Marco Borges’ 22-Day Revolution: A Plant-Based Mission To Transform Mainstream Culture

Maybe you know Marco Borges because he trains people like Pharrell. Perhaps you know him as the guy who inspired Jay-Z and Beyoncé (who he also trains) to adopt a plant-based lifestyle, then partnered up with them to launch 22-Days Nutrition – a plant-based nutrition products and meal delivery service that shuttles organic, plant-based gluten-free, soy-free and dairy-free meals anywhere in the U. S., right to your doorstep. I had never met Marco. In fact, until this past Spring, I had never even heard of him. But all that changed in April when this Miami-based celebrity fitness trainer, exercise physiologist and plant-based evangelist was suddenly everywhere: the TODAY show, Good Morning America, TIME magazine and even places like Vogue, Entertainment Tonight, Ryan Secrest and Perez Hilton. A Jay & Bey infused media blitz that launched this guy from below the radar to massive mainstream popularity, fomented a plant-based zeitgeist frenzy and skyrocketed his new book, The 22-Day Revolution: The Plant-Based Program That Will Transform Your Body*, to the top of the New York Times Bestseller list. When the most culturally significant and influential entertainment couple on the planet embraces the plant-based perspective (even if imperfectly or temporarily), it's a big deal. The seismic impact can't be underestimated. People don't just notice — the tectonic plates of popular culture shift. Conventional attitudes and habits around food change. Our social paradigm forever altered. So who is the man behind all this? In full disclosure, my biggest fear was that Marco would be just another trainer leveraging celebrity relationships for personal notoriety and fortune. But contempt prior to investigation is a recipe for ignorance. I was delighted to discover a remarkable man. A man that completely defies the stereotype and put to rest any questions I may have harbored about the motivations behind his mission. Marco Borges is true blue. The real deal. A husband and father of three young boys who — at his very core — is about service. Truly passionate about educating and informing mainstream culture about the benefits of plant-based nutrition; doing his very best to spread a message of conscious, compassionate and sustainable living; and working his butt off to provide innovative exercise and nutrition programs, tools and resources to help people – every day people – get fit, healthy and happy and transform their lives for the better. This is a super fun and informative conversation about Marco’s uncommon, extraordinary life and his most worthy mission. Specific topics covered include: * self realization and the impact on consciousness * Marco's background in Miami spin/club culture * Marco's catalyst to plant-based nutrition * becoming the best version of yourself * lifestyle choices, empowerment & education * effective plant-based training * breaking bad habits * the importance of incremental & consistent improvement * entertainer influence in plant-based movement * developing a friendship with Jay Z & Beyoncé Enjoy! Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

  Eating well rarely falls apart because of one big failure. It's the daily question that wears you down, like, what am I actually going to make tonight? What's in the fridge? And it's exactly why we built the Plant Power Meal Planner. It's a personalized, plant-based meal planning program that matches you with recipes based on your taste, your allergies, your cooking skills, and how much time you actually have. You build, through this program, a balanced, nutrient-dense plan for your entire household in a few minutes. Then it generates a grocery list for you with one click that plugs right into our delivery partners. All the recipes in the program are built by dietitians with culinary training. Plus, you get your own food coach to help you problem-solve along the way.

• 0:44Rich Roll?

  It's kind of an amazing thing. For listeners of the show, all you special people, we're offering an exclusive $20 off an annual subscription right now. To get it, go to meals.richroll.com, take your quick personalization quiz, and enter promo code RICHROLL20 at checkout.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  I don't think that people purposely want to live a life full of cruelty, or necessarily want to add more greenhouse gases to the earth. But there's something that happens that you don't realize while you're going through this process, that you become more conscious. And then it's not until you become more conscious that you can actually see what's in front of you.

• 1:34Rich Roll?

  That's exercise physiologist Marco Borges, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:53Rich Roll?

  Hey everybody. How you guys doing? Thank you so much for tuning in. I really appreciate that. My name is Rich Roll. I am an athlete, author, public speaker, wellness advocate, husband, dad, student, and podcast host, of course. And this is the show where I commune with the paradigm shifting outliers, the big forward thinkers across all categories of positive culture change. Everything from health and fitness to nutrition, academia, medicine, entrepreneurship, tech, mindfulness, consciousness, and spirituality. The goal is lofty, but it's also simple and I think very worthwhile. And that is this, to help all of us unlock and unleash our best, most authentic selves.

• 2:36Rich Roll?

  So, thank you so much for subscribing to the show on iTunes, for taking a moment to give us a review on iTunes, and of course, for always using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. That is just a great, simple, and easy, and free way to support our mission here. So, thank you so much to everybody who has made a habit of that. So, today, I'm coming at you from the bustling metropolis that is Elkhart, Indiana. It's a little, small town, not too far from South Bend. Yeah, baby. I'm on the third leg of this sort of four-city little mini-tour. I was in Atlanta last weekend for the Food Equals Medicine Conference. Then I went down to Athens, Georgia.

• 3:21Rich Roll?

  What a great town. I'd never been there before. Super cool, little college town there. I had the opportunity to give a talk to the University of Georgia Varsity Swim Team, which was amazing. I always love meeting college swimmers. I did that in the afternoon. And then, later that evening, I gave a larger talk to the student body, which was fantastic. And now, I'm here in Elkhart. But by the time you listen to this, I'll probably be in Miami for the Seed Food and Wine Festival. Hopefully, I'm going to meet some of you guys there. Been on the road for a little while. I really miss my family. I love to travel. It's hard to be away from my kids and my wife. But I've met so many cool, super cool people.

• 4:03Rich Roll?

  And I just want to thank everybody who made a point to come out and see me speak, hang out, shake my hand, take a selfie, let me sign your book, and share a few words with you guys. And it's funny because I keep thinking I have a grip on who the audience for this podcast is, you know, the demographic, but it's only when I travel that I realize that I have it all wrong because I'm meeting people from all walks of life, blue collar, white collar, super fit, to those dealing with disease or life crises, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, old, young. And it's amazing to me to see how the podcast really is speaking

• 4:45Rich Roll?

  to so many different kinds of people. And it's really cool to connect in person with all of you, everybody who has been in some way positively impacted by this show. So I just want to thank everybody for that. It means a lot to me. And it's what inspires me to work harder and be better, not just with the podcast, but in all aspects of my life. So today on the show, I've got Marco Borges. He is an exercise physiologist. He is a New York Times bestselling author. His book is called The 22 Day Revolution. And you might know this guy because he trains people like Jay-Z, Beyonce, and Pharrell.

• 5:25Rich Roll?

  He's the guy who inspired Jay, I call him Jay, and Beyonce to adopt a plant-based approach to their lifestyle, and then ultimately partnered with them on his new company, which is also called 22 Days Nutrition. It's a plant-based nutrition products company and meal delivery service that delivers organic, plant-based, gluten-free, soy-free, and dairy-free meals to your doorstep. This is a great talk. It's a fun talk. And as always, I have a few more things I want to say about Marco. But first. Okay, today's show, Marco Borges. In full disclosure, I gotta admit.

• 6:10Rich Roll?

  I wasn't quite sure how this one was gonna go. I didn't know Marco. I'd never met Marco before. And perhaps, let's just say, I might have had a few judgments. Judgments based on nothing, really. I just saw a guy who is now very much in the media, a guy who somehow became the trainer for Jay-Z and Beyonce, and seems, with an emphasis on seems, to have leveraged that relationship into a book that sold like crazy, and this really successful plant-based nutrition delivery service. I mean, how does that happen? How does that really work? But as they say, contempt prior to investigation is a recipe for ignorance.

• 6:51Rich Roll?

  And I'm so happy and pleased to say that the guy that I met really defied my preconceived ideas about who he might be. And I'm just really delighted to discover that Marco is true blue. This guy is the real deal. At his core, truly passionate about just helping people, spreading a legit healthy message, and working his butt off to provide innovative exercise and nutrition programs, tools, and resources to help people, everyday people, get fit, healthy, and happy, and transform their lives for the better. So like I said, this is a fun and informative conversation about Marco's life and his most worthy mission. So let the magic begin.

• 7:40Rich Roll?

  We just had the podcast, the epic podcast before the podcast, which I'm always trying to avoid, but always fall into.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 7:45Rich Roll?

  You know, it's unavoidable. It's so nice to meet you.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Likewise, man.

• 7:49Rich Roll?

  It's cool that you could make this happen, man. I know you're a super busy guy.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 7:55Rich Roll?

  And yeah, I'm looking forward to getting into it with you, man. Your life's crazy right now.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  It's, uh...

• 8:00Rich Roll?

  What is it, what does the day in the life of Marco Borges look like right now?

• 8:03Speaker 01

  You're seeing, yeah.

• 8:04Rich Roll?

  We're in a beautiful hotel room in Beverly Hills, so it's not so bad, right? But I know you're all over the place.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's been fun. You know, we were just talking about you picking what you're most passionate about in life and being able to do it well. And I'm just excited to no end to know that this pendulum has started to swing, and it's really picking up momentum. And we're just right smack in the middle of it. And it's really exciting, because every day you go out there and someone new is empowered with the information they need to be able to live the life they want, not just the one they're living, you know? So it makes you feel really good about what you do and the message you're putting out there on a daily basis.

• 8:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, it's definitely great and the pendulum is swinging in the right direction. There's a lot of momentum and there's a lot of excitement. And, uh, and, and, and, you know, a lot of people's lives are changing and improving, you know? So it's certainly gratifying in that regard, like to feel like you're contributing to something that's actually making a difference. So I know that you wake up every morning with that feeling. Uh, but you've got four kids, right?

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Four kids.

• 9:02Rich Roll?

  Back in Miami.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  Marco, Mateo, Maximo and Mila.

• 9:05Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. Mila's the youngest.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's our baby girl. She's almost three months.

• 9:10Rich Roll?

  Oh, so it's gotta be hard to be away that much.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  It is. You know, people always ask me, isn't it tough to travel so much and to always be on the road? And to, and to be honest with you, it really isn't. Um, I love traveling. I love, uh, meeting new people. I love experiencing new things and, and, and learning new cultures and I love to be on the road. I always dreamed of traveling when I was a kid and I never knew how I was gonna do it, but it was one of those things that I guess I manifested because I really wanted it, but as a kid I never went anywhere. So, um, I love to travel, but the only difficult thing is being away from my family. I wish I could, you know, put them in a, in an airstream and just travel the world with them.

• 9:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I agree. I lo-, I mean, people say that to me all the time, like, oh, doesn't the travel wear you down? I'm like, I get energized from it. I love it. Like, I'm in the middle of like a big jag, like, just got back from DC, I'm going to Frankfurt, Paris, Boston, then I'm going to Beirut, Lebanon, right in the marathon there.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Oh, nice.

• 10:02Rich Roll?

  Then I'm gonna be in Atlanta, uh, doing an event there and then University of Georgia, then South Bend, Indiana, and then going to Miami for the seed event.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:12Rich Roll?

  You're gonna be there, right?

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yes.

• 10:14Rich Roll?

  Are you speaking there or what?

• 10:15Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm just gonna be enjoying the event. So we'll, we'll be there. We'll have some presents there and we, we are, um, meeting with a lot of friends, making new friends, meeting, seeing old friends. So it's a, it's a great event. It's a, it was really fun last year, so I'm, I'm, uh, waiting to see what they're gonna pull off this year.

• 10:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I can't wait. Like, it, it looks like it's really shaping up to be something cool. So if people that are listening out there in the Miami area, uh, come and check it out.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Come join us.

• 10:39Rich Roll?

  It's in November. I forget the exact date. It's like, uh, second or third. It's on my website. Just click on appearances there. But, anyway, um... So what is it, I mean, look, this is, you've tread, you know, a long road past just being kind of like a personal trainer to, you know, being this crazy entrepreneur who is at the tip of the spear of this movement, you know, with 22 days nutrition and everything that you're doing in the book and all of that, and we're going to unpack all of that. But, you know, right now, you're in LA, you're in Las Vegas, you're in New York, like, what is the, what is that day in the life look like? Like, what is the, what is the kind of typical experience, you know, that you're undertaking to, you know, be the CEO of this

• 11:23Rich Roll?

  burgeoning, you know, nutrition company?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  It's, it's, every day is different. Every day is a new day with a lot of, with a whole new set of adventure to it, right? So yesterday, I was in Las Vegas for Supply Side, so I got to meet a bunch of my ingredient suppliers. I got to see a bunch of people

• 11:42Rich Roll?

  What is Supply Side? Explain that.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Supply Side is, it's the world's largest ingredient convention. So I get to meet all the guys that I'm buying ingredients for, from the first time, for the first time, or I get to see old friends, so people that I buy all my organic ingredients from, all converge in Vegas for a couple of days.

• 12:00Rich Roll?

  So Expo West could not exist without Supply Side, right?

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 12:05Rich Roll?

  Everybody who makes products for Expo West has to get their stuff from the guys that...

