The Rich Roll Podcast - The NFL’s David Carter On How A Plant-Based Diet Made Him A Better Player & A Better Human

Episode Date: July 20, 2015

It’s one thing to thrive on a plant-based diet as a skinny endurance athlete. But what about sports that place a premium on size, speed, agility, power, quickness and just plain brute force? Is it possible to compete at the highest level of the NFL not as a punt returner, not as a quarterback or even a running back, but as a defensive lineman – a position where only the absolute biggest, baddest, strongest and fastest survive? Meet David Carter — aka The 300 Pound Vegan. Introduced to the game at age 5, David began his football career playing Pop Warner. He made waves at Fontana's Kaiser High School in Southern California and went on to become a star player at UCLA. In 2011, he was drafted by the Arizona Cardinals in the 6th round and has since been a bit of a journeyman defensive linebacker, playing for the Dallas Cowboys, the Oakland Raiders and most recently the Jacksonville Jaguars. Like most athletes, David grew up eating tons of meat, fully adhering to the conventional mythology that in order to become muscle you must consume muscle – the more the better. But as his career matured, David became plagued by a variety of persistent, chronic injuries including arthritis, tendonitis, nerve damage and chronic muscle fatigue. Not surprising given the nature of his job, but nonetheless devastating — ailments he simply could not overcome that left him sidelined despite the best sports medicine and rehabilitative resources of the NFL at his disposal. David soon realized that in order to continue playing, something had to change. He began researching the cause of his conditions, as well as alternative remedies to resolve them at the source. Heavily influenced by a series of documentaries that included Forks Over Knives and the holistic lifestyle habits practiced by his wife Paige, David arrived at a rather counter-intuitive conclusion for an athlete whose professional career relies entirely upon physical prowess and sheer brute force: all the nutrition he had been relying on to maximize his size and strength was actually killing him. Therefore, in February 2014, David made a rather radical and quite controversial decision: he adopted a 100% plant-based diet. Criticism came swift from all sides. Trainers, coaches, friends and fellow players all chimed the familiar refrain: it's impossible to maintain your weight and strength without meat! But David has remained steadfast and confident in his decision. Why? Because a battery of unexpected positive results came and came quickly. Eating entirely plant-based, David experienced more energy. His recovery time was profoundly accelerated. His stamina went through the roof. To the great surprise of his coaches, trainers and teammates, every single one of those nagging, persistent injuries mysteriously corrected themselves and ultimately vanished altogether. All his numbers in the weight room actually went up – this is a guy who can bench 470 and squat 660. Amazingly, he found himself quicker, more agile and responsive than ever. And perhaps most important to David, no living thing had to die in order for him to thrive. Through football and his off the field advocacy for healthier lifestyles, animal rights and the planet, David is now devoted to a cause greater than his on field performance — being an example of positive change in the world.

It's amazing. I run all day. The stuff that used to make me tired before when I was doing a lot of the processed foods and stuff, it doesn't tire me out anymore. The oxygen is just free-flowing in my body. I utilize oxygen a lot better. Recovery time, I don't get sore after workouts at all anymore. That's NFL defensive lineman David Carter, aka the 300-pound vegan, this week on the Rich Roll Podcast.

The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody, how you doing? What's going on? It's Rich here, Rich Roll, your host on the podcast. Thanks for tuning into the show where I engage what I feel are the most compelling, the most intriguing, paradigm-breaking minds and personalities across all categories of positive culture change. Everything from health and wellness to fitness, professional sports, athletic performance, medicine, nutrition, the arts, spirituality, psychology, inspiration, and of course, excellence. And as I always say, these are not interviews. These are conversations. The purpose of which is to leverage the insights provoked to simply help you live and be better.

It's pretty simple, right? To help all of us unlock and unleash our best, most authentic selves. So thank you for subscribing to the show on iTunes. Thank you for downloading our free mobile iOS app. Thank you for spreading the word on social media. And thank you for always clicking through the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. It's a great free way to support the mission. Make it easy by bookmarking the link from the banner ad on my site to your browser. And you know what? Everybody wins. Okay. So it's one thing to be a skinny endurance athlete, a guy like me

thriving on a plant-based diet. But what about sports that place a premium on size, speed, agility, power, quickness, and just plain brute force? Well, that's a different species of athlete. That's another thing altogether, right? I mean, is it possible to compete at the highest level of the NFL, not as a punt returner, not as a quarterback, or even as a running back, but as a defensive lineman, a position where only the absolute biggest, baddest, strongest, and fastest survive. So there's a lot of anticipation about today's guest, a lot of intrigue, and I'm really happy to report that David Carter brings the goods big time today, and he does not disappoint. So more on the guy who goes by the moniker,

the 300 pound vegan in a minute, but first. All right, let me set the stage a little bit, provide a little foundational groundwork. David Carter. Well, David Carter is a guy who's been playing football his entire life, ever since he was five years old. First in Pop Warner, then at Kaiser High School in Fontana here in Southern California, before suiting up at UCLA. And then he was drafted by the Arizona Cardinals in the sixth round in 2011. And since then, he's been a bit of a journeyman defensive linebacker, playing for the Dallas Cowboys, the Oakland Raiders, and most recently the Jacksonville Jaguars. And, you know, this is a guy who, not surprisingly, grew up eating tons of meat, lots of barbecue, and believed the mythology

that in order to become muscle, you must consume muscle, and lots of it. But David is also a guy who has been plagued throughout his career by a variety of rather persistent chronic injuries, everything from tendinitis to inflammation, nerve damage, chronic muscle fatigue, pretty regular in the NFL. But nonetheless, devastating ailments he simply could not overcome and left him sidelined despite all the rehab and medical resources of the NFL at his disposal. He realized that if he wanted to continue to play, something was going to have to change. And so he started to research the underlying causes of his issues. And influenced by his wife, Paige, and a series of documentaries, movies like Forks Over Knives, he started to realize that all the nutrition he was relying on

to maximize his size and strength was actually killing him. So in February of 2014, he made a rather radical and, look, pretty controversial evolution to a 100% plant-based diet. Not surprisingly, criticism, of course, ensued. I mean, you can't maintain your weight and strength without meat. But David has remained steadfast and confident in his decision. So why is this? Well, it's because unexpected positive results came and they came quickly. More energy, shorter recovery time, increased stamina. You hear me talking about this stuff all the time. Every single one of those nagging, persistent injuries mysteriously corrected themselves and ultimately vanished altogether.

His numbers in the weight room actually went up. I mean, this is a guy who can bench 470 and squat 660. To the amazement of his trainers, he started breaking new ground with his speed and his agility. And perhaps most important to David, no living thing had to die in order for him to thrive. Through football and his off-the-field advocacy for healthier lifestyles,

animal rights, and the planet, David is now devoted to being an example of positive change in the world. In his words, being vegan is not only the most efficient way to be full-body strong, it's also the most humane. Everybody wins. But before we get into today's interview, I want to let you guys know that the National Academy of Sports Medicine is looking for people who want an exciting career in the fitness industry, where you wake up every day doing something you love. NASM trainers are improving people's lives by helping them reach their health and fitness goals. And the demand for these trainers is huge, you guys. Imagine waking up every day excited to get to work, not to a job, but to a rewarding career. Get paid to stay in shape while helping others reach their fitness goals. You set your

own hours, work in health clubs, sports clinics, and corporate wellness, and you'll love who you work with. Do what you truly enjoy and get paid for it. There is no better time than now to get started on your certification with the National Academy of Sports Medicine. Plus, NASM guarantees you'll land a job as a personal trainer within 60 days of earning your CPT certification or your money back guaranteed. Go to MyUSATrainer.com for a free 14-day free trial of their fast and fun online program. That's MyUSATrainer.com. MyUSATrainer.com. Restrictions apply. Visit myusatrainer.com for details. All right, you guys, let's dig in. This is a

really special conversation with a truly special guy, a conversation that spans a typical day in the life of an NFL player, a peek into the typical NFL player diet, the specifics behind David's lifestyle shift, how he has weathered the criticism, what exactly he eats on a daily basis. I know everybody wants to know that. How yoga and meditation inform his game, his commitment to animal advocacy, plus a really interesting discussion about the social norms that govern our perspective on masculinity and how we can redefine them. So let's step into the world of the 300-pound vegan. You're going to have to have us back on because we're going to have a book, cookbook coming out

and all that stuff. Oh, nice. Are you writing a book right now? We're getting ready to start writing a cookbook. Oh, are you? Yeah, because we're working with lighter and all that stuff. We'll talk about it later. Yeah, we can talk about it now. No, I was just like, oh, I don't want to use all the questions. No, it's cool. We're already rolling, man.

Oh, okay. We could edit it out if you want to. That's fine. Yeah, man, that's exciting, a cookbook, huh? Yeah, a lot of people are asking a lot of questions like, what are you eating? Where can I get my protein from? How the hell are you getting 10,000 calories in a day?

I eat like 300 plus grams of protein a day. How are you getting that on a vegan diet? So it only makes sense to put a vegan cookbook out there. Well, I don't know if you guys know, but we just had a cookbook that just came out. Yeah. I'll give you guys a copy of it. Don't let me forget.

Yeah, because I was going to run out and get one. I got one with your name on it. Cool, man. Well, thanks for making the time to come on over here and do this. Thanks, man. I appreciate you having me on the show. It means a lot. Oh, cool. Well, I've been following your journey from afar for a while, and it's quite an inspiring story. It's a unique story. And I think it's an important story. I mean, there's a lot of similarities in our journey and some distinct differences as well. And I kind of want to get into all of it, man. But, uh, I think the best

way to just kick it off is like, let's just go back to the beginning, dude. Like where does, where does football start with you? Where'd you grow up? Like, how did you kind of, uh, you know, blaze this path into becoming a college football player and beyond into the NFL? Oh, okay. Well, uh, and we're taking it way back. Yeah, it's way back. Well, let's set the stage. All right. Well, I have a brother, and we both play football.

So we started in high school. We started in Pop Warner, like five. You grew up out here? Yeah, I grew up in Los Angeles. I should have said that. I'm a Los Angeles native. Grew up in southern Los Angeles. My brother, I have a sister and my two parents and uh so my brother and I started playing pop corner football at Crenshaw high school it's a pop corner team and we were you know defensive

linemen there and then on to high school and you know the basics college I went to UCLA did you have a good high school football team? Yeah, we were pretty good. We won the, it was a long time ago. It's hard for me to remember. Oh, come on, man. What are you, 26? 27.

27. You're literally half my age almost. I know, right? All right, come on, man. But we were with Kaiser High School. We had a pretty good football team. My brother and I, we were known as the bookends. I played one the left defensive end, the strong side defensive end.

My brother played the right side defensive end. And we went on a lot of games. We were like 10 and 12. So that's pretty good. We didn't even win the championship, but that's pretty damn good, you know? And what's he doing now? He's in the NFL, too. Oh, he is?

