principle is this no sugar, no grains thing. And he did talk about this on my podcast where I said, all right, well, look, I get the whole high fructose corn syrup and refined sugar and all of that. We all eat ridiculous amounts of that. That stuff's got to go. We can all benefit from getting rid of that. But I can't get on the no fruit man wagon. And he was like, well, have you read Gary Taubes? Have you read Peter Attia and all these, citing these sort of, this is the advent of the new nutritionist and these are the people that are kind of coming up with these new ideas about saturated fat, et cetera. And Vinny's position essentially is that the body doesn't know the difference,

whether it's high fructose corn syrup or fine sugar or an orange, and that in his opinion you shouldn't be eating fruit. And I said, I just, I can't get, I'm not down with that. You know, I'm just, I cannot get on board with that. I eat tons of fruit. I will always eat tons of fruit. And the micronutrients the macronutrients the sort of minerals and vitamins that are you know it's like i don't

i'm not going to pound jugs and jugs of orange juice but you know i think eating fruit is part of a balanced healthy diet irrespective of whether you're vegan paleo whatever you are right and your body doesn't know the difference i mean it's fiber fiber is the difference you know fiber slows the release of these simple sugars and so it changes your how the insulin is releasing your bloodstream and it's good for you i mean have there ever been any uh fruitarians that have become type 2 diabetics not that i know i don't know maybe there has been but i'm not i'm not aware of any. Right. Right, because you would think, like, on that principle, like, you're constantly eating sugar.

All they're doing is eating sugar. Simple sugar. But no, they're eating in the whole form. I mean, you're right. Like, orange juice, I would, any juice, honestly, I would put in closer to, you know, high fructose corn syrup. But when you're eating a whole fruit, it's much different, and your body does know the difference. Right. But when you're eating a whole fruit, it's much different.

Your body does know the difference. Right. And listen, nobody here is saying to do what Durian Rider does, which is pour refined sugar on your cereal, like a whole bag of refined sugar on your cereal. Have you seen those videos? You know, someone just told me recently that he's not raw anymore. I thought he was raw, but now he does refined. I don't know. I don't know what's going on there. Yeah, I can't keep up with all that.

But I know there's a lot of controversy and all that kind of stuff surrounding him and the Woodstock Fruit Festival and all that. Yeah, I don't keep up with that as much as maybe I should, maybe I shouldn't. I think you're doing just fine. This all relates to sort of science and evidence. It's like there's not enough vegans in the world that have been studied to really know for sure, you know, if they're going to have a definite lower rate of heart attacks. You know, we can piece it together because they have the components of eating more fruits and vegetables, eating more fiber, eating less saturated fat, and all of those things. It's well established that they're good. But there aren't that many vegans that have been studied long enough.

So fruitarians, no way. Paleo, no way. Well, also, there's different kinds of vegans and there's different kinds of paleo people. And so you can't how you're going to really perform a study that's going to have any real meaning right and i think that also plays into the doubt the whole doubt thing well there aren't any studies so well that must not be you know well we don't know and that uncertainty perpetuates the status quo but we do know there's lots of studies on fruits and vegetables being good for you whole grains being good for you legumes being good for you like Those things are clear.

The people who eat more of those, whether vegetarian, vegan, or just plant-based, we do have studies saying that that is better. They have better health outcomes. They're less likely to get cardiovascular disease. That information is pretty clear. Right. I mean, for me, it always boils down to two things for me, which is the argument to, at least from an athletic performance point of view, to not be a vegan is that you're missing the protein, the quality protein that you need to perform as an athlete.

Other than that, I don't know that there's really another valid argument. Yeah. I mean, some people talk about iron, but. Right. All right. So iron. Okay. But all I know is that that's never been an issue for me so

i feel like i've dealt with that and you know i'm getting the you know protein is made up of amino acids and if i'm getting those amino acids through different sources and even understanding that they're the assimilation of those is different whether it's an animal food or a plant food if i'm eating sufficient amounts of that, I can bank on the idea that I'm probably absorbing enough of it to, to, you know, get me where I want to go. And also understanding that there's a lot of misconceptions and overemphasis on protein as being this thing that we need so much of when in truth, everything I've read that comes from studies that have nothing to do with vegan or whatever is saying we're eating too much protein.

If you're getting like between 10% and 15% in your diet, you're where you need to be. And then – so then I'm like, well, all right. So I think I'm good. I continue to feel good. this idea of if you if you extract the ethics argument out of it which i don't because ethics are important to me but just for purposes of this point i want to make let's take ethics out of it and um i just lost my train of thought again no the idea is uh oh yeah yeah to um to never remain to never become like too dogmatic about what you're doing, right? Like, if I woke up one day and I said, you know, I feel horrible. I don't have

any energy. This has been going on for months. I'm doing everything right. I called Matt. He told me my diet's right. You know what I mean? I'd go, maybe I am missing something. And then I would have to, as a logical, sort of open-minded person, entertain the possibility that I'm missing something in my diet that could be provided from animal products. In eight years of doing this, that hasn't happened yet. But I always try to remember that I need to be that way. Like I don't want to be a closed-minded person who's holding on so tight to this mantle of like this is who I am. person who's so holding on so tight to this mantle of like, this is who I am. And you know, the truth of the matter is, is I've painted myself into a corner here because now I'm the plant-based athlete guy. And you know what I mean? So it's like, what am I going to do if I

wake up one day, I'm going to be like the world's hugest pariah if I suddenly ate animal products, but that day hasn't arrived. Like I still feel good. I don't see any reason to, um, go back. And yet at the same time, I continue to learn. And what I eat now is different than what I ate two years ago and certainly different than what I ate four years ago. Right. And that's why I'm careful about how I promote veganism. I say there are a lot of reasons to go vegan and you can do it in a healthy way. Here's how.