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Somebody's going to Supply Side for them. So I like to go there because I do all my own sourcing and I love to meet, you know, the people that bring the ingredients to me and I love to hear about how they're grown and, you know, the whole process that goes into it because it means a lot to me. There's, we don't make any compromises whatsoever in making our products and I want to ensure that our ingredient suppliers feel the same way about it as I do. So yesterday was Supply Side. Today, it's here, you know, working, seeing you. Today's a treat, so I get to see you and hang out with you for an hour or so. But every day is a new day, just trying to continue to spread the message, working on a cookbook now and, and doing a lot of different things, but it's, it's all related

• 12:53Speaker 01

  to the same thing. So while it may seem like I'm doing a million things and a bunch of Different directions. The reality is, as I'm sure you feel on a daily basis, it's all very, very focused, extremely focused. While it may seem like it's super fragmented, it really all is about the same thing. It's all about empowering people with the tools they need to live a healthier life. When you see how people feel, last week, we shot, we shot the Steve Harvey show. Oh, cool. And we got to bring a couple of people with us that had, you know, transformed their lives with a plant-based or with our program by adopting a plant-based diet. And when you see how people change their lives and how they can take control of their actions and become much more conscious about what they're putting into their body, how they just start to change

• 13:38Speaker 01

  and how it starts to affect not just them, but the people around them, their family, their kids, their friends, the people they work with. And it just starts to, it's like touching a piece of white linen with the tip of a pen. And you see the ink just start to spread out onto that, you know, linen. And you realize that it's very impactful. It's not just that one person. And what's cool is that someone is empowering themselves. And a lot of times it starts off with something super selfish, like they look in the mirror and they're like, man, I look like crap. I want to feel better about myself. Yeah. Right? And, and it's that first symptom or that they get to see or that they're constantly reminded of, which is that carrying around a lot of weight, that excess weight.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  And then that sort of selfish action turns into something really selfless because they start to become more conscious about what they're doing to themselves. And they start to feel better about themselves. And then they realize that they're living a cruelty-free lifestyle. And then they realize all of the other things that they didn't know. We've sort of touched on it before, but you start to realize how much of an impact the things that you do affect not just you, but the people around you and the world around us. And I think that we live in a world that's pretty scary these days and it's really angry. And there's a lot of violence and there's a lot of stuff that doesn't need to, you know, be happening. And when you know that you're part of something that just makes people happier. Right.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  And it makes the people around them happier, it just makes you, you know, really excited.

• 15:07Rich Roll?

  It's a beautiful thing. I mean, it's almost like it starts with, with, uh, you know, solving the equation of, of, you know, one plus one doesn't equal two, it equals five. Uh, and when you can put, help somebody put that together. I mean, that was my experience of like, just realizing like, oh, like what I eat actually doesn't just impact like how I feel and my health, but it's changing my consciousness. And that shift in my consciousness is impacting absolutely everything about my life experience from the way that I interact with people, from the just, you know, the decisions that I make about how to spend my time and that, you know, literally the energy that you're putting out into the world. Uh, in, in, in the most micro sense and also in the most macro sense. So it really is that ink plot just spreading out exponentially. It's crazy.

• 15:52Rich Roll?

  And then when you work with someone else and you see that happening with them, it's the coolest thing.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  It is so gratifying, so gratifying. I remember being in school and, uh, the, you know, dean of my college says to me, uh, wait, I'd gone into change majors, right? So I was, um, I was a pre-med, uh, biology major and then I was.

• 16:12Rich Roll?

  So was I.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:14Rich Roll?

  I changed too, go ahead.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Then I go in and I'm like, uh, Dr. Lopez, I, um, I want to pick up another degree, maybe like an exercise phys or something. And he's like, why would you do that? And I'm like, well, I'm not so sure I want to go to med school anymore. I mean, medicine, I'm looking and I'm, everything I'm seeing is super reactive. And I'm a really proactive person, just my nature is I'm just not a reactive person. Um, and I don't think I'd be happy. Um, so I, I want to perhaps keep people from getting sick rather than treat them once they're already ill. It's a lot easier to keep someone healthy than it is to get them to recover. And then he looked at me, he was like, I don't know if that's a great idea. You're probably not going to make a lot of money and you're going to be working in a lab somewhere or working with, you know, rehab patients somewhere. And I was like, ah, an idea.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  I want to do something different. Um, and that different was that, you know, sort of that spark that created that fuel in me to, to want to be the difference. That I wanted to see in the world. I just thought people would be so much happier if they were empowered with health. And it started off sort of in the fitness space. Um, and I went and became a trainer and then eventually I opened my first gym and then grew that. Um, and then through doing all of that, I realized that fitness was just but a small component of the really big picture, which was multifactorial.

• 17:32Rich Roll?

  So let's unpack that a little bit. I mean, was all this unfolding in Florida? Is that where you grew up and went to school?

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, born and raised in Miami. My parents are Cuban. They came from Cuba in the late 50s.

• 17:44Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  So my mom came as a kid. She, I think she was seven when she came to Miami. So I was born and raised there. And yeah, went to grade school there, went to high school there, went to college.

• 17:54Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. And so, all right, so you start off as a trainer in a gym, but then, you know, you have this, you must have this sort of inbred entrepreneurial streak about you because you turned that into like you owned like a, like a chain of gyms, right? I don't know if you still do. Is that?

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I sold it off. But yeah, but you know, it was more of a, I wanted to do something that didn't exist and it wasn't really there. And I've never been one to allow people to, to define me with their paralysis, right? So you know how a lot of people don't think they could do something and then they're like, because they don't think they could do it, they don't want you to think you could do it.

• 18:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I've no idea.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  You know, that, you know, that expression is so common and I really think that it's so untrue with, you know, jack of all trades, master of none, which is, I think people get that stuck in their psyche and they think that they have to do one thing, they can only be great at one thing. And I think it's such a crock because the truth is you could be great at as many things as you want to be great at. It just takes focus. And when I, when I jumped into training, I remember going to a club and I basically walked in and said, you guys need to hire me because I know you're, you're hurting. It was Fisher Island in Florida. You've heard of Fisher Island. So I went there and I said, I know you guys are doing really bad. I can turn this place around. I can create a personal training program for you guys and I can, I can help you out. I have a lot of really

• 19:16Speaker 01

  great ideas and we can do some really exciting things here. They must have seen something in me because I started the next day at six in the morning and then that created an opportunity for me to do some really exciting things. And I, you know, I went from like a club that was very much just a gym to me taking people kayaking on the island and doing things that no one was thinking about. But it was right there in front of them. Like I thought, you live on an island. Why not use the water, right? So why not do things outside? So I started doing that and then I got invited to come out here by Johnny G and his crew to come and see this program. These guys that were training for RAM, you know, Race Across America were training inside of a garage and they wanted me to see this program that, that was going to revolutionize fitness. And I came out and I fell in love with it and it was spinning.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  So I went back to Miami and I was like, I've gotta figure out a way to open up the gym. I've gotta do it. I went back to Fisher and I said, you guys have to buy me 50 bikes. We've gotta. They were like, 50 bikes? Are you crazy? Where are you gonna put 50 bikes? That'll never work. Cycling inside of a room? People cycle outside. That doesn't make any sense. Um, and I was like, please, please, please, you gotta do it. You gotta do it. They're like, alright, we'll buy you six bikes. One for you and five for the, uh, you know, for the residents of the island and for the members. And I was like, it's not gonna work. Guys, it's really not gonna work. They're like, yeah, but everything you've asked us for.

• 20:31Rich Roll?

  What year is this?

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Ninety-four.

• 20:35Rich Roll?

  Right, okay.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Um, so I had already asked for kayaking. They'd said no, so I went out and bought two kayaks on my own and I put them on the island. It became a huge hit. I'd said, let me go cycling with the people on the island. They said no, so I went out and bought two bikes. And I started biking with everybody on the island. I just started doing things on my own. And they were like, this guy's on a streak, but maybe this is the one thing that's not gonna work. Because it doesn't sound like it's gonna work. So they were a little reluctant. Um, but they did. They bought six bikes. And then the first day it was, you can imagine, right? 10 people show up for a class with five bikes. And they're like, what the hell? Why didn't you guys think of this?

• 21:04Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  So I was like, okay, I've gotta do something. This is gonna be really hot. So I went and basically I, I saved up as much money as I could in a very short period of time. Helped a friend paint murals at night, um, worked during the day, went to school and, um, you know, three, four months later, I went and opened the first freestanding spinning studio in Florida.

• 21:21Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did? Wow, that's cool. I didn't know that. What was it called?

• 21:23Speaker 01

  M Cycle.

• 21:24Rich Roll?

  M Cycle? Wow. I feel like, uh, like gym culture in Miami kind of set the tone. I don't know if it still does, but it, there was that period of time in the nineties, like with David Barton.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:35Rich Roll?

  Like he opened, didn't he? He was at the, he had his gym at the Delano and, and

• 21:38Speaker 01

  It was a cool spot.

• 21:39Rich Roll?

  It was like, he was one of the first guys to make like the gym like sexy and fashionable. And then Miami kind of, that was at the same time that like South Beach was starting to emerge as like this destination place. And so a whole culture was created around there that kind of, um, you know, set the stage or the tone for the rest of the country. I mean, meanwhile, like Johnny G or whatever is doing his thing out here in LA. But I feel like there was a lot of attention on Miami and that whole kind of like fitness culture that spilled out across America. So.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  There was.

• 22:09Rich Roll?

  You're right there in the middle of that.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was, and you got to remember that at that time, it was like the the beginning of the supermodel era and they were all in South Beach. So you had all the models flocking to the beach at, you know, any given point in time during the year. And there was a lot of really cool clubs, a lot of really, that was when the gym became a club, not just a gym, not just like a muscle head place, but a really cool place to hang out. It was like Equinox before Equinox, right?

• 22:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  And we had like three or four of those, um, you know, just all over Miami, which is a lot of fun and it was great to watch.

• 22:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Equinox would not, it would not be what it is without what was going on in Miami at that time, I think.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 22:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Interesting. So, uh, at the same time, like there was like this, uh, dovetailing of party culture with gym culture too, right? It was all like one thing like if you were, I haven't been to South Beach in a while. I'm coming in in November soon, but, uh, I mean, I remember, I think, you know, around that time you would go and it didn't feel like you were in America, like you felt like you were in.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  It still does.

• 23:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, South America or something, you know, it's like, this is not the United States, the way people, I mean, it was a totally different cultural experience of being there.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, they say the best thing about Miami is that it's so close to the US.

• 23:24Rich Roll?

  So you parlayed that one spinning studio into like a little mini gym empire? Is that how it goes or?

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. So then, um, I, you know, we fortunately, I, I think it was just a, a, a series of serendipitous events. I opened the club, don't have a dollar in the bank. I've got to make it work. I've spent every dollar, right? So there was no business plan. There was just no, no planning. I just needed to get this place open.

• 23:49Rich Roll?

  You're a hustler though.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I, so I, I opened the doors. I don't have a receptionist. So basically you can imagine this, right? Envision me opening the door, letting all the people in, signing everybody up, taking their money, putting them on the bike, teaching a class, getting off the bike, going, open the door, saying goodbye to everyone, letting the new crowd in and doing that eight times, back to back to back to back. So it was a little bit of, there's a crazy guy teaching a classes back to back, which one of the classes will knock you out. So part of it was you got to see this guy. He's a freak. Just go check it out. So the word spread really quickly and people were really enjoying the music and it was the first time that people were in a setting that wasn't intimidating and that back then it was a lot of step aerobics and you couldn't just go to a class

• 24:34Speaker 01

  because if you walked into a class in Miami, it was like a cult, right? So everyone knew all the steps and if you didn't do the steps right, they wanted to like throw you out the gym because you were in someone else's space.

• 24:43Rich Roll?

  It's not very democratic.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so this is the first time that people are like, oh, I could do that. I'm sitting on a bike and I'm just pedaling. I could do that, that's easy. And it was a lot less intimidating, so it brought down a lot of walls and guys for the first time were like, it's not girly or it's something that I love to do or that I already enjoy doing. And we had this really big tri-geek community in South Florida, particularly in Miami, the area that I opened, and they all started, you know, coming and they were like, man, this is awesome. This is great training because it rains a lot and sometimes it's not easy to ride outside. So they were like, I'll come and, you know, put in hours, work, whatever. So then the word got around and really quickly we, we developed a really incredible following. We had sixty-five bikes, I think. And there was like ten, fifteen people waiting in every class.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  So, so all of my friends started hearing about what I was doing and then a lot of developers that I knew in the area were like, you're the smallest gym in town and you're doing a lot of business and you're really, there's a lot of noise. Every other week there was a write-up or something. So it became a really fun process and, and I wasn't looking at it as, you know, this is going to be the launching pad. I was just having a great time. I was a kid who was just looking at this like.

• 25:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like how old are you at this time?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Um, when I opened the doors, I was twenty-two, I think I was.

• 25:59Rich Roll?

  You're teaching every class?