Yeah. I didn't know that. Wow, who's he play with? Right now he's a free agent I think so you think you don't want your brother you don't know what your brother plays for unless he just got signed but unless he just got signed but uh yeah he's he went on he played with the Steelers for two years with the Colts one year at the Bengals another year so we both actually got drafted at the same time I didn't know that wow yeah we're both playing both defensive linemen yeah he was a defensive end I was a defense interior defensive lineman and we actually got drafted on the same day we're the first brothers to get drafted on the same day in the NFL that's pretty cool yeah

that's pretty awesome so hold on he's wait he's older or he's younger he's younger than me younger but in college you redshirt I had a redshirt year because i wasn't big enough i was like 250 to 260 in college my freshman year so uh they were like oh yeah you got a redshirt and redshirt a year and then yeah but he didn't have to redshirt because he was playing a smaller position like outside linebacker defensive end position did he go to ucla also no he went to fresno state so he went he did pretty well that's pretty special man so uh i mean are your parents still around yeah yeah so that must have been a big moment for them both their both their sons getting drafted on the same day it's amazing yeah they're pretty excited and there are a couple people passed out and draft draft party like, oh, my gosh.

They both got drafted at the same time. Oh, gee. That's amazing. Yeah. All right, so you're playing at UCLA. And, I mean, did you have a sense that you were headed for the big show? I mean, obviously that's your know your dream right I mean was it looking like it was gonna work out or how did how does that all play out uh you know I didn't I

didn't know if I was gonna get drafted to the league but I did pretty well my senior year junior senior year and ended up going in the fifth round six round six round he's looking at his wife she keeps the stats yeah six round my brother fifth round, and I went sixth round. But, yeah, I ended up doing well after college. I played defensive end and interior tackle. When I got to the league, I got drafted sixth round. They were like, oh, he's not, you know. Sixth round draft, they didn't think I was going to last too long,

but I ended up starting my rookie year. Oh, you did at the Cardinals. At the Arizona Cardinals at nose tackle, and I was going to last too long, but I ended up starting my rookie year. Oh, you did at the Cardinals. At the Arizona Cardinals, that nose tackle, and I was undersized. Most defensive nose tackles are like 340 pounds, and I was 300 starting. What do you attribute that to? I mean, did you have some kind of extra speed or agility? Yeah, I was quick. I'm very quick for my size.

I wasn't vegan then. Yeah, I know. We're going to get into that. Don't worry. or agility yeah it was quick i'm very quick for my size i wasn't vegan then yeah i know we're gonna get into that don't worry but uh very quick for my size and i did and very strong and i did very well made a lot of plays a lot of stats uh-huh so yeah my first sack was uh was manning and the giants wow it's so yeah it's pretty good how many games in was that i don't remember what game that was page might know page do you remember how long you guys been together oh wow since before it's like sophomore year of college oh nice yeah college sweethearts yeah so it's been a long time yeah and you've been kind of a journeyman

in the nfl i mean you played for a bunch of teams you played for the cardinals and then the cowboys and then the raiders and then the jaguars right Right. So you have a pretty good sense for how the NFL functions, for how these various teams operate and, you know, kind of, you know, what the NFL is all about. And I'm interested as somebody who, you know, you know, I watch football, I don't watch a ton of football, but, you know, I just see it on television. I don't know that many guys that play in the NFL. but you know i just see it on television i don't know that many guys that that play in the nfl uh and i think it would be you know i'd love to know a little bit about you know what what a real like day in the life of an nfl player is because i think we have this um perhaps uh you know kind of hyper uh perhaps exaggerated sense of like how sexy it is. And it's just sort of like all fly and you're all

up in the club and throwing money around and everybody's living in a huge mansion and driving a Ferrari. You know what I mean? I think that's like sort of a conventional idea of the typical football player. I mean, but what is it really like? Well, it is, you're right. It is kind of sexy, but it is, it's hard work at the same time. You know, you're, you're, you're right. It is kind of sexy, but it is hard work at the same time. You know, you're working out all day. A lot of people sit behind the desk all day and work. You're working out all day, every day. You wake up at, you know, your workout started like 5 o'clock in the morning.

And then you have like four hours of meetings and watching film and studying your opponent and learning plays. And the playbooks are the playbooks are thicker than like calculus textbooks. And they're huge. And you have to remember all those plays. Otherwise, you're not playing. And so it's very it's it is a lot of hard work. And then not to mention the beating that you're taking all day. When you're working out, I'm talking about working out, I'm talking about practices. And practices are hard or tedious and a lot of stress on the body. You're going up, say, for example, my position, the defensive line.

You're going up against two other guys that are your size or bigger. And, you know, you're doing that all day, every day. And then after that, you have to rehab. And you know how that goes. So you're trying to, you know, reset bones that have been, like, knocked out of place. You have to go to a chiropractor, or you have to stretch out muscles that have been sprained

or they're bruised, and it's a lot of hard work. Yeah, I think you said in one of your posts or somewhere on your website that every day of practice is like being in a 60 mile an hour car crash. Yeah, man. That's, uh, that's definitely true. And you feel it and you feel it in your joints and all that stuff. And a lot of guys end up having like tendinitis and all that, just from the constant banging. And, uh, yeah, you're never, it's, it's never like you wake up and feel good, right? There's always something that's off or a pain or a little niggle or an injury, at the very minimum, right?

At the very minimum. A lot of guys get really good at kind of just like phasing, like tuning it out of their mind, like, oh, it's not pain. What's really pain? Are you bleeding? Can you walk? Then you're not hurt you just sore but really you have a slipped disc or something like that and uh and i would

imagine along with that you know there's all the pressure of like trying to hold on to your job right like so you're not gonna necessarily be forthright about something that's bugging you i mean you don't want to create the perception that you're injured. No, definitely not. Because the team will use that against you. If you're injured or something like that, like for example, this is a perfect example, team doctors. You go to the doctor to get help and have them look at you and tell you what's wrong and how to fix it. But the doctors don't work for you yeah there's no like privilege right they go right to the coach yeah the doctors work for the team so if you tell them you know if something's wrong with you they're not going to help you be like all right

man don't worry about it he'll get back out you're gonna you're gonna be good like no they're gonna tell the coaches and then he's on he's on the out yeah get him out of there and and that's how that works so yeah you know like you gotta you gotta it's a it's very political it's a game it's a chess game and you have to know how to play it definitely what are some of the political mistakes that maybe you made early on that you learned from in kind of navigating you know how the teams function and how you relate to the coach political mistakes i don't know about political mistakes, but... Or just maybe things you witnessed or...

Oh, political mistakes. Or not mistakes, political things. For example, guys who get the big contracts, they can do no wrong. So I've seen a guy, like, I don't know, a guy spit in another guy's face or something like that, or try to knock another guy who's got so much money, you know, a guy who's got all the money, try to knock another guy off, you know, hurt him.

The coach sees it. They don't do anything about it because, you know, the guys are— They're too invested in that guy. Yeah, too invested in that guy. And that's, you know, it's an investment. That's their they pay that guy a hundred million dollars. They're not going to get rid of him. They're going to get rid of the guy who is, you know, who's trying to come up and take that guy's job. They'll trade him. That's another thing. If someone's doing really well, they pay the guy a hundred million dollars. They're not going to get rid of the guy who got a hundred million dollars.

They're going to get rid of that guy. The guy was up and coming. Right. And after playing under, you know, a variety of different NFL coaches, what would you, how would you characterize, you know, the better coaches? Like, what is it that the better coaches are doing that the other coaches aren't? Like, how would you qualify, you know, a great coach from an average coach? A great coach allows the players to play, you know, if someone, the best person's going to play. Yeah, on any team, you're going to have that where, you know, the guy who's got the $100 million contract is going to play, but the good coaches find a place for someone to play, and they keep it simple for the players to to do what they got to do because

when you're out there flying around at 100 miles an hour you know you're not trying to think you're just trying to act and you're trying to make moves to make things happen and uh the coaches realize what's going on they understand the dynamic of the team they know how to uh that's one that's a really important thing they know how to to keep a team a team. You have to make it like a family first, a friendship. A lot of coaches like to make it so competitive that there's so much tension in the locker room and on the field trying to compete for positions that guys are just stressed out. You can't operate under those conditions. It undermines the bigger goal, which is the team winning, right? Definitely.

It undermines the bigger goal, which is the team winning, right? Definitely. Yeah, I had this guy, Michael Gervais, on the podcast. He's a sports psychologist who works with Pete Carroll and the Seahawks. And he was talking about, like, Pete brought him on to help create, you know, a positive team-oriented environment. And also to instill practices of mindfulness and visualization and meditation, which I know are things that you practice and are into, but maybe are, you know, slightly off kilter for the average football player. And it was really interesting talking to him because he, you know, he talked about how, you know, basically his goal was to create an environment where each player could bring out

the best in them, right? So it's about overcoming that kind of inherent competitiveness where everybody's worried about their job to create kind of you know a unity around the larger goal exactly they've been really successful with that right sort of like take that recipe and like repeat that you know i like i like pete man he like you said he's he's very you're not supposed to say that as a ucla guy i know man but. I know. I thought about that before I said it. Don't worry. No one's listening. I had to say it.

But, hey, he wins games. And like you said, he's an old SC coach. He beat us when I was at UCLA. But he wins games. And every single player that I've met and I know that has played under him, they love that guy. And, you know, he sets an environment where people can want to come to work every day and they want to come work out and they want to play their hardest and put their neck on the line for him. And, you know, that's how you win games. And you don't have to create like a super competitive environment because guys already know that their jobs are on the line and they know that they're trying to beat the next man.

So, you know, that's why I respect the way he's the way he coaches and what he's doing and then i you know i love it man i sure yeah i mean it's it's not a zero-sum game right like if your approach as a player is to say i'm going to play my heart out but i'm also going to do my best to bring out the best and the guy standing right next to me or you know my teammate who's you know right to my left or my right uh everybody wins but you know the human psyche doesn't always operate that way or you know my teammate who's you know right to my left or my right uh everybody wins but you know the human psyche doesn't always operate that way yeah you know it should yeah and how did you you know kind of handle the mental aspects of of having it you know of kind of bouncing around from a bunch of different teams and having to relocate and

all of that like how did that go for you it It's stressful, but, you know, that's like, again, that's part of the game. That's the job, right? Yeah. So you just got to kind of roll with the punches and prepare and be just, you know, as prepared as you possibly can. You know, we don't buy a home anywhere. We just rent and, you know, now we're setting up a home where we are now. But, you know, you just got to kind of just stay on your toes and be ready to move but you know that's how the game goes right right right yeah so walk me through the uh

the typical diet pre-vegan as an nfl player oh man all right i know you love you love your barbecue and that's what you grew up on i did yeah i grew up at a barbecue restaurant my family on oh wow yeah so and we had a farm. You had a farm? Yeah, my grandpa would go out there and ring the chicken's neck, and then we would eat it for breakfast. Wow, where's the farm? It was in Oklahoma.

We would drive out every summer and go out there and spend the summer in Oklahoma. Yeah, it was crazy. Total 180 from where I am now. But the pregame diet, it was just kind of just basically, I didn't know anything about nutrition before being vegan, but it was just basically eat whatever, man. I was eating ice cream. Most people do that.

That's actually as a matter of fact, the night before the game, we stay in a hotel. The team serves hot wings and spaghetti, oily meat sauce and all that stuff and all kind of crap. And like I said, ice cream shakes, that's the worst thing you can have before a game, right? Would you ever drink that before the night before a marathon? Like, no. But, you know, that's the pregame. And then the day before, I mean the day of, it's, you know, pasta and super dry steak.