I don't say this is the ideal diet by any means. But it can be, and I think you touched on a few things here that I do want to mention so that people listening aren't like, okay, he interviewed a dietitian and he talked about tattoos and punk. Um, you mentioned, we're talking about food here. So you mentioned iron, for example, I think a critique is that, you know, non heme iron, which is found in plant isn't as readily absorbed. And that's true, but you know, you add vitamin C and I don't mean the supplement. I mean, foods with vitamin C and absorption increases five fold and avoid, avoid, uh, tannins at the same time. Right. Don't drink coffee at the same time. Right. That's way too complicated, man man i can't be expected to remember

that right and and and then another thing is like just serving sizes people are like well you know a half a cup of cooked spinach has this much iron it's like right but once you're vegan long enough and you're starting to understand it you see how small half a cup is as a serving you know you eat monstrous servings of fruits and vegetables so therefore you're multiplying out these percentages right i mean i could eat two bags of spinach like no problemo i mean if you saute them and they turn into nothing you know what i mean you can eat them easily so so i was at a restaurant and you know we asked for you know extra vegetables as a thai place you know with our um pad cu or something like, can we have extra broccoli? And they're like, sure. You know, it's a dollar 50. Like, no problem. And they brought out like four pieces of broccoli, like four P and that's, that's most people's idea of like the amount of broccoli that

you would eat in a meal. Right. I mean, I think, you know, for the most part and sort of, again, let's push aside the outlying kind of cultures like the Inuit or whatever. But I think predominantly and for the most part, even from a paleontology point of view, you know, meat was precious and rare and a delicacy. And through the ages, whether it's the Mediterranean diet or what have you, that meat was kind of the delicacy side dish to a plate that proliferated with vegetables, whole grains, legumes, seeds, and nuts. Right. And, you know, my ethical vegan friends hate when I say this, but you can eat small amounts of animal products and be healthy. You know, but what is important is what you're doing most of the time.

And that, you know, absolutely what is important is what you're doing most of the time. And that, you know, absolutely has to be plant based. I mean, that's where the evidence is that you're eating mostly plants. And not to, to sort of impose this mantle upon you that, that because you're a vegan and a registered dietitian, that you're also an environmentalist, but, and a registered dietitian that you're also an environmentalist. But another kind of popular idea is this grass-fed idea. Like, well, if we all just eat grass-fed, it's more compassionate, and it's obviously healthier. And I'm not an expert in this area at all,

but I can't imagine that if suddenly everybody decided they were going to be grass-fed that they're we don't we can't it's not a sustainable solution to feed everybody right we in order to feed people what do we have seven billion people on the planet right now if we're going to feed people animal products then that requires a factory institution in order to provide sufficient amounts of that to feed everybody the way that they currently eat. And space and resources. I mean, it's math about how much you need to feed a cow in order to get the edible portions of it out. And that's unsustainable. I think there is, and again, this is something I probably should know more about than I know, but I think there's an argument floating around or an article somewhere about the myth of, you know, the, there's a certain pride among vegans, like,

well, if you, if you eat this way, it's more sustainable. Like this is the way to save the planet. And I think if you do the math, you say, well, if you're not eating animal products, like if you look at the, the, the sort of, um, ecological footprint of that, it's, it's far less than the way that most people eat if everybody did that we would we could solve a lot of problems we could feed the planet we could you know reverse greenhouse gases and all of these things um i i know there's some arguments floating around though that say this is actually a myth that's not true or have you seen that or i mean i i follow like you know johns hopkins has um they do meatless Monday out of there. What is it?

They have an institute that looks at this. Johns Hopkins University. And they put out research that looks at this exact topic. It's like, how many calories do you need? Input and what do you get? Output. And I think it's pretty clear. I mean, right?

Livestock's long shadow, the UN report. Like, we have some data on this right so that in other words the the vegetarian myth is not a myth i don't know right right and people say oh you know we get very influenced by what's immediately in front of us and it's true for everything and people see like you know a vegan burger you know they're individually packaged and they're in a box and they say you know this couldn't be good for the. Like it's in a box and it's in plastic and it's like, right. That's because you don't see the waste and the resources that go into a cow and having thousands and tens of thousands of cows in one place. Yeah. Interesting. Where's this all heading from that? You know,

are we going in the right direction? I mean, do you, are you, are you an optimistic person about. And I am, I am optimistic. I mean, having been involved with this since the mid nineties and seeing so much excitement about this actually, while I was waiting today to meet up with you, I emailed a colleague, Annette Larson Meyer. She's a PhD RD. I forget what university she's at, maybe Wyoming. And she wrote a book called Vegetarian Sports Nutrition, which I always recommend. And it's not very popular because it was put out in academic press. So it's a little harder to find. It's a little more expensive. And I wrote to her and I said, Hey, you need to do another book. You need to update this because

this stuff is so much more popular than it was 10 years ago when she wrote it. And so, so you're feeling good. I am. I mean, you know, I was on, um, you know, with Matt Frazier, I jumped on the no meat athlete book tour for a couple of weeks, a couple of weeks, 10 days. And, um, someone raised their hand and said, you know, now we have your book and rich rolls book and Scott Jorick's book. Like, what did you do before those books yeah i was like wow i'm like what do you mean there's like dozens of books right like oh this is starting right now for this person right this is exciting yeah yeah it's cool let's talk about matt frazier for a minute that guy's the best right it was so fun you know i just you know i worked with him

i've written for his website and then you know we ended up i ended up co-authoring his book and just how did that so he just asked you to come on to yeah with him on it yeah we just got talking and i was going to contribute and then the more we talked the more we found that i could contribute so it just made sense to make me a co-author right so for somebody who might be new to the podcast matt frazier he has a website called no meat athlete he's a website called No Meat Athlete. He's a bench of a guy. And he's constantly putting out really helpful, accessible content for the everyman or the runner or the athlete. And his book that Matt co-authored is called No Meat Athlete.

