The Rich Roll Podcast - Swimmer Garret Weber-Gale On Olympic Gold, Healing High Blood Pressure & Haute Cuisine

Episode Date: January 8, 2013

2-time Olympic gold medalist. Member of the 2008 Beijing Olympic 4×100 freestyle relay that will go down in history as one of the greatest moments in Olympic history. American record holder. NCAA Champion. And the first American under 48 seconds in the 100 meter freestyle. Garrett Weber-Gale, one of the world's most decorated competitive swimmers, joins the podcast to talk with Rich about elite performance, professional athleticism, life (and food) at the Olympic Training Center, how he healed his high blood pressure with better nutrition, and his passion for fine cuisine cooking, quality eats and helping people. NOTE: I am well aware that the audio on this Skype interview is less than ideal. Issues with Skype not picking up my (Rich's) microphone properly. Apologies. Again, I'm a newcomer at all this and can only promise to have it dialed in better next time. Thanks for understanding (& try not to hate). SHOW NOTES * Garrett Weber-Gale Wikipedia * Athletic Foodie * Garrett in Sports Illustrated * Garrett Weber-Gale Credits Good Nutrition for Olympic Gold * Garrett on Twitter: @GWeberGale Want to be inspired? Watch below as Garrett & his boys Michael Phelps, Cullen Jones & Jason Lezak do their thing in the 4×100 freestyle relay at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Greatest. Olympic Moment. Ever. HOW CAN I SUPPORT THE PODCAST? 1. TELL A FRIEND! (Self-explanatory) 2. SHARE ONLINE! (Also self-explanatory) 3. SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW the show on iTunes, Stitcher and Soundcloud and TuneIn. 4. DONATE: Check out the DONATE button on the right hand margin or click HERE to learn more. We even accept Bitcoin! 5. DOWNLOAD THE NEW MOBILE APP! Now you can access, stream, download and share the entire RRP catalog in the palm of your hand on any iOS mobile device (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) with our new mobile app. Never miss an episode, plus special announcements, discounts, giveaways. Already downloaded? Awesome. When you have a minute, and it feels right to you, do us a solid and give the app a review in the iTunes Store.

The Rich Roll Podcast. I can't believe we're already on our 10th episode. I feel like we just started this. Well, we did just start it, actually. It's brand new, and we are still trying to find our way through this and learn how to do this right. So forgive any amateur mistakes or audio recording problems or anything like that. We're doing the best we can, and we're heading back from Hawaii to Los Angeles in about five days. And when I get back to LA, I'm going to have some new studio equipment

and I'm going to try to notch things up in terms of production value and quality and all of that. So thanks for bearing with us through this early phase. So today, very, very exciting guest on the show today. Very proud to have the phenomenal Garrett Weber-Gale on the show. Who is Garrett Weber-Gale? Well, if you're a fan of swimming, and Olympic swimming in particular, you've probably heard of Garrett. I wouldn't say he's a household name, but if you follow the sport of swimming, he's certainly a celebrity in that world. And beyond that, he's just a really

fascinating, interesting, great young man. And I was really excited that he was willing to come on the show and share with us today. I've known Garrett for a couple of years. First got acquainted with him through Twitter, which I love the fact that I met him initially through Twitter. And I've been following him for some time and he's really a remarkable kid. First and foremost, he is one of the world's most accomplished competitive swimmers. One of the leading sprint freestylers in the world. His accomplishments go on and on. If you're not a fan of swimming, maybe that won't mean anything to you. And you might think, well, I don't watch swimming or I've

never seen this kid and I don't know anything about him. But I almost guarantee you that you have seen him swim because almost everybody saw that relay in 2008 at the Beijing Olympics, the four by 100 freestyle relay, the relay that included Michael Phelps. And it was the relay against their arch rival, France. It was a very hotly contested race race there was a lot of pressure on both countries to win this race and um france as i recall i think it had the better of the united states or you know i can't remember exactly i could have my facts wrong but anyway um this was a big race and as they were going into the fourth leg uh amer fell behind France. And Jason Lezak, who was the anchor leg on that relay, pulled it out, touched out France for the victory. And it was so exciting.

The race has gone down as the greatest race in United States swimming history. And I think it's one of the greatest Olympic moments of all time. And Garrett was on that relay. So you probably saw him swim and you probably saw him jumping up and down on the deck after they won the gold medal there. So that's the guy we're going to be talking to. But he also won a second gold medal in the 4x100 medley relay at the same Olympics. Garrett is a former American record holder. He held the American record in the 50 freestyle, 50 meter freestyle with a blazing 21.47. And he was also the first American to go under 48 seconds

in the 100 meter freestyle. So when I say he's a fast swimmer, I mean, he's like super fast, right? Like one of the fastest swimmers ever. He also won an NCAA championship. He was the NCAA champion in the 100 freestyle. He swam for the University of Texas between 2003 and 2007. And he continues to live in Austin and train under the tutelage of Eddie Reese, who's the head coach there and has been the head coach there forever. I mean, he was the head coach at Texas when I was a swimmer at Stanford in the late 80s. So he's a legendary coach, one of the greatest swim coaches of all time. And Garrett has thrived under him. And what's interesting beyond his athletic accomplishments and why I think Garrett is such an appropriate guest for this show

is his interest in food and nutrition. Most swimmers that I know, and in fact, most elite athletes actually don't know enough about nutrition or simply aren't really all that interested in it. But Garrett has a very profound and keen interest in nutrition that started back when he was 19 years old and was diagnosed with high blood pressure, which sort of forced him to take a look at what he was eating and try to dial it in and address this medical issue that he had. The doctors wanted him to go on medication, but because of drug testing, et cetera, some of the drugs that the doctors wanted to put him on are on the banned list. A guy like Garrett gets tested all the time. So that was not an option. And of course, he wanted to continue to swim and compete. So he really had to take matters into his own hands. And he had to essentially heal himself with food. And that's

essentially what he's done. And that experience of learning about nutrition, learning about food, learning how to cook, really planted a seed in him for this passion for food that he has. He's passionate about cooking. He's passionate about helping people get healthier. And this is a guy who is so passionate about food that when he has time off in the off season, instead of relaxing by a pool, he flies off to Europe and apprentices under some of the top chefs in the world at some of the craziest, most amazing restaurants in the world, like Michelin, three-star Michelin restaurants. And, you know, Garrett's a guy who's a go-getter. He's been able to connect with some of the most famous chefs in the world. He's rubbing elbows with Daniel

Balloud and guys like that. And also is always giving back. You know, he uses his culinary skills to host fundraisers, to raise money for kids' organizations and for United States swimming as well. So he's an inspiration. He inspires me. I love following him. And, you know, maybe most of all, what I love about him is just his pure enthusiasm. He has an amazing positive attitude and he's just enthusiastic about life and the world truly is his oyster. He's really an amazing character. So very proud and excited to have him on and chat with us. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life.

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Without further ado, let's talk to Garrett. Let's do it. Episode 10. All right, let's rock this thing. Garrett Weber-Gale, how you doing, man? I'm doingrett weber gail how you doing man i'm doing great thank you how are you i'm doing good thanks for taking the time to uh to talk to me today i know you're you're pretty busy garrett's out at the olympic training center right now what are you doing a training camp yeah i'm at a training camp out here with the university of california

actually under coach dave durden i'm getting an opportunity to train with some different guys uh nathan adrian who won the hunter freestyle this summer at the u.s uh the olympics in london and anthony irvin who is longtime great american sprinter he competed in the 50 freestyle in london and just getting a little bit of fresh air and and new opportunity to learn. Yeah, very cool. I mean, for those who don't know, that's the best of the best when it comes to, you know, the world's greatest 50 and 100 freestylers, right? Yeah. And really, I've been at Texas for 10 years. You've heard the University of Texas training there. I love training there. I think that that system and that program is the best in the world, but you can always learn from new people. And I'm just

trying to come out here and pick up some things in the weight room and in the water, some drills and some different technique things on my stars. So it's really been a fantastic experience so far. Yeah, that's great. I mean, I think it's important to mix it up. You know, it's easy to stick in your, you know, stay in your rhythm and work with the coach you've always worked with and believe in but you know to kind of spread your wings a little bit try something different and mix it up with some people you don't you know necessarily get to train with that much yeah and and i think actually one of the most beneficial things is that you get when you're in your own zone, you kind of start building this mentality where everything that you are doing and everything your coach is giving you is the best. And you think

that your team, you guys are doing all the best stuff in the weight room, the best stuff in the water. But really when you go and get a chance to work with some other people, it really is eyeopening that, you know, people are stronger than you in different ways. And maybe they're doing some different things on their stroke that you could learn um really it's just a unique opportunity to always try and get better and my philosophy is i'm always trying to get better than i was before and and i know that i can't do it alone i need to be pushed by people who might be better than me or no more than me yeah you got to get out of your comfort zone but you also have to be careful right because you want, you got to get out of your comfort zone. But you also have to be careful, right? Because you want to feel confident about your primary coach in the

program and believe in that wholeheartedly. So it's sometimes I think it can be a risk to try something new and you don't want to be second guessing, you know, your main program. Yeah, that's true. And it's easy to always say, oh, the grass is greener on the other side. Texas trains way differently than Cal, and Cal probably trains way differently than Georgia versus Auburn versus Stanford. And it's easy to go into a different environment and think it's all fun and games and new and exciting. But yeah, you have to stay confident that what you've been doing with your coach is what got you there and will continue to help you be great. Yeah, right.