And it's been like that on every team. Pasta and super dry steak, like it's so hard to cut. And like A1 steak sauce. And then you go out there and you play your game. And then during the week when you're just training similar, like a version of that. Yeah. During the week, like, uh, for example, when I was on the Cardinals, I forget the name of the restaurant they had catering in, but it was, or we would get like papados.

They, they would have cater and papados is all like, uh, fried shrimp and fried, uh, alligator and fried, fried everything. Everything's fried. There's team nutritionists, right? Yeah. But they're bringing in fried food i mean it doesn't matter if you're like whatever diet you're on everybody pretty much agrees that a bunch of fried food is no good you guys are professional athletes yeah and then there's some teams that you know the nutrition is actually you know the nutritionist does what

they're what they're supposed to do and the nutritionist bring in like a lot of fruits and veggies but then they bring in like yogurt and all that stuff and and i'm being a vegan i'm against all that but you know people think that that's what you're supposed to have and that's good for you and all that and that's it's really bad for you and it's hurting you it's amazing that at that level you know of professional sports that that's kind of how it functions you know know, I just was at a couple of months ago, I went and spoke at the Olympic training center. I spent a couple of days there and in the cafeteria at the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, where, you know, all the top athletes and all these Olympic sports come and train the cafeteria. It's just, you know,

unlimited soda, unlimited soft serve ice cream, all this junk food. I was like, what is going on? If anything, this should be the place where at least there's an opportunity where you have these athletes that are kind of cloistered in this place for a short period of time. You could educate them. I'm not saying you and I are plant-based, but at least get rid of the soda and the crappy you know

processed food yeah but you know what when it comes down to is where's their money coming from yeah you know well coke is like mcdonald's is the number one sponsor of the olympics right so right mcdonald's is also in hospitals and like they're paying hospitals too and mcdonald's all right let's not get into that we can get into that i know i talk about that stuff all the time but yeah yeah you and i know what's up with that yeah um all right so uh so the latest team that you're on uh is the jaguars right and and so when when was that was like that was last year yeah that was last year but then it ended man with a running back hit me in the knee popped my knee really bad, torn MCL, and then I rehabbed on that, but I healed pretty quickly.

But right now, that's got me in a spot right now. I'm a free agent, and I'm just waiting for camp to start, and then I'm going to get on the team during camp. For the Jaguars? Well, for whatever team calls. I see. Because that's how it goes. So you're just waiting for your agent to call you, basically? but i did really well when i uh when i was with the jags so i put up

some good numbers and show some good film and all that stuff so you know it's looking it's looking really good right now yeah i want to get into that in a little bit more detail because there's kind of an interesting story there that relates to um you know, this lifestyle shift that you have embraced. So, you know, where does that begin? I know Paige is a longtime vegan, vegetarian, vegan, Paige? Vegetarian and then shift to vegan. So, Paige, were you vegetarian in college? Yeah, first year we both were meat eaters and read a skinny the book's title is called skinny

bitch yeah skinny bitch right it's a good book yeah i know the book yeah rory friedman yeah and that was that kind of kick-started everything and so yeah and but but you know this is i mean you're playing ball like yeah that's cool for her but like that's not going to be your trip yeah man i was like man you can forget that i'm not good yeah right you want me to throw you don't you cannot afford to be a skinny bitch right i can't be that's the opposite of what you're trying to do exactly that's funny but uh yeah man so uh she went vegan like i said i was like, okay, good job. You know, you can do that by yourself.

I'm going to still keep eating this meat and keep eating chicken. I was eating, like, four pieces of chicken in one setting and, you know, huge 84-ounce steaks and all that stuff we would go out to eat. And in college you were pushing, what, like 260? No, that was my freshman year. Freshman year. At the senior year of college i was like 305 okay so but uh yeah man i was just eating eating whatever right but uh and and you just carry that into the nfl and that's how you're playing and then and then something happens and then uh so got released from the from arizona and then i was at the Cowboys, and I got released from there.

I kept losing weight, and I was hurting. I had injuries that were just piling up. Why do you think you were losing weight? I don't know, man. I was like 285, 290, and I couldn't get my weight back up, but I was injured. I had shoulder pain because an old injury was coming back from college or I had dislocated my right shoulder and then it was just getting kept getting

worse and it was at the Cardinals too it started hurting then that's when it started hurting I had nerve damage in my right arm I couldn't feel my index finger middle finger and ring finger and part of my thumb on my right hand. Couldn't like ball a fist. They had me on this huge brace. And it would come basically from my elbow all the way down to like the knuckles of my right hand. And like when I would try to hit someone, I couldn't really, I had no power in it. It was just like a limp, and I was just playing. But I was still playing, and I was still doing well.

But like I said. When you can't exert yourself yourself then you're not able to work out to your potential right so I would imagine that had something to do with losing some of the muscle mass yeah definitely but uh and then I got released and from the I finished a year out and I it was it started you know after I left it alone it started healing up and everything but then uh going I went to the Cowboys and i was playing there and i got released from the cowboys because i was still my weight i couldn't get it back up again i was stuck at 285 290 and then i went to uh that's after i got released from the cowboys i went to uh we were no i'm not there yet i'm not there yet all right we were watching we were in

dallas we were in our apartment. And we were watching. We were binge watching Netflix, all the vegan documentaries on Netflix. What a night, right? Right. So we were watching. I take it this is Paige's idea. No, no.

Well, it was mine. You did? I'm a little nerd, right? I'm a nerd on the inside. But what motivated you to even want to watch those documentaries to begin with? Yeah, Paige. Okay. But we were watching Forks Over Knives, one of the many that we watched.

And the doc was on there, and he was talking about how at the time I was suffering. Let me go back. At the time I was suffering from tendinitis. Excuse me. And I would soak in the bathtub and I would try to lift myself up out of the bathtub and it felt like somebody would take a bat to my elbows. And I just, I would like almost collapse. And the pain was so intense and so sharp. And it was tendonitis.

Were you getting like injections for that and on like a battery of meds or? Yeah. They were giving me, not injections, but they were giving me Celebrex or Naproxen or something like that. They were like, it's just tendonitis.

It's nothing. The only way you can get rid of that is Celebrex. Celebrex, man, that stuff's so bad for you. I hope I don't get sued for saying that, but that stuff's so bad for you, causes heart problems and all that kind of crap but um anyways and it wasn't doing anything and arthritis too

and arthritis arthritis yeah arthritis high blood pressure probably from the medication and what i was eating but you know that stuff man it's so bad age like 25 yes that's the most scary part right and i'm like why how the hell do i have high blood pressure tendinitis and arthritis or like i feel like arthritis coming on i'm 25 years old like i live like hopefully a quarter of my life right now so uh yeah man i'm getting out of the bathtub and it's like so much pain elbows hurting tendinitis really bad we're watching the documentary forks over knives and the doc goes on and he goes uh the cause of inflammation tendonitis people all these people are suffering from tendonitis is milk and like milk and meat and dairy is causing all this it

causes inflammation in the joints and then i was like wow is it really that simple like am i is that the reason why i was like I need to lay off the meat. We kept watching the documentaries, like, not Cowspiracy wasn't out yet, Frankensteer, and where the meat was coming from. And I was seeing how they spray all the cattle with pesticides and 80% to keep the flies off of them. And you know all that crap that's in the pesticides. And 80% of antibiotics that are supposed to go to humans go to animals.

Like all the ones that FDA or whoever didn't clear, they go to the animals and they feed them because they're walking around their own shit. And so, you know, and they eat their own shit and they cannibalize the cows and feed them cow blood from the other cows that died. And other cows that died, died of just died died of just natural not natural sickness but sickness they feed them those cows so i was like man it makes sense why i'm not at you know the top of my game right now why why my tendonitis is coming on like it is or you know so after that you know I went vegan and literally like that's amazing though because I would think that at that moment you're also thinking yeah but I can't do I'm in the NFL man yeah I can't like I hear that but like if I go vegan I'm gonna lose all my muscle like how am I gonna ever stay strong how am I gonna keep the weight

you're having trouble keeping the weight on as it was as it was i was like well first of all that's pretty terrifying prospect or pretty ballsy yeah it was i was scared i was scared i was really scared but i was like you know what i was like man forget it you know like it's at the right now it's like this it's like if i i can go vegan or i can just suffer and like have tendinitis and probably die at like the average death of a football player is 56 years old and most people don't know that and that's from eating all that crap and taking heart disease i mean mostly heart disease heart disease and stroke a lot of guys stroke and so i was like you know what forget it i'd rather have quality of life than you know then keep playing and then hopefully keep playing like, you know what, forget it. I'd rather have quality of life than, you know, than keep playing and then hopefully keep playing and then, you know, just be all in bad shape.

Yeah, you've got to be careful who you mention that to, though, because they're going to think actually you have like a TBI, like a traumatic brain injury. Oh, no. Considering going vegan. No, man. Something's wrong with this guy's head. I got big balls. That's what that is. considering going vegan no man that's something's wrong with this guy's head i got big balls that's what that is but um you know uh so i did a lot of research and i looked up a couple of

bodybuilders or vegan bodybuilders i was like that's the best place to start and i saw that the strongest man in the world or one of the strongest men in the world is a vegan guy out of germany yeah patrick patrick baboomian yeah he's a friend of mine that guy's awesome have you met him yet no i want you to meet him he's the best i want to fly out to germany There's a vegan guy out of Germany. Yeah, Patrick. Patrick Baboumian. Yeah. He's a friend of mine. That guy's awesome. Have you met him yet? No, I want to. You've got to meet him. He's the best. I want to.

I want to fly out to Germany and see him. Get some tips from him. I was on stage with him in Toronto at the VegFest a couple years ago when he did that world record setting lift, 1,200 pounds for 10 meters. I saw that. I made a little video of it. Yeah. He's super cool.

Yeah. The human Wolverine. Yeah, he looks like him of it. Yeah. He's super cool. Yeah. The human Wolverine. Yeah. He looks like him. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, he was one of the guys I saw and I was like, man, all right, well, he's not 300 pounds. He's like two.

He was like 265 at the time. He's half your height. Yeah. But I was like, shit, if he's the strongest man, one of the strongest men in the world, I can do it. Like, I can do it. So I did more research and then i was like because at the time i was like man well where am i gonna get my protein from i

need protein i was one of those guys and then i was like well that just means you're pretty much everybody basically yeah but uh you know as i started doing the research and i went on the uh plant built there's a bunch of bodybuilders of plant-based bodybuilders and they're cool guys and i looked i reached out to guacamole and his and his uh wife and they helped me out they sent me like a marchese guacamole marchese marchese i can't ever say his name right i don't know but um but they sent me they helped me out and they they sent me some uh some tips and kind of took it from there they sent me like a uh yeah out and they sent me some tips and kind of took it from there. They sent me like tips and I took it from there and I started doing more research and learned all the plant-based proteins

and what are the highest forms of protein and where I can get them. And then I just started from there and kind of, you know, turned into like a plant-based scientist and started testing out some of how I can gain weight and where, you know, where I can get the most energy from all the plant-based scientist and started testing out some of the, how I can gain weight and where, you know, where I can get the most energy from all the plant-based foods and all that stuff. All right. And so in the timeline, this is in the off season. Yeah. When you're playing for the, when you're playing for the Raiders.