Yeah, and it is a guide to eating healthy and exercising. And it's very useful. A lot of people I show it to say, wow, this is really good. This is very useful information in a readable way. Right. It's essentially a very accessible guidebook to kind of making these changes and making it easy and making it work for you. And that's kind of Matt's whole ethos. First of all, that guy has figured out the Internet.

I know. He won, man. He definitely won the internet. He's like, yeah, I'm going to go. I'm doing my... And he makes stuff happen. He's like, I'm doing my own book tour. He scheduled the whole thing. He was on the road for how long?

And he was in every city and had people show up. So positive the whole time. Oh, my God god it's incredible i love it i mean it was so cool to sit and like hear his presentation like eight times or whatever time i heard it like it was motivating me like the sixth time i heard it i'm like yes yes yes because he's such a positive example right and that's what we need more of you know he's not dogmatic about these things and um he's an ethical perspective on veganism which is nice to hear in sort of the sports world and uh yeah great guy for sure i mean i think there we're definitely

closing in on a little bit of a malcolm gladwell kind of tipping point moment where you know something that you've been doing for so long suddenly other people like this woman who's saying oh you know these books people are starting to become interested in something that previously was such a marginalized kind of way of living. And I think it's a reflection, like you have to sort of say, well, why now or what's going on now that's making this a bit of a zeitgeist thing. And I think people are just, you know, they're tired of the BS. They're tired of feeling lousy. They're tired of the BS. They're tired of feeling lousy.

They're tired of being lied to by marketing companies or advertisements that they can now see are completely transparent. And they're looking for sustainable solutions. It's sort of like the carnival barker, like, hey, lose 10 pounds overnight or whatever the next little diet gadget is people are fatigued of that because people know that they don't lose weight that way it doesn't stay off and like how are they going to actually master this you know part of my whole philosophy with both nutrition and exercising is that we're told all the time like hey this is hard you don't want to do anything hard do it the easy way you'll feel better better. You want to relax, you know? And my philosophy is, you know, cooking can be really fun. It's a skill and you can do it with other people and you like create something that you then get to eat, you know, it's win, win, win. And then same thing with exercise. It's like our world wants us to just sit

in the couch, then sit in the car and then sit in our desk. And it's hard to go out and do those things, but you know what? It can be really rewarding. And I think that's where there's a lot of progress to be made. Well, I think also, yeah, we're sort of, we've been sort of driven or programmed into this place where we think what makes us happy is the big flat screen TV or the new iPad or all these things that ultimately that we're told will help us be closer to our fellow man, but which in actuality are isolating us. And every sort of enlightened master from any kind of spiritual perspective or religion will tell you that happiness is directly correlated to the extent to which you cultivate community around you.

And cooking and exercise are great ways to have community in your life. Cooking, you know, we're not talking, you know, don't cook alone in your home, bring some friends over and do it together, or don't go out running alone, join a group and go out with and do it with friends. And the more that you can kind of cultivate that and bring that into your life, you're going to be a happier person, even though it seems like it would make you happier to sit at home with a giant TV and watch your favorite show on uninterrupted. I know that's my default. That's what inside of me, like is the, there's this voice saying, that's what I want, but I know that that's not what I really want. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm so privileged in that I grew up sort of with this like punk rock and like BMX community.

And like 20 years later, there's a lot of these people are still my close friends. And, you know, we got to Austin, Matt Frazier and I, and we met up with Rip and he said, Rip Esselstyn. And he said, oh, you guys staying in hotels? And Matt says, no, this Matt here knows vegans in every city. And it's true. And it's a community. And it is people that I can i can say hey we're doing this book thing can you know we sleep on your couch in your spare room they're like yes of course how

else can i help you you know and that's a great feeling and and i i want to extend that to more people to build that right that's sort of the uh the model of uh what's her name amanda the musician who did the kickstarter thing and the ted talk do you know what i'm talking about? Yeah. Then ended up getting all this blowback. But, uh, but yeah, her whole thing was creating community around her music and then she would travel all over and stay at people's houses that,

that she had met along the way. Right. And yeah, absolutely. And I mean, that's how like exercise and stuff has been for me. It's like, I hated gym class.

I hated having to run the mile because it seemed like work and like something you were forced to do. And what I found is that like going out on my bike, it's like builds community. It's like you see someone else cycling and you're like, Hey, where are you headed? You know, what are you up to? And you don't pull up to a stoplight in your car and lean out to the person next to you and say, Hey, what's up, man? You know? I know. Like a great example of that is before we, uh, when, when I first walked in the house and met you, when I was driving over here, I was thinking, I bet Matt knows this guy that I went to law school with who I know lives in San Diego.