Cool. So how long are you there for? I got here on the 30th and I'm here until the 10th. And what are you currently training for? Like what's the focus? Actually, well, dang, I don't know that I'm going to let that cat out of the bag because it hasn't been announced officially. But I'll just say I've wanted to compete in a meet in Israel for many years. And I am Jewish.

And you are not allowed to compete at that meet if you are going to the world championships as well because they're at the same time. So in 2005 and 2009 they have this meet every four years um i went to the world championships and did not go to this meet in israel but this year i'm finally getting the opportunity to do it and i'm super excited about i've always wanted to do it and they haven't announced it officially yet so i'm not gonna uh go there but i'm sure some of you guys will know what that competition is. Right. I think I know what it is. I'm not allowed to say it myself either. I better not, right? You better not, Rich. Okay. All right. I don't want to jinx it. I don't want to screw anything up for you.

You know, it's the second largest sporting event in the world. This year, there'll be 8,500 Jewish athletes from like 130 countries competing so it's pretty special deal i'm very honored and and excited to be part of it yeah very cool i mean i know athletes who have participated in the uh not aforementioned event if it's the same thing i'm thinking about and and uh they yeah and they you know it was a life it was a life experience for them that you know i know guys that did it 20, 30 years ago, and they still talk about it being one of the greatest experiences of their lives. Yeah, absolutely. Very cool.

Well, Garrett, you are one of my favorite athletes, certainly one of my favorite swimmers, but one of my favorite athletes in any discipline. And I was trying to remember how we first got acquainted. I know it was through Twitter. I don't know how it happened. It was several years ago when I, you know, you first got on my radar and we chatted a little bit. I've been following you ever since. And I just love, you know, kind of your life path. I love your enthusiasm and your positive attitude. And, you know, you're really so generous in kind of providing a window into what it's like to, you know, live and be a professional athlete. And you're great on social media. You know, you just share so openly about, you know, what you're going through and all your experiences.

It's been really fun to watch your career unfold. Well, I appreciate it. That is my goal, to hopefully give people a look inside what it's like trying to compete and be on the world stage. And, you know, they didn't have Twitter really at the 2008 Olympics when I competed, but I have really tried to do as best job I could, keeping people in touch and, you know, the world championships I've been to. And it's just a really unique opportunity for me to try and inspire people, teach them some things about being healthy, eating healthy, cooking healthy. And I really enjoy and I'm honored that people follow me and that I get to interact with them. Yeah, it's cool. It's been

really fun for me personally. And I know a lot of other people have been getting a lot out of it. So I want to take a step back and kind of go back to the beginning. You grew up in Wisconsin and I assume you swam at a club team there? I did. I swam in Wisconsin. I swam for Nicolet High School and I swam for Schrader YMCA for a little bit and just grew up in Wisconsin all my life swimming and sailing and skiing. And I'll tell you about being in Colorado I see this mountain every day I'm like golly I wish I could go out there skiing it'd be great yeah you don't want a broken ankle though I don't think that would bode well for would not be good yeah so let's stick to the pool for now plenty of years later on when you can ski true so when did it start to

click in like that you know when did you first start to show real promise as a swimmer and think, wow, this could be, you know, something beyond, you know, the local club team and, you know, maybe I could take this to the next level? Yeah, well, my mom and her brother and her father all swam in college. And my mom actually had my sister and I in the water when we were six weeks of age, even if it was just for like four minutes just to get us used to the water. And so I was always around the pool and always around swimming. I was on a summer league team when I was a kid and I was always naturally really good at swimming. And I lived around the corner from this outdoor pool in the summer and all our friends would be there.

My sister and I would we're just pool rats. We spend all day there. And it just kind of was a natural progression somewhat. And my parents, they were really smart in that they forced my sister and I to do many different things. So even if we wanted to swim year round, they wanted us to do something else. I played soccer. I ran across country. I played middle school basketball. I played baseball. We went to summer camp. My sister got really into art. And it wasn't until my freshman year of high school that I started swimming year round. And actually, this was kind of a defining point for me. My parents, I love basketball. And I thought maybe I'll swim one year and then play basketball the next year because they're at the same time in Wisconsin during the high school season. And my parents said, no, you should pick whatever you think you're going to be best at and do it to the best of your abilities and really focus on it.

swimming at a high level. And I thought and knew that I was a good swimmer, but had never really put the effort forward swimming year round or going to morning practices or spending time in the weight room. And so I decided to swim. And that was the first time I'd ever swim year round my freshman year of high school. Interesting. I mean, that's unusual, I think. I mean, most swimmers that reach year level start to do the two days in the year round training, you know, as early as, you know, 12 years old or so. Yeah. And I think that there is a place for that for some people, but I've seen so many kids get burned out. Their parents have this desire to have them be this great athlete, whether it's swimming or cross country or basketball, whatever. They push their kid to

do something year round and grind it out. And really, it's just, it's not possible for most kids to do it for so many years. And so when I started doing it freshman year, year round, I was excited about the challenge and the possibility of how fast I could get, because I'd never really worked before. You know, I would swim for four months and then play basketball for three months and then play baseball for four months. And, and I just started working hard and it was a funny thing. When I started working hard, I started going faster and then I worked harder and I went faster. And then I started going to the weight room and I got even faster. So it was just a natural progression. And how long before you started kind of posting times that made an impact on the national scene?

I went to the YMCA Nationals, and I won my freshman year. I won the state high school meet in the 100 backstroke my sophomore year. And then my junior year at the YMCA Nationals i went 45 for it was pretty fast time 100 freestyle and i got second and after that we made a really unique decision my family and i we were kind of of this understanding that to really be great at something you have to have a great coach and be in an environment that can help you swim faster and push you to a new level. And in Wisconsin, we didn't really think that there was a coach that could take me there. And there wasn't a program that had swimmers that were dedicated enough and wanted to push the envelope enough.

So we looked at going to either a team in L.A., Nova Aquatics just south in Irvine. And then we looked at going to Texas with Randy Reese, who's actually the brother of my coach now. And my mom and I went to Texas after my junior year. We spent a summer there and I got so much better. I begged my parents to let me stay the first semester of my senior year high school. So my mom and I stayed in Texas and I swam and I got so much better. I was training like crazy. It was so exciting because for the first time in my life, I was around other kids who really were passionate about working hard and becoming great swimmers. My senior year of high school, when I went back to Wisconsin to compete in high school swimming, I broke the national high school record in 100

freestyles. It really made a huge difference for me. Interesting. And, you know, kind of, you know, between the lines of what you're saying, there's obviously like a huge amount of family support. Yeah. And I tell people it's great that you think that I have the gold medal at the Olympics, but ultimately it's not just my gold medal. It's my parents' gold medal. It's my sister's gold medal.

It's my grandparents' gold medal, my coaches. It takes an enormous community of people, a support staff, to help develop an elite athlete or a concert pianist or whatever it is. And I couldn't do it alone. And my parents, you know, I was living in Texas with my mom. My dad was living in Wisconsin. My sister was in school in Rhode Island. So it was very trying times for them. And I thank them, you know, so much. And really the greatest moment of the Olympics for me was seeing my parents in the stands when I was on the awards stand and how happy they were and how fulfilled they were. I knew how much dedication and sacrifice, how much happy they were and how fulfilled they were i knew how much dedication

and sacrifice how much money they spent how many times they've driven me to morning practice at 5 30 and that was just such a great moment yeah for sure i mean i think there's a yeah there's this idea yeah there's this idea that because it's an individual sport that you know it's kind of all for one and and you know if you if if you win win, then you're the one who made it happen. But it's just impossible at the level that you're at in any sport to achieve what you've achieved without dozens of people behind you helping to make that possible. Absolutely. There's no question about it.

And really, I think one of the most important things that I've been taught from my parents and also from my coaches at University of Texas is that it's really important that you go and thank as many of those people who helped you and help them understand what a difference they made in your journey. Because really, that's one of the most important aspects always being grateful for the people who helped you get there yeah for sure and i mean that's a lesson for life you know really yeah for sure i mean eddie reese our coach at texas he always tells us after every meet you know go shake the hand of every single official on deck those guys are volunteering their

time thank them for being there and supporting you guys. So that's what we do. Yeah, that's good. I mean, when I was writing my book and it got to the part where, you know, I turned it in and it was essentially completed, but I still had to write the acknowledgements, you know, the thing that goes at the end where you kind of thank everybody that helped you out. And, you know, initially I was just going to sort of thank my family and people that kind of helped me write the book. But the more I started writing it, I started to think to sort of thank my family and people that kind of helped me write the book. But the more I started writing it, I started to think, like, no, this book is the story of my life and all these things that happened. And it's appropriate for me to address and thank everybody that played a part in making this journey unfold. And so when I turned in the acknowledgments, it was like 10 pages long.

And so when I turned in the acknowledgments, it was like, you know, 10 pages long. It was like 10 page long love letter to essentially everybody who, you know, helped me out my whole life. That's awesome. Like, this is like, if anything, this is like the most important thing like this. I have to have this in here. And they had to like reformat the whole book to like make it fit and everything. But yeah, it's, it's, you know, you have to do that. And, you know, is winning something really mean like what is an olympic gold medal really mean you're not obviously competing and devoting your life to go to the olympics because you want a materialistic object and um it's interesting the medal is beautiful and i love it um and i love sharing and showing people the metal, but I guess what really is the most satisfying for me is, is having my parents and my sister and all those people who supported me be happy because, you know, they put a lot of, it's like an investment. You don't know if you're going to get anything back from it, but I just tried to give as much happiness and fulfillment back to repay everything that everyone did for me.