No, this is when I was, this is when I was, yeah, this is when I, this is when I got released from the Cowboys. Okay. In the off season. And then, so I meet this, I have this trainer while I'm in Dallas, I'm okay in the off season and then so i meet this i have this trainer while i'm in dallas i'm training for the next season and he's uh he's not vegan at all hispanic guy moses castro out of dallas texas and uh great trainer no he wasn't vegan and i told him i was like hey man i'm going vegan he minute. What? Like, what are you doing, bro? You're going to you're going to lose all of your weight. You're going to not be strong anymore.

Where are you going to get your protein from? And I was like, man, just go with me on this one. And we're going to see what happens. Right. So we did it. I went vegan and then I ended up losing weight, but I was getting stronger. My arms started healing up. My tendonitis just started disappearing overnight. I was like, oh, my gosh. I was able to do all kinds of push-ups, and I was doing hundreds of push-ups. My bench press went up.

Before, when I was hurting the tendonitis, I only bench press like 315 for like four or five which is not a lot for me right but when i went vegan i lost weight when my bench press went up i lost 40 pounds in my weight and my bench press went up to like 425 and then it went up to 435 and 465 eventually. Wow. So yeah. So initially you, you went down to about, you probably went down to about 260, 255. Yeah. Back down. Did you have a little moment of like, oh, panic? Yeah. I freaked out a little bit, but then I started, uh, had to get back in the books and do some more research and try to figure out how to, I had to boost my calories. I talked to Gakumo again. I had to boost my calories and I had to do 10,000 calories a day. Never in my life ever had to eat 10,000 calories a day and not on a vegan diet. That's the hardest thing in the world. A lot more food.

Yeah. But, um, and your trainer, when you lost all that weight, was he trying to talk you out of it? No, he was, I told him, I said, look, man, I'm doing it. I'm feeling a lot healthier. He was seeing the, um, and he wasn't trying to change my mind because he was seeing the improvements. As a matter of fact, he went vegan. Oh, wow. Yeah. He went vegan. He was like, he came back one day. He was like, I see all the improvements that you're making and I'm decided I'm going vegan now. That's amazing. Yeah. And he's, uh, now he's running like crazy. He's doing marathons and stuff he's doing very well for himself that's cool so all right so so you drop the weight and it's sort of like you got to strip it all down and build it back up again right and as you're starting to

slowly put weight back on the bench press numbers are going up the squat numbers are going up the tendonitis is going away the arthritis is going away how about the nerve damage in the arm nerve damage gone the grip in my hands is doing really it's gone like i was able to uh do more than i've ever done before i was stronger i felt like a superman i was stronger than i've ever been even when i was you know my healthiest in college so it is perfect man it just went away i the only thing i could say it was vegan diet i know i sound like a vegan spokesman i kind of am where you are yeah i really am well what's interesting about that is that a lot of people say especially with um you know strong man and bodybuilders and you know kind of power lifter type guys that that go plant-based people will say yeah well he you know

he was already big you know so he's just using the strength that he already he already had all that mass he put all that mass on you know when he was eating the way he was eating before so it doesn't really count yeah but with you losing the weight and then bringing it back up again injury-free yes that's a different story and a lot sexier than I was before. Yeah, way sexier. I mean, whoa, whoa, whoa. Paige, he's sexier now? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man. But, yeah, it was awesome, man.

Like, way less body fat, a lot quicker than I was before, you know. Right, so you put the weight back on, but the lower body fat. So it's actually, you actually, you probably added more muscle mass than you had before. Definitely. I kind of have a six pack now. I have a six for 310 pounds. I'm looking really good. I'm 310 right now. All right. Well, we'll get a picture of that. I'll put it on the website for sure. Everybody to say so right on. So, so meanwhile, you're, you're waiting for the phone to ring, right? Yeah. and then the Raiders call. I end up going to the Raiders.

We train for that. I end up going for the Raiders. I got my weight up to like 290. It wasn't exactly 300, but I got my weight up to 290. And hold on a second. So what's the average weight of like a defensive lineman or somebody in your position? I mean, is it 300? 300 is like, yeah. So that's kind of like the bottom threshold? Yeah, that's kind of like the defensive lineman or somebody in your position i mean is it is 300 is like yeah so that's

kind of like the bottom threshold yeah that's like they're kind of like the cutoff point you're going to try for a team he for you to play in d line you need to be three plus yeah so unless you're playing like defensive end where they're like small right right yeah so but um but i signed with the raiders and then um know, I went over there running. I was like, it was impressive. I was running with the defensive backs and the wide receivers, and it was like they would be tired, and I'm like, are y'all tired? I'm just going to go work out some more.

Like I had mad energy just from, you know, I was eating good and doing my vegan supplements and all that stuff and never got tired. Right. And, yeah, I think I read you were, like, throwing down seven-minute miles. Yeah, seven-minute miles at 290. Right. Yeah. It was impressive.

It's very impressive, actually. But, yeah. And so are you – and you're open about the way that you're eating, right? So what are the other players saying? What's the coach saying? What are the team players saying what's the coach saying what's the what are the team trainers saying yeah well you know the team trainers like they're like you know where are you getting your protein from and i'm like i laughed i didn't mean to laugh but i laughed like you can get protein anywhere man it's all in the list that the other you know showing them

like it's in the peas there's more protein in a handful of peas than there is in a full in a steak in an eight ounce steak and they're like oh okay and they started seeing me lifting the weights and lifting with the lifting with the big guys and lifting you know with the heaviest guys and running with the smallest guys and they were they were over there timing me and like i caught them timing me one time they were like and then i would go back around and run another lap because we were running laps. And then they were like, and he's, how heavy is he?

And I'm running with the smaller guys. And at the end of the run, the smaller DBs would be, you know, bending down and like gasping for air. And I would go and just, you know, jog and then go stretch out real quick and then go lift weights again. So it was, and that was, that was my first time being vegan and coming back into, coming back into being on the team. So it was really good to, that was a great feeling to have and to, to, you know. And so are they just scratching their heads going, how's this possible?

Or are they thinking, oh, he must be doing something else. It can't be the diet. Yeah. Because it's so different than anything they've ever been exposed to. It must have been confusing for them. It's a little scary for them because, you know, it challenges their way of life, their whole way of life. Because, you know, every dude is like, I'm eating, I'm a meat eater. You know, being a football player you you know that's the

big manly macho thing is you know eat eat steak eat red meat protein shake but i'm doing it a totally different way where you know i'm doing it on plant-based you know all that stuff and it challenges everything you know like it's to the point where football teams are sponsored by like muscle milk and and hot wing companies and mcdonald's and all that stuff so yeah it is a it's a challenge it's a it challenges their way of life and it and they're baffled by it because it's something they've never seen before right so but but in this case you're strong you're injury free you're killing it in training camp everyone's taking notice like where does this how does this play out for you i mean what where does this go so like you said

everything's going good but um you know i just feel like the team didn't take so kindly to it because you know me being vegan like i said it's different and it's you know a lot of a lot of people aren't used to that say a week later this next monday i was i was gone the team cut me so you know it was just it's a new thing for you know being in my position being 300 pounds and and totally obliterating idea that you can't be big and strong and not and not eat meat it's it's different for. And a lot of guys were looking into going vegan because they weren't feeling too healthy. They weren't feeling, the big guys, they weren't feeling their back problems and stuff.

And I don't think they wanted that influence on the team. You should probably stop eating so much meat. The influence that resolved your arthritis and your tendonitis yeah that wouldn't be good no no no getting healthy listen man you know that's the kind of unfortunate price that somebody in your position who's trying to break a paradigm has to face in order to you know kind of break the chain and open the door for you know the next wave of people to come through somebody's got to be first you know and sometimes the door for, you know, the next wave of people to come through. Somebody's got to be first, you know.

And sometimes the guy who's first, you know, becomes the casualty. Yeah, but, you know, it's fun being the underdog and it's fun, it's interesting being the guy who does it first, like you said. There's a couple guys in the NFL now, I think, right? Well, yeah. Griff Whalen. Yeah, he's a cool guys in the nfl now i think well yeah there's a wayland yeah he's he's the cool guy stanford yeah but uh him tony gonzalez yeah that's right is he still is he still vegan i don't think he's vegan anymore i think he's uh he's back on chicken and other stuff i don't know

don't quote me on that but he he did vegan for a while. And, you know, that's big time to show that you can do vegan. He was a tight end, a smaller guy, but he still did it, man. And he, you know, one of the greatest. Yeah. And Aaron Foster for a while, but I think he's not on it. Yeah, he's not on it anymore. But he still did very well while he was on it, too. Yeah.

He seems like a cool dude, though. Yeah, he's cool. All right. So you get cut and it's back to the drawing board. I mean, how do you pick up the pieces from that? Well, I just concentrated on my diet because, you know, it was still in the beginning stages of me, not diet, lifestyle. It was still in the beginning stages of me being vegan,

so I was still experimenting on, you know, how to get the best fuel. You know how that goes, what to eat, how am I going to gain all this weight, how the hell am I going to get to 10,000 calories, 300 grams of protein a day, 300-plus grams of protein a day. So that was a constant task in itself. So I did that, and I continued training training and I started working with my coach, John Blake. He's a coach out of Dallas. He coached a lot of hall of famers and the defensive line position. And, um, uh, we created videotapes and out to all the teams and ended up getting

signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars. And, uh, you know, I did very well over there, uh, put up some good stats in the preseason i was there put up some good stats and then uh this was last this is last season this past season and um you know uh it's doing very well team love me coaches love me they're like oh you're doing great oh and they know about the vegan thing they know about it they're fine with their cool they were totally cool with it see some teams are different some teams are totally cool with it like it's not a big deal as a matter of fact we had another player on the team who was vegan at that time and ramsey's barton he's a wide receiver guy and um but anyway so that must have been nice to have somebody else that you could kind of bounce

ideas off of and yeah yeah definitely and i was of, we're sharing tips back and forth and all that stuff. But, yeah, totally fine with it. And I had a lot of, you know, like I said, a lot of good stats, a lot of good plays. One of the scouts came up to me and was like, man, you're doing so well right now. A lot of the teams are talking about you. There's a lot of buzz around the league about you right now. So, you know, I was doing really good. I felt really good about what's going on. And then right at the last preseason game, I was running, scaling across the line, trying to make a tackle on the other side of the line scrimmage. I mean, on the other side of the line. And running back was about to cross the goal line.

And I was, I had my body turned a little bit the wrong way, and running back went right into my knee. And I tore my ACL. I was out for like three months with that right there. That was pretty much the whole season. That's it, right. Yeah. So I was done for the year off of that.