And they just seemed like for, I hadn't, there was no logical, like, well, they're kind of both straight edge kind of guys. And yeah, but San Diego is a big city. Like, why would these guys know? Well, they kind of have the same interest, but there was no, it's not like i knew a guy who knew who i knew knew you or whatever and i was like but you know paul torkin right you're like yeah i know paul like i went to so hey paul if you're listening we're talking about you buddy i miss you come ride your bike up and let's hang out yeah but that's a perfect example of community around because he got into

cycling and yeah and it's helped me so much i mean for these crazy races like furnace creek 508 and like you know 24 hour mountain bike races you need a crew of people and what i found is that when you like you know put out good in the world and you say hey can anyone drive 12 hours stay up all night and hand me food at two in the morning people say say, yeah, sure. No problem. Right. And that's a privilege, you know? Yeah. It's pretty cool. So let's get into the sports aspect of it. I mean, first of all, we need to point out that you don't own a car and you live in Southern California. So I'm fascinated by how that works. You're coming up, you come up to LA like once a week from San Diego. Yeah. It feels like that. You know, I mean, I lived in LA

for eight years. It still feels like home. Did you have a car when you lived here? No, I didn't. So you've never, you have a driver's license. I can drive a car. Yeah. I have to rent a car more often than I want to admit. Um, mostly to drive my bike places to go riding. Um, but yeah, you know, it's like veganism. It's like, you got to work a little bit harder, but there are a lot of rewards with that. what are the rewards i mean community i mean riding a bike in la and meeting people and um it just you've a city that's your bike right there right yeah behind you yeah my road bike you know one of six you know how it is um you know that i saved oh you save so much money not having a car i'm like well actually do you know any cyclists you don't save that much money so yeah it car. I'm like, well, actually, do you know any cyclists? You don't save that much money.

So yeah, it's just, you know, LA is such, I have such a different experience riding my bike here and being around and knowing the neighborhoods and the side streets and, you know, pulling over and going, oh, what is that restaurant? And just hopping the curb and going and checking it out. And you can't do that in a car. You have a very, you know, much more tactile kind of experience of the city that way.

Right. And again, not everyone can do it all the time. But you know what? A lot of people could probably take some of their trips by bike. Oh, I mean, well, Los Angeles is the most isolating city in the world. Everybody just gets up in the morning, they get in their car and they drive and then they go to their office or what have you. And you don't interact with people. And it's, that's why, you know, I'm like, I need to be going back to New York, you know, a couple of times a year. Like I need that experience of being on the street and

interacting with people. And, you know, I miss that. And you just don't have that here. You have to really seek it out. It doesn't come easy. And LA has, you know, as soon as I got here in 2003, I just touched base with other cycling folks and it has grown so much. And I mean, in another 10 years, Portland, watch out. I think Los Angeles is going to rival you as a big city. That's a challenge. People in Portland aren't going to be very happy about that. We already have better vegan food. Oh, snap.

Oh, no. You sure? You sure about that that except maybe portobello portobello where do you where do you uh where do you like to eat in la what what restaurants are your favorite oh man good question um you know we have excellent burritos in lots of places yeah um you know there's like there's a little th Thai place in MacArthur park. That is just my favorite. It's like, it's called Thai food express. It's in MacArthur park neighborhood. So right after you get your, your, you buy your heroin, you can go and get your Thai food. Yeah. It's, it's a rough neighborhood. Sure. But, um, it's safe. It's fine. And, uh, you know, they, they have mock chicken. It's just a little hole in the wall place. And think they have some buddhists in their family or something and it's just like such good

thai food you know what's it called you don't know it's called thai food express okay it's my favorite place to eat cool so for all the angelinos that are making their way down to macarthur park um and and you know it's like you know having ethiopian food readily available and and then of course the vegan places like um god what are some of my favorite like sage is a good one flore is a good one um yeah off the top of my head those are the ones that come to mind i ate india sweets and spices today the vegetarian place and they're great so that that's an interesting response it's a very democratic response because you could have easily said, oh, I love Crossroads or I love Cafe Gratitude.

And there are certainly a lot of high-end vegan eateries that are kind of the bastion of the hoi polloi and they're expensive. And that's another kind of issue that comes up, which is I can't afford to eat a plant-based diet. This is something that only fancy people do. And you're like, oh, the burrito stand. You know, I love these little, these barrio, you know, burrito stand, wherever. And you're improvising and you're finding ways to do it.

And those are not expensive options at all. Right. It's like people are like, oh, I couldn't be vegan because Whole Foods is expensive. It's like those are like, oh, I couldn't be vegan because Whole Foods is expensive. It's like those are two completely different things, especially in Los Angeles and all the markets we have and the ethnic markets and the produce that you can find, you know, for cheap. Right. I went to, you know, Vallarta market in the valley. No. I was like deep in the valley. Yeah. I bought I like did an experiment. I can't find the file. I made a video and now i can't find it but

because i haven't posted it but uh i went to whole foods and i i'll go oh blueprint juice you know which is tasty but they're like 11 each you know i was like wow two blueprint juices after tax that's about 25 bucks right 25 for two 12 ounce juices wow. Wow. And I was like, I wonder what I could get for $25 at Viarda, which is just a low-cost grocery store deep in the San Fernando Valley. And I went there and I filled an entire shopping cart of produce, and it was like $24.50 or something like that. So it's like what are the other – for people that want to do this, but they are of the idea that it's expensive.

I mean, what are some of the ways to reduce the costs? You know, a trade-off is doing some more work, right? It's a privilege to go and eat at expensive restaurants. And the other side of that is having to do the work to make the food yourself. But that can be enjoyable. And then once that becomes a habit, it's much easier and takes less time. Right. I think there's, there's startup costs. Like you got to buy, you know, like I need to get my, whether it's flax oil or certain things that are a little bit more expensive. Once you

have them, they last for like six months or something like that. Right. Right. And when we look at it, it's like a base of a diet should be whole grains, you know, brown rice isn't too expensive. And then beans, you know, you can buy dry beans and soak them yourself. And, you know, even though it takes a long time, you know, you soak it overnight and it cooks for, you know, hour and a half, you can be doing something else while that's happening. What about grains? That's the other, that's, that's the other side of the Vinnie Tortorich coin. We talk about the no sugar, but then there's the no grain thing. And that no grain thing, I think, gets into issues of GMO or sort of refined grains and how they kind of mimic sugars and all of that.

