How A Fruitarian Diet Turned One Man Into Superman

Today on the podcast I am very pleased to host ultra-running legend Michael Arnstein, aka “The Fruitarian”. Why the nickname? because this guy is killing it on foot at distances from 26.2 all the way to 100 miles and beyond, powered almost entirely by raw fruit. How is that even possible? I thought I was extreme. Tune in and find out. Beyond his amazing accomplishments on foot, Michael was also on-site at the Bostin marathon finish line. His first-hand account of this unspeakable horror is reason enough to give the show a listen during this melancholy and difficult time. Thanks for listening! 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?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Rich Roll?

  Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, episode 26 with Michael Aronstein.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:23Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. My name is Rich Roll. Who am I? If you're new to the show, I am an ultra-distance triathlete, blah, blah, blah. I am the bestselling author of a book called Finding Ultra, which comes out in paperback May 21st. I am a public speaker, motivational speaker, a very passionate advocate on behalf of plant-based nutrition and holistic lifestyle. I guess you could call me a holistic lifestyle entrepreneur, although...

• 2:03Rich Roll?

  Even I am not really sure what that means. I'm a recovering attorney. I'm a family guy. And hey, now I'm a podcaster. Started this podcast back in December with a singular goal, which is to share with you the people and the personalities that I've met along this journey to wellness and to be able to bring them to you to inspire and educate you to help you be more self empowered about your health, your health choices and fitness. So I've had world-class athletes on. I've had entrepreneurs. I've had nutritionists.

• 2:42Rich Roll?

  I've had doctors. I've had everyman athletes and all sorts of different kinds of people. This is not a triathlon training podcast. There are plenty of other podcasts out there like that. This is more a long-form conversational interview-style show and the topics are varied. Every guest brings something different and special to the equation and I hope you've been enjoying it. It's been really fun to do. I love it. If it was up to me, I'd do one every day. I'm having so much fun doing it. And I'm in New York City right now and

• 3:25Rich Roll?

  actually with a very heavy heart. Today is the day after the explosions at the Boston Marathon yesterday. I had the sort of unique, what would you call it, unique experience of being at the CNN headquarters in New York when the story broke. My plan was to interview Ronnie Selig, who is the Executive Vice President and Director of the Health Wellness and Medical Unit over at CNN. Essentially, she's Sanjay Gupta's boss and she's also an amazing triathlete and a mom.

• 4:09Rich Roll?

  And my plan was to sit down with her and chat about how she balances triathlon with her very busy life and her incredibly demanding job. And as we were sitting in her office, kind of just catching up, the story broke. You know, all of these journalists have televisions in their office and it just flashed on the screen what had occurred and I was able to sit there and kind of watch how a major news organization jumps into action and responds to these sorts of things. And it was a privilege to be able to kind of observe what goes down.

• 4:47Rich Roll?

  It was very much like a scene out of that HBO show, Newsroom. It was remarkable. But needless to say, Ronnie had to focus on the task at hand and we were not able to do the podcast. And it seems even weird to me to be bringing an interview to you today to talk about anything other than what transpired yesterday. I'm absolutely at a loss for words. Just a horrific, horrific event, the implications of which I think will be heard and experienced by all of us for quite some time. And my guest today, Michael Arnstein, we get into

• 5:32Rich Roll?

  it a little bit. He happened to be there. Him and his wife ran the race yesterday and were proximate to the finish line when it occurred. And he's going to tell you a little bit about what it was like to be there and, you know, what his firsthand experience was like. And again, it was weird to kind of talk about other issues. I mean, he's a highly anticipated guest for the show. There's been a lot of interest in me having him on and I had not met him before, but he's an amazing guy. But we kind of had to speak about that a little bit and get into the stuff that people want to hear about, his fruitarian diet and how he competes at a very elite level in marathons and in ultra-distance

• 6:16Rich Roll?

  runs, particularly 100-mile races. But I will say that I am devastated. I have a lot of swirling emotions about what occurred. It's just, it's unfathomable that somebody would purposely do what they did on

• 6:35Rich Roll?

  You know, at an event that is meant to be purely celebratory, you know, a celebration of healthy lifestyle and fitness, and it's devastating, to say the least. I had plenty of friends that were running yesterday, and as far as I can tell, everybody that I know is safe, but of course, that's not the case for everyone. And my heart goes out to you. My thoughts and prayers are with everybody who suffered a loss, or was injured, or affected in any way by what happened. And I'm worried and concerned about how this is going to affect future races. I can't imagine what it's going to be like at the New York Marathon

• 7:16Rich Roll?

  in November, the crackdown, and again, this sort of perpetration of this fear-based kind of mentality in society that we're living in. And it's upsetting. It's very upsetting. So my thoughts and my prayers are out to all of you on this tragic, tragic day. To shift gears, however, today I have the quite impressive and very inspiring Michael Arnstein. He is a guy who has taken vegan diet to another level, very extreme. He is a, what