But, you know, I healed up pretty quickly. I healed up faster than they thought I would but by then season's full swing right right yeah so yeah so you have yet to have the opportunity to really show what you're capable of yeah but that's got to be sort of exciting but also frustrating yeah it's very exciting but it is very frustrating. Yeah, it's very exciting, but it is very frustrating, but I take it this way, you know, I have my ups and downs already, you know, like I've, not already, I'm sure I'll have more, but I've done a lot of experimenting, and I feel very comfortable with where I'm at right now, as far as strength goes, as far as agility goes, and health, everything goes, you know,

goes um you know um i figured i feel like i figured it out how to how to how to be the 300 pound vegan the whole time like 300 pounds plus all the time like i said right now i'm 310 before i was struggling to keep my weight the heaviest you've been yeah that's the heaviest i've been ever so but um you know it's it's hard to gain the weight as a vegan. And that was really the major part of the struggle. How am I going to get this mass? How am I going to get this strength up? Well, not really the strength that kind of just came with it, but the size was the hard part. The size was the hard part. Right, so let's talk about that. You know, sort of training aspects aside,

what's a typical day in the life of food for you? Like breakfast, lunch, snacks, pre-workout, post-workout, dinner? Okay, so I'm on an interesting food schedule. It's nothing like yours. Well, we do different things yeah totally different but um i eat on a two i have a timer every two hours and my timer goes off i'm eating is the time we're gonna go off during this podcast no no i'm gonna eat i got a bowl of blueberries in front of you and a couple almonds but i feel like i should be feeding you more right now i'm good right now all right you'll get a let me know if you get hungry yeah thanks i appreciate it but um yeah to reach the 10 10 000 calories a day every two hours i'm eating eating something or drinking a shake um and it's a lot of preparation so in the morning i'll have like um berries or some kind of fruit smoothie

with with a bunch of bananas that's an um that's another thing i'm eating like 25 bananas a day not out here because it's so hard to get organic bananas out here in costa rica where i where i train at there's free bananas everywhere so organic it's the greatest right right right 30 bananas a day program yeah and that's so many calories and carbs which is great for gaining weight but um yeah so i do that and i do like a bowl of millet or a bowl of uh couscous or something like that soaked oats i soak a lot of my uh soak a lot of my oats and nuts and stuff because it helps with digestion and absorbing as much of the nutrients as possible. That's another thing. I'm constantly trying to figure out ways to make food as dense as possible and packed with nutrients as possible.

That's where the Vitamix comes in. You can just blend it all down and pack so much into it. If it's greens or raw vegetables or fruit or whatever you can get so much in you so much more quickly yeah i use the vitamin mix like crazy i couldn't be vegan without the vitamin right right right so what is so so tell me what the typical shake what's in the typical shake okay so the typical shake um everybody wants to know that right no right like that's the secret i should be selling this but uh a typical shake is like oats um what was it wheat germ like i said five bananas um and this is this is like one big shake and i'll just drink it down like i'll drink one shake and then wait 10 minutes and drink another shake. But, uh, I do that five bananas, uh, coconut cream, um, sunflower seeds, and I just kind of mix it all in there. And then I get, I try to get, uh, 65 grams of protein per, per like 64 ounce,

um, container. And that way I can get, um, and I just drink it down half that's 30 grams of protein i drink that before a workout and i drink the other half after a workout and then i just you know i have like probably like i drink like three of those 64 ounce containers right right right and in terms of supplements what's like a plant-based protein supplement like vega or sun warrior or something like that well i use uh i use vega before i use a lot of vega before i use their uh but right now and health force i use a lot of health force but right now i don't i don't use much of anything being out of um being out of the country because can't really get anything there and that's really when i put on the most of my weight the bulk of my

weight i was using that's interesting yeah when you when you stop doing the powders yeah when i stop doing the powders what do you how do you explain that just whole foods man just dense foods and less processed foods i'm not really a huge fan of processed foods i mean they taste good and they're a great transition for people trying to come from, you know, the standard American diet to the vegan diet. But, you know, there's not a lot of nutrients in them, you know, but, uh, but they're still very tasty. But, um, yeah. So do you, when you, when you stopped doing all the powders, you didn't notice a difference in your ability to recover or build mass or keep weight on, put weight on? Yeah. I stopped using the powders.

And once again, I lost a little bit of weight. But I put the weight back on again. Not too much weight, like 10 pounds. So I was like 290. And I was like, oh, my gosh, no, I need to get back up again. But I put on the weight, and I was becoming more cut more defined uh stronger um i was doing 200 push-ups a day before and then when i started doing more whole foods i was doing like i was like after my 200 okay i'm gonna do 300 i'm gonna do 400 and i'm doing like 500 push-ups

a day like wow it just it's it's got a lot easier because i felt like eating the whole foods your body can utilize the nutrients more when you're eating so many processed foods it's hard for your body to break that down your body's confused and doesn't know really what to do with it uh i think it changes your gut biome too yeah definitely so you you know when you're eating all the whole foods you're propagating a certain kind of you know microbiology in your gut that's that acclimates to those kinds of foods right so you're maximizing that by only eating those yeah definitely and then and that's another thing speaking of gut bio um i worked and when i went out to costa rica i had the privilege of

meeting victorius kovinskisowinski. Do you know who that is? Oh, yeah. He's awesome. John Joseph's always talking about that guy. Yeah, he's amazing. He's full of knowledge. But anyway, that's the guy who got me doing 200 push-ups a day. No, 500 push-ups.

He's doing 200 push-ups a day. He's 72 years old, I think. Maybe you think he's older than that. But he's got scol I think maybe you think he's older than that but he's got scoliosis he's blind and he's doing 200 push-ups a day and I was like and he was like oh yeah David I'm doing 200 push-ups a day I was like are you serious I was like I challenge you I said okay I was like I cannot let this 72 year old guy beat me in a pushup competition. So now I have to double it and add an extra hundred on there. But anyways, back to the gut bio or gut, you know, the gut science.

I learned from him how to make probiotics. And so I've been making my own probiotics and sauerkraut and all that stuff and a wealth of knowledge and it's amazing how if you have the the right probiotics you taking them like you're supposed to be you utilize all the the food like you're supposed to be your body can digest them right and then those nutrients become more bioavailable to you definitely just passing right through you exactly you have so much more energy skin clears up my muscle definition uh clears up i mean clears up it definition came about a lot better i got bigger i felt myself i started weighing myself

i was putting on like five pounds every two weeks so it was and it was like solid i wasn't putting on any fat so it was really good right and what about recovery um and recovery is great so one of my workouts is when i'm in costa rica as i take a bag a big huge burlap bag i'm not being it is like and i fill it up with rocks and and so what i do is i take this bag and i do i carry it front in front of my body like this i carry it like a person and i just carry it up this bag and I do, I carry it in front of my body like this. I carry it like a person and I just carry it up the hill and I do that all day and I never get tired. And my, like, it's, it's amazing.

I run all day. Like the stuff that they used to make me tired before when I was doing a lot of the like processed foods and stuff, um, you know you know it it doesn't tire me out anymore like the oxygen is just free flowing in my body I utilize oxygen a lot better recovery time I don't get sore after workouts at all anymore uh I see a lot of people post on Instagram like about how oh yeah on leg day if it was leg day and the zombie attack happened. You know, I'm done. But my legs never get tired. And my legs are, I lift a lot. What's the squat and the leg press these days?

The squat, I'm squatting like, just the other day, yesterday or the day before, I squat a leg press, 1,600 pounds, 10 times. So it's working out. It's working, you know working you know 1600 pounds you know all right but yeah but uh squat is like 600 so it's it's doing i'm doing really well like that's some of the highest numbers i've ever had so i'm really impressed with what i'm able to to to churn out on this uh on this vegan lifestyle right all right well back to like the food timeline so we're through breakfast right now okay so how does it work like snacks lunch pre-workout

afternoon workout after you work out dinner okay so snack okay pre-workout i get my workout pre-workout i do uh maca maca powder and spirit, like a mixture of maca powder, spirulina and, uh, moringa. And moringa is the, that's like the super food, super fruit of all super fruits. It's like, uh, plays every position. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome stuff. And it seems to give me a, a great energy boost before workouts and it keeps me going and um because it also has protein in it too right so but um it keeps me it keeps me going keeps me going for the whole workout lots of energy and it's like um so that's my pre-workout and um and then during the workout i actually put spirulina in my water that's like my little secret i take it puts water

in the vitamin mix put some spirulina in there maybe a little bit of moringa and i blend it up and it tastes like crap but it does it does great because you're fueling your body you're working so hard in the gym or at least me i work so hard in the gym my body needs some fuel some nutrients to to kind of supplement while working out and it does a great job it just gives my body that protein right now that it needs during the workout spirulina is the highest protein content by weight of any food on the planet yeah 60 protein and i do that in the morning too but i'll put a little i'll squeeze some lemon in it to make it and actually it tastes a lot better if you do that but it's incredible how you just immediately feel good.

It's just water, spirulina, and a little lemon. And you're like, boom. Zinger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never talked to anybody else that did that, though. So I thought I was the only guy doing that. Because for most people, like, it's unpalatable. Yeah, it's gross.

It's not like it tastes good. No, I'm going to have to try the lemon thing but yeah it does taste like like ass sorry for all the curse words but yeah that's all right man it's a podcast say whatever you want all right cool cool um all right so that's like during workout and then i assume like after workout another shake yeah what you do so after workout i take another shake down probably like 500 calories because i'm lifting heavy weights so and i'm trying to gain weight i don't want to just take a shake down that's going to be just enough to refuel my body so i mean like just enough to barely meet my muscle

mass and all that stuff so i'm drinking uh at least 30 30 not at least 30 grams because your body can only process 30 grams of protein after you work out there are 25 grams of proteins i'll do like 30 grams shake of protein and then i do and then i do 500 calories of it's a combination of bananas uh oatmeal um wheat germ like i said i put some flaxseed in there also do flaxseed before workouts because that actually helps your body to burn fat, your fat energy stores for energy during the workout, prolonging your workout, making it – I have great workouts when I use flaxseed. And it also lowers your blood pressure for guys who have high blood pressure problems.

And I used to have high blood pressure, so I'm always taking it. Right. Is the blood pressure good now? Yeah, blood pressure is fine. I don't have any problems with it but um yeah after workout so bananas flaxseed uh oats so I do soaked oats because that that they're pretty much more digestible that way and uh yeah what about beans and legumes that's more like a dinner thing i put beans in there sometimes a lot of times in your blend yeah oh you blend them up in your drink it's protein really i've never done that how's that taste well i put black beans in there sometimes and it's not very pretty but i usually do white beans or something like that and then you know

at least it looks nice but it's the same amount of protein and it's got a lot of calories a lot of fiber in it and that's another good thing too fiber is good for muscle development a lot of people don't know that they have fiber deficiencies and that's why they're now building muscles it's not they think it's protein but it's really you don't have enough fiber in your system but um yeah so i do that. That's beans, bananas, flax, oats, and wheat germ. What about you ever do beets? I do beets before workout. Pre-workout, yeah. Pre-workout, yeah.

Man. Dude, it's like that's crazy how much better you feel. Like you feel like you just every breath you take in is like three breaths. Yeah, definitely. I learned that from Paul Shapiro who's a good friend of mine. at humane society yeah yeah good friend of mine here i owe him a workout he's like i want to work out with you i don't know if you can hang bro but uh okay we went to the same high school really yeah i mean i'm way older than him but uh but i know paul oh yeah he's cool he's cool hitman his. I call his brother like the vegan Rambo.

That guy's got like a case out against the FBI and all that kind of stuff. Right. Yeah. It's a hardcore situation. Yeah. I met his dad.

You know, he grew up in a really conservative family, but when he was in high school, he had crazy dreadlocks. Like growing up in D.C. like that, like that's radical.