But, you know, is there a difference between, you know, a refined grain and, you know, long grain brown rice or these other like what I think are healthy grains, which I eat plenty of. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're getting that whole like outer component, you know, of the grain. You know, literally the whole thing is what you're eating, which is why it's called whole and so you're getting more fiber more protein more micronutrients more phytochemicals is there any evidence that these things are bad like i've never never even seen a link to like a research study that said what about this there's this whole grain brain thing though about and maybe this possible link to is it al Alzheimer's? Is that gluten-oriented?

Or I don't know. Again, another issue that I'm not an expert on. You know, I read one of these articles on one of these sites, and I think this is where it gets dangerous with sort of veganism and fringe. Was it one of the like green something? I don't know. I don't want to call out the wrong site in case it wasn't them. But they posted something about this link to grain and Alzheimer's.

And it was written by a physician. And he, I don't know if it was one of the anti-grain guys. Maybe he has a book. And he linked some articles. So I followed those articles. And then those articles mentioned research studies. So I looked up those actual research studies. What he wrote was not connected in any way to the studies that he cited.

And it's like, how do they get away with this? And I emailed the website, you know, who also promotes vegan stuff. And I said, this is dangerous for you to be doing. This is just wrong. No response. Right. Interesting. And I feel like there's a lot of that. Well, of course there's a lot. I mean, the internet is, that's what the internet is based upon. You know what I mean? Like, and it's, it's hard as a consumer because you want to rely on what you're reading. And if somebody has footnotes, then it's like,

well, I'm not going to read what those footnotes are, but the simple fact that there are footnotes, this guy must know what he's talking about. So I'm going to believe him. Right. Right. Right.

And so as, as somebody who's trying to make educated choices, it becomes harder and harder. It is. It is. And, and people reach out to me because they want to feel more confident in what they're doing. And so I try to give them the resources,

one to like actually do it in a practical way. And then two, like I send them to research and books that, you know, I feel strongly about and that I can recommend. Right. Okay. All right. So 508, how many times have you done the 508? I've done it three times solo. Three times solo. I didn't know you'd done it that many times solo. Wow. What8 i've done it three times solo three times solo i didn't know you'd done it that many times solo wow what year what years did you do it eight nine and ten 2008 2009 oh god i think vinnie did it in 2008 and 2009 i know 2008 he did yeah i was out there one year i've been out there like nine years in a row or something, one way or another, because I've helped with the race, too. And I remember I was out there once when he was riding, for sure.

He goes by Pound Puppy. Because at 508, everybody has to have a nickname. That's how you're identified. What was your nickname? Desert Locust. How do you decide these things? I'll tell you. I have a bike club called Swarm.

Uh-huh. You know, S-W-A-R-M apostrophe. And so a few friends of us who have done it tried to pick things that swarm. I got you. Is swarm an acronym for something? No. It was just an active word that just sounded good. It fits your sort of punk straight edge ethos yeah right yeah all right

so desert locust um and uh and what i mean were you when did you start getting into cycling so it was that cross-country trip really did it for me and you know i didn't even want to wear the spandex i was like i will never be one of those guys that wear spandex you know but then anyone who rides a bike knows you need the spandex if you're riding a lot. And then I moved to California and I was just taking trips on my bike and enjoying it and never really thought of myself as a racer until I was helping a friend train for AIDS life cycle. And we did a century and I saw these people wearing these jerseys that said California triple crown 200 miles in one day. And I didn't even know

that was possible. And then so long story short, I got involved in that community of doing double centuries and then sort of the race from that is the 508. So for people that don't know, the 508 is sort of the cycling version of Badwater. It's a 508-mile cycling race. You ride 508 miles consecutively without stopping through and across Death Valley. You ride the same roads that you run in the

Badwater race. And it's definitely considered the sort of crown jewel of the ultra-cycling world, with the exception of ram i suppose um but it's definitely a high prestige race and uh that's no small thing man i mean you know i've done some crazy stuff and i've ridden my bike long distances but 500 miles consecutively without stopping is something that i'm very unsure of whether i would be able to do if for no other reason than I can't my, my butt, like I

can't sit on the saddle that long. I get saddle sores and it just becomes unbearably painful. So I'm interested in kind of, you know, how, how it went the first time and what you've learned and, and kind of, um, you know, what the future holds for you with that. You know, I, I, I was very, very cautious in approaching this because i didn't really have an athlete background and double centuries just seemed like a fun way to spend my day i'm like 200 miles in one day wow 16 hours okay and i started to do more of those and it started to come kind of naturally it's like this fits with my personality being out exploring all day 200 miles and then a good friend of mine uh morgan Morgan BB goat is his, uh, his totem.

He said, I'm going to do 508 this year. And he had just gotten into ultra cycling in March and said in October, I'm going to do 508. And he just, he pushed the ceiling cause we thought, no way, how is this even possible? And he said, I'm going to do it. And he was a PhD student at the time at UCLA. So he's kind of of that mentality of you just do it. And we crewed for him, and it was my first year out there, and he finished, and it just sucked me into the whole environment. Well, after you crew, you're like, either you're like, I don't want anything to do with that, or you're like, I'm in.