And the medal is just a symbol. It's a symbol of the journey. And I'm sure when you're 85 years old, you'll fondly think back on that 4x100 free relay or other highlights of your career. that 4x100 free relay or other highlights of your career, but you'll probably even more fondly look back on, you know, just hanging out with the guys that you trained with and, you know, in the locker room after practice or, you know, all of that is really, you know, where the real value is. No doubt about it. So cool. So, all right. So your family kind of, you know, really goes the extra mile to, you know, get you out to Texas and take you to the next level. And so I assume that then attending the University of Texas was kind of a no-brainer for you?

Or were you looking around at other schools? Yeah, I definitely was. I looked seriously at Cal, at Stanford, at USC, at Arizona, and at Texas. And it came down to USC and Texas for me and I really when I went to Texas in high school that was no relation to the fact that I end up going to Texas but Texas was great I wouldn't have rather gone to any other school the coaches there really the reason I went to Texas is because I thought it was the best world of swimming and academics. And I really believed that the coaches would be there for me more than just swim coaches.

And I think the fact that Eddie Reese and Chris Kubik at Texas cared for me more about Garrett the person as opposed to Garrett the swimmer, that's really why I progressed and excelled in swimming and also did well in school. Interesting. Well, I mean, for those who don't know, Eddie Reese is one of the most, if not the most legendary swim coach in the history of modern swimming. I mean, he was the coach of Texas when I was in school, which dates me back in the mid and late 80s. And Texas was an absolute powerhouse back then and has remained so for such an incredibly long period of time. I don't know that I've ever heard anybody speak ill will of Eddie. He's an amazing guy and an amazing coach. No doubt. Yeah, he really is.

You show up at Texas and you become a member of this iconic swim program. Then something happened with your health when I think you were about 19. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. So I went to Texas and the fall of my freshman year was 2003. And when I was 19, really kind of in the start of 2005 season, 2005 season, um, started my junior year. I went into the training room and I got my blood pressure taken and they said, okay, well, your blood pressure is kind of high. Why don't you come back, you know, tomorrow or the next day and we'll retake it. And so I went back the next day and it was high again. And they, they said, why don't you just keep coming back and we'll just test it before you go to practice. So I got to the point where I was going to the training room every day and the doctor was taking my blood pressure every day before I went to practice.

And after about a month, they said, man, your blood pressure is always constantly high. And so they started running some tests and I saw a cardiologist and I saw a nephrologist to look at my kidneys. And actually on three different occasions, my blood pressure was so high that it forced me to not go to practice. The doctor took the reading and at one point it was 213 over about 110. And the danger was when you actually go work out, your blood pressure goes higher. And it put me at a really severe risk of having a stroke or a heart attack. And it was a mind-blowing experience for me. Just a year earlier than that, the summer after my freshman year of college,

I missed making the 2004 Olympic team when I was 18 years old by one place. miss making the 2004 Olympic team when I was 18 years old by one place. And a year later, after 2004 Olympics, I was sitting in my couch and the doctor had told me that day that I couldn't swim because my blood pressure was so high. And I was there sitting there thinking to myself, you know what? My Olympic dream might be taken for me and it's no fault of my own. And that was a really scary realization for me. I really had no idea how serious high blood pressure was or could be or even that it was going to potentially stop me from swimming. But I kind of decided I needed to figure out a way to change this and I needed to figure out a way to lower my blood pressure. It's interesting. I mean,

that's very unusual for somebody that young to have that condition. I mean, what were the doctors telling you? I mean, is this a genetic thing? Is this just a freakish thing? They really didn't know what to say. They have no idea why it's like that. Interestingly, there are other young athletes in certain sports that have high blood pressure. Some people think that it is the added stress that you put on your body from so much training in the weight room and in the pool. Some people will say it's your personality. I mean, I'm pretty high strung. I'm a big perfectionist in a lot of ways. I don't really think that's what it is. I think I'm a pretty relaxed guy most of the time. But I don't know.

I think doctors are really good at fixing things sometimes, but they're not very good at telling you why something happened in the first place. And so no one ever was able to figure out why I have high blood pressure, which is frustrating. Yeah. But they did have an idea of what you should do next. Well, yeah. I mean, the doctor, they wanted to put me on medication. I said, there's no way I'm going to take medication right now. I'm tested by three different drug testing organizations, and I hate putting anything in my body that I don't have to. So I said, what else can I do?

And they said, you can try and refine your diet, and you can try and do some relaxation exercises. You can try and refine your diet and you can try and do some relaxation exercises. So I started to see a nutritionist and figured out what I needed to eat and some of the things that I could do to lower my blood pressure. And the only problem was is that right around this time I had moved out of the dorm. You were a freshman and sophomore year in the dorm at Texas, and I had no idea how to cook anything. So even if I knew what I should be eating, I had no idea how to cook anything, which was a big problem. Luckily, I had – Knowing you now, that's very hard to believe.

Yeah, it's crazy. So growing up, my sister, my mom, and dad always cooked everything for me. And I loved eating good food, but I had no interest in learning how to cook. And part of the thing was in high school, you know, I'd get done swimming at seven o'clock at night. So by the time I got home, you know, they had to have dinner ready for me. Otherwise, I mean, I was just the nastiest grouch if I'm hungry and my blood sugar is low. So I never knew how to cook. And my parents luckily had the foresight the holidays that year to give me some private cooking lessons from a chef in Austin where I live. And I would go over to this guy's house and he was a teacher at the Texas Culinary Academy,

a culinary institute in Austin. And I would go over to his house on Saturdays and for about five hours we would just cook in his house. And he taught me knife skills and how to make a stock and how to whatever cook a chicken roast vegetables make a cake I mean anything I wanted to learn the guy would just teach me and it was a blast it became a huge passion for me and really what it was is swimming as you know is very long-term gratification. We work for months and months and years so that hopefully sometime down the line, we have an opportunity to go best time and fulfill our dream. Well, cooking, you work for 30, 45 minutes, an hour in the kitchen, and all of a sudden you have something that is hopefully delicious if you're doing it right, fueling you in my case was lowering my blood pressure and it was really exciting time for me because it gave me a release from school it was kind of a way that I relaxed and what were the kind of foods that you were learning how to cook that were having an effect on your blood pressure I mean what was the switch yeah well originally it was just simple You know, I kind of came from the normal swimmer's mentality.

And a little bit of swimmer's mentality is that a lot of swimmers and athletes in general have an entitled mentality on food and eating, which is I work so hard. I'm training my butt off. I can eat anything and not gain the pounds. I can eat anything and I'm fine. So living in the dorm, a lot of it is not the healthiest food. And so I work just to do some small things. I work to cut out salt in my diet. I took the salt shaker off my table. I stopped salting my foods. I started doing little things like instead of drinking the juice, eating the whole fruit, going from romaine lettuce to spinach or to kale or, you know,

carrying a water bottle around me through the day instead of just always being thirsty. Just tiny little things that I would do in my diet made a difference. And so this chef, he would teach me how to – this is a different thing. I know you're totally plant-based. It's okay, man. I'm an open-minded guy. I'm just interested. He would teach me little things like, hey, this is how you cook a piece of salmon on the grill. This is how you can cut a grapefruit. Just the simplest little things.

This is how you can make a chicken sock so you can make a chicken soup. I made fresh pasta. You taught me how to make a tomato sauce. You taught me how to roast beets in the oven. Just all these little things that I'd never learned how to do before became easy things that I could do in the kitchen, which provided me delicious food, something healthy and that was nurturing me. And so a lot of it was lowering my blood pressure just by understanding the basic principles of cooking responsible food, cutting out some of the junk. I usually, as a swimmermer would eat until i felt full and my big thing is i tell people eat until you feel good and stop and i know this is a little bit hard

to tell some people because i'm very fortunate to be able to come back for more food later and i know that there are many people in this world many people in this country who don't know where their next meal is going to come from. And I very much take that into account. I'm very appreciative that I have the food, but it's better for me to come back for something later in an hour than to totally gorge myself at one sitting. So all these little things added up to making a really big difference in how I felt. But essentially, it's about reducing the sodium. I mean, is that the core principle behind lowering the blood pressure? Yeah, a lot of it was the sodium. A lot of it, I think, was preservatives and little, you know, just junk that I was eating that I didn't realize.

junk that I was eating that I didn't realize. Yeah. I mean, I would imagine that pretty much most, if not all processed foods are kind of off the menu for you. I mean, because they're so high in sodium by nature, even when they don't taste like it, like when you learn how to really read a label, you realize like, you know, the crazy amount of sodium that's in so many things that you wouldn't even imagine, even like a Coca-Cola, you know, it's crazy high in sugar and salt. It's nuts. And I really can't tell you a pinpoint answer of what lowered my blood pressure, but even little things that I did, like switching from, you know, I never thought about not using just regular white flour pasta or cooking white rice. And as stupid as that might

sound, it never really crossed my mind. And partly because, you know, I wasn't the one cooking. I was eating in a dorm, a dining hall, the athlete dining hall. And my parents always cooked relatively healthy when we were growing up, but not to the extent that I do now, not to the extent they do now, because we just didn't really know. We didn't really know that white flour pasta was not great for you. And interestingly enough, I'm reading a book right now called Wheat Belly, which will tell you that whole wheat flour pasta is not any better for you anyway. So that's another topic of discussion. But my point is that it was a lot of little things, like switching from romaine to spinach and kale or switching from white pasta to whole wheat and switching from white rice to brown rice or kamut. Just all those little things really added up to making a big difference.