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was teaching every class. It was, it was so much, honestly, so much fun. And look back, people are like, wasn't it scary? Weren't you worried? And the truth is, I really wasn't. I mean, I really, really wasn't scared at all. I was so excited to be able to do what I love to do and to me it was like, if it lasts a week, it's super cool. If it lasts a month, it's great. So I got some developers to come into the gym and say, man, we love what you've created here. This is a really cool culture. Can you come and build it at one of our buildings? There were a lot of buildings popping up around Miami, like they started to build out South Beach, like south of Fifth Street, and they were starting to build out Sunny Isles and a lot, a lot was happening and.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  I thought, yeah, this could be fun. What would you like me to do? And they're like, well, we'd love for you to come in and just design the whole place and just keep the club, just, you know, run it, do whatever needs to be done. So I thought, wow, this is really exciting. You know, people are enjoying what I'm doing. So I developed like a management company from Monday to the next.

• 26:56Rich Roll?

  Right. So they're kind of like, so the like, on a business level, the idea is they underwrite it, but you still have autonomy to do whatever you want. And it's like your place and your brand.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 27:06Rich Roll?

  Like, yeah, that's good. So that's kind of like how, is that how it works mostly when you have these sort of name brand gyms in these fancy hotels? Or, or like these, you know, restaurants that are kind of chef driven in, you know, casinos or what have you? Is that the way those deals work?

• 27:24Speaker 01

  I don't, I can't speak to every deal, but I've seen that there's a lot of times where there are subsidies to have really great services. So like if a hotel has, I don't know, pick up an Equinox inside of it. There's some really sweet deal that keeps them there, right? Because there's, there's just not enough business for it to make sense for them to be there on their own, especially if they don't allow memberships.

• 27:41Rich Roll?

  They wouldn't choose to be there if they were just canvassing where to have their next location.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Exactly. Exactly. So it presents a great opportunity because the hotel gets to have a really great brand. And then the gym owner gets to have a really great hotel to call their home. So it's, it's, I think it's a win-win for everyone. And, and it was sort of that to me. It gave me an opportunity to have multiple locations and to do something much bigger. And then I got my foot into South Beach and, and we opened the club on South Beach. And I remember meeting with a developer. They were like, you know what? We want to have the coolest, the most different, unique space that there has ever been. And I was like, well, if you want to be different, you have to have the gym outside of the building.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  It can't just be another, you know, take an apartment and just make a gym out of it. Let's build like a really cool freestanding building. Let's make it three stories. Let's put a pool in there. Let's make it just really. And they're like, whatever you want. And I was like, really? Really? Whatever I want? They're like, yeah, design it. So I went into the architect's office and I sat with the art architects for months and we designed like the cool, it's still the coolest freestanding space in South Beach.

• 28:50Rich Roll?

  So it's still there?

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:51Rich Roll?

  What's it called?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  It was called the Sporting Club when I had it. Um, it's the continuum.

• 28:55Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  It's the

• 28:56Rich Roll?

  I have to go check it out.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really cool. I'll bring you by. It's the southern, southern tip of the beach. So you can't go any further south. If you went any further south, you'd be leaving the States basically. So, yeah, really cool location, you know, rooftop pool, just really incredible movement spaces and uh, weight room, just a really great, uh, really great environment.

• 29:15Rich Roll?

  So did that just blow things up for you? That got built and?

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, sort of. Well,

• 29:20Rich Roll?

  You're like the guy, you're like the guy in South Beach?

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Well, nah, not really. You know, it was more, more along the lines of I really love what I do. Um, and I was in a space where I think that, um, a lot of people go into training because sometimes they don't know what they want to do and they're kind of like transitioning and, and it's, it's uh, sort of transient, um, and the kind of people that, um, move in and out of the space all the time. And I really just wanted from day one to help people be healthier. I like, I feel like I was put on this planet to help people. Period. Just to help them. Whether it's, uh, help them, you know, bring something upstairs or, or help them be the best version of themselves. And I just chose to make it, you know, uh, be the best version of them. And, um,

• 30:05Speaker 01

  in doing what I was doing, people realized that I wasn't just, um, you know, one of those weekend certification trainers and that I was doing a lot more for the space. And, um, having been armed with, you know, tools that were really unique in what I was doing, I was able to help athletes do, um, recover and, and, you know, train harder for the next season. Um, and through word of mouth, people just started asking, you know, more and more about me and, um, I got really lucky.

• 30:33Rich Roll?

  And so were you working during this period of time, are you working one-on-one with people doing the, doing the, doing the training, right? So you're, you're, you're sort of running this like series of gyms, but you're also still hands-on with individuals?

• 30:44Speaker 01

  What was it, what I really wanted to do, right, was to work with people. It wasn't so much that I-

• 30:49Rich Roll?

  You could have easily sort of transitioned into suddenly you're a guy who manages people as opposed to-

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:56Rich Roll?

  What got you into it in the beginning?

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't want to do that because it, I don't think it's in me. Like, I'm not a micromanager. I love to manage myself and my time really well, but I, I never really wanted to manage like, you know, 500 people or anything like that. I just wanted to do what I was really excited about, which was getting in the gym, getting, you know, to do stuff with people that were a lot of fun and-

• 31:14Rich Roll?

  But how's that working now?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:16Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 31:17Speaker 01

  You'd be surprised. You know, I'm still to today, I'm not a micromanager. I just can't, I can't do it. I just surround myself with really great people who are super talented and really bright and get my-

• 31:28Rich Roll?

  Is there like a headquarter office?

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, Miami, you'll come, when you get to Miami, hopefully you'll stop by and, and visit us. So I'm, I'm really fortunate that I have a really great team around me and they get the vision, they get what it is that I'm trying to accomplish and we all have a common goal, right? So it, it makes it a lot easier and a lot more fun for me.

• 31:45Rich Roll?

  Cool. So when does the whole plant-based nutrition thing start to enter your consciousness?

• 31:51Speaker 01

  I was, at, at a certain point, I started traveling a lot and I was finding myself on the road all the time and I had already moved into a plant-based diet. So I'd slowly been transitioning, not-

• 32:05Rich Roll?

  And what, what catalyzed that? Like, what was your sort of, you know?

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Well, I had-

• 32:09Rich Roll?

  Decision tree?

• 32:10Speaker 01

  I had a, I had a, my first moment was when I was like in, when I was in fifth grade exactly. I remember as if it was yesterday, I went to a, we would go to a Cuban bakery every morning for breakfast. And my mom was a, a single parent and, and would drive my brother and I to a bakery and we would buy like these little pastries, these little Cuban pastries that came in like this little plastic wrapping. And I remember eating one, one morning, and I was never really a big chocolate guy, but for some reason I chose a chocolate one that morning. And by the time I got to school, I started to itch. My arms were itchy and my chest was itchy, but I just, I didn't think anything of it. And like two hours into school, I had like- Hives all over my arms and my chest and my neck.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  And I went to the bathroom, I'm like, oh my God, what's happening to me? I went to the nurse and she's like, well, it looks like you might have had some kind of a reaction to something that you ate. And I was like, man, I knew it, that stuff, it can't be good for you. You know, it's junk, I was 10 years old. So I was just like, I know what I'm gonna do, I'm just not gonna eat that stuff anymore. And then the next day, my mom was like, you're not gonna eat anything? I was like, nah, I'm not hungry. And I skipped breakfast. And like, a week later, I'm running in PE and all of a sudden I, I don't know what happens, and I opened my eyes. And I'm like, on the grass, facing the sun. And I passed out. And some guy walks up, walks by and is like, dude, are you all right? And I'm like, yeah, what happened? He's like, you just passed out. I was like, okay, second aha moment, I was like, alright, I can't eat junk, but I've got to eat something.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  So then, that curiosity, just, it was like a little spark inside of me. I was like, okay, I gotta, I gotta figure out a way to learn this stuff. And obviously, back then, there was no internet, so I had to figure out how to get the right books and how to get my hands on the right things.

• 33:51Rich Roll?

  Microfiche.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, microfiche. Library time. So then I just started researching, and at that point in time, it sounds crazy, but I just wanted to learn more about what I can put into my body to make myself feel better. And, and I, at a very early age, became very conscious of what I was putting into my body. Fast forward a bunch of years. I was always tweaking and tweaking and tweaking to get to the point where it wasn't about, you know, trying to live a cruelty-free life. I'm not gonna lie, there was no altruistic, you know, condition or reasoning behind it. It was just me wanting to be the best version of me. So I gave up milk, all dairy, when I was like in, I don't know, high, some, before high school, like junior high. Because I knew that, I just always had a stomach ache, my whole life.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  I, I remember my entire childhood always having a stomach ache. Like, literally, I was the kid in the, in the car, mommy, I have to go to the bathroom. You know, anywhere we'd go, I have to go to the bathroom, I have to go, and it was just... It was weird because you're not supposed to feel that way. And as a kid, I knew that there was something wrong because why should you always have a stomach ache? That doesn't make sense. Then I gave up milk on my own and realized that the stomach aches completely went away.

• 35:01Rich Roll?

  Wow, that's amazing.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  And it removed all dairy from my life and then.

• 35:04Rich Roll?

  Do you think you're lactose intolerant or just had some kind of?

• 35:07Speaker 01

  I think I'm dairy intolerant. I think everyone is, by the way. I don't think I'm the only one, but I was just, it doesn't, it didn't agree with my digestive tract and my digestive system. So I just did away with it and I felt better. And then that was just a one, one of the steps in a continuous journey on tweaking and tweaking and tweaking my life. And right around the time when I got married, I decided to go, I was like, I'm going all the way. And then before my first son was born, I was like, I want to go completely plant-based. And I was traveling a lot and I was always in the road. And I was looking for products that I could take along with me. And then I was like, oh, this is great. And then I realized that a lot of the stuff that you find on shelves is like, you know, they reverse engineer the stuff, right?

• 35:51Speaker 01

  So it's all formulated for label copy, right? So it says, you know, vegan on the front and then you turn it around and it's all like brown rice syrup or something. I don't know, whatever. And I just was frustrated and I thought somebody should do something better. And then at that moment in time, I was like, I could do something better. And I just was always very curious. So I thought to myself, I could make some stuff at home and start, you know, sharing with my friends and my family members. And I did that and I, by that point in time, I'd already moved into a hundred percent plant-based diet. And, and you know, it was just fun for me to learn something new every day and then to be able to play with ingredients. And then to be able to learn where they came from and what I was, and then the more you learn, the more you know, the more you want to know, right? So you, you know, better, you do better.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  So you, I just wanted to learn more and my appetite just kept growing and growing, growing, pun intended. And I just was really, you know, just like super curious about nutrition as a whole.

• 36:49Rich Roll?

  Right. But the, the, so the decision that when you went fully plant-based, I was like, what, like 10 years ago or something like that? I mean, was. There are some books that you read. What was the research or kind of the mental calculus of making that leap? Because as somebody who owns this chain of gyms and is a trainer and in Miami Beach, which is very much like a muscle culture, you know, there's a lot of beefy dudes at the gym, you know, like for like a well-known, well-respected trainer to go, yeah, I'm gonna be plant-based now. I mean, that's pretty iconoclastic, right?

• 37:20Speaker 01

  I mean. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I'd go that far. I just, you know, I was, um, I've, I've never made a decision based on what someone else wants me to do. I've just never been that guy. I just do my own thing. I, I, I'm very,

• 37:39Speaker 01

  there's a process that goes on inside of me and I'm a big time researcher. So I just kept looking and everywhere I looked, all the arrows were pointing in the right direction. All the studies were coming out, you know, if you consume X amount of meat, you increase your chances of cancer. If you stop consuming animal products, you not only decrease, but you can slow and even reverse heart disease. You look at the Blue Zone studies, you look at the China study, you look at all the stuff that was out there. And it was all already, it was already there. It wasn't as prevalent or as popular as it is today, but it was already there. And for, you know, the only regret I have is that I didn't do it sooner because I just, I guess I was busy, you know, doing other things and I wasn't really focused on it.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  But I think that that should be our number one focus, to be the best versions of ourselves because it's not until you are the best version of you that you can give the best of you to someone else.

• 38:31Rich Roll?

  That's the theme of this podcast.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 38:33Rich Roll?