There's very little people. People aren't usually neutral about it. You're going to come down one way or the other. Yeah, and it seems so insane, like looking back, you know, to ride 500 miles straight, but you sort of build your way toward it. And I was doing, I love mountain biking. It's like the skateboarding of cycling, you know. And I got into 24-hour races, and I thought, okay, well, I just need to keep going.

Road bikes are faster, and I just need to train my way up to it. And so what did the training look like? So I started with doing the mega miles thing, which when I look back wasn't the smartest. But on the other hand, I had that huge base. I probably rode 10,000 miles in the first year. I was really into it, just Saturday and, Saturday and Sunday back to back centuries. And then, um, I did, um, Paris breast Paris, which is the randonneuring event in 2007. Um, it's 760 miles, but you get three days to do it.

Right. And I took the full three days. I slept a lot unlike everyone else. And then, um, I thought, okay, I can ride far distances. Now I need to get stronger. And then I approached it that way. And so to get stronger, did that mean like hill repeats or interval work or gym work? I mean, were you, you know, break that down a little bit? Yeah. I, I started then to be an advocate of the gym and, you know, Pilates and yoga and light weights just to build some good, like, solid strength. And then working on shorter, faster rides, some intervals and, like, lots of hills. And what I found is that being a bigger guy for a cyclist, you know, hills were hard.

And so I trained them over and over. And that helped so much for 508. And so the first year that you did it, what kind of, you know, what was your, I mean, what's going on? I mean, I could get through, you know, like I could foresee myself, you know, what I'm going to feel like at 250 miles. But then beyond that, I have no experience. Like, I don't know what that looks like. You know, you, it's mental. Like once you get to the physical fitness level, it becomes mental. And you need to really work on that aspect where you break it down mentally, where you're like, okay, it's Saturday morning and I'm going to be riding until Sunday night.

And once you accept that, it becomes easier. Not easy, but easier. And I broke it down in, know first 200 miles and then you hit towns pass which was like a 14 mile climb right death valley yeah and i was so excited to be there and amped and then it's nighttime and it feels like a totally different race you know you step off the bike for the first time after 12 hours or 13 hours and you eat a little bit of solid food. And then you're like, okay, the next stage of this is me riding until the sun comes up and you try to reset. Right. So you break it down into like, this is a couple of different races.

Right. And what I did when Morgan raced, I was his crew chief. I looked through cost, Chris Costman, you know, the race director keeps great records. And I looked through, Chris Kossman, you know, the race director, keeps great records. And I looked through and saw why most people didn't finish. Overwhelmingly, it was stomach issues. Right. Because I think people don't eat enough while they're riding, and then they get starving, and then they overeat, and then they feel sick, and then they quit. Right.

I mean, I think you can't approach a race like that or any ultra like that in the same way that you would approach an Ironman and people that are just going liquid the whole time or gels. And you hear these stories about people that drink and sure, you know, like that kind of stuff and go do Ram and all of that. But I think they're the minority. I think you have to think more like a stage racing cyclist and eat, be eating real food and be eating, you know, not, not because you're hungry in the moment, but 12 hours from now, your body is going, you know, you're always eating for the future, for the future, for the future. And being conscious of that and making sure that your caloric intake is not going to run you into some deficit that is going to be impossible to pull out of. Right.

And you have to train for that. I had to train for eating on the bike. And a lot of people don't do that because they train up until where they're comfortable and then hope on like race day, it'll just work out. But you have to train, you know, 12 hours on the bike. What are you going to eat? What can you feed yourself? Right. And I think, you know, you had this huge base. So then it became imperative for you to work on your strength. But for most people, you, you, I mean, not, I mean, for everybody, I think you can't circumvent that volume and i know when vinnie was training for it um and i was training for ultraman at the same time so we would intersect and do like one day a week saturday uh he would do his long ride and he

would start that ride at generally about 2 30 or 3 in the morning wow and then he would ride until about eight or nine at night that night straight and he would park his truck at the um calabasas commons which is a little outdoor mall where there's a starbucks and stuff like that and sometimes i would park my car there too and i park it next to him i wouldn't start my long i do my long ride on saturday for ultraman but i would usually do about a century or something like that but i knew he would loop back and he would have his nutrition in his truck. So he would do the, you know, the ride from 3am until like seven on his own. And then he'd meet friends and ride with them for several hours. And then he would just continue on throughout the day. And it was funny because I'd do my part. I'd ride with him for some and I'd do the rest of my ride to finish.

I go home, I shower and taking my family out to dinner and I'd see him out on the bike, you know, like still going. And you're like, yeah, cause you got to do that. And you got to get used to what that's going to feel like. Right. You have to have experience with that level of discomfort and what your gastrointestinal tract is telling you and how you're going to deal with that and what your butt feels like.

Right. Right. And I took a long arc to sort of get there, Um, because you know, I wasn't sure I wanted to do five away and then I have a little bit of like ADHD with this stuff because I get bored. And so I was like swimming and running and yoga and Pilates and gym and, and all that stuff adds up and it all helps. I think a lot of cyclists and runners focus too much on the one thing they do and not enough on sort of cross-training. Yeah, that's a good point.