And it took me about a year and a half to see this change. I mean, it took me a year to a year and a half to get into cooking to see my blood pressure lower. a year and a half to get into cooking to see my blood pressure lower. I did lower it to ranges of about 140 over 80 with my diet after a year, year and a half. And then after that, the doctors really wanted me to go on medication to lower it to the 120s over about 70 because as an elite athlete, they want it into the lower range because I am working out so much. So it took a year to figure out a medication that would work. As I told you, I'm tested by different drug testing organizations. And of the seven classes of blood pressure medication, four of those are banned substances. So there were only three classes we could work in to figure out what would actually work for me.

what would actually work for me. During that period of time when you first started to learn how to cook and eat better and it took a little while for the blood pressure to come down, did you have fear when you were training? Were you sort of trepidatious about how hard to push yourself in the pool? Yeah, I really did. And sometimes I still have that now, to be honest. I mean, there are stories out there where people drop dead on a basketball court. And I can't tell you that that didn't go through my mind. In a hard practice, you know, your stomach is burning, your chest is burning, your arms are just feeling like wet. There were definitely times and still are sometimes where I think to myself, is this really good for my body? Is this putting my body in a place where it could potentially cause severe harm? It's something that crosses my mind and I think that it's probably something

that should cross most people's mind once in a while because we are exerting a lot of energy. And I'm sure at your level, doing the Ultraman, it's got to have crossed your mind at some point. Yeah, of course. I mean, for sure. But in the world in which you're operating in, you know, hundreds of a second make all the difference. And so you really do have to take yourself all the way to that you know as far as as you can go i mean the difference between a gold medal and not going to the olympics is determined in those you know those workout moments where yeah you got to push it all the way and you

know holding back a little bit is going to have an effect yeah and and i think that ultimately it's it's almost like a split second to a three second little blip where that that happens in your mind you think about it when i go to a race i mean there have been times i remember a time in 2010 at the pan pacific championships my shoulder was really bothering me and i remember you know going to that afternoon before the race and thinking to myself, you know what? If my shoulder just falls apart in this race, that's what's going to happen. I'm going to grip it and rip it as I

would if my shoulder didn't hurt. Luckily, it didn't. When you go to the race, you can't have that in your mind. You just need to go and execute your plan regardless of what might be happening outside do you have any like mental tips or tricks or like visioning or any kind of thing like that that you do before your races to get you in that frame of mind yeah a great spring coach named mike bottom who used to coach at cal and who coaches at

university of mich Michigan right now. I went to a sprint camp when I was younger that he was a coach at. And he told me that there is a point in every race that is a different point for every person where you get to that point and you say, wow, this really hurts. Or you say, you know, hell yeah, this is awesome. I'm going to push through the pain. And that's what separates the good swimmers from the great swimmers. So what I did after learning that kind of idea from him is I would envision what my body is going to feel like at that exact moment in time in the race, which usually happens for me about 75 to 80 meters in the 100 freestyle. And I envision what it's going to feel like at that moment.

And then I try and get myself excited for what that's going to feel like and pushing through that because that's when I know I'm going to be able to beat a lot of people. So I get excited about that point, knowing that pushing through it is getting me to where I want to go. So rather than sort of having a fear perspective of what's to come, embracing it. Embrace the suck. Yeah, you have to embrace it. And you almost, it's like if you're in a tug of war, it's like if you're on a bull, you're showing that bull who's boss. I mean, you in that race have're showing that bull who's boss. I mean,

you in that race have to show the pain who's boss. I mean, do not let it get the best of you, because if you let the pain get the best of you, you're never going to have a shot at doing what you want to do. Yeah, your history. So cool. So I want to get back to the food stuff a little bit. I mean, you know, my experience being a swimmer, you know, back at Stanford in the 80s, I mean, it really was just sort of eat whatever's in front of you. And there was almost a pride of, you know, who can out eat the other guy. And nobody ever really thought twice about what we were eating. It was just, you know, we've just gorged ourselves constantly.

And, you know, I can remember coming back from morning workout, just eating an enormous breakfast of, you know, pancakes and eggs and eating an enormous breakfast of you know pancakes and and eggs and bacon and just whatever you know they would cook up in the dorm and then having to sleep for like two hours you know apart from the workout but also apart from just you know caloric overload and so i'm interested to know like you know i guess i've been assuming that times have changed and and that you know elite swimmers are more conscious of what they're eating. So, I mean, obviously you are, but are you in the minority? Or do you find that your teammates, for example, at the training camp or when you go on these national trips or even at University of Texas,

are the athletes paying attention to what they're eating? Is there a logic to their diet? Or is it still just calories are king? It pains me to say this to you, Rich, but it's basically the same as it was when you were in school. I had a feeling that was the case. I mean, it really – it's just insane to me. I'm at the Olympic Training Center and you would think that they are just on top of the ball. You'd think that they have everything the best you could imagine. And I'm so happy I'm here. I'm happy that they allow me to come here and train. It's just a

wonderful place. But they're serving in rich white pasta. They're serving white rice. They're serving whipped cream in a big bowl for everyone to put on top of their waffles with syrup. I went to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich the other day and I looked at the jelly and I said, hey, does this have high fructose corn syrup in it? And she said, oh, let me go ask, actually. You know, it's made with high fructose corn syrup. It's just mind-blowing to me. The athletes, I mean, they're pounding the food here. Where I'm from, I mean, the athletes at University of Texas, I see it all the time. They are just eating anything and everything until they feel full and they walk out of there and then they take a big nap, just like you said. And I think that some people are starting to learn more. And I've really made a strong effort to help other athletes and mentor them. And I talked to the guys at University of Texas, and some of them are definitely cleaning their act up and it's making a difference. And I'm always amazed by these people that say, wow, I can't believe how much of a difference having a good

diet makes. It's like, uh, do you think that the formula one teams are putting unleaded gas in their cars? No, they're not. Yeah. You know, they're putting high performance fuel in their cars so they can get high performance out of their machine. And that's the exact same thing as an athlete. And, um, you know, I think that really the greatest barrier is people don't know. It's a lack of knowledge. Yeah. And, you know, everybody understands that in order to get stronger or faster, you have to train hard. And there is a direct relationship between the training and performance. But there's still a huge gap in understanding or in practice when it comes to, you know, applying that equation to food and performance. And, you know, food just for,

you know, overall health, but food and performance in the athletic context. And, you know, if I'd known one-tenth of what I know now when I was swimming, I just, you know, I think back and I go, my God, I could have done this, I could have done that, I could have been so much better. And it's got to be frustrating for someone like you who gets this on a certain level to see that going on. Yeah, it is frustrating. And really what I've learned is that you can only give people insight and advice kind of in the parameters that they're willing to take. When I first started getting into nutrition and into food and cooking, I wasn't ready to give up a lot of meat in my diet or cheese or not have cold cuts for sandwiches during the day. And that was kind of the early stages of my journey with

food and nutrition. And as I got into it more and more, I started reading, I started seeing nutritionists more, I started learning, I started seeing what worked in trial and error within my own performance in my own body. And every single year, my diet becomes more and more refined to the point where now, I mean, I rarely have meat. I personally don't believe that having meat once in a while is going to kill you. I think that humans are omnivores and we can eat everything. I think to the extent that Americans eat animal products, it is causing huge problems for the health of our country. But I don't eat much meat now. And if you told me five or six years ago, Garrett, you're not going to be eating much meat at all, I'd say you're crazy. I mean, it's just these little things that over time seem manageable,

and they seem like they're going to make a difference. And you are willing to try them because you want to see the result they might be able to make. Right. And I think you're very wise in saying that, you know, people are only willing to see. You have to meet people where they are. And if you get into this sort of advocacy position in terms of what you should and shouldn't eat and start, you know, telling people what they should or shouldn't do, you're not going to have a very good result. You know, telling people what they should or shouldn't do, you're not going

to have a very good result. You know, I, you know, I do very little of that. I mean, I just sort of do what I do. And, you know, if people are interested, I'm happy to talk to them about it. But, you know, the preachiness thing is really, you know, never, never works anyway. And yeah, and you know what, I'm here to give insight and to give information based on what I know, what I've learned and through my own personal trial and error. And my greatest hope and intent is to help people when they have questions and give them advice when they ask for it and help them work within their constraints. constraints. And really, I don't want to drastically change anyone and drastically try and, you know, attack them for eating what they're eating, because a lot of people, you know, what they're eating, you know, is very close to their heart and is tied to their emotions. And the only way that can change is over time. And I guess our greatest desire should be to help people be better a year from now than they are right now.

Yeah. And it is very, very emotional. It becomes really, really tricky. So you have to tread really lightly with people, I think. Yeah. And people eat emotionally like crazy. And some people eat a lot. Some people eat a little when they're emotional. Some people eat fatty foods. Some people eat sugary foods. And, you know, hopefully that can start curbing less and less. And actually what I've found, the crazy thing is when you stop eating sugary foods, you don't crave them. Right. When you stop eating salty foods, you don't want salty foods. But you have to break that craving cycle. And that's kind of an issue that I have with people that advocate these programs or diets where they give themselves a cheat day once a week or every once in a while.