  Unlocking, yeah, the most authentic, best version of yourself, man. And I always say, you know, it begins, it begins with what you put on your plate, but that's really the first step. Like you gotta go beyond the kale, right? And so for me, in my experience, and I believe this was your experience as well, when you start to make that shift, it changes your consciousness, right? And it takes you on this journey and suddenly you're starting to get interested in things you didn't think that you were interested in before, you know, like living a cruelty-free lifestyle or being concerned about,

• 39:08Rich Roll?

  you know, your, your, your carbon footprint or, you know, how green your choices. Like all these things that kind of come with it, you're like, ah. Now I care about that. I didn't used to care about that. Life was a little easier. I care about that stuff, but uh, you know what I mean? But it's a beautiful journey.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I don't think that that people purposely want to live, um, you know, a life full of cruelty, or, you know, or, or, or necessarily want to, you know, add more, um, you know, greenhouse gases, you know, to the earth, but there's something that happens that you don't realize, um, while you're going through this process, that you become more conscious. And then it's not until you become more conscious that you can actually see what's in front of you, what you can see, what you do. And, you know, I was the guy that, you know, I, I've always been, um, um, I, I'm, I just, I like to be kind to people. I'm always happy and I just like to be kind to people in general, whether I know them or don't. I like to say

• 40:05Speaker 01

  hi to everyone and I, I'm just really friendly. I love people. Um, but I never wanted to look at like, you know, PETA videos or animal cruelty videos. I was like, ah, I don't want to see that. But not seeing it keeps you ignorant to what's going on. And it's not until you see it that you can understand that you can be a part of it. You can either fuel it, or you could stop it, right? So you can help be, uh, um, you know, the cause or the cure, right? So it wasn't until I started to really immerse myself in all aspects of it that I realized that, wow, not only am I feeling better about myself, I'm, I'm

• 40:45Speaker 01

  reducing my risk of a lot of the diseases that a lot of minorities, Cubans, you know, Hispanics have, um, uh, people in general in the US. I mean, the fact that heart disease is still the number one killer in 2015, but we can call someone like, here you go. My son is calling me on FaceTime right now, as, as I'm saying this to you, right? And, and this is like surreal that this could happen, but we still managed to kill ourselves.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  By our lifestyle choices? That makes no sense to me whatsoever. And I think that we need to do everything in our power to continue to educate people, to show them that there's a better way. Because when people don't feel great about themselves, they're just not great. Period. I mean, it's that simple.

• 41:27Rich Roll?

  Well, there's a lack of empowerment too, and a lack of education as well. I think that most people think that they're just predestined to have these illnesses. And we kind of, as a culture, have acclimated to that. So it's like, when, you know, you know, you have a friend who goes in for a stent. It's just like, oh, yeah, you got a stent. Like, that's what you do. Or, you know, well, I'm just genetically predisposed predisposed to high blood pressure and all these sorts of things. And the truth, the truth is, no, you're not. Like, maybe you have a genetic predisposition to it, but how you're moving your body and the foods that you're putting into it have a massive impact on the expression of that genetic predisposition or not. Right? And so it's about helping people understand that they have a lot more control over these things than we've sort of been,

• 42:12Rich Roll?

  you know, led to believe. Right? Because we just don't think, well, just, you know, you just see people. When your consciousness starts to expand, you start to see how, how easily manipulated we are as human beings. That if you just, like, I was in Las Vegas. I told the story before, but it's like, oh, you create this box that like, chimes bells and, and has flashing lights and, and makes a noise that coins come out of it. And you can get somebody to sit there all day and feed money into it. You know, like, we're, we're, we're pretty primal beings that are, you know, with, give us a few little things and we'll just, we'll just lead wherever you want us to go. And it's about stopping and saying, let's look at this objectively. Like, what are we doing? How are we investing our time and our money and our energy? And is this making us healthier and happier or, or the reverse?

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, the great Dr. Dean Ornish says it best. Our genes are not our destiny.

• 43:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I just was in Washington DC and I interviewed this wonderful Dr. Robin Shetkan. Do you know Robin? She's an expert in the microbiome and the stuff that's going on in the research of the microbiome is so mind blowing, you know, it's crazy and how much impact that has on our moods, our decision making, our cravings, like all these sorts of things are impacted by the nature of our gut flora and that extends to, you know, the expression of genetic predispositions as well. Like, so the science that's going on there is crazy, but the truth is still that, you know, if you treat yourself right,

• 43:43Rich Roll?

  that you don't have to become one of these statistics that is, you know, plaguing our country and killing us by the millions.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  So true, so true. And hence why what you do is so important and so powerful.

• 43:56Rich Roll?

  And yourself as well. But, but I mean, so how does this, so you, so you have this, your son's calling you. Do you have to talk to him?

• 44:02Speaker 01

  No, no, I'm good. Yeah, I just, I just turned it off.

• 44:05Rich Roll?

  Alright, cool. So you have this, you make this transition to a 100% plant-based diet. Are you, is this just your journey or do you get to a place where you're like, I want to share this? Like, I think this could be helpful to the people that I'm working with, you know, my clients and, and, you know, the people in the gym? Or is this, you're just thinking of this as your own thing?

• 44:25Speaker 01

  No, I, you know, I, I had read so much and I knew enough to know that I wanted to share it, that it needed to be shared, but I didn't want to preach it. I wanted to, I wanted to live it first. I wanted to walk the walk. And I always say that your kids don't learn from what you tell them, they learn from what you show them. So I wanted to be able to show people.

• 44:44Rich Roll?

  And did you, was there, was there a fear at all? Like any reluctance? Like, well, I'm going to do this because I know that, you know, all the studies show that this is in my best interest in terms of long-term health and longevity and disease prevention. But as a guy who has to, you know, walk the floor at his gym and look fit, did you feel like, well, I might not be able to be as strong or, you know, physically do the thing? Like, was there any of that, like, protein myth stuff? Swimming around in your mind that you felt like you had to overcome? Or were you like, I'm not even worried about this?

• 45:13Speaker 01

  No, yeah, not at all. It wasn't even a second thought. I just knew that it was the, I knew at that point in time, I knew it was the right thing to do. I knew it would be best for me, but I was excited about being able to show people that I wasn't going to change physically. Right? Or on a, on an athletic performance level.

• 45:30Rich Roll?

  Right. It's not gonna suddenly, you're not gonna like lose all this weight and suddenly look spindly.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. So, I mean, I literally have weighed the same exact weight since I was 18 years old. I'm 43. I've weighed 152 pounds since I was 18. So it hasn't changed at all, one bit. I didn't lose any muscle mass, contrary to popular belief. I can still bench what I benched when I was 18. I still run as fast. I could still, yeah. And the beauty is that I don't feel any overuse pains. I don't, I rarely, rarely feel sore. I mean, I really have to go into the gym and really crush myself to be able to feel sore because my body just recovers a lot faster. Not that I didn't feel great before, I just felt extra good when I went this way.

• 46:19Rich Roll?

  That's the thing that always gets me, and that was the biggest thing that I experienced. When I made this shift, I was able to just, you know, work out really hard and bounce back so much more quickly than I was used to. It was an amazing thing. So, you know, people always say, oh, you did these crazy ultra endurance races. Like, you think you would have done better if you were on a paleo diet? I'm like, you don't understand. Like, I think that eating plant-based is actually like the secret weapon. It allowed me to, you know, train harder, push myself, you know, harder, longer, without, with less risk of getting injured or overtraining or getting sick and thus allowing me to have a much more efficient training season in which I could pack in, you know, the sort of the maximum impact of training in a shorter period of time.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think that that's where the magic really is because yeah, sure, everyone wants to reduce the risk of disease. But it's not until you're sick that you really think about that. No one ever really thinks about that on a daily basis, but they think about being tired. They think about being overweight. They think about the way that they sleep. They think about their energy levels throughout the day. I have a friend that just. His daughter just started school and he says to me the other day, man, the school life. And I was like, school life what? And he's like, you're just, you're like wiped by like, you know, five o'clock because you just get up earlier. Does that ever happen to you? And I was like, no. He's like, no. And I'm like, no. He's like, when do you get tired? And I'm like, well.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  I don't really get tired. I mean, I really don't. It's the truth. I mean, I hate to have to say it, but the reality is I just, I never feel tired. Because I sleep so well. I sleep really well. I don't toss and turn, you know, I'm fortunate, I guess, but, but I think a lot of it has to do with the way that I live my life and what I put into my body, how I. How I choose to fuel myself. And that's what I think gets most people because people are like, well, I started trying these testimonials that are coming. Up every day now. They're like, you know, the biggest thing is that I'm sleeping better. My energy levels are, are constant throughout the day. I'm not having these lows after lunch. I'm, I'm just feeling great about myself throughout the weekend on the weekends. I don't feel like I have to be sitting on a couch.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Recovering from a week's worth of work. I want to get out. I want to do things. And that's what I think more, more people. Would enjoy knowing that are thinking about a plant-based lifestyle, right? So it's not the people that are reliving it. We already know what we feel like. It's the people that aren't living it that you're like, but wait. Because sometimes people are like, whoa, you know, you gotta die of something. So, but what about living a fuller, richer life every day?

• 48:47Rich Roll?

  But the thing that, that has to be overcome is this idea that if you're going to adopt this lifestyle, that it's deprivation oriented, like that you're giving up all of these things, right? As, as, and, and as you know, and as I know, you're actually, you're gaining so much. That I don't look at it as deprivation oriented at all, but I think the average person does, right? They're thinking. Well, life's not worth living if I can't have my steak or my cheeseburger or what have you. So when you're working with people, like, how do you address that issue?

• 49:17Speaker 01

  I don't, yeah, I have a very similar thought process to that. It's to me, the way I look at it is I've never eaten so many different types of foods as when I went completely plant-based. So I think your taste buds and your desire for food changes, the healthier and the cleaner you eat. People always ask me, well, what's your cheat? I'm like, well, I mean, I really enjoy whatever. I'll come up with something that I really like. And they're like, that's not a cheat, man. Come on, give me what your cheat really is. I'm like, well, I'm being honest with you. I mean, I don't crave Philly steak sandwich or that's not just in me. I just don't, I look at it and I get disgusted because I just know what it, what it does.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  And to me, food is fuel. While I love it and I'm a foodie at heart and I love great, I mean, I really love great food and a lot of times people find it difficult to believe that you could be plant-based and really, really love food and appreciate food. I appreciate the food, not just for what it tastes like, but where it comes from, how it's prepared and what it's going to do for me. All of the things combined. So it's not just about what it's going to taste like, you know, the 30 seconds that I'm eating it. I want to know what I'm going to feel like 30 seconds after I finished eating it and how I'm going to feel the next day and what it's going to do inside my body. And then, once you start to wrap your head around all of that, your taste changes. It just happens.

• 50:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah. People don't believe that, but it's true, right? Like, people have a hard time wrapping their head around the fact that your cravings could change. And, you know, I know from my conversation with Robin that your cravings are going to change just because the microbiology in your gut is going to change. And that's what is dictating a lot of your cravings. Like, the flora in there needs to feed on whatever it is that you've been eating. And that's what, what you're going to desire. So you have to weather the discomfort of breaking an old habit. And that's what we're going to get into, the 22-day thing. And there's no way around that. But like, get over yourself. Like, just get through that and you can get to the other side. And there's this freedom that is almost inexplicable.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's I like to to always make little analogies comparing food to to money. Right? So like, it's cool to spend every single dime that comes into your, you know, pocket, um, right up until the end of the month comes, right? And then you realize that you may not have all the money you need to be able to pay for all your bills and to be able to take care of the things that are really, you know, primal necessities, right? So, um, it's not until you develop a habit around saving money and not spending it all that you really can feel great and you feel even greater knowing that you're not going to be in trouble at the end of every single month, that you're not going to be living check to check every single week, that you have a little bit of a cushion where

• 52:04Speaker 01

  you, if something goes wrong, you're gonna be okay. Then you realize that living on the edge and what you thought was really awesome was really reckless. And, um, it's not until you can see those things that you understand why it is so important for you to take control of your health, because it's the only area of our lives where we have so much autonomy, right? Like, we do, we do really well, but tomorrow someone could say, hey, man, I'm not buying your next book, or I'm not, you know, doing X, Y, or Z. And it doesn't matter how much love and how much effort you put into it, maybe it doesn't, you know, maybe, maybe you have an accounting job and tomorrow, you know, you've been on time every day for the last thirty five years and tomorrow there's cutbacks and they say to you, hey, Bob, um, sorry, we've got to let you go.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  And it just happens. You're not in control of that, but your health, you're almost completely in control of. We already know that. I mean, and, and, and science has proven without a shadow of a doubt that how you live your life greatly affects how you feel and your disease or lack thereof as you get older.

• 53:07Rich Roll?

  So, uh, yeah, for sure, man, for sure. So that's a beautiful testimony, you know, just the empowerment alone that's, that's sort of packed into that is, is, uh, is really powerful, I think, you know? And, and so the, the, the challenge is trying to get people not only to understand that, but then to implement that, right? I think it's easy to, you know, you can give people the information, but actually getting that to translate into action that then becomes a sustainable habit is that's the hard, that's where the hard work is, right?

• 53:42Rich Roll?

  So, you know, before we even get into like 22 days and everything that you're doing with that, like, what is the approach that you take with clients to try to help them, you know, break a lifetime of old habits, whether it's around food or, or, um, or, you know, movement, exercise, et cetera. I mean, are there certain tools that you kind of rely on to, uh, help people kind of get over that hump?