That's interesting. Yeah, and it really helps. And that's a big point that Brian McKenzie was making when I had him on the podcast. And I agreed with him on that. I think that is important. And it's something that does get overlooked. And particularly, you know, all the muscles that don't get used. You know, cycling is a very specific fitness, right? And it doesn't translate into other things. You know what I mean? Like you

could go to a yoga class and be super sore because all you've been doing is riding your bike and, and you've got to, you know, make sure that your foundation is strong. And when I say foundation, I mean like the rest of your system, right? Like you gotta have that core strong, you gotta have all this and that that's going to allow you to fire on all cylinders on the bike but you can't overlook that stuff and for me it was just like it was it was random i didn't have like a specific training plan saying doing all these things to get a whole body benefit i just did them because i liked them and i'd get bored you know i can only do so many long rides right you know so saddle sores you were like what i mean like that's the thing that i think would bury me yeah so a first year um you know we'll get to that but like lows mental lows and being

prepared for those like other times i wanted to quit yes did i absolutely hate it yes did i like hate my bike yes all that stuff happens you know it's not a joy ride the whole time but what i've learned is you sort of like you you like embrace that, like this super low in the middle of the night and you're cold and you're like, why am I in death valley? And it is like rather primal. And like, it's like this experience, like 99% of people don't get to have. And then, you know, the sun comes up and you feel better. Um, and I finished and I slept for 15 minutes total. Um, right when the sun came up and I had some saddle sores for sure. I got done and basically wanted to pass out. Right.

You know? And I think the idea being like you have those low moments, but knowing that if you stick with it, that that will change. Like just because you feel horrible then doesn't mean that you're going to feel that way for the rest of the day. Right. And then, you know, I'm not going to give these like long detailed stories of all three times, but the second time was memorable because that was the year where there were 60 mile per hour winds in death Valley. Right. I remember hearing about that. And I was in really good shape. I mean, between those two races, I did maybe one century. I was just like strong, strong, strong hill climbing. It was the

lightest I'd ever entered. But I also, you know, wasn't taking it too seriously. We got to Furnace Creek, 250 miles in, and I jumped in the pool at the Furnace Creek Inn, you know, take a little mental break. And then I got back on the bike and that's when the winds really started. And Morgan, who had finished, you know, a few years prior was my crew chief. And the winds were so bad, I was in my easiest gear on flat standing up. Wow. And that's just demoralizing mentally. And so I had thought, Morgan said, you're either riding or not.

You can't sit. You can't do anything. You're not allowed in the van. And I thought, you know what? With the winds, he's bad. It's just going to time out. I'm not going to be able to finish in time. So I'm just going to wait until that point. And then, so I rode at like six miles an hour for like three hours.

Well, I think the other thing that happens is that you think you're the only one who's dealing with that. You know, you think like no one else is having that problem. Right. And it turns out the sun came up, you make a turn and the wind stopped. And suddenly I had a burst of energy, which is crazy. I'd been on the bike 24 hours and I thought, okay, well let's do this now. Let's make up some time. And I started to push and then, you know, I got toward the end and I started passing all these people. And I find out that like half the people in front of me had quit because of the wind. And so that year I finished 10th, which I was surprised by. Yeah. That's incredible. I finished 10th, which I was surprised by.

Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, thank you. That's amazing. Yeah. Were you riding a traditional road setup? Did you have aero bars? People tweak out their rides and do all sorts of crazy, weird, unique things. Right.

For all three years, I had a steel road bike. I was riding a 7, and I just threw aero bars on there. That's it. And do you ride a a low profile rim? Like you ride like 404s or anything like that or just regular? Just regular road rims. Yeah, regular road rims. Yeah. I like it, man.

That fits you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. You know, it's just, you know, my friends were happy to crew and they had a good time with it. And then, and so now you've done it a couple of times as relay too with riding a fixed scale.

I mean, what's it like riding? How long were the segments that you were riding as a relay you know what happened is in 2006 we rode the relay it was morgan's support crew and then one other guy we're like you know it'd be ridiculous to do a fixed gear team and then we just did it for fun right and we had anybody ever done that before no not as a four-person team that's cool we still have the record. And we were the Bonobos, and we raised money for the Bonobo Conservation Initiative. Oh, wow. Yeah, for Bonobos in Africa.

Cool. Yeah, and it's just fun. It's like we were goofy kids, you know? Right. Like our friend Sasha. She's actually the filmmaker for the Day in the Life that I do now. Uh-huh. She made a little documentary about our 508 experience.

It was a lot of fun. Oh, cool. Yeah. documentary about our 508 experience it was a lot of fun oh cool yeah so you must have seen um this uh the the big thing right now is that um death valley national park has denied all permits to all sporting events for 2014 so there's not going to be a furnace creek 508 or a bad water race in that park i mean chris will figure out different locations for these races and these races will take place. They just won't be on the traditional courses.

It's so unfortunate. You know, I've been I went to Death Valley for the first time for 508. And now I love Death Valley. I take people there all the time. And that was my introduction to it. And it's such a crime. I mean, it's these like fun haters, man. It's like, come on.

Right. I mean, do you know, is there any behind the scenes story that you know from the other people that you've talked to? I mean, all I know is what I've is these press releases that I've read and the, and the one weird article about how it's radiation oriented, which has, you know, been debunked or whatever, but, uh, it was interesting for five minutes. Um, you know, it's a new person in a high up position says, wait, what's happening here? No, I don't, I don't think we should do this. Let's do a quote safety review, you know? And it's just like bureaucracy and like over concern, like safest, you know?