Because if you do that, then you'll never really break free of that craving cycle. You're always kind of beholden to that thing. See, I don't know that I agree with you there. Because what I do is I allow myself you know one or two cheats per week and I have a big sweet tooth so if I want sometimes I'll go have a donut or sometimes I'll go have a brownie something like that and I know that I'm just gonna have it one or two times a week or if I want a piece of pizza, I don't think a piece of pizza is going to kill me. I would agree with that, but I think that requires a certain discipline. And I think

your discipline is probably at a higher level than the average person because you also have these performance goals that are incredibly important to you that motivate your food choices. That's absolutely true. But if somebody is prone to, you know, emotional eating, then they're not even aware of, you know, what's causing them to crave something once in a while. And, and, and they're not going to have that. Well, you know what, I have world championships coming up in two months. Maybe I shouldn't eat that. You know, they don't have that, that sort of carrot and stick that you have that you can hold on to.

Yeah, that's, that's a great point. And I mean, I remember before the 2008 Olympic trials, I didn't have a dessert or anything sweet like that for three and a half months. And I just decided it wasn't helping me get to where I wanted to go, wasn't helping me fulfill my goal, so I just didn't do it. And I think it really is important, whatever we decide to do, that we need to have a goal, something we're working towards. Otherwise, we kind of just end up in this random, you know, float where we just have no idea where we're going. And when you're doing that, you're always going to sort of fall prey to your default, you know, bad habits, I think. Yeah, I think that's true.

And I'm interested to hear what you have to say about this. Do you think that most people think that food really is directly correlated with their health? I do and I think that, but I'm not sure a lot of the people in the U.S. think that. Well, they may think that. I mean, I think that there's an awareness and an understanding that, you know, if you eat healthy foods, you're going to be healthier. But it's sort of like telling somebody who's a smoker that, you know, smoking is bad for them. I mean, they understand it intellectually, but there's a huge gap between that understanding and altering, you know, a longstanding practice or habit. And I think most people operate on, you know, default, like they know, like, hey, you know what, I probably shouldn't go to McDonald's, but you know, I'm late for work, and it's easy,

and it's cheap. And you know, I'll just, you know, I'm not going to worry about it. That brings me to a perfect point. And I know you're the interviewer here, but one of my greatest desires long term is to create a delicious restaurant concept that is quick with food that is cooked responsibly. I think there is a huge market for that. You're speaking my language now, buddy. I agree. I agree. And, you know, listen, I live in Los Angeles where everyone is a lot more – well, I mean, in Austin they are for sure. I mean, it's the headquarters of Whole Foods, and in many ways it's kind of a plant-based nutrition mecca. But, you know, Los Angeles is similar in that, you know, there's tons of people that are very focused on eating healthy foods. And there are some great, you know, new restaurants that have been opening up around LA

that are, you know, affordable and they're quick and they're fast and they're delicious and super healthy. Like, you know, Cafe Gratitude is one of my new favorites. And I think, and the place is packed all the time, which shows you that, you you that if you can make it delicious and you can make it within the budget parameters, that when there's a decision to be made, that people are going to want that. Yeah, there's no question about it. So that's good. So that brings me into Garrett Weber the, and the world of restaurants. So, so you start learning. So, you know, when we were talking about your background, you started talking about how you were learning how to cook and you have this guy who is teaching you. And, and, and so

essentially what happened is that it planted the seed, this love of food, this love of cooking, um, that has kind of taken you on this amazing journey over the last couple of years. So I wanted to hear you talk a little bit more about that. Yeah, I basically just got really into food and cooking and it became my second passion outside the pool. And I credit a lot of my success in swimming, a lot of my success winning two gold medals in 2008 to the diet that I had and the nutrition that I had. And in 2008 at the Olympics, right after the Olympics, I went on the Today Show in Beijing. And when I was leaving, a very famous chef named Daniel Balud

was going on to do a cooking demo. And I went up and talked to him and just said hi and told him how passionate I was about food and cooking. And he gave me his card and said, oh, come to my restaurant in New York sometime and we'll talk. And so I went to his restaurant. And long story short, I became great friends with Danielle since 2008. And he really inspired me to do really what I had done in the swimming world, in the food world, which is, I think in a lot of ways to be the best and to really learn,

you need to go and surround yourself with people who are doing it at an extremely high level. So Danielle inspired me to go cook in famous kitchens around the world. So in 2009, the World Championships was in Rome, and I went for a month after that World Championships and cooked at a little restaurant in the countryside of Umbria, the province just south of Tuscany. In 2010, Danielle actually arranged for me to cook with his best friend, Michel Tragreau, in France for five weeks.

That restaurant is one of the most famous restaurants in the world. It's had three Michelin stars for the past 44 years, which is the highest rating any restaurant can get. In 2011, I worked at a restaurant called Noma in Copenhagen, which has been rated the number one restaurant in the world the past three years. And this past summer, actually, I went to a restaurant in Spain called Cellar Conroco, which has been rated the number two rated restaurant in the world the past two years. And really, my goal at going to these places was to figure out and learn classic techniques and recipes and transform them into healthier fare. And I really believe that working in these kitchens, I could pick up little tricks and tips believe that working in these kitchens, I could pick up little tricks and tips and make delicious food for myself and for other people and have it be healthy. And what an amazing experience to go

to these, you know, exotic world famous restaurants and sort of, you know, apprentice under these incredible chefs. I mean, amazing. Yeah, it was, it was fantastic. What I learned from these guys was just as much about food and cooking as it was about life. And these chefs have very similar attitudes to elite athletes or probably elite business people. I mean, they are elite business people in their own right, but they're very dedicated to what they do. They don't take shortcuts. They, uh, sacrifice a lot of their life to this idea of creating great food and giving people something that they can enjoy. And, um, you know, probably the greatest thing that ever happened from this journey was in 2010, after the pan Pacific championships, I thought maybe I was going to retire from swimming

and i went to france and i didn't have any intention of swimming while i was there but the second day i was there they said all right it's time for you to go swim hey you don't understand i'm not swimming right now i'm cooking yeah i kind of i told them i was like no it's my vacation and and they said, no, you need to go swim. We don't want to take you away from your swimming. And so it was like the second day. So I was like, all right, I'm not going to get into a fight with these guys right now. And they had a beautiful 50-meter Olympic-sized pool in this little town of 60,000 people in the countryside of France.

And they gave me a bike. I biked 10 minutes to this pool. I got in the water and I started swimming and I really had no expectation. And I just kind of got back to the roots of swimming when I was a kid and just enjoying it and, and playing around in the water and swimming until I wanted to get out and was satisfied with what I'd done. And sometimes I swam for 30 minutes. Sometimes I swam for an hour and 20 minutes. Sometimes I did a 50 and then I went and rode this slide.

And it just kind of got me back to my roots of swimming. And really one of the most important things that happened to me over there was I was talking to the chef. And I said to him, I said, do you ever get sick of coming to work? I mean, do you ever get sick of your job? Because as a swimmer, I don't know if this happened to you when you were a swimmer or happens to you now sometimes when you're going to go on a long bike or run. I mean, I just don't want to go to the pool sometimes. And it happens probably to every athlete. Sometimes you don't wake up for morning practice, but you do.

For a long time, I was wondering in 2010, shouldn't I be doing something that makes more of an impact on the world than me just swimming back and forth? And the chef said to me, he said, well, of course. I mean, there are times when I don't want to come to work, but it's my obligation. And I have a talent in the kitchen, and it's my obligation to pursue that talent. And it's my obligation to teach the younger generation under me so that they can find their own talent. And it really struck a chord in me, and it re-inspired me to swim and continue following my passion in the pool. But I also think underneath that is the importance of finding the joy in it. You know what I mean?

Because you can't, your talent will be, will not be fully expressed unless you really are doing it, you know, embracing the joy of it. And if you lose the joy and it becomes a job, then I think you're ultimately not going to realize your potential, whether it's in the pool or in the kitchen or anything else. Yeah, I think that's definitely true. You have to have the joy for it. You have to have the passion for it. But it is a little bit difficult, and you know this when I say it, is it is hard to enjoy the workouts that we do. That's for sure. I don't think, I don't think a normal person can, has any concept of, of, you know, how difficult it is to do what you do and just how brutal the training sessions are in the workouts. Yeah. I mean, I'll swim for an hour and a half every, you know, three mornings a week, and then I'll lift weights hard, um, for an hour and a half, four days a week. And on

Wednesday, I'll do an hour of core work. And then I'll go swim for two hours. And then I'll swim on Saturday. And between that, I'm doing physical therapy. And it's just, it is a lot of work. And when we finish workout in the pool or the weight room, it's not like we're just, we've got all these endorphins going, we're feeling good. I mean, I am racked yeah i am just tapped out and so even though i do love swimming and i have the passion for it you know it is still difficult of course of course it's and to do it year in year out like you have and to you know be a professional um you know i would imagine it's incredibly draining, which I think, you know, makes it all the more interesting and impressive that you would

choose to, you know, you go to the World Championships or the Pan Packs or whatever meet it is and the season's over and, you know, Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps are going to Las Vegas and you're going to go to Europe and like work your ass off in this kitchen now. And you're going to go to Europe and like work your ass off in this kitchen now. I mean, you know, you just go directly to, you know, another really intense work situation because you have this passion. Yeah. I'll tell you what. Cooking in these restaurants is probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. It is harder than training for the Olympics.