• 54:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm a big believer in kaizen, which is the Japanese word for continuous self-improvement. Right? So, um, there's a little, um, story I like to tell. Imagine there's a guy, um, that's in charge of, um, keeping bathrooms neatly, um, uh, clean in, uh, some big hotel, right? And he walks in the door and he realizes that there's paper towels thrown all over the door because people wash their hands and then they don't want to touch the doors. On their way out, they grab a paper towel and they open the door and then they just toss it near the door because there's nowhere to put it.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  So because he practices kaizen, he's like, oh, I can fix this. I'm going to put a garbage can next to the door so that when someone opens the door with a towel, paper towel, because they're going to keep doing it. We don't just throw the towels in there. So he comes back a week later and hence no more paper on the floor. There is now a wastebasket full of paper towels. And then he looks at it again and he's like, huh, this is great. It solved it, but it didn't solve it all the way. Because now I'm, I have a, an enormous amount of paper that I can tell is being wasted. Um, what else can I do to continue to improve this situation? And then he looks at the door and he realizes that the hinges are set on the inside of the door and he's like, hmm, I bet if I flipped the hinges to the outside and I pushed the door out, people would stop.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  And realize that they don't, they no longer need a paper towel, so they'll stop grabbing a paper towel. And hence, a week later, after he flips the hinges, there's no paper towel next to the door. So it wasn't just that he improved enough to get rid of the problem, it's that he had enough desire in him to want to continue to improve on a daily basis. And that's what it's all about. It's not about perfection, it's about progression, right? So when I speak to anyone, it's a, it really, it's really important to get them to understand that it's okay to be you. It's okay to interpret it any which way you find works best for you, because I feel that a lot of times what happens with people who want to explore a plant-based diet is that they, they're intimidated because it's all or none. It's, you know, black and white.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  It's right and wrong. And if I decide that I want to do cheese on Saturdays and Sundays, people are gonna look at me like, you know, that's not really plant-based. But the reality is, it's okay, because the more people move in this direction, the better they will feel. The better they feel, the more they want to do it. And the more they want to do it, the better it is for the planet, right? So, when you look at, and for their health, and for all the people around them, so when you look at someone who's looking at trying to start a program, the first thing I tell them, it's okay to figure it out, right? It's okay to figure it out along the way, and we're gonna try to develop habits to make it easier, to automate it, because our, our, our brains are basically wired to make everything easier, right? So, make you think less about stuff.

• 56:57Rich Roll?

  I don't know about you, but it wasn't like, I was struck by lightning, and overnight I went 100% plant-based. It's an evolution.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 57:05Rich Roll?

  And I, I think there is that, there is a very, you know, hardened idea out there that, that, you know, the people that are vegan or plant-based, like, they just, they do it instinctively and perfectly, you know, one day they're not, and then the other day they are, and that's all she wrote. And that's not, that's not human. You know, it's not, I mean, maybe there are somebody out there that has had that experience, probably, but that is not the common experience. The common experience is, is, is one of, of toil, and, you know, two steps backwards for every step forward. And I think that as somebody who is, you know, an ambassador of the movement, like I, you know, I love that approach because for me, it's about providing a welcome mat

• 57:48Rich Roll?

  for somebody who perhaps is intimidated or is not so sure. And to say, hey, man, it's cool. Come on over here, man. The water's warm. Like, let's start. Let's see what, let's see, you know, how this works for you. And let all the other stuff go. It's all dogma, you know, all these labels and all that kind of stuff that are really preventing people from accessing something that could be helpful to them because there's so much baggage that comes with it.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  You see the statistics all over the place, but one of them that comes to mind is if every American dropped meat one day a week, it would be the equivalent of removing 7.6 million vehicles off the roads. And you'll see numbers go up or down. But when you, when you see that and you really understand that you realize that you can be part of a much bigger solution without being perfect, right? It's one day a week. So you, you encourage people to try, and I've encouraged a lot of friends. I'm like, try going plant-based for breakfast. More often than not, people do the same exact thing every single day for breakfast. So find something that works for you. Find something that's delicious and it's plant-based. And then they realize that it's much easier than they thought it was going to be. And

• 59:03Speaker 01

  they feel better about their actions.

• 59:05Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God, I ate a meal that didn't have meat in it and I didn't die?

• 59:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, no.

• 59:08Rich Roll?

  I'm actually functioning.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and, and PS, I felt better about myself so that while I went to lunch, or during lunch, I made a better decision because I felt like I already started the day right, right? It's one of those where like a good choice begets another good choice. And if you started the day with like, you know, some sugary cereal, you're probably going to think at lunch, well, I already messed up breakfast. I might as well have this, whatever.

• 59:37Rich Roll?

  You gotta, you gotta water and fertilize the seed.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 59:40Rich Roll?

  You can't just step on it and crush it, you know, before it has a chance to blossom. And everybody has to come into that kind of, you know, awareness and consciousness and realization, you know, on their own, on their own time.

• 59:55Rich Roll?

  You know, you can't compel somebody to have that realization and and you can't make people feel bad for not doing it the way that you think that they should do it. You know, we're all projecting our ideas on other people and that's not helpful.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:00:08Rich Roll?

  You know.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  It's I think it's up to us to to put the information out there and to encourage people to try it in whatever way makes most sense for them and their families. You know, I'll we have families, right? A lot of people out there want to do something different, but then they're thinking, well, what about my kids? My kids don't eat any vegetables. And what about my wife, my spouses also trying to lose weight like I am or also struggling with this or that? What are they gonna say? It's it's tough. It's not easy.

• 1:00:34Rich Roll?

  No, it's not.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  And it's it's it's an imperfect world with imperfect lives and imperfect families. None of us are perfect. And a lot of times I think when people look at someone like a vegan or a plant-based, you know, advocate, oh, my God, they're perfect. I mean, I I don't want to eat around them. You how many times I've walked into a restaurant, someone says, oh, my God, don't look at what I'm eating.

• 1:00:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Don't look at my plate. Oh, you'll make me feel so bad, so self-conscious. I'm like, I'm not gonna judge you. Like, chill. I'm I'm OK.

• 1:01:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's an interesting thing because it is evolved out of, I mean, originally, the idea was, oh, if you're plant-based or vegan, like, you're like a hippie, right? You're a dirty hippie. And now, if you now, that's sort of that that perception is shifting into more of like a mainstream, you know, idealization of health. And there's a certain sort of glamorous, fashion fashionable aspect that goes hand in hand with that a little bit. And that's both good and bad. Like, there was a, I don't know if you saw, there was a New York Times article a couple of weeks ago that

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Vegans Go Land?

• 1:01:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah. And my family was was a big part of this article.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I saw that.

• 1:01:38Rich Roll?

  And and, you know, part of my advocacy, and I would imagine yours, is to show people like, hey, this doesn't have to be like a hippie thing. Like, this is cool and modern and hip. And, you know, this is what's happening now. And it's it's like, look, I've got kids. We're all healthy. We're enjoying our lives. And I try to portray accurately and authentically like that we're You know, that we are healthy and vibrant, living this lifestyle, because I want to dispel that like, you know, hardened old myth. But then the pendulum swings the other way, and then people project onto you, oh, like, well, you're this, you know, you're, I can't live up to that standard of what you're doing, which is not what I'm intending, you know, so it's, in the same way, I would imagine people think like, well, I can't be Jay-Z

• 1:02:21Rich Roll?

  or Beyonce, like, so just forget it, you know what I mean? Like, there's a, that barrier then becomes the unexpected next hurdle to kind of address and overcome. Because I want people to feel good and excited, and feel like this is accessible to everybody.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  Well, when I read the article, by the way, it, to me, was a very cool article that seemed like, man, right on, I love that, you know, that's so cool that you and your family are living that way. And I think that more people should be living this way. It's really cool. And there may be some people that read the article and interpret it differently, but I think that in life, you either see obstacles or you see opportunities, right? So some people see obstacles, and no matter what they read, it's just gonna be, you know, something negative to them, and other people are gonna see an opportunity, other people are gonna look at it and say, we can do this, we can do it as a family, and they're gonna hunker down. And I guarantee you that there's a lot of people that read that around the world that looked at it and thought, this is the first step that we're gonna take. The first step was reading this article in the right direction. So, congrats for that,

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  because I think that's great, and it really continues to empower people. And I don't think that, you know, you or anyone else living this movement should ever step back or hide in the shadows, because someone else may misinterpret the way they're living, or think that they can't live up to your standards. You're living your life. I mean, what cooler, more authentic way for you to be you than to do what you do best, right?

• 1:03:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and I have to be honest and authentic to that, but I'm also conscious of always trying to be You know, somebody who can be available and accessible as somebody who is, you know, living this plant-based lifestyle so that, you know, people feel like they can kind of connect to the journey a little bit. You know what I mean?

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:04:08Rich Roll?

  Does that make sense?

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  No, absolutely. I mean, look, we get it all the time. People always look at us. And when I say us, I mean like my wife and my kids and say, "Well, you guys are so disciplined." Or, "You guys are, you know, you're lucky because of X or Y or Z." And then there's a lot of people that are like, "Oh, this is the reason why I did this. I felt so great about what you guys did and I noticed that you guys are living a life that's really true to what you guys believe in." But at the end of the day, really, it just comes out to, comes down to being true to yourself and doing what you think is best for you and your family and, and understanding that there are so many miraculous benefits to living a plant-based lifestyle that it's something that, at the very least, you should be curious enough to want to give it even

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  the slightest try, imperfect as it may be.

• 1:04:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, absolutely, man. So, let's get to the, let's get to the celebrity stuff. Everybody wants to know about this, you know? So, when is like, you know, when is like Pharrell and all these guys start coming into your life? Is this just because you're, you're sort of the guy in South Beach with the, with the happening gym? Or when do, when do, when do you start working with, you know, sort of the, the people that are, you know, cultural influencers? When does that begin?

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  I'd love to believe that it is because, not because of where I'm geographically speaking, but where I am spiritually and where I am as a person and what I do. I really love what I do. And I guess the word started to spread and, and people started to find out about what I was doing and I was helping a lot of, like I said, a lot of people were losing weight and a lot of people were feeling better about themselves and I was helping people make better lifestyle choices. And one thing led to another and I started working with a few athletes and that led to a few more. And then, before you know it, I got introduced to a couple of entertainers, some musicians. And it just, it, I never stopped to think. Even today, I never really stopped to think, how did this happen?

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  How did I get to where I am? I think it was a lot of luck and a lot of hard work. I've had people come up to me and ask me, you know, young trainers that are getting started. Well, how do I do this? I want to do exactly what you do. And I'm like, well, I'm not so sure there was a real roadmap to it. I mean, I just, I wanted to do what I was really driven by. And in doing that, I think that that attracted people to me. It wasn't that I was going out to try to find celebrity clients.

• 1:06:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that was not your agenda. Like what I like, what you just said was that, you know, it was because of where you were at spiritually. So, you know, what does that, what does that look like for you? What does that mean?

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  I was never really motivated by money or by, everyone wants to be successful, right? So you definitely have that, it comes into your list of priorities, but it was never number one or number two or number three or number four on my list, right? So when you do something that you really love and you know that, as you know, my dean said, you're never going to make any money, but you're still going to do it anyways. You start off, I think, with the right intentions and knowing that I was put on this earth to do something other than just be, right? So I knew that I could serve and that I could do so in a way that would make people feel better about themselves and to be healthier.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  And in doing that, I think I was in the right place to allow these really great things to happen. But it was only because I was really enjoying myself. I wasn't trying to find anything else. I was happy and content with where I was and what I was doing. And in, I guess, that happiness, these great things started to happen and they just sort of manifested themselves, right?

• 1:07:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's very, that's very powerful. You know what I mean? I think that that's a really important lesson to people out there that are like chasing whatever dream that they're doing. It's like, you have to, you have to do the inside work to make sure that whatever path you are on is really the one that you can invest yourself completely and totally in. That is the thing that is, you know, getting you up in the morning, excited about what you're doing, not because it's going to bring you a certain result, but it's the process of just doing it detached from the result, right? So what I hear you say is just, you know, it wasn't, you know, whether or not you were going to continue to do it had nothing to do with where it was leading you. It was the simple act in and of itself that was, that was giving you the fulfillment.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, people still ask me today, what is it about what you do that you enjoy the most? I still love working one-on-one with people. I love people and I love to work one-on-one, especially when you see the transformations take place, right? Just a couple of weeks, actually more than a couple of weeks ago, maybe like a month ago now, I was at PCRM conference, you know, the Physicians Committee, Dr. Neil Barnard, another rock star in the space.

• 1:08:53Rich Roll?

  He's amazing, yeah.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  And they invited me to come to one of their conferences and they asked, would you be willing to teach a class for us? I'm like, are you kidding? I'd love that. So I taught a group exercise class for a bunch of clinicians, doctors and experts in the plant-based space. And to me, it's just so much fun. And people ask me, well, don't you get tired of doing that? I'm like, no, it's what I really love to, I really love to do. If you said to me tomorrow, come out to Malibu and, you know, teach a whatever, a class for me, I'd be like, I'm in, let's go. You know, I just, I love it.

• 1:09:25Rich Roll?