Yeah. We have to be super safe about everything all the time. There was a, yeah, they were like, well, it blocks up traffic and ingress and egress is a problem and all that kind of thing. And it's, it's true. Well, it's true. And to the extent that like from bad water at night when you're you're making that big climb and you look behind

you and it's it's headlights as far as you can see from the crew vehicles but the thing is there aren't that many people out there and very very few there's so few that it's not like there's a lot of traffic trying to get in and out of there it's right in in fact when you're out there you're like who built a road out here and why did they build a road? Like who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to build a road all the way out here? And it's an engineering marvel because it goes over these mountain ranges and all this

sort of thing. And you're just imagining workers working there under incredibly difficult weather conditions in order to make that road possible. It's extraordinary. And, and, and and costman knows this and he has a great safety record you know he puts a lot of emphasis on safety oh my god i mean the pre-race meeting is like you know he's you know he lays it out he's like you cannot you know drop one little piece of garbage out here and if we see that you're out of the race, like it's super hardcore. Like he's trying to regulate that as best as he can. And, and for the,

from what I've seen, everybody falls into line with that because everybody's on the same page. They know that, that, uh, they're always in jeopardy of not getting the permit, but nobody, I don't know that anyone ever thought it would actually happen. Right. Right. I mean, people, he adventure cores like has created an ethos, right? And people who do his events, you know, follow suit. You know, they're concerned about safety and they have fun, but, you know, they do a really good job. Right. Cool.

So, are you going to do it again? You know, we did the same in 2013. You know, there's the abbreviated route. And we did the same team as from 2007, 2006. So the same four of us did fixed gear again. And that was really fun. I hadn't been out there for a couple of years. So that was great. But maybe you're going to have to do it again. Now it's the modified route, right? You have to experience that, right? How much do you ride these days? You know, I took 2013 off mostly. I raced cyclocross the end of 2012 and I've been kind of burnt out from these long

events. You know, I've done some ultra running, some 50 milers, some a hundred Ks and that sort of thing. And I just needed a break from it. Um, and so what's next? I don't know. I, you know, I, I love, I love Ironman training. I do. I love the swimming and running and biking and the goal. Variety keeps it fresh for sure. and um you know i try to make that stuff interesting like i love to run commute like someone invites me over for dinner like oh it's seven miles i'll run over for dinner and then run home you know i love integrating training that way and so you know maybe i'll go back to do vine man this year but you're not signed up for anything no i'm not i'm not all right well now you're being called out oh right you have to sign up for anything no i'm not i'm not all right well now you're being called out oh right you have to sign up for zoning now right either that or um the new mexico um enchanted forest 24-hour race

is the national championships this year and so um i race single speed 24-hour mountain bike so maybe i'll go out for that wow that sounds cool yeah 24-hour mountain bike races are the best yeah i've never done anything like that people should go and just hang out at them. Yeah, more of a party than cross-racing? It's like a 24-hour cross-race. Oh, really? Wow. Interesting. With camping, yeah.

Super fun. Maybe I'll have to check that out. Yeah. You can do teams and hang out with your fire, and people hang out by the fire and drink beer, and then go do a lap, and then come back and hang out some more. I'm too intense for that. Yeah, you can race solo then. Just keep going. There come back and hang out some more. I'm too intense for that. You can wait solo then.

Just keep going. There you go. All right, man. Well, we've been going for a couple hours. I'll let you go. But how many clients are you currently working with? Oh, man, I'm not sure. It's always new people coming and people coming and going, that sort of thing.

But you're open to new people contacting you? Absolutely. My website is truelovehealth.com. That's right. So that's the best way for people to get a hold of you. Yeah, definitely. I do a lot of speaking. So I'm always available to do speaking events and that sort of thing.

Yeah, you have a speaking schedule. Where are you speaking next? You know, I'm trying to think. I don't have a lot scheduled just yet because this Engine two thing is going to take some time for sure. Yeah. Cool. So you might be doing some of their emergence. Yeah. It was really fun when I did it. You'll have a great time. They, they, they've really dialed it in. Like it's, it's, it's a really strong event for anybody who's listening. Uh, the farms to forks immersion weekends are, they're very powerful and they've, they've really helped a lot of people and change lives. They're

amazing. So if you, yeah, if you're going to go speak at those, they're fantastic. I can't wait. Yeah, very cool. And social media, you're on all Twitter and Facebook and all those kind of things. Matt Resigno, just at Matt Resigno, right? Correct. Twitter and Facebook, easy to find. Cool, man.

It's been a pleasure. Yeah? What else do you want to promote? Come on. You know, we've been talking about this about whole foods is um the publisher from no meat athlete uh approached me about writing a book on superfoods and i just finished a book with um chef joshua plogue oh cool on cacao oh wow a whole book on cacao 75 recipes almost all of them savory wow so yeah interesting chocolate lasagna

really yeah that's cool when is that coming out in june june 1st and what's it called it's called it's superfoods for life um it's a series superfoods for life and cacao cool yeah and you've got to write your own book now i know i know everyone's like oh so this book you're working on is about vegan athletes i'm like, actually that book hasn't come out yet. Right. We'll see. All right. Well, yeah, it's your time, dude. Yeah. Thank you, man. But, uh, definitely if you haven't already, um, check out the no mean athlete book, but do it by clicking on the Amazon banner at it, which we'll.com first. Right. Then we both win. Matt wins. I win. And the other Matt wins. Matt Frazier. Right. Yeah. Cool. How's the book doing? I we both win. Matt wins, I win, and the other Matt wins. Matt Frazier, right?

Sounds good, yeah. Cool. How's the book doing? I mean, it was killing it. I haven't looked on Amazon in a while, but you guys have been destroying the Amazon rankings up there. It was crazy. Yeah, he put in a lot of work, and it's doing well.

The publisher is very happy, and it's getting to a lot of people who I think otherwise haven't heard about this topic. So it's great. It's a good sign. Awesome, man. All right, man. Well, thanks for doing this. Yeah, thanks for having me and for chatting so long.

Cool. Right on. All right. Peace. Take care, man. Plants. Plants. Plants.

Plants. Thank you.