When I was at Noma in Copenhagen, the head chef there, Rene Rizzepi, he said, dude, you're a masochist. I mean you're here on your vacation. You're just out of your mind. We would get into the kitchen at 8.45 and we would work straight until 5 o'clock. We would have what they call lunch from 5 to 5.45. That was the only break of the day. And then from 5.45 until midnight midnight or 1230, you would work. And so what were you doing?

You were in the kitchen helping prepare the dishes? Or what exactly specifically was it that you've been doing in these kitchens? So it's all, I mean, it's a plethora of different things. I mean, anything from cleaning mushrooms to foraging for rose hip berries to foraging for mushrooms to cutting sardines to smoking sardines to helping them make stocks. When I was in France, they let me cook a lot of the meat, which was ridiculous. I mean, the sous chef was there working with me and keeping an eye on everything and helping me. But I mean, they really taught me a lot about how to cook meats there. You know, we would make purees of artichokes, we would do an insane amount of things. And the really interesting thing about working in a kitchen is that working in a kitchen

is not, it is very technical, but you can teach anyone to have good knife skills or to learn how to roast beets or clean mushrooms or make a beef stock or make a vegetable stock. It's all about repetition, just like in sport. I mean, I can teach someone with enough time how to have a beautiful freestyle. And you might not be the most proficient at the beginning, but with more practice and with nurturing, you will get there. And so in the kitchen, it's really practice and with nurturing, you will get there. And so in the kitchen, it's really awesome because every day is new. Every day you're doing something different.

The difficult part is, is that you're on your feet. I mean, in Spain this summer, it was nuts. I was on my feet for 15 to 16 hours a day working in this kitchen that's hot, that's crammed. And a lot of the time you're standing stationary. I would finish and my knees and my ankles will be swollen, my back. I mean, I'll tell you what, I consider myself, I'm not maybe as tough as you are, Rich, because you're a freak. Believe me, you're plenty tough. I consider myself to be pretty darn tough when it comes to physical and mental pain. And the first week when I was in France, I'll tell you what, I didn't even know if I was going to be able to finish that week. My back and my neck were finished, man.

I was just, it felt like I had gotten hit by a truck. I was so, it was nuts. And you don't even speak the language, right? That was tough too. I mean, that was definitely, you know, tough. Some of the guys spoke English, but, you know, certainly not everyone. And really, it was just, it was fantastic. I mean, I'm working on writing a book right now about how I think, you know, a lot of healthy food, quote unquote, healthy healthy food, tastes like crap. I went on this journey around the world to figure out how to make delicious food that's healthy and kind of stories from these journeys along with recipes.

I think that there are a lot of inspiring stories within this. Oh, that's great, Matt. I didn't know that you were working on a book. That's fantastic. Well, I haven't sold it yet. I don't know if it's going to be any good yet, but I think the content is definitely there. Well, I would like to help you. So I learned a lot about the book world. So we can talk more about that later. Sure. Cool. Really, my goal, Rich, is just to help people understand that it's not difficult to be healthy. It's not difficult to have delicious food that is healthy

for you. And I was talking to a guy the other day that this business that he's worked with, their average annual healthcare costs are $200 million, big corporation. And 5% of the people that work at that company are incurring $160 million worth of the cost in healthcare. Unbelievable. And a lot of those people, I think, I mean, who doesn't want to be in shape? And who doesn't want to be healthier? I think this is something that everyone wants and thinks is a great idea. But I think a lot of people don't know how to do it.

It's a daunting task to them. And my greatest goal is to be able to help people realize that they can get their life back. They can see greater performance mentally and physically. It's fun. And there are so many ways to do it. Yeah, you and me both, buddy. Again, you're speaking my language. I think that people are, everybody wants it, but people are, there's a fear barrier. There's intimidation. You know, people think it's too difficult. It's too expensive. They don't have time.

and it's scary because in order to enact change, you kind of have to look at some uncomfortable stuff and make some changes that in the short run might be a little uncomfortable. But I think that better health is within everyone's grasp in any given moment, but it requires a decision and it requires action. Yeah. And I think that really to be better or good at anything, you have to go outside your comfort zone and feel a little bit troubled at some point. You know, when I was learning to cook, I was super frustrated for a little while. I mean, I never had something that came out at the right time. And some of it tasted like crap. But I figured it out. And I went outside my comfort zone and

every single time I went in the kitchen, I got better at it. So what do you think are some of the things that you could tell, you know, somebody who's listening? I mean, a lot of the listeners, you know, the podcast, they, they're, you know, a lot of triathletes, but also people from all different kinds of walks of life who, you know, the podcast, they're, you know, a lot of triathletes, but also people from all different kinds of walks of life who, you know, are tuning in just to, you know, get some tips on how to be healthier, some takeaways, some easy, simple things that they could, you know, implement into their life to, you know, help them change for the better. Well, I mean, first off, I think eat until you feel good, not until you feel full. I think that's a huge thing. Humans in their DNA, we were created to eat when we could get nourishment because we didn't necessarily know where we were going to be able to hunt or gather our next meal.

But we're just not in the ice age anymore. We're not in that kind of early period in our civilization. So eat until you feel good. Come back later if you're still hungry. Really try and cut down on the sugars. About three years ago, I started looking at all the sugar. And before that, I didn't really care or think about it. I started looking in all the sugar of things that I was eating. And it's ridiculous. I mean, like you mentioned earlier, how much sugar is in everything that we eat now. And most of the time that sugar, it turns directly into fat. So not only does it turn into fat, but it skyrockets our insulin level

and it makes us on this high. And then an hour to an hour and a half later, we go down and we feel like crap. So that's a big thing um you know one thing that i really realized that made a big difference is that when i cut the salt shaker out kind of probably for a week or two it was pretty difficult and it the food didn't taste the same and what i realized is that our palate will adjust and our taste buds kind of start tasting more of that natural food as opposed to the salt. And so cutting out the salt shaker really made a big difference for me because I didn't feel as heavy and as bloated all the time. Before I was eating a lot of sodium and many things, and now I really don't. as I said, I would say I'm mostly plant-based.

Now I'll have a piece of fish and some meat once in a while. I'll have cheese once in a while as well. But I noticed a huge difference when I stopped eating as many animal products as I used to. I mean, I used to have eggs in the morning, cold cuts for lunch, some type of meat. At dinner, I used to drink milk, eat yogurt. And the concept of that, it's not really, it doesn't really make sense that humans are eating so many animals. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but I mean, I just started slowly cutting animal products out and I'm not lactose intolerant and I cut dairy out and I felt so much better. And there are great alternatives.

I mean I love rice milk. I love almond milk. Soy milk is pretty good. Coconut milk if you get the unsweetened version is really good as well. Keep it simple. You don't need to make drastic changes in your cooking. Like I said, try kamut. I don't know how many of the listeners know what kamut is, but it's a really awesome grain that's hearty, that provides long-lasting energy. It's easy to make. You know, kale. I never ate

kale before. It took a little bit of getting used to the texture, but I love it now. And I never have salads that don't have kale in them. Yeah, that's great. And I think it's interesting just to hear you talk about, you know, reducing animal products in your diet, you know, being the athlete that you are. I mean, we're, you know, we're very different kinds of athletes. I think people have gotten used to the idea of, you know, the long distance runner who's vegan or the triathlete or what have you, the endurance athlete. But, you know, your event lasts all of 19 seconds and it requires an unbelievable amount of strength and explosive power. And, you know, for sports like that, you know, the operating, you know, consensus really is, you know, the more animal products, the better. You know, I have visions of you, you know, chugging raw eggs in the morning,

like Rocky style, you know, before you hit the weight room. So, you know, I was hoping to have you speak to that a little bit more. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm, first of all, I'm not like most world-class sprinters. I'm on the shorter end. I'm 6'2", which for world-class sprinters is somewhat short. I weigh 185 pounds. Nathan Adrian, who I'm swimming up here with, he's like 6'6", and weighs 225 or 230. So that gives you a little bit different view. And most of the sprinters are much bigger guys, much stronger much stronger but ultimately you can get all the protein you need and i'm not preaching one diet over the other and when i say diet i mean a lifestyle i don't mean a diet to lose weight or a diet to get a six-pack i mean a diet

is a lifestyle and the diet that i eat is mostly um plant-based and with some animal products in between there. But you can get all the protein you need as an athlete from quinoa and beans and legumes. And as an athlete, I actually do supplement some with whey protein, which is important to me. And I did that even when I was eating animal products. But I think that really it's a lack of knowledge that people don't realize. I mean, I never realized that you could get so much protein from plants. Right. Well, I didn't either. You know, I mean, it's not something that is accessible knowledge.

So hopefully that's changing somewhat. Yeah. Because of guys like you. So anyway, I had a question from Twitter I wanted to ask you. I put it out to Twitter if anybody had questions for you. And one guy had a pretty good question. Oh, it's actually, it looks like it's a girl, Sandra. Mrs. Rago on Twitter asked, do you eat differently during taper than during in-season training?