  So are you still teaching classes and working with clients one-on-one? Or, I mean, it can't be so much anymore.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  No, honestly, I don't have as much time as I wish for that these days. I'll do it whenever I can. So I'll be speaking at a corporate event in a week. And I'll do as much as I can one-on-one and then small group settings and sometimes larger group settings, because I just love to work with people. But the reality is that when I embarked on this plant-based movement and I realized that there was so much more to it that I had to share with the world, I realized that in order for me to have the greatest impact, I had to be able to reach the greatest amount of people. And in reaching the greatest amount of people, I had to create a platform so that I could speak to these people. So it would, it would be much more powerful to share the message

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  with many people at once than to just be sharing it one-on-one, because it's just far too powerful for me to keep to myself and my clients that get to work with me one-on-one. Because that's, it just, it go, I guess it goes back to the point where I want to be able to share it with people that wouldn't ordinarily be able to hire a personal trainer, wouldn't ordinarily be able to, you know, have someone working with them one-on-one or, you know, flying someone around the country or around the world.

• 1:10:40Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. All right. Well, I'm not gonna let you get out of, you know, sort of weasel out of the Beyonce, Jay-Z story, because we gotta tell this. So, as the story goes, right, was it Pharrell that introduced you to them and you start working with them and, and this, you know, quite auspicious relationship flowers that has, you know, blossomed into this amazing thing. I mean, it's kind of an incredible thing, right? So you start working with, you know, two people who are arguably have the largest cultural impact on the planet of anybody else, right? It's kind of a staggering thing. Like, it's amazing, right? So, you're working with them as a trainer, but at some point, the nutrition component of what you do starts to creep in. Is that a fair representation?

• 1:11:24Rich Roll?

  Or, you know, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but tell me, you know, tell me how this all kind of developed?

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's pretty, I guess, pretty accurate. I'll share something with you that I haven't shared with anyone before. I was working in Miami with some athletes, and then I remember, I was working with a football player, and he says, you know, I have a friend who's really, really talented, and he, he was like, you know, an incredible player in college, and he just didn't get drafted, and he, he could use your help. He's like, hit a really low spot, and he basically doesn't have a job, and he's, you know, trying to get into the NFL, and he just, he's in a really low place right now. Would you be willing to speak to him? And I said, yeah, man, absolutely. And I, I

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  met this guy, and we totally hit it off, and I was like, why don't you just start coming to the club on a daily basis? I had the place on the beach. Start coming to the club, and we'll, we'll train together. He's like, well, but I can't afford to come here. And I was like, oh, don't worry about it, you know, just, just come. And he started coming to the, to the gym on a daily basis, and we started training, and, and he had, I mean, like, his performance improved like, light years in a very short period of time. Was just a really hungry, really hungry kid, and just an incredible soul, really, really nice guy, incredible human being. He happened to be friends with someone that he had played with years back, who, he bumped into the guy. One day, we were walking out of the

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  club, and he bumps into this guy, and he's like, hey, man, what's up? And he, and he says, hey, what's going on? How are you? Oh, this is Marco, let me introduce you to Marco. So introduces me to this guy, Ben, and, and then, you know... Ben and I just, you know, chatted for a few minutes and then he went his way, I went my way. And then my friend took off. A couple of days later, I see Ben again and I'm like, hey, what's up, man? How are you? And a week later, he says, hey, I want to introduce you to someone. And I said, yeah, no problem. He's like, this is Pharrell. This is the guy I work for. I had no idea. I thought Ben was a football player or something. I have no idea what he did or who he was. We just, he was a really sweet guy and we hit it off and we just started talking on a daily basis. And before you knew it, you know, made an introduction to Pharrell.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  And Pharrell and I started, we hit it off and he's just another really amazing human being. And we just, we hit it off right away and we started working together. And sometime down the road, he says, you know, I have a friend that's coming into town that I'd love for you to meet. And I said, yeah, no problem. And that friend was Jay-Z. And we met and again, another guy with, I mean, just a really, really special guy. The minute we met, I just, you know, we hit it off and I knew he was someone special just from the few words that we shared.

• 1:14:09Rich Roll?

  How do you, like, if you had to articulate what that is? That makes like him so unique and special?

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  You know, I was, I want to say that I was born with a special, I don't know, you want to call it a gift or I have the disability to be able to just walk into a room and I can tell people. I just, you know, I just get this feeling in my stomach. I just know people. You just get this feeling and I think that everyone has it. I think we suppress it and I think that a lot of times we don't listen to it. And we do so many things to our bodies that we beat them up. So a lot of times they're not as, as in tune as they should be. But just people that are kind and then, you know, or, and you can tell just by body language, you know, they're looking in the eye when they're talking to you and, and the way that they, they speak to you and, and the words that they use and how they think and, and

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  how they act and how they treat others and you, I'm very observant. I'm, I'm like obsessed with watching everything in, in the world, right? I just, I'm obsessed with life and I'm obsessed with watching how people handle other people and how they, you know.

• 1:15:19Rich Roll?

  Curiosity.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Just, I'm really, really curious, eternally curious about everything, but people being one of them. And, you know, I think that this just allowed me to develop a keener sense of feeling for people, for individuals. And when we met, we just, we hit it off and he said, hey, you know, would you be willing to come to New York for a couple of weeks to help me out? And I said, sure.

• 1:15:41Rich Roll?

  Just like that, like right?

• 1:15:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, we spoke for a little while and then the next day we saw each other. And then he said, would you be willing to come to New York for a couple of weeks? And that couple of weeks turned into 10 plus year relationship.

• 1:15:53Rich Roll?

  Right. Wow. Wow. Wow. So during that period of time, you would kind of come and go from Miami to wherever they were to like train?

• 1:16:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 1:16:02Rich Roll?

  So how did that, I mean, what was that like?

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  I just got married at the time and I said to my wife, I'm gonna go to New York next week. You want to come with me? And she said, yeah, I'd love to. And we just started, you know, traveling just about everywhere together. And so I would fly out of Miami on like, let's say Monday, and I'd fly back on Friday. And eventually, we started having kids. So my wife started staying in Miami and I kept traveling. She's like, this is not fair. I think I got the short end of the stick.

• 1:16:30Rich Roll?

  Interesting. And then where does, where does the, you know, curiosity on their part about the diet, you know, begin? And this sort of, you know, 22 day experiment of them kind of adopting a plant-based diet that became this major news story?

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  Well, I think that you, the more time you spend with your friends, the more you get to know them. And being that I travel or was traveling a lot at the time with them, you get to see how someone lives, right? So it's not just, you know, train, train, train, train, train. And then at night I go and whatever, I get wasted or I go and eat, you know, a big steak dinner or what have you. They were watching me. I mean, they get to see me on a daily basis how I live.

• 1:17:06Rich Roll?

  Right. And are you like, living with them? Or you have your own hotel room?

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no. I live my own life. But you know, you, you spend time with your friends. Like you and I are spending a good amount of time today. If we go to dinner, you'll see what I eat. And then if tomorrow you see me for breakfast, you'll, you'll see what I eat for breakfast. And then you'll see if I train or I don't train. And you got, the more time you spend with your friends, the more, you know, they say you really want to get to know your friends, travel with them. Well, we're traveling together, right? So I think that, that in and of itself develops.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  Develop a curiosity for what other people do, not just because I'm, you know, their trainer or their, you know, life coach or health coach or nutritionist or whatever it is you want to think it is. The reality is that you're friends, you just watch them and you see what they do. And I think that in, and in watching, you become curious about, you know, what it is that they do and why, you know, what they do works. And, you know, I, I live a pretty clean life. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I'm a really clean eater and I, and I love to work out. And when you see that, the, the benefits of that right in front of you on a daily basis, I think that it, it sort of piques people's curiosity. Right, so they start asking questions.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, and then one day I said, hey, you know, it'd be really cool if, we had talked about plant-based nutrition for a while. And then one day I said, hey, you know, it'd be really cool is if we, if we added a plant-based breakfast to, to your day. He's like, yeah, I think that would be really cool. Let's try that. I could do that, I could do breakfast. And I'm like, yeah, of course you could do breakfast. So we added a breakfast. And a couple of months later, it was so easy that I don't think anyone thought anything of it. Jay just called and said, hey, you know what? I've been thinking about this. I remember it was in Miami and he called me, I was sitting in my office. And he says, I've been thinking about this. Why don't we do something? You know, you have that program, the 22 Day Vegan Challenge.

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  We had put up, when I, when I started with 22 Days Nutrition, I didn't want to just be a company that was going to benefit people who bought from it, right? So I didn't want it to be like, you buy one thing from me, I give you one thing. You buy one thing from me, I give you another thing. I wanted it to be a little bit more, more, I don't know, inclusive, a little bit more accessible. So I created a platform online and I wanted that platform to be a really robust engine to help people live a healthier life. So to create a plant-based lifestyle solution, if you will. So we wanted to share recipes, we wanted to share ideas with people. Here's what's great about Goji berries. Why you should do B12, this is why you should do methyl instead of

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  So like a lot of different things that ranged in anything that you know I was curious about or that I thought people might be interested in. So we started developing this sort of archive of really great content and I thought to myself, let's create a program. Let's create a program around the whole 22 day concept where we help people. Give them all the tools I need to go plant base for 22 days. So the name 22 days comes from the idea that it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. So if it takes 21 days to make or break a habit on the 22nd day, you're armed with a new tool to live a healthier life, right? So it's on the notion that it it takes a certain amount of time to create that synaptic pathway, to create that that.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  That path in your brain that is like riding a bicycle, right? Like you don't forget how to ride a bike. Once you learn it.

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  And I thought to myself, if we help people, if we arm them with the tools they need over the course of 21 days, once they're they reach the 22nd day. They'll be able to keep this, you know, going that this will be something that's incredibly sustainable. So we put this program online and we just gave it to people for free. We just thought it'd be really fun. So we gave them recipes, we gave them tips and if you put your email address, we would send you basically, you know, messages of the day, tip of the day. With what you should have for breakfast, lunch and dinner suggestions, right? And then exercises, then I threw the exercise component into this. Your workout for today, this is what you should be doing today. And then Jay's like, this is really cool. You have this platform. Why don't I use that? Why don't you set me up on it? And we take this 22 day challenge and it was getting close to his birthday. He's like, I'll do it for my birthday's birthday is December 4th.

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  He's like, I'll do it starting my birthday and then by the time I finished 22 days later, it'll be Christmas. So it'll be like this whole really cool. Spiritual cleansing, health, empowerment.

• 1:21:36Rich Roll?

  Forty four, forty four at the time, right?

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  I think he was forty-two.

• 1:21:40Rich Roll?

  Forty-two.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  When he did it, forty-two or forty-three. Can't remember now, but I remember that I was like, wow, that's really cool, man. That would be awesome. And then he says, yeah, and what I want to do is I also want to share it with my friends, my fans, people that know me. And I thought, wow, this is incredibly powerful because we're sharing something that matters, right? So a lot of times you realize that the magazines are like, you know, have all that celebrity fodder, put nonsense out a lot of the times. Ninety-nine percent of the time is not true and it's just stuff that doesn't really empower anyone. But I thought, here's someone with a really big platform doing something to really empower

• 1:22:20Rich Roll?

  Like the biggest platform.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:22:22Rich Roll?

  You know, except for, you know, maybe a world leader.

• 1:22:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:25Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean? Like, but in terms of literally influencing, you know, kind of opinion on cultural matters, like there's arguably nobody who is more powerful or potent than that couple. Like, it's incredible.

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:22:42Rich Roll?

  So that's a huge thing, you know, that they would say, hey, we want to share this, like this, you know, this notion of, you know, taking more control of your health and the relationship that that has to diet, like, that's not a small thing.

• 1:22:56Speaker 01

  No, and if you know them, you know that they're about, always about giving back, always about giving back, always about giving more than they receive. And the truth is that what better way to give back to someone than to arm them with health? I mean, that's just like incredibly powerful. And you said it earlier that for many years, it was this notion of this, you know, Birkenstock, no deodorant worrying dreadlock, you know, hippie in Colorado, that was the vegan. That poster child is anyone right now. It's an amalgamation of color, race, sex, I mean, everything, right? So there's no one person that fits that who is a vegan. Like, if you walked into a room now and said, okay, pick out a vegan, you would never be

• 1:23:40Speaker 01

  able to pick them out because it's, he or she comes in many different shapes, sizes, forms, ages, and it's really cool. And I think that a big part of that is that people like J and B have gotten behind it and have said, you know, this is what we do. This is why we do it. Use it in a way that makes most sense to you. I think that's incredibly powerful.

• 1:24:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And in fairness, you know, they didn't, they're not 100% plant based. Like they did the 22 day thing and they're, they're very upfront and open about the fact that they're not living a 100%

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  Today they are, by the way.

• 1:24:15Rich Roll?

  Oh, they are today. Okay. Well, good. You hear that? Today, meaning today, meaning, you know, for this 24 hour period or today, meaning like they're now they're back on the program.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they like to, you know, like I said, it's whatever works best for you, right? So they like to do it in, in, in waves and they, they find success in getting on, getting off, getting on, getting off. And I think it'll be a matter of time before they feel so great. They realize that they're so great when they're on it that.

• 1:24:47Rich Roll?