You know, he was always like an activist dude. Yeah. They're cool. I like them activist dude yeah they're cool i like them they're great people what were we talking about we're talking about dinner dinner oh yeah we weren't but we are now we are yeah that's where we're heading yeah but uh dinner my one of my favorite things is a gallo pinto which is um beans and rice because beans and rice. Because beans and rice comprise of a complete protein.

Most people don't know that. But it's very filling, plenty of carbs, plenty of calories, plenty of fiber, plenty of protein. And I usually add avocado, tomato, and some queso on there. I make that in the Vitam with the nutritional yeast which is a complete protein and also has b12 in it too plenty of b12 for recovery and all that stuff and uh and and uh the cashews they have there's so many calories it's like it helps you to i feel like that helps to put on so much weight but the nutritional yeast and the and the cashews and

all that stuff we make uh cashew cheese and the vitamin mix with with the nutritional yeast and and the cashews and all that stuff we make uh cashew cheese and the vitamix with with uh nutritional yeast and cashews yeah you've done that oh i do it all the time that's my favorite i do it like every day i know like who am i talking to exactly you know what's funny about i mean i could eat beans and rice every single day i pretty much do you know like i'm pretty simple like i like it like i could have that for dinner every night just that with like a little avocado and some hot sauce and like i'm good and when people say oh man you know plant based so complicated so expensive it's like it's so simple buy a huge bag of rice and a huge bag of beans and you're out like 10 bucks and you can eat for like a month exactly and it takes 10

minutes to make yeah like expensive like that's like the poor man's diet fruit during the day and i'll eat that like for lunch and dinner i honestly i could like be happy with that yeah yeah as long as i have a vitamin mix too but yeah i mean you can make anything a vitamin mix but oh sometimes i make like bean soups just pour a bunch of beans in there like white beans and then and then put a bunch of seasonings in it some like a pumpkin or whatever and then it's like protein packed like yam protein beans and yams and that's like it's sweet put some vanilla in there you don't even taste the the beans but you have the yam in there it's super sweet it's like a thanksgiving

treat or something like that. It's awesome. It takes like no time to make. No time, but it's full of nutrients. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so I got a pretty clear. What about desserts? I'm not a real dessert guy.

I don't do desserts. Oh, banana and ice cream. Fruit, yeah. That's my fruit or banana and ice cream. That's like I feel like I'm eating ice cream, but I'm not. It's just bananas. It's awesome. That's my fruit or banana and ice cream. That's like, I feel like I'm eating ice cream, but I'm not. But it's just bananas. It's awesome. That's good.

So, all right, I get it. And I want to get into the whole Costa Rica thing. Because you kind of went down there with one idea of what was going to be up. And it seems like it's turned into a different thing, man. Like suddenly you're living down there. Yeah, well well we're not living down there we're living down there kind of but we're going to live down there permanently after everything's all said and done but right now we went out there to go with our tim with our friend tim and he's a great guy animal activist he works with a health force um he's cool he's got this huge vegan tattoo

across his neck oh wow yeah he's he's about that life but um he uh we went out there to go visit him and you know work with he has this thing called uh project that way and it's a turtle farm and they save turtles and most turtles there are000 turtles born, and one of them will survive. So they're going extinct. So he does that. He saves turtles. But while we were out there, we met this girl named Alice Alley. And she's awesome, great friend of ours.

But she goes to this school called Futuro Verde. And it's a pretty forward-thinking school in Costa Rica. But it's a private school, an IB school, interbaccalaureate school. So they're doing very well. But they asked me to do a speech there and talk to them about veganism and what it entails. And I went there and I spoke to the kids like the little baby kids and that was the most frustrating thing i've ever done it's so hard to speak to little kids like first second grade it's hard to connect yeah especially about nutrition they don't like

what's calcium yeah it's like you gotta you gotta find a way you gotta find a way in with kids right that it's not easy yeah definitely but then i spoke to the high school kids uh you know the upper grades and after that and i told them about everything how natural flavors what they're really made up did you know that the natural flavors like one of the major ingredients in natural flavor they derive from beaver butt i had heard that i mean the word natural means nothing. Yeah. It means absolutely nothing. It basically means it's in, it's in the three-dimensional world. Pretty much. Yeah. But, uh, yeah. So I talked to them about that, talked to them about how I became vegan and, you know,

the things that I eat and all that stuff and how they can start transitioning onto the vegan diet and how it'd be good for them and how it's cheaper to eat a vegan diet as well. That was one of the things that I pitched to them. The next thing I know, the school is like, oh, yeah, you know, we want to start. We're impressed by your presentation. We want to start implementing, you know, vegan into our meal plans at the school. And it started with one day we pitched to them like Meatless Mondays, which is a program that they do out here in the States. It's Meatless Mondays. It works pretty that they do out here in the states because meatless mondays it works pretty well but we went talked to them we told them how you know they're going to save money doing this we're saving money uh having vegan meal plan and and how it's going to be better for the students and all that stuff they're doing three days a week now

vegan vegan menu and uh that's pretty good seeing that. Actually, that's the first school in Costa Rica to become vegan. Wow. But Costa Rica is a pretty interesting place. I mean, you know, it's incredibly progressive. They have no, like, army, right? They have, like, no sort of military setup. And, you know, they're on the cutting edge of organic farming.

I mean, it's basically like an incredibly vegan, plant-based friendly place to live. Might be the most on the whole planet. Yeah, it's pretty... With the way they function. It's pretty vegan, but at the same time, they're big, like, agriculture people. Like, they're all about, like, where we are,

it's Montezuma costa rica and the nicoya peninsula and uh one of the blue zones yeah one of the blue zones but it's really like you said there's a lot of vegan people out there but it's not like you said there's organic farming and there's a few vegan people out there but it's really like you know grass-fed cows and all that that's what they're big on right now. Right, so, well, sustainable agriculture. Yeah, sustainable agriculture. But that's what, you know, that's what they make their livelihood on is selling meat and selling cows.

And they're very religious out there. And veganism comes across as a religion. Being vegan comes across as a religion to them out there. And they're like, oh, no. Being vegan comes across as a religion to them out there, and they're like, oh, no. But to have that in any of the schools in Costa Rica or in Latin America is pretty impressive. And Humane Society International is involved in it now, and they're helping to revamp their menu. And eventually the school is going to go completely vegan all five days. Wow. Vegan, which is very impressive.

I'm really thankful for that. That's awesome. That's pretty cool. That's just like Muse, Susie Cameron, Susie Amos Cameron and her sister Rebecca. Susie's the wife of James Cameron, the film director. And their school Muse is right on the other side of that hill. Really? Right behind here.

It's pretty cool. You should go. They have a thing called Muse Talks. It's kind of like they do a TED Talks thing where they bring speakers in to speak. You would be great. You should go and give a talk there. I think I might try and hit them up. I'll introduce you.

I did it. Rip Esselstyn's done it. Neil Barnard's been there. They just had Sir Ken Robinson. They get some pretty cool people, but you would be great. They're instituting the first all plant-based lunch of any school in the country. It starts next year. I mean, they already eat.

They have plant-based every day, but they have some other options because they just felt like they had to for the parents. But next year, it's full plant-basedbased they're growing all this food there it's an amazing place i'm sure you've seen your kids through that school well we've been um we've homeschooled all our kids oh yeah yeah yeah but our two uh youngest our two little girls they were kind of at a point where it was becoming apparent that that they could benefit from a little bit more structure um and there were certain things that they wanted to explore and they seem to have an interest in in checking it out and like you know we've known suzy for a while and we're kind of connected to that school so it just made sense so literally just like three or four

weeks ago they they went there to just kind of go for the end of this year and see how they liked it but they're enjoying it i mean it's amazing it's like solar powered and all this kind of stuff is like doesn't exist in any other school yeah it's pretty cool but um i'll make sure that i introduce you to them because you would be cool you would be great appreciate it but that means but that means that you can't just go hide out in costa rica all the time right no we're coming back out here man that's that's like you can't just go hide out in Costa Rica all the time, right? No, we're coming back out here. That's like temporary. We're just setting up for the future. But you went down there to like go visit some friends.

And did you just stay or have you been kind of going back and forth? Well, we're coming back and forth. But we stayed out there for a pretty long time. It's so amazing. But, you know, we can't get any work done in Costa Rica. They don't even have, really, internet. So we're coming back out here to L.A. This is our hometown.

And we're coming back out here to get some work done. You know, 300-pound vegan is growing. And we're trying to do some things. Literally and figuratively. Yeah, definitely. Right? Yeah. But you just need that phone to ring.

Yeah, but I'm sure sure how's it looking i mean do you have any do you kind of have a sense of of how it might play out right now yeah it's looking good like i said before i got hurt i was doing very well and you know i had a lot of put up a lot of stats and you know i was impressed with myself oh man i'm doing this on a vegan diet this is great but uh i actually was doing better than i was when i first came in and anytime in my career so you know it's just uh right now it's just a waiting game so we'll see what we'll see what happens in august when the camp starts right and and most guys in your position would be working with a trainer every day at a gym you know doing that kind of traditional route but you're down in costa rica doing that kind of traditional route, but you're down in Costa Rica doing this

kind of primal functional body strength, you know, swinging from trees and carrying rocks around and stuff and like doing pushups on the beach with the 72 year old guy. Right. So how does that work when, you know, you don't have that, that kind of familiar accountability to another person. And it's kind of all on you to get up in the morning and figure out what you're going to do to you know take care of yourself and put you in a position where when you get that call you're ready to show up and play uh you know it's it's a challenge it makes you it makes you you have to be accountable to yourself like you don't have i don't have an accountability accountability partner i have to get up in the morning and get out there before it gets too hot and work out by myself. And before I left, I sat down with my trainer and my defensive line coach, my pass rush coach,

who I work with. And I worked out a workout plan with the two of them. And I got that down before I went out there, but then I started adding my own stuff. But when you're out there by yourself and you're working out like that by yourself and doing it all by yourself, you have to push yourself. It's a mental thing. And, you know, like when you're running and you're running 100 miles, you know, you have to push yourself. No one's going to do it for you. And that was kind of like a crutch that you had when you're working with a trainer in the stage. Once you started to slack, somebody would be on your back. Yeah, but when you're doing it, you've got to push that weight off your chest by yourself.

You've got to carry that weight the rest of the way. When I'm carrying that huge bag of rocks or pulling that tree down the beach, I have to do it myself. I have to motivate myself to do it. And it's physical training, but it's also mental training as well. Yeah, it's awesome. Well, let's get into that part. I know that like yoga and meditation is kind of a thing that you've gotten into, right? So how did that start? And how has that kind of impacted your perspective? Awesome. I think it clears the mind. It fixes the body. It creates space within the body. I sound like a yogi. I'm not. Straight up, you're unlike any other football player I've ever met.