And if so, how? And what about hydration? I would say in-season, I eat more volume. When you're working more, you're going to get hungrier or more hungry more often. And so on taper, I will eat less. I might eat a little bit more often just to give myself a little bit more constant stream of energy, but I will eat smaller meals. In terms of hydration, I would say that I'm drinking about the same amount. I drink an electromix. I drink during the day a lot,

called electromix, which I think really helps me not have to carry as much water, but maintain the same level of hydration. And actually, it's really tough in Colorado. I don't know if you've ever been out here training, but it's hard to stay hydrated out here. I mean, I don't know if it's the altitude or the dry air. Super dry. Yeah, I mean, it's been tough for me to stay hydrated out here, even drinking a lot and having electrolytes. But usually in the season, I'm probably about 186 pounds, 187. And during taper, I'm usually about 183, 184. So that drops down a little bit. We're not lifting quite as many weights, which will lean me out muscular wise. But yeah, taper is definitely different. I mean, you want to continue to be strong, but you don't want to be bulky. So that's why we eat a little bit less. Right. In cycling, they always talk about watts per kilogram because cyclists tend to get

super lean when they're training really hard. And, you know, the top cyclists all have what's called a power meter. I don't know if you've heard of this before. Yeah, yeah. So they have power meters on their bike, and they know how many watts they're exerting. So they can get really specific and technical in their training in a way that you can't really in swimming because you don't know, for example, how many watts you're pulling with your, stroke when you're exerting force through your pull, right? It would be nice to be able to know that. Maybe science will come up with that device at some point, but in cycling, you can know very specifically what that is. And then you have to find the right ratio of weights,

of how much you weigh, because when you start losing weight, your watts are going to go down, and you want to be lean, you want to be light, because weight is very important in cycling, but if you get too lean, then you've kind of dropped off the cliff. You've got to put weight back on to get those watts back up. Yeah, and it's really similar in swimming. Actually, I've competed and raced at 178 and I've raced all the way up at 188 or 189. And what I've realized is that for the 200 freestyle, which is not my specialty, I'm way better at 178 or 179. You know, 188 really is a little too bulky. I have a lot of power, but I can't hold it for quite as long. Somewhere in between 183,

184 is really the ideal weight for me. And everyone can find their ideal weight. It just takes a little bit of trial and error. And I've been competing at the world-class level for 10 years. And so I've had a lot of time to do trial and error and test things. You've been cycling and being an athlete for a long time and you have as well. What I tell people is that you start on this journey, start slowly refining and you will figure out what is your ideal weight. You'll figure out what is your ideal diet for the healthy life that you desire. Right. That's great advice. And that also speaks to something I wanted to touch on too, which is, you know, you know, back when I was swimming and I talk about this in the book, it was sort of, you know, volume, volume, volume was king and, you know,

swimming four hours a day and at times up where, you know, 15 to 20,000 yards a day and just kind of doing that for months on end and having no sense of like pace like every time I went to the pool we do a short warm-up and I pretty much like just blasted every set you know every day and every workout and you do that for however many months and then kind of hang your whole season on a two-week taper and see how it goes and yeah and now you know the way my approach to training and triathlon is very, very different. You know, it's a periodized schedule. There are built-in rest days and then there are built-in rest weeks. And, you know, I do lactate testing to see if I'm training too

hard or getting overtrained or overtired. And I've become much more aware and conscious of the impact of recovery and rest on long-term performance gains. And so I'm interested to know, you know, what it's like in elite swimming these days in terms of, you know, that kind of approach and how rest and recovery is incorporated into the heavy training regimes that you guys are doing. Well, rest and recovery is, you know, a a huge deal and i can speak on this uh very intimately actually i didn't make the 2012 olympic team and that was because i didn't get enough rest this summer to compete at my best of the trials in 2011 i had um the second fastest 100 freestyle relay split in the world at the 2012, or excuse me, the 2011 World Championships. And I went 48.1 in the 100 freestyle, which is what Nathan Adrian won the 100 freestyle this summer at the trials in.

And my goal in 2012 was to go 47 in the 100 freestyle, which is what I had gone in 2008 when I won the Olympic trials. And my coaches and I decided that I really needed to get stronger so I killed myself literally in the weight room four days a week and we didn't realize how much extra rest I needed before the Olympic trials and I knew I needed more rest and I was talking to my coaches telling them I need more rest and ultimately we didn't realize how much extra rest I needed and I got to the meet and I didn't have any speed and I missed making the Olympic team and it was a huge disappointment for me and really to some degree swimming is a little bit in the old ages some programs still

really grind it out and wait on the rest and that's the program that we do at Texas which has worked wonders for countless of Olympians who've won gold silver and bronze medals broken american world records and it's worked once for me in the past this summer it didn't work at cal up here they focus a lot more on explosiveness being an all-around athlete. We do have rest days, rest afternoon periods. It's interesting because we grind it a lot more in Texas. We rest for five or six weeks. At Cal, they don't grind it out quite as much. They do more specific work. And so from talking to the guys here, they'll rest for about two weeks before their big meet. And it's very different. You can have some of the same results and everyone is

getting there on a different road so right so in other words they're building in rest periods throughout the season correct that's what they seem to be doing i don't know all the intricacies of their program but yeah they're building in some rest periods um during the season and during the week and that's really important and that's something we don't really do much at Texas, which is not the philosophy that Eddie and Chris have. And it has worked brilliantly for them in the past. And it continues to work for people. It didn't work for me this year,

which obviously if you want something to work for you, you want it to work in the Olympic year. But we thought that maybe to go times that I'd never gone, I needed to go someplace I'd never been. And it was a risk that I took and it bit me in the butt, which really, I mean, hurt very bad emotionally. I mean, I was very disappointed by it, but I still went to the Olympics in London, cheered on a bunch of people and went and did some appearances with sponsors but yeah it's somewhat of a gamble I mean in any sport you're working

hard and you do everything you possibly can to compete your best but ultimately you never really know what's going to happen so then I guess part of being at the Olympic training center now is is to kind of learn from that experience and see how you know these guys at Cal are doing it and try to figure out a way to maybe possibly build some of that into your repertoire to avoid that pitfall yeah really the reason I wanted to come up here is because for about three years I've wanted to get with these guys and see how they're training and see what they're doing in the weight room and see how they're swimming really fast during the season. Usually I swim very fast at the end of the season and I don't swim during the season as well because I'm still broken down from training. And so I want to

come and see what these guys are doing, see how they're resting during the week, see some of the explosive stuff they're doing and figure out ways that I could try and incorporate that to my system at Texas. And like I said earlier, you always need to, once you stop being on the pursuit of knowledge and thinking you know it all, that's when you're going to stop. Right. And so I'm just on a journey of trying to always figure out more and learn more and be around the best and figure out ways that I can refine myself and teach myself to be better. And that's what I'm doing up here. And I'm really thankful that these guys let me come train. And I've just been delighted. I mean, I've been so happy being

here. It's been such a thrilling experience for me. Very cool, man. Well, cool, dude. I've been taking up a lot of your time. I don't want to take up too much more of it but i do want to talk about a couple other things really quick i mean first of all i want to hear all about athletic foodie which is your website that that you and i think your your family is involved in as well which speaks to the continuing support of your family and involvement in your life and your passions and kind of what athletic foodie is all about and where you're headed with that yeah i have the greatest family in the world i'm just going to say that um they have supported me on everything that i've ever done and really in 2008 after the olympics i knew how much diet and nutrition made in my success and And I knew and realized that I needed to help other people

attain success through diet and nutrition. And so we came up with this idea of starting a business around this. And we came up with Athletic Foodie. And really, Athletic Foodie's goal is to help people live a better life through better nutrition and follow their passions and follow those passions to a higher level based upon what they eat. And so we have athleticfoodie.com, which is right now an online resource for people to find information on how to eat healthier and live healthier. I write for it. We have several nutritionists that write for it. A physical therapy group sometimes contributes as well. have recipes on there and our whole goal is to try and help people understand some of the things that we've talked about today which is

simple ways that they can be helped healthier and the dramatic difference that it makes and so that incorporates a couple of different things that we're working on one is you know a book that i've been working on one is a tv show concept that I'm trying to work on right now. My real long-term goal for Athletic Foodie is to make a restaurant concept that I can start in Austin and take across the country. I think there's a huge market for people who want something, like I said, that's delicious, that's fast, that's cost-affordable, and that's cooked in a responsible way. And video content, we've started to do some videos of nutrition, easy cooking demos, little kitchen tips. And my whole focus, like I said, is just helping people realize how they can be healthier. And I'm not in it for the money. I'm

not in it for the fame. I'm just in it for helping people. There is a kid who swims on the Longhorn Aquatics team, and I've been working with his mom to help her lose weight and get her life back. And she's lost 50 pounds so far, and she wants to continue losing. And she's on this incredible journey. And I remember in 2009, a guy came up to me at an autograph signing that I was doing and he said, thank you so much for the work that you do through your blog. He said, I've lost 65 pounds and you've really inspired me. And that alone, I mean that will keep it going. I mean if I can affect people in that way, even on a small scale, that is just a huge thing. And Eddie Reese of Texas always says that our duty and our goal in life is to help people.

And I think that I have a huge purpose on this earth. And sometimes I'm not quite sure exactly what that is or how it's going to turn out. But if I can just help one or two or ten or a hundred people be healthier then that's my aspiration well you've already you've already achieved that aspiration i can assure you of that well thanks and another real cool thing i'm getting involved with actually is uh with the whole kids foundation whole foods has whole kids foundation as part of their division. And Athletic Foodie and myself is sponsoring a campaign for a school garden at Becker Elementary School in Austin, as well as a green classroom for kids to learn how to cook healthier and take things from the garden and clean them and know how to cook them and why it's nutritious for them.