  They want to do it all the time. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think, you know, everybody's different. For me, like I can't rubber band because like rubber banding in, going in and out and in and out of like doing what I know is best for me. Just it's, it creates like dissonance for me. You know what I mean? Like I, I don't, I don't know what it is. I think it's because I'm in recovery for alcoholism. Like I have to approach it almost like the same way I approach drugs and alcohol and I can find like comfort and security. It's just saying, this is my rule, you know, and I just adhere to this rule and my life is better. But if I, like, I can't do cheat days or go on and off like then, because then I start craving those foods. And before you know it, like, I'm just completely off the reservation altogether.

• 1:25:32Rich Roll?

  But I know not everyone's like that. You know what I mean?

• 1:25:34Speaker 01

  Well, the truth is I'm very similar in that I, I'm 100%, 100% of the time.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  And it's not because of fear of anything other than that I just, I know better, right? So I'm like, why would I, you know, why would I go back to?

• 1:25:53Rich Roll?

  Well, also with that consciousness shift also, and you realize like what goes into all of this? Like now I can't, I can't, there's no way I could go back.

• 1:26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then being a parent, I think also places an extra amount of pressure or awareness in you that you just want to be part of something bigger and greater. And you want to be the change, right, that you want to see in the world. And to my kids, like, I don't know, because they're so young, I don't know that they would get it if I wasn't plant-based today and then tomorrow I was. I don't know that they would get the meaning of how powerful it is to be focused on something. And the reality is that I think it's so incredibly powerful that it means that much to me to be committed to it 100% of the time. It's not just, oh, today I care about, you know, breast cancer awareness, but tomorrow, eh, not so much. I mean, it's something that I'm always going to care about, right?

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  So if I care about it all the time, I should be able to commit myself to it fully and completely.

• 1:26:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And as an ambassador, you know, for you to be 100% is to say, not only, you know, is it possible, it's plausible, and you can be an example and show people that, you know, it's accessible for them as well, you know, that they can aspire to this, you know, to this lifestyle and that it's not something that is out of reach.

• 1:27:14Rich Roll?

  To kind of get back to, you know, Beyonce and Jay-Z, you know, a sort of cynical person would say, well, 22-day revolution, but then they went back to eating meat, so, you know, oh, you know, so much for that, you know what I mean? Like, that's sort of a, would be like, kind of a typical kind of pop culture negative reaction to what's going on. So do you have to like weather that kind of reaction? Like, how do you speak to that?

• 1:27:39Speaker 01

  I'm incredibly optimist. I'm the eternal optimist. I don't pay attention to that. But the reality is that I have seen and heard so many great comments and compliments come from, you know, I didn't think I could do it until I saw them do it. Or I didn't think it was possible till I saw that, you know, she could do it. Or I did it because she's my queen. I did it because I love him and everything he does is perfect. Right? So when you see that and you hear that, you get really excited. So maybe there's someone that says that, you know, whatever, a naysayer or, you know, glasses, half-empty guy, then, you know, that's, like I said, you can either, you can either see an obstacle or you can see an opportunity and I see opportunities every day.

• 1:28:20Rich Roll?

  I believe that their heart is in the right place with it too. I mean, I remember, I don't know what video it was, but Beyonce is wearing the Kail T-shirt. Like as she's dancing around the mea- yeah, it's like, she didn't have to wear that shirt.

• 1:28:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:31Rich Roll?

  You know, like, that's kind of an amazing, that's kind of an amazing moment in the plant-based movement, just that one act alone.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  And when you see that someone has such an incredibly powerful and diverse platform and they use it to do such good. I mean, how could you not applaud that? Seriously. It's not just about plant-based, but about everything that she does and that he does. I mean, it's just, it's about the bigger picture.

• 1:28:53Rich Roll?

  What do people not understand about, you know, who those people are? Like, you know, you could read the magazines or whatever, but obviously, like, we don't, you know, we don't know them like you do. I mean, what is, you know, what do you, what do you, what do you notice about them that you wish people could kind of better understand?

• 1:29:11Speaker 01

  Honestly, I look at all of my friends and my loved ones with the exact same set of eyes, right? So I don't look and see a celebrity super couple. I just see great human beings that are just really kind people that want to leave this earth better than they found it. And that's like a common trait in the people that I love. Maybe it's something that I gravitate towards, or maybe something that I want to be a part of, but the reality is greatness isn't defined by success or by how much money you have in the bank. By how many followers you have on Twitter, Instagram.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  Greatness is defined by who you are and what you do on a daily basis, right? It's not about what you, what you wear or who you know. It's about who you are as an individual, right? You could be a great landscape architect, you could be a great waiter, you could be a great musician. And the success, I think that that's like the one biggest, the one biggest issue we have as a country is that we have, we have misinterpreted success with the amount of money someone makes. And success has nothing to do with money. Everything to do with who you are, what you do, how you make other people feel, you know, on a daily basis.

• 1:30:39Speaker 01

  And when you look at that, they're extremely successful. They make people feel great, they treat people well, they're good human beings. And, you know, you could look at it however you want to look at it, but the reality is at the end of the day, we all put on our pants one leg at a time, or take them off one leg at a time. And the rest is, I think, just nonsense.

• 1:31:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's, that's super interesting. You know, I kind of, in reflecting on your, your kind of trajectory, I sort of see this person who, who, you know, being yourself, somebody who knew very early on and very clearly like what your personal truth was and is, and just has consistently stood in that. And as a result of, of kind of, you know, being that lighthouse, so to speak, an amazing confluence of events has occurred to kind of precipitate this amazing situation that you're in right now, where now you're in a position through, you know, through this new company and your books, to influence people on a mass level, you know, going from

• 1:31:47Rich Roll?

  that one-on-one training situation to really being able to, you know, change paradigms about health and nutrition. It's really kind of an amazing thing.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Thank you, man.

• 1:31:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, so let's, so let's talk about this. So this, so, so Beyonce and Jay-Z, they do the 22 day thing. You, you, you guys decide to collaborate on this 22 days nutrition company that then kind of blossoms into not only, you know, food products that you can find at the store, but also a food delivery service, right? And then the book, and the book was insanely, I mean, like, I remember when the book came out, was it number one on Amazon? Was it number one New York Times?

• 1:32:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:31Rich Roll?

  That's so crazy.

• 1:32:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, you know, you've been through the process and you've done it all. You're the guy.

• 1:32:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but like, to, to be like at that strata is like, that's insane, man. So your life must have been crazy.

• 1:32:44Speaker 01

  I've been floating, to be honest with you, I still haven't come down. I mean, it's, it's been a lot of fun.

• 1:32:49Rich Roll?

  It was like April, right? When it came out?

• 1:32:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, end of April.

• 1:32:51Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  And then we had this-

• 1:32:53Rich Roll?

  I know you did the talk show circuit and all of that, but like, I mean, like the number one selling book in the country.

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  You know, and, and you, and you're not going to believe this, but we did all the big shows, right? And it wasn't until, I think that what, what clicked was, a lot of times people think that vegan or plant-based living or vegetarianism is like, okay, it's healthier, but it probably tastes really bad and I'm going to be eating really terrible food. And it wasn't until we went on The View and had like this incredible offering of all the different kinds of foods, so we went out, we, I basically made all of the recipes or a bunch of recipes from the book and I brought them to The View for them to try and they were just blown away. They were just like, wait, this is what this is? Oh, I could do this every day.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  And it wasn't until people saw that, that it was like, I mean, like, it just took off.

• 1:33:47Rich Roll?

  That was the one thing that made it blow up.

• 1:33:49Speaker 01

  It was, it was the one thing that just, everyone just went bananas. I mean-

• 1:33:53Rich Roll?

  It's such a weird thing too, because you think like, oh, it's going to be that Today Show appearance, or it's going to be this thing. And then, and then, and then you see like, oh, some things just miss. Like it doesn't, like, it can be a huge thing and like, it's not connecting or whatever.

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. We did, you know, Good Morning- Morning America Today Show and you just see everything going on Dr. Oz, I mean and everything was amazing, but it wasn't until that happened. That people saw the food and they connected with it and they were like and then and then all the girls. And then the girls from The View were eating the food and they were loving and and they'd warned me, they were like, look, we're gonna be really honest with you. Um, if you bring something they don't like, they'll spit it out. I mean, these girls are really honest. And I was like, I'm I'm not scared. I mean, let's let's do this. I think it's gonna be fun. And sure enough, uh, we did it and they just, they enjoyed it so much that I think that it translated well. You couldn't, we could not have planned that. I mean, we weren't trying to orchestrate anything. It was just like.

• 1:34:45Rich Roll?

  But did the book come out at the same time that you launched the food delivery service?

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  No, no, and and and I think a lot of people think, wow, what brilliant, what genius marketing and and the truth is that I, as much as I'd love to take credit for all of it, I just, I can't because it's not in me. Um, the reality is what happened was when B and J did the program, a lot of people jumped on with them, a lot of their fans jumped on and then we started getting people emailing us on a daily basis. Oh, my God, I feel so good. Oh, my God, I I've slept, you know, better than I've slept in the last 10 years. Oh, my God, my cholesterol went down. Oh, my God, I no longer have, you know, arrhythmias. Um, you know, you hear about it, right? My blood sugar went down so low that I had to get off my, you know, diabetes medication. Oh, my God, this happened. Oh, my God, that happened. It was all beautiful. And then there was one comment at the end.

• 1:35:33Speaker 01

  Every single email had a very similar comment and it was something like, but I wish somebody could make this food for me. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to, you know, cook breakfast, lunch, dinner every single day. It just, it's a lot. I wish someone could do this for me. I wish someone can make the foods. Why don't you guys make the food? I wish someone can make the food. I wish some. And then after reading like a thousand, thousands of emails, I was like, wow, I I guess we could make food. Why not? Let me look into it. And I just started looking around. I started trying to find, um, I was like, I know we have really awesome recipes. I mean, maybe I can find the kitchen. That we can, you know, make something happen. If not, we'll go out and build the kitchen. How do we do this? And then, you know, we spent about 10 months trying to figure it out.

• 1:36:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's tough. I mean, you know, to find, find recipes that are going to be able to scale and that, you know, are going to keep through and how you're going to ship them like it, that's not.

• 1:36:25Speaker 01

  It's so difficult. You have no idea. Like no, but no preservatives. It's not frozen. It's all USDA organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, soy-free, and it's all fresh. So it's like incredibly difficult. You can make a dish today and it tastes great. But if you, the minute you put that in a container and you just seal it, there's, I mean, it's gotta keep fresh for, you gotta ship it to someone. Then how do you ship it? And how? If you're, if you have a kitchen on the East Coast, how do you get to the West Coast? If you have a kitchen on the West Coast, how do you get to the East Coast? And it's, how much is it, you know, I mean, it was very, it was a super complicated process, but it was a lot of fun to know. I was just focused on, I'm going to be able to satisfy their needs. I think this is going to be a lot of fun.

• 1:37:09Speaker 01

  This is going to be a big game changer because, and when I say game changer, I don't mean like our company's going to blow up. That was never, you know, the thought that drove me to do this, right? It was more of, we're going to be able to affect more lives. We're going to be able to help more people be healthy. We're going to help people get healthier. Um, we're going to help people get off their meds. It was about, if we're really truly going to live this, and if we really want to be these ambassadors of wellness, we have to be able to help people where, wherever they need most help.

• 1:37:37Rich Roll?

  Where they're at.

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:39Rich Roll?

  And how did you, so how did you execute on this? I mean, did you start off just like doing it in Miami? And then blowing it out gradually?

• 1:37:46Speaker 01

  No, we launched nationally, day one.

• 1:37:50Rich Roll?

  I guess that's how, that's how you can just go big or go home when it's like.

• 1:37:54Speaker 01

  That's my, that's my motto. You know, we said, well, let's just, you know, we, I didn't want to put myself in a position.

• 1:38:00Rich Roll?

  Where are the kitchens and where are the distribution facilities? Like, I mean.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  I wanted to be here. I wanted to be here in California. Um, hence why I'm here so much. But I wanted to be here in California because it's just, um, we, we know that, you know, demographically speaking, there's just so many people out here. I mean, and we thought that it would probably be the easiest. easiest to get food and then I I met with a lot of kitchens around the country and I found to me the best kitchen with the the greatest resources, the best setup, the cleanest, and I'm like a neat freak and I'm a maniac for detail. So I wanted everything to be absolutely perfect and I want to be able to source the stuff and I wanted to know that the sort of stuff was going to be sourced locally and they met, they like checked all the boxes.

• 1:38:41Speaker 01

  So they won, we launched nationwide and it was, I mean, it was, it was incredible. It was really incredible. I think we had, something happened right in the beginning where we got a little bit of like press because some, somebody, something had gone on and I think around that time B came out with some sort of an announcement. Well, we wanted to make it really clear to people, we don't want people to think if she ever says anything that there's like some hidden agenda or that. So we just made an announcement, hey, we're partnering up to do this. And just putting out that one message, people just started going bananas. And it was, it was an awesome start and it's been an incredible year.