Thank you. I appreciate that. That's a good thing. It's not normal for an NFL guy to start, you know, waxing poetic about like yoga and meditation, man. It should be. Yeah, it should. Right. There's like, like nutrition should be a very huge thing in sports and nutrition, but we already discussed that, but it's not, but, uh, yoga, man, it's awesome. It creates space. You get to, you, you get to know your body. You get to, you're like having a conversation with your body when you're doing yoga and you get to go into those deep places like my shoulder for example my shoulder injury doing all those uh downward dog stances and and doing all those poses and and stretching and planting my hands into the ground um it was uh that stuff opens up your that stuff it makes you use those muscles that you've never used before

being a big man it's hard to get into those poses and crane poses and stuff at 310 pounds but uh and it really and that's another mental mental strength thing you got going on right there it forces you to push yourself to places if you've never been before and where did it where did it begin for you and what was your entry point into yoga uh my beginning point was uh when i first got into the league page made me start doing yoga yeah i had a feeling you were gonna do that yeah so you made come on man i got the same story i'm gonna start doing it myself no but like where i knew that that's i had a feeling you were going to do that. Come on, man. I got the same story. I didn't know what I was going to start doing to myself. No, but like where I knew that that's, I had a feeling that's what you were going to say, which kind of leads me to the next thing that I was going to talk about, which is, you know, the importance of having like a strong, supportive partner who's like pushing you to grow and

expand. Because, dude, I mean, left to my own devices, like I'm a jack in the box. You know what I mean? Like my wife was really you know she wasn't fully plant-based she wasn't fully vegan but she was leading a healthy lifestyle and had you know healed herself of a cyst in her neck um using ayurveda and she was into yoga and meditation and reading spiritual texts and always kind of like trying to expand her horizons and grow and you know i just wasn't just wasn't interested, you know, it's like, it took me, I had to get to

a place where I was in like a lot of pain in order to start listening. But, but having that partner who's kind of, you know, willing to help and, and standing in their strength, like in the light has been transformative for me. Yeah, definitely. And it sounds like you've got, definitely have the same thing. Yeah, definitely taking me to a place where I never even thought about going. We can give Paige a mic. She's sitting over there all quiet. All right. All right.

She's good, I think, right? But, I mean, she's, you know, listen, she was the entry point into these nutritional shifts. Yeah, everything. Entry point into yoga. Yeah. Same with meditation. yoga yeah same with meditation yeah same with meditation i was like mind racing like i'm not trying to sit down i'd rather sit down and watch television or something or play you know football games or whatever go

work out whatever i'm not going to sit there and do nothing for 30 minutes and just breathe like okay right and just like i said mind racing but it is it's amazing how you know you think that doing a bunch of stuff is i'm being productive i'm being productive no you you sit down and you relax and you you know you think about you don't even think about anything but it just it helps you to grow and that's the easiest way to grow is through meditation i was talking to one of my my old teammates about it he's and he was like man you know he's like because i tell him all the time bro you should meditate you should do yoga you should you should and i'm trying to make him vegan he's like he's now he's talking i'm gonna be vegan but now he's like you know um hey man you know you should meditate i'm like man i'm the one that told you that

he's like he's telling he's like oh you should yeah i'm thinking about going, you know, you should meditate. I'm like, man, I'm the one that told you that. He's like, oh, you should. Yeah, I'm thinking about going vegan. You know that? I'm like, man, I'm the one that told you that. But it's great, man. It does a lot of good things for your mind, for your body, for your soul. I think it even helps you to heal injuries.

You know, just the power of the mind to heal. Power of the mind. Yeah. Now we're getting on new age. I know right how about that namaste um so how does how does that how does that look for you i mean what is there a particular type of meditation that you do or you know no i haven't gotten all into it like that i just kind of just relax and i just clear my mind i sit down in my yoga pose and just, I do it. And it is not just still meditation. When I'm doing my yoga, I sit and I meditate

or, you know, meditate anywhere really. As long as you just sit down, relax and clear your mind and just get rid of all the world stresses that you have, the day stresses, what you have, don't think about what you have going on in the future. Don't think about what's troubling you from the day stresses which you have don't think about what you have going on in the future don't think about what's troubling you from the past and just you know that stuff it it works it's it's calming and that's the best thing most people don't get the chance to have that in the day right and and they may think that like oh well you're in costa rica you know i'm

stuck on the 405 while you're sitting on the beach you know but the truth is it's just a choice that you make. You do it wherever you are. You create your own world. Right. But it probably is easier in Costa Rica. It's a lot easier. I'm not going to deny that.

I'm not going to deny that. How do you handle... Well, actually, before I get into that, I wanted to ask you, because it kind of falls on the heels of the spiritual aspects of, you know, the things that you're kind of stepping into and growing into, which is the ethical side of being vegan. I mean, initially you made this switch because you were injured and you wanted a healthier way of, you know, sort of being a football player.

And now you have a different perspective, or maybe I should say a more expanded perspective because, you know, you're a pretty passionate animal rights advocate and it didn't start out that way. So I'm interested in how that kind of came about. Yeah. Well, definitely. Once I went vegan initially was, like you said, just for health reasons. health reasons but then uh when i realized you know we don't need meat at all to survive and i was pushing up big numbers in the gym and running well and and put on putting on more weight than i ever had before uh you realize that you know the only real reason to eat animals animals is is for greed you know and like you you know i remember you said that it's the middleman.

You're the middleman. I mean, the animals are the middleman. The animals are the middleman. Yeah, I mean, I think there's this idea that we're obligate omnivores, that we must eat meat. And so, you know, sort of livestock agriculture is just a necessary thing that we have to do. But once you realize we're not obligate omnivores, it's a choice, and we can not only survive but actually thrive without them,

it's impossible to not go, well, if that's the case, then, like, what are we doing? Yeah, it's an old concept that we need to eat meat. You know, like, people will assume that we're, like you said, we're carnivores, and we're not. You know, like, our assume that we're, like you said, we're carnivores and we're not, you know, like our intestines are not made for it. We don't have claws. We don't have large fangs. You know, we can't run down a deer and chase them down.

You know, none of that stuff, you know. And so it's science, man. Like we're not made to eat meat at all. And really, you know, the more people find that out then you know the better the world's going to be and i feel that people are just people are just unaware and because of that animals are dying every day by the billions and everything like and it's not just food it's everything it's uh for example soap most people don't know they look on that soap is made from from dogs like what yeah wait i didn't know this hold on a second so that can't

be true in the united states what do you mean made from dogs made from dogs bro like okay come on so soap if you look on the back of your soap there's going to be an ingredient on the back of your soap, there's going to be an ingredient on the back of the soap, glycerin. Glycerin basically is just a scientific term for, okay, this is what they do. All the dogs that are in the dog pound, they get put to sleep. They take them and they got to go somewhere. They're not burning them up, incinerating them or burying them somewhere. They're taking them. They take them to a factory somewhere. They boil them. And the fat that comes from the um from the dogs and whatever other animals they put in their cats dogs uh whatever they just take the fat off skimming off the top and they make glycerin that's the glycerin that's the i didn't know they make the soap out of so most people don't know that every time they wash their hands they're putting dead

dog fat on their hands so as and it makes you think like man what other what other things are we utilizing animals for that they don't need to be utilized for dogs are being put to sleep and being caught by a dog pound and they're like finding reasons to kill dogs you know i know it's a lot of them but damn like you don't you don't gotta kill all of them yeah yeah yeah so and so but where does this where does this creep in Is this just a natural evolution of you kind of realizing like, oh, wow, I'm actually doing really well without me, and it just naturally led you to question these paradigms? Or is there like a book that you read?

Does this become like the main part of who you're all about, what you're all about? I read the book Mad Cowboy, and I read a book Mad Cowboy, and meat is for, I read a couple books, Mad Cowboy, and Meat is for Pussies, and I forget the name of the other book, but a really good book, and it talks about all the things that they do that are just totally not necessary to the animals.

For example, animals that we eat, that they eat, those people, that they eat, that, you know, the pain and the suffering that they go through, and that's totally unnecessary. And when you take a step back and you realize that, wow, like, all this is going on just so I can have a steak. You know, they're raping cows to have other cows. Or have, like, leather seats in my car or whatever. Yeah.

Yeah. Or, yeah, that's another thing. The death march where they take the cows and they march them all the way. They can't kill them in India because they're, like, you know, they're honored. The cows are honored. So they death march them. They walk them. Yeah, across the boundary line. man that's wild and just so they can kill them at the end yeah and when you

realize that all that stuff and how unnecessary it is especially when we don't need animals to survive in any capacity it's 2015 we don't need leather seats in our car we can make a composite leather out of whatever and use that or not composite but you know we can make um yeah there's all i mean it's 2015 there's a million kinds of modern textiles that yeah we don't really have to use that we just like the way it smells exactly it feels we like our steak it makes us feel regal you know that's where masculine i mean you know masculinity is a big part of this whole thing too. And, and that's why I think you're such a powerful example, like being a football player and, you know, being a 300 pound guy, you know, because men associate their sense of identity with these sorts of things. You know, it's like they got to have their steak because it's not just, it tastes good. That's part of it but but there's there's a there's

a gender identity that comes with that and and when you kind of speak to that it becomes very threatening or destabilizing and it's one thing for like a skinny ultra runner guy to talk about it's a very different thing for you know a guy who can throw up 400 plus pounds on the bench press and is playing in the nfl to talk about it yeah yeah that's the thing that and it does make a difference you know like i was talking to somebody about it yesterday and they're like why do why do most men feel that they have to be uh eat meat to be a man and that is it's true that's what a lot of guys think not even 90 of the men in the world think that and you know they feel like i don't know most guys i don't know like i'm a man it's just

only protein in here i gotta eat this animal you know or get it the blood and it's you know they're being some kind of warrior yeah some carnivore and i know that's not the case no you're you don't have to eat this innocent animal first of all you couldn't go hunt that animal down if you wanted to yourself anyway like i said you don't have the unless you if you took away the gun go into the ralphs and they're getting it in cellophane yeah or the whole foods yeah you know you know you're not hunting the whole hunter-gatherer concept is out of you know that's out the window you're not doing any of that you're grocery shopping but you know am i so you're not really being that's not really manly that's you know opportunist like you're out there it's convenient to go get the meat in the store and you're just

feeding whatever, getting eaten whatever somebody tells you. I think part of it also is that, you know, a lot of men feel emasculated because of the way our society is set up. You know, you're stuck in a job you hate, you're sitting in a cubicle, like you're not, you're not living the life of like a primal man. You're sitting in a cubicle. You're not living the life of a primal man. So it's one way of saying, well, at least when I do this, it makes me feel manly, even if it's a complete illusion or fallacy.

Because it runs deep, man. It's like a powerful emotional thing. And that's why I think it's so tough for so many dudes to wrap their head around like the idea of embracing this lifestyle it's just it's super scary and threatening because because they associate it with with undermining their manhood yeah and the truth is like real manhood true masculinity i think is protect yeah it's being compassionate it's taking care of of those that can't take care of themselves exactly exactly and not only that like being around to protect your family you know yeah right yeah like you said protecting your family let's get on that if you die of a heart attack at 50 and you're not around for you know you can't protect your family not taking care of

them exactly and then not only that bro like think about this. Like, you know, you have your kids. You have kids. You're like, you know what's in that. Now, if you were to inform yourself what goes into a steak, like you have all those antibiotics, you have all those pesticides, you have all those drugs and everything that they pump into the cows, pigs, whatever. And you cut that up. You go buy it in the store. You cut it up. You put it on a plate and you feed

it to your child you are not protecting your child you're harming your child and that's you know your wife and that's you're not protecting anybody you're you're poisoning them you're allowing big agriculture or whatever the big farm companies or you know all these companies to to poison your child or your your wife yeah that's a good point yeah so that's not being manly at all man that's being that's being i'm not trying to be too aggressive here but that's being stupid right you know like so what do you how do you address it when you the other guy the guys that you train with other football players dudes you see in the gym who are you know probably rolling up on you oh

hey man dave carter playing the nfl like oh you know oh vegan really like well i'm on a paleo diet like it's working for me or you know what's wrong with paleo because like it's all about paleo now it's like the big craze yeah i was trying to create some confusion so yeah like how do you navigate those conversations so i tell them first like one of the biggest things that i like to tell them is that like man that's cool you know you're eating cleaner than i don't know you're eating cleaner than a lot of people but bro like do you understand how the human body is designed like your human body is not designed to eat meat in any capacity like your intestines tell you you're you're wrong about that yeah like man it's science look it up like google it like the internet is right there at your

fingertips but the internet is is full of all kinds of conflicting confusing information it's not always like this the solution to like google something because for every study you find you can find a conflicting study and once you read the whole thing and figure out who paid for it and you have a background in science where you can understand like whatever bias is built into whatever study on either side of the equation then yeah then you know your whole day's over and you know what i mean like you can go down that rabbit hole forever it is it is a challenge to to go against those people who are they're just so gung-ho about staying on the paleo diet, staying eating meat. They're just, it's like a drug rhythm, you know, they're trying to find any reason to stay eating meat.