So that's really a huge deal. I love working with kids and that's a big aspiration of mine to continue nurturing the younger generation. That's awesome, man. I mean, that's really where it's at. It's sort of getting to kids when they're young before these habits become too entrenched and teaching them about food, teaching them how to cook and what's nutritious and getting them started right. And, you know, that's a big reason why I brought my family out to this farm in Hawaii where we've been living. And we've got the kids working in the fields and they're learning how to, you know, pull the carrots out of the land and wash them. And we have them,

you know, cooking recipes in the kitchen and learning how to cook. And it's been, you know, phenomenal. And they take pride in it. You know, there's a certain pride in learning how to do that and becoming self-sufficient with food. There's a confidence that I can just see it, you know, happening before my very eyes. And, you know, you just, you can't put a price tag on that. No, you can't. And kids are nuts. I mean, I've spoken to a lot of elementary schools this past year, and I've started speaking at more college campuses about health and nutrition and following your passion. And I remember a specific elementary school, Casise Elementary School in Austin that I spoke to last spring, and I always have the kids rattle out a bunch of unhealthy foods that they eat, and I always have them rattle out a bunch of unhealthy foods that they eat and I always have them rattle out a bunch of healthy foods that they eat and just to see the comparison and always figure out what the kids are eating and this one little kid who's probably six years old he raised his hand

and we were on the healthy part I said you know name as many healthy things as you guys can. This little six-year-old kid raised his hand and he said, kamut and millet. I mean, are you kidding me? A six-year-old knows what kamut and millet? That's just amazing. And you're right. I mean, kids, if they pull something out of the ground and they clean it, I mean, they have ownership over that. They get so excited about it. It's just a beautiful thing to witness. For sure, man. Well, awesome, dude. You're doing great work. You inspire me. And, you know, I love, like I said, I love following your journey, man. I can't wait to see what's next for you. So how long are we going to have to wait before you have your own restaurant? You know, I'm really not sure what swimming holds for me, to be honest. I'm definitely committed to swimming this summer and swimming fast in Israel. But I don't know.

I'm definitely going to leave the door open for 2016. I don't know if I will pursue that or not. Like I said, I really I think I have a huge purpose to help people and want to do that. And I know at some point that is going to overtake my passion for swimming. And I'm not really sure about the restaurant. I think that's more of a long-term thing. I would hope that within three years, if I'm not going to swim, otherwise, you know, after 2016, I'm working on the book really hard now. I'm working with someone about some video and some TV stuff. You know, I'm doing a lot more public speaking at college campuses and schools,

but the restaurant, I think is just such a brilliant concept. I've been working a ton at figuring out what the food would be. I know a bunch of people in the restaurant world. Who knows? My original goal was to have it open in 2014, by the end of 2014. It really depends on how a couple of things develop after this summer, whether or not I continue pursuing swimming or if I take a break. And if I take a break, I think opening something by the end of 2014 is definitely realistic. And I'm smart enough to know not to do it by myself. I'm not a chef. I'm not a chef. I'm not a restaurant man yet.

And I think to be really successful, what I need to do with someone who has successfully owned and operated restaurants, because ultimately, like I said, I'm not in the idea of opening a restaurant because I think it's going to get me rich. I want to create a place people can go and eat something that immediately makes them happy, that nourishes them, and that they can

have quickly. And I think that the future is bright. I mean, hopefully you and I and 500 other people will help the country get out of this epidemic of health crisis that we're in right now. And I think we're on our way to doing it. Yeah, we are. We need more guys like you. And I commend your passion. You know, I know what it's like to, well, not quite exactly, but, you know, I have a sense of what it's like to be a competitive athlete at your level. And it's a very, very all-consuming thing that you kind of have to put blinders on. And the outside world has a hard time penetrating that. And most athletes that I know at your level, they're so focused on their sport, there really isn't time to even develop much of an interest

in anything outside of the sport. And the fact that you have such a robust joy and passion and love for food and health is really an extraordinary thing. It's not something you see every day. And so I urge you to just, you know, I'm so excited for what the future brings. And I just urge you to just keep going now. Can't wait to see. Yeah, well, thanks. And I've known for a long time, you know, you can't just swim.

You can't just be a professional athlete. That train is going to end at some point and you need to figure out what's next. Luckily, I had this passion for food and nutrition develop, and I really tried to push the envelope as much as I could while swimming, and it's provided me a great outlet. So please, listeners, check out athleticfoodie.com, and you can email me from the website if you have questions, and I look forward to

hopefully catching up with you guys soon. Yeah, absolutely. And if you want to find Garrett on Twitter, you're, what is it? You're G Weber Gale, right? G Weber Gale. Yeah. One B G W E B R G A L E. And Athletic Foodie has a Facebook page too, right? Yeah. Athletic Foodie is on Facebook and we have Athletic Foodie on Twitter. Very cool. All right, man. Are you going to be doing any public speaking gigs or anything like that coming up?

Is there anything else you want to let people know about that's coming up in the future? You know, I don't have anything on the table right now, public speaking. But I'm working on a couple of things. I'm working on a group that does a lot of campus speaking. But, you know, I'm working on a couple of things. I'm working on a group that does a lot of campus speaking. And I'm also trying to talk with a guy named Adam, who, you know, who does a lot of healthy speaking as well. So, I mean, my goal is... I owe Adam a call, actually. Thanks for reminding me. Yeah, I gave him a call the other day. And, you know, I want to just share my story and hopefully inspire people and

any opportunity i can get to do that is is what i'm about right very cool man well thanks so much for taking the time and uh and uh you probably have to go down to the cafeteria and get something more yeah for actually hey can i tell you one more thing that i'm really excited about I forgot to mention what's that so in uh in London I worked with Hilton Hotels and I met a bunch of people who own different hotels around the country and I spoke to this this group of hotels um in November out in California and we're going to work on four of their hotels one in the north one in the south one the east and one in the north, one in the south, one in the east, and one in the west of the U.S. And we're working to implement some healthy concepts into the hotels. So that's one of the things I'm working on pretty hard right now. And if it's successful, I think there's an opportunity to implement and do some other hotels around the country. So I'm pretty pumped about that.

And we'll see how it goes. Very cool, man. And how old are you? 42? You know what? I did a clinic, a swim clinic, which is one of the other things that I do. I love giving swim clinics to the kids and we have athletic foodie swim clinics that I do healthy cooking demo at. We have nutritionists that comes.

My mom comes. We focus on swimming and nutrition. And this fall I gave a clinic and one of the kids asked, how old are you? And I said, how old do you think I am? The kid said, 57. 50 push-ups on the deck. I was so ticked. Yeah. My point being is you're so young, man. But I actually don't. How old are you? 27. Yeah, 27. All right, man. Your whole life's ahead of you and you already got so much going on. It's crazy. Well, I'm working on it. So thanks for your support, Rich. And really, you are an inspiration.

You've done some incredible things and continue to do so. So if we work together, hopefully we can make big things happen. I would love to do that, man. So let's stay in touch. All right. Thanks, Rich. All right, man. Peace. Take it easy, buddy. Bye-bye. All right. That's it for today. Hope you enjoyed Garrett as much as I enjoyed talking to him. Phenomenal guy. So full of information and full of life, more importantly. If you want to check out some great products to fuel your plant-powered lifestyle,

check out Jai Lifestyle, Jailifestyle.com. Jai Repair Plant-Powered Protein. I love it. B12 Supplement, our cookbook, jailifestyle.com. Jai Repair, plant-powered protein. I love it. B12 supplement, our cookbook, all that good stuff. You want to follow me on Twitter, I'm at Rich Roll. I'm also on Facebook. My personal page filled up, so there's a fan page. You can check that out.

I'm digging being on Instagram, too. I'm at Rich Roll on Instagram. I've been posting lots of pictures of our experience here at Common Ground on the North Shore of Kauai. Lots of some cool pictures of our experience here. And we're wrapping up our little journey here in the short term. We're going back to Los Angeles at the end of this week. We'll be back at Common Ground soon. But we've got to go back and attend to some business. It's been like two and a half months since we've been home. And when I get back to L.A., I'm lining up all sorts of amazing guests for the podcast. I'm trying to get Brendan Brazier on the show.

You know Brendan as the formulator of the Vega product line. He's a great guy. He's essentially my neighbor. And I know that he's heading out of town shortly after I get back. So I'm trying to get him in before he has to take off again. So fingers crossed on that. And a bunch of other people I'm trying to schedule right now. I don't want to speak out of school before I have them nailed down.

But it's going to be a good lineup. And like I said, I'm going to try to start doing this a little bit more regularly than once a week. I'd like to get it up to two or three times a week. But I want to make sure that I keep the quality high and keep the guests solid. So that's it for now. If you've been enjoying Julie on the podcast, you can find her on Twitter at J-I-C-J-A-I-S-E-E-D. She's on Instagram at Srimati, S-R-I-M-A-T-I. Uh, if, uh, you want to check out her music, uh, you can go to SrimatiMusic.com and you can sample her songs or download them, what have you. Good stuff.

Uh, what else do I have to say? I think that's it. Um, Common Ground, Kauai. If you want to learn more about what's been going on at this amazing piece of property, this sustainable community and organic farm where we've been living, you can check that out online at cgkauai.net. It's been an amazing experience here,

and I'm going to be blogging and talking about it a little bit more. So that's it, I think. Thanks for stopping by. Thanks for the support. We appreciate it. If you've enjoyed the program and you have a free moment, I would not begrudge you if you threw a nice comment up on the iTunes page. It would mean a lot to us, and we're going to keep doing our best to bring you some positive energy and some good information. All right, so

until then, we're out of here. Peace. Blants. Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you