• 1:39:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so how, so it hasn't even been a year yet, right?

• 1:39:26Speaker 01

  Not yet. We launched in January.

• 1:39:27Rich Roll?

  Right. All right. So here's a question that would be on my mind and I know some of my friends, like actually a buddy of mine just posted on Facebook the other day. He's a, he's, he's a friend of mine, my friend Gordon, he lives in Venice, big, super athletic dude, like does Spartan races, really fit and has been traditionally, you know, on different kinds of diets and he's super interested in exploring plant-based. But he doesn't cook and he doesn't want to cook. And he's like, he put it out on Facebook, like, hey, I'm looking for, you know, I need, I need a great plant-based meal delivery service, but I don't want to have to like order three entrees. Like, am I going to get enough food? Like, he's worried about whether it's going to

• 1:40:08Rich Roll?

  satiate him, you know, can you solve his problem?

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  I think we can. Our portions are huge.

• 1:40:16Rich Roll?

  Oh, they are?

• 1:40:17Speaker 01

  And I don't know if he's already

• 1:40:18Rich Roll?

  I haven't tried yours yet. No, well, he's like, I don't know if he is yet either. I mean, he's tiptoeing around it like he wants to check it out.

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  Well, you know this from experience, right? So when you move to a plant-based diet, you realize you're eating a lot more food than you typically eat. Because just it's volume, right? So it's like you're looking at the calories per fat and protein and carbohydrates. So you're going to have a lot greater volume of food for fewer calories. So it just depends if he's huge, like a bodybuilder type huge, you know, like 200 plus pounds. Maybe he needs a little bit more, but the reality is I haven't had one person come back to me yet and say, there's not enough food. And as a matter of fact, I have people call me that know me. They're like, hey, I just ordered your food. I'm like, you dummy, why'd you order the food? I would have sent it to you. No, no, I want to support the brand. I'm like, okay, I would have, but I have a question. Am I supposed to eat all this stuff?

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  I'm like, yeah, like, no way. I'm like, yeah. Okay. And they try it and they're like, wow, I'm, I'm losing weight or I'm, you know, exactly where I need to be. And I think that a lot of times we think that there's like this, you know, there's so much science behind it. And you need to know like, you know, how many grams of fat and how many grams of carbohydrates and how much protein. We get so, uh, like, you know, caught up in the numbers of it all that we just don't eat the food. Like when you look at, um, Dan Buettner's work, right? You look like, you look at the, uh, at the blue zones, those guys that are living to be 115 aren't looking at how many calories are consuming on a daily basis. Do you think they're there with a pencil and a piece of paper?

• 1:41:49Rich Roll?

  Their ratio of carbs to fat.

• 1:41:51Speaker 01

  They're not thinking about it. They're just living. They're just eating really good, clean food and predominantly plant-based diet. And when you look at all of the other studies combined, you realize that the people that are living the lives that we want to ultimately live, aren't looking at the numbers of it all. They're just enjoying great, clean, healthy food. And that's exactly what we're sending people.

• 1:42:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I love that. I get emails like that all the time, people wanting to, and I'm like, I don't know. I don't, I never, I never think about that.

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  And you shouldn't, by the way. Oh, but do you think I'm gonna need another, you know, 400 grams of, you know, protein if I wanna maintain this much? You know, I'm like, look, everyone is different, but the reality is, jump in and then you'll, you'll figure it out very, very quickly if you think that you're at the right place or not. And more often than not, you find that people jump in and they, in the beginning, they're thinking about it all the time, and then they just stop thinking about it because they realize it's something they shouldn't have ever worried about to begin with.

• 1:42:44Rich Roll?

  Right. So I'm sure you get the protein question every day. So how do you, how do you handle that one?

• 1:42:52Speaker 01

  Well, the reality is that we consume way more protein than we need to. You know that. And I just have to share that with people because most people don't realize that the typical American diet has almost double the amount of protein that they should be consuming on a daily basis. And when, just that one fact alone, people are like, oh, really? I'm like, yeah, and we've seen, you know, studies like the Harvard study, and we've seen a lot of studies come out that, you know, just increasing your, you know, animal protein intake by just a little bit increases your risk factors for cancer and diabetes by X. Some as high as 50%. And when you look at some of the numbers and you realize that we are consuming, you know, far too much protein, and a lot of that protein is coming from

• 1:43:37Speaker 01

  animal sources. So when someone moves to a plant-based diet, it's usually something they don't have to think about. But the truth is that if you're a really hardcore athlete and you wanna feel like you're doing something better,

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  like added insurance, if you will, like, you know, I wanna post-workout, I wanna recovery drink, you could do a plant-based protein. I mean, that's super clean. As a matter of fact, we have really clean plant-based proteins for that specific person.

• 1:44:03Rich Roll?

  What do you, what is, what's the source of the protein?

• 1:44:06Speaker 01

  We have a really unique formula because we're the only guys in the world that have USD organic pea protein that's grown and processed in the US and no one else has this pea protein. Most of the pea protein that you see out there, even the USD organic stuff is grown in Canada, shipped to China, it's processed in China, it's like an amalgamation of stuff and then it gets shipped back here. So it's incredibly expensive for us to buy our stuff, but I formulate for myself. I don't formulate for label copy, I formulate for function. So when I go out there, I want to make sure that I'm putting the best ingredients and like I said in the beginning, there's no compromise. That's one thing we don't do, we don't compromise. So we want to make sure that we put the best products that we can on the shelves to be able to help people ultimately live the life that they want to be living.

• 1:44:49Rich Roll?

  So to get back to the protein question then, I mean, basically, don't worry about it.

• 1:44:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not worrying about it. I don't sit around thinking, man, did I get enough protein today? And you, when you start living it, and it's hard for someone that, I get it, it's really difficult for that, you know, guy that's been supplementing, you know, four times a day with whey since he's 18, right? It's hard for you to tell them not to worry about it because it's what they, it's the habit that they've ingrained, right, into their daily lives. And it's not until they just let go a little bit that they realize that it was something that they really didn't need to worry about to begin with. Because you realize you're not going to lose any muscle mass, you're not going to perform, you know, whatever at suboptimal levels because you're not consuming enough protein.

• 1:45:41Speaker 01

  Because if you're on a plant-based diet and you're eating the right amount of foods with the right amount of diversity, you're going to be just fine.

• 1:45:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's tricky with guys because the idea that you would adopt a diet that potentially, you know, in their mind, you know, fallaciously or otherwise, could lead them to a place of being weaker is almost an assault on identity, like your sense of who you are as a man and, you know, masculinity, et cetera. So it's a very loaded thing. Like, I understand why everyone... Wants to know the answer to that. And it's almost like they have to experience it for themselves to get past it to realize like it's it's a red herring.

• 1:46:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:19Rich Roll?

  You know, do you know, um, Dr. Garth Davis? I think he was at that PCRM conference.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  I know. Yeah, I know his work.

• 1:46:26Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah. So his book just came out this week called Protein Holic.

• 1:46:29Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:46:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's really great.

• 1:46:30Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 1:46:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:31Speaker 01

  I gotta check it out.

• 1:46:32Rich Roll?

  So I mean, he did an unbelievable amount of research on this subject, you know, like, you know, the the whole protein question is like a whole book devoted to it. It's pretty cool.

• 1:46:40Speaker 01

  It's, yeah, it's funny because when you go to like the PCRM conferences or the conferences where these guys are all converging, it's almost like laughable, right? When when you ask these guys about protein, you're like, come on, man, you're not asking me about protein today, 20, October, whatever, it's, you know, 2015, no way. Are you kidding me?

• 1:47:00Rich Roll?

  But then again, you can look at, I looked at Dan Buettner's Instagram feed today, and he's taking pictures of the breakfast at some other conference that he's at where it's just bacon and eggs. And, you know, like the other medical conferences where that still is very much an issue, like the PCRM conference is the anomaly.

• 1:47:17Speaker 01

  Those guys do it right. By the way, every single thing is plant based. I mean, that was like the greatest buffet that I've ever seen in my life. Hats off to Jill and the team at PCRM. Yes, for sure, man. And you have to live it, right? You have to be able to walk the walk if you're going to be able to to preach it. You have to be able to live it. And and these guys are doing it really well.

• 1:47:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool. All right. Well, I'm gonna let you go here. But before I do, I thought it would be cool if you could just leave some people with, you know, maybe some of the the tips that you would convey to somebody who's new to this lifestyle, who's interested, you know, whether it's getting fit for the first time or the first time in a long time, or or switching up their diet, you know, but they're intimidated, they're not sure where to start. I mean, what are, you know, some kind of, you know, tactile takeaways that you can give people, you know, besides, you know, obviously, reading your book and checking out the websites, which we're gonna give everybody all that information?

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  Well, everyone's at a certain place in their lives today. And I think that you're not defined by what happens to you in life, but rather by what you do when these things happen to you, right? So it's really simple in that we know today more than we've ever known about the benefits of a plant-based diet. And we've, you know, spent a little bit of time talking about there are no, there are really no right or wrong way to do it. Once you start to lean, you realize that you become fully immersed in it very quickly because you just start to feel better about yourself. And when you look at something that, I say that there's no,

• 1:48:57Speaker 01

  there's no single thing in your life that you can do that will have a greater impact than adopting a plant-based diet. And when I say a greater impact in your life, in the life of the people around you, in the environment, in promoting a, you know, cruelty-free lifestyle and creating more kindness in the world, there's no single act that you can do that would have greater impact than adopting a plant-based diet. When you know that and you know that you can reduce the risk of many of the diseases that affect us today, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer, dementia, and you know that you can sleep better and you know you're gonna have improved performance,

• 1:49:40Speaker 01

  not just on the field, but sexual performance as well. And you know that you're, you're gonna get rid of whatever mood swings you had and you're just physically and psychologically going to feel like a better version of yourself. How is that not enough to inspire you to take that first step? Or to take that first bite out of something that can heal you from the inside out?

• 1:50:05Rich Roll?

  Well, that's just crazy talk.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 1:50:10Rich Roll?

  That was beautiful, man. Thank you.

• 1:50:11Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thanks for your time, man. I appreciate it.

• 1:50:13Rich Roll?

  Great talking to you.

• 1:50:14Speaker 01

  Likewise.

• 1:50:15Rich Roll?

  If you're digging on Marco and want to connect with him further, the best way to do that, your website is marcoborjes.com and 22daysnutrition.com. And the book is The 22 Day Revolution.

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  Yes, thank you.

• 1:50:28Rich Roll?

  Anywhere else? Facebook and Twitter, 22 Days Nutrition is like on all those places, right? Is that the best place?

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Thank you. Very kind of you.

• 1:50:37Rich Roll?

  Let's do this again.

• 1:50:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Maybe we'll do dinner tonight. We have a spot already picked out for you.

• 1:50:42Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah. Matt and Kenny's place. I'm gonna have to call the wife and see how that goes. But I'd love to, man. That's cool. And we're gonna see each other in Miami in November.

• 1:50:52Speaker 01

  I'm looking forward to it. It's gonna be great.

• 1:50:54Rich Roll?

  Awesome, man. Thanks so much.

• 1:50:55Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:50:56Rich Roll?

  Peace.

• 1:51:02Rich Roll?

  All right, we did it. I hope you guys enjoyed that. Don't forget to check out this week's comprehensive show notes at richroll.com, a robust compilation of articles, books, materials, and resources related to today's conversation. And make a point to check out Marco's book, The 22 Day Revolution, the plant-based program that will transform your body, reset your habits, and change your life. Use the Amazon banner ad, of course, for that purchase. And you can go to 22daysnutrition.com to learn more about his nutrition products and meal delivery service. Also, don't forget to subscribe. Subscribe? Did I say that right? Subscribe to my newsletter. And download the free iOS app to access the entire RRP catalog for free. For all your plant power needs, visit richroll.com. Check out our

• 1:51:46Rich Roll?

  Cookbook and Lifestyle Guide, The Plant Power Way. We've got signed copies of that, as well as signed copies of Finding Ultra. We've got Julie's Guided Meditation Program. We've got nutrition products. We've got 100% organic cotton garments, Plant Power Tech Tees. We've got Peace and Plants sticker packs, temporary tattoos, limited edition art prints, both framed and unframed, all kinds of really cool stuff to take your health and your life to the next level. Keep sending in your questions for future Q and A podcasts to [email protected]. And if you want more, I've got two video courses at mindbodygreen.com, one on goal setting called The Art of Living with Purpose, and one on nutrition called The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition. Just go to mindbodygreen.com, click on Video

• 1:52:31Rich Roll?

  Courses. You'll find me there and lots of additional information. They're very affordably priced. And I'm really proud of them. Multiple hours of streaming video content. It's good stuff. Thank you so much for the support of the show by telling your friends, sharing it on social media, all that good stuff. I really appreciate it. And for always, of course, using the Amazon banner at at ritual.com for all your Amazon purchases. I am signing off from Elkhart and I'll see you guys back here in a few days. Make it great. Peace. Plants.