But, you know, what I do is I tell them, you know, I tell them about that, how scientifically humans are not designed to eat meat. scientifically humans are not designed to eat meat or i read to them the heart disease rates and stroke rates and what directly correlated to to meat consumption and dairy consumption and how the for example the milk company this is one thing i love to tell how they're like i was you remember that commercial got milk commercial of course how could you forget it's like permanently tattooed on my brain i mean it would be impossible to not know what that was. Exactly. And they're like, milk does a body good and all that stuff. Well, legally, they can no longer say that because they crack down on them. And there's been studies that have been done.

And they're like, well, they say, oh, milk is good for you. Milk is good for you. Well, legally, no, it's not. They can no longer say milk does a body good because it does not so they can get sued for that that's false they changed the slogan from milk does a body good to milk to got to got milk and protein and milk has protein in it and so like like you know people they they don't they don't know about these things because those things are hidden. And milk companies do a great job of hiding that stuff. And like you said, the meat companies, they do a really good job of hiring teams of researchers to generate false information and false studies to argue these Harvard studies that have proven that meat causes heart attack, you know, coagulates the arteries and causes heart attack and stroke and all that stuff. And, you know, but you just have

to, I like to plant seeds in people's mind and tell them like, you know, like, just look for yourself, man, do the research. You know, I've done the research and one of the things is they, like, you can see that you can, by looking at me that, you know, you're not going to get weak and small by being a vegan. So let that be enough, man. And do some research and watch some documentaries and, and find out for yourself. And don't just listen to what anybody's just telling you. Do your own research and be your own, your own nutritionist and be your own scientist. Because, like, every time you're eating is one of the things that you do most times a day. Most people eat three times a day. What else are you doing three times a day?

Nothing. You're going to shower three times a day. You know, none of that stuff. So it's like at least be aware of what it is that you're doing the most time, most of your life. You know, don't just allow, don't just let it be anything that you're putting down your mouth or feeding to your kids or feeding to your pregnant wife, whatever. Yeah, educate yourself, like invest yourself in what that's all about

and connect yourself more closely to the food choices that you're making for yourself and for your kids. I mean, you know, I think for you, the most powerful thing that you can do and the most powerful way for you to carry the message is just to keep getting stronger and, and, and play your ass off on the field. You know what I mean? Because especially for dudes, it's like, it's what you do, you know, is going to Trump whatever's coming out of your mouth. It's almost like if you do that, it doesn't matter what you're,

you don't have to say anything. Yeah, definitely. Because everyone gets it. Yeah. So I want to see you kicking some ass. Thanks, man. I'm going to. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cool. Well, I think that's a beautiful way to wrap it up and close it down. But I think one thing I'd like to leave people with is maybe some tips or, or some inspiration for somebody who's listening to this and they're new to these ideas, you know, and, and they're interested, they're intrigued. They're like, wow, I never would have thought like a dude in the NFL, like really? And so maybe they're ready to, you know, kind of dip their toe

in the water. Like where, where, where would you, or where do you suggest, you know kind of dip their toe in the water like where where where would you or where do you suggest you know people make that first step how do you do that well i mean you're you are an all-in dude like i kind of was a little bit too you know what i mean like yeah i started you flick that switch and it's over with but most people aren't like that yeah i started like like you said all in the next day but um it's hard for a lot of people just to go vegan because at first they don't even know where to begin and um you know you know the best way to do is to look up some look start researching and look up some you don't really have to look far look on look on the internet and look up some recipes and find some creative recipes something easy

something simple that you can uh that you can make really quickly and you know it's not a huge hassle and you know that's what i'm doing right now i'm working with this company it's called it's called lighter and we're and we're creating it's lighter and it's a it's a group the the nutritionist is actually a runner a marathon runner and she's uh we're working together to create heavier which is which is my half of lighter but it's pretty cool right so oh no it's not heavier it's stronger that was the first name stronger but it's heavier that's kind of a negative most people don't want to get they don't want heavier no it's stronger but um it's an awesome it's an awesome concept it's heavier as kind of a negative. Most people don't want to get one heavier. No, it's stronger. But it's an awesome it's an awesome concept.

It's really like, you know, it's a personal nutritionist and they do all the shopping for you basically and bring it to your front door. It's like an app. It's talking about it's a website and it's called lighter and lighter culture dot com lighter culture dot com.com and yeah it's pretty awesome man great stuff and they do the best job to get as close to non-gmo as possible they follow the the the big is it called the big nines the dirty dozens dirty dozens the dirty dozens and um it's it's awesome awesome they do they get great products and all that stuff and they have recipes and a lot of my recipes are up there and what i do to my weight-gaining recipes and what I do for pre-workout, after-workout, and all that stuff.

So it's awesome. But that's one option. But then, you know, going online and looking up, there's another great website. It's oshiglows.com. They have great recipes. That's one of the websites that got me started. And it's very easy. Joel Lippin. Yeah, yeah, she's awesome oh she glows.com they have great recipes that's one of the websites that got me started and it's it's very easy yeah yeah she's awesome but um yeah there's there's plenty of vegan options like i said i'm not a big fan of the processed foods but there's huge process there's there's um gardine and and beyond meat is awesome they have great food, Beyond Eggs.

Just Mayo. I love Just Mayo. Yeah, I mean, so for somebody who's not ready to let go of those, like for you and me, it's like I don't think about that stuff anymore. But like most people, they need to transition. So those foods have their place for that. But I think people overcomplicate it in their mind because they don't they don't know right so they think it's going to be hard or cardboard foods yeah or all this meal prep they're gonna have to you know spend all day because spend all day in the kitchen creating

these recipes because the idea is like oh you're trying to recreate uh something that tastes like meat and dairy but it's not about that you know it's so simple it's like look we're sitting here we're eating we're eating a bowl of blueberries yeah did we have to prepare that no it's already made i got a big bag of almonds over there and some bananas and a big bag of rice and a big bag of beans and like if all you did was go to the store and buy a bag of rice and beans you're good that's like that's huge that's a that's a huge start yeah make a big thing of rice and a big thing of beans and put it in your refrigerator and then you can eat for a week yeah just add some some simple things avocado tomato and you're good and that's

a that's a full-on delicious meal right there i love it that's my one of my favorites but yeah a lot of people make it a lot harder than what it is and like we said earlier that's probably the meat companies uh adding all these extras to it and hyping it making it something that is not but it's very easy and it's very inexpensive so yeah yeah and i mean it's it's not just the meat companies it's it's cultural you know cultural this is there's just this hardened idea that this is what it is and so you know it's people like you that are that are you know changing that perspective so uh thank you for that man thank you bro appreciate it you're an inspiration i can't wait for you to get that phone call i want to see what you're going to be doing next year and

i'm excited for you man thank you bro and i want to come down and visit you guys in costa rica oh you should you're supposed to and then we end up coming down here i know like we got to make that happen somehow i'd love to do that i've uh my friend charlie knowles is going to be moving down there soon he's a meditation teacher i should connect you to him too oh nice i don't know what part of costa rica it is but probably where we are that's like the hippie zone where we live in oh it is i thought the whole country was a big hippie zone. It always is like the concentration of hippies where we are right there. Is it?

Yeah. All right, man. Yeah, I like it. Thanks. A hippie in the NFL. Got to do it,

man. Right. All right, man. Well, uh, thanks for dropping by all the kind of books and references that we made throughout this conversation.

We'll be in the show notes, uh, on the episode page at ritual.com for this episode. So go there and check that out and dig in and, you know, pull that thread and go on your own journey with all this stuff, man. Right? All right. Cool. I think we did it. Yeah. How do you feel? Feel good? That was good, man. You know, hey, this is a good interview. You have to have me back on once I get time. Anytime, man. Anytime. I would love to have you back on i'd love to have you back on uh after you know you're back and playing and come and share you know what that's all about and what that what's

that like all right we do that no problem man cool man all right peace peace plants plants life ass. Bye. All right, you guys, I hope you enjoyed that. Did it live up to the hype? I think it did, man. I really liked that guy. There's something really, truly touched and special about David. So let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments section on the episode page at richroll.com. All right, send in your questions for future Q&A podcasts to info at richroll.com. Keep sending them to that email address until I find a decent web-based way of cataloging these questions now that Google Moderator is defunct. If you guys have any ideas about how to manage that, I'm all ears. Just let me know. For all your plant power needs, visit richroll.com. We've got nutrition products. We have signed copies of both Finding Ultra and the Plant Power Way.

We have 100% organic cotton garments. We've got Julie's Meditation Program. We've got Plant Power Tech Tees. We've got Plant Power and Peace and Plants sticker packs and temporary tattoos. Those are super fun. And now we're offering a run on a limited edition of art prints, both framed and unframed, a pop art take on the USDA's politicization and devaluation of the true organic movement. These are signed and numbered on gorgeous heavy cloth paper from my friend, the esteemed artist and food advocate, Andrew Pasquella. He's really a premier upcoming talent who's making waves in the art and food movement.

He's a really touch-talented artist, and it's pretty special and cool that he's offering up his work on our site. And they really are beautiful prints. They're a great way to get your hands on some really fine art that I assure you will appreciate in value as Andrew's art career continues to skyrocket.

So basically, everything you need to take your health and your life to the next level, we got your basis covered at richroll.com. But if you want more, I got a few online courses at mindbodygreen.com, The Art of Living with Purpose, which is all about setting goals, doing the inside work, getting your life on a proper trajectory. I love that course, about two and a half hours of streaming online content. And of course, Julie and I have a course called The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition. I think that's about three and a half hours of streaming online content. Both of these courses have an online community. It's really robust, and I'm really proud of those courses. So for more information on those, go to mindbodygreen.com and just click

on Video Courses in the upper left-hand corner, and you can learn all about it. Thanks for supporting the show, you guys, by telling your friends, sharing it on social media. I love all that stuff. Keep Instagramming and keep using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. Thanks so much, you guys. I appreciate you sticking it out to the end. Really hope you enjoyed, David. I'll see you in a couple days.

And make it great, you guys. Be awesome. Life is short. Do something that scares you today. All right. Peace. Plants. Thank you.