• 7:58Rich Roll?

  you would call a frutarian, which essentially means that his diet is composed predominantly of raw fruit and raw vegetables, but I think predominantly fruit. And he's going to tell you his story about his journey towards this way of eating and this way of living, and how it's impacted his racing, how it's impacted him mentally and spiritually. And it's quite fascinating, and it makes me inspired to continue to improve my routine and to experiment with what I'm doing. I think you can't help, if you listen to the interview, you can't help but think... I wonder what it would feel like to eat that way. He's such a passionate evangelist

• 8:42Rich Roll?

  of it, and he's living proof. I mean, he's no mere everyman runner. The guy went from running the marathon at 2 hours and 42 minutes, which of course is quite quick and nothing to shake a stick at. And, once he changed his diet to this fruitarian regimen, he got his marathon time down to 2:28, which is blazing fast. Not to mention the fact that he's considered one of the top 100 mile racers in the country, if not the world. So he's an interesting guy. I've been following him online for some time, but had never crossed paths with him in person. So it was a pleasure and an honor to meet him, and I got to meet

• 9:26Rich Roll?

  his wife and his daughter, who were also in his office in midtown Manhattan. They had just returned from Boston. Michael was still wearing the shirt that he wore during the race. He hadn't even had a chance to shower or change. They got out of Boston, they drove back to New York. He caught a couple hours of sleep, and he lives north of Manhattan, and then he ran into his office in the morning. He's a busy guy, and our time was somewhat limited, and I feel like this interview barely scratched the surface of what this guy has to offer. And there were so many things that I wanted to ask him about, that we just didn't

• 10:08Rich Roll?

  have time to get into, but I have a feeling that I'm going to be seeing more of him. And so, I would urge you to consider this as just the first installment in what I hope to be a number of future interviews with this guy. If you've been enjoying the show and want to support, please take a quick second and throw a comment up on the iTunes page. We love it. It helps with the iTunes rankings too. Gives us a little bit of a higher profile, and I appreciate it. I know a lot of you guys have done that, and it means a lot to me, man. Some great comments up there. Also, we put a donate page. Page up on ritual.com and donate. There's a banner ad on my site.

• 10:53Rich Roll?

  And if you've been digging what we're doing and want to throw us a few bucks, hey, man, that would be awesome. But you don't have to. The show will always be free. Another way to support us is to use our Amazon banner ad on the right-hand margin of ritual.com on the blog page or the podcast page. If you're going to buy something on Amazon, just click that button first. It'll take you to Amazon, buy whatever you're going to buy, like my paper pack, which you can preorder, and it won't cost you anything extra whatsoever, but it throws a couple pennies our way and helps keep us afloat. Actually, you can just

• 11:33Rich Roll?

  put that, the link, the URL from that banner ad, you can just put it up in your toolbar. That way, you always have it there and you can feel good about your Amazon purchases, knowing that you're supporting what we're doing. But only if you feel good about that and only if you feel like you've gotten some value from what I'm trying to bring you. That's it. Let's get into the show. Really excited to bring to you today, the fabulous and inspiring Michael Arnstein.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  All right, I'm ready to rock.

• 12:23Rich Roll?

  That's way better. All right, Michael Arnstein in the house.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  All right, dude.

• 12:28Rich Roll?

  Nice to meet you, man.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  I'm here.

• 12:30Rich Roll?

  Thanks for inviting me up to your, your lair, your business lair.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 12:35Rich Roll?

  It's more like a museum to incredible running accomplishments.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, my wife likes to call it like the ridiculous shrine to Michael Arnstein. Yeah, this whole, the walls are pretty layered with the awards, but it inspires me, though.

• 12:49Rich Roll?

  It is. It's impressive. I hope you'll let me take a few pictures that I can put up on the blog of your metal hall. It speaks loudly, but it's awesome, man. And I've been waiting to, I've been anxious to meet you for a long time. So it's a real honor and a pleasure, and thanks for taking the time. For people that are just tuning in, it's the day after the Boston Marathon, and Michael and his wife, Victoria, ran the race yesterday. And from what I understand, you guys finished, you were running with your wife and you finished, not that, not that, not that long before the first explosion, is that correct?

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, my, my wife was running her first Boston Marathon, and she's, you know, very supportive of what I'm doing, but for a long time, she's, she's kind of wanted to experience some of the, you know, the wonderful things that I'm able to experience. So because she did qualify after trying for a number of years, I decided that I would run with her during the event, so we could kind of really enjoy, enjoy the experience together. So normally, I'd be, you know, way up front, finishing, you know, a lot sooner, not have been anywhere near this kind of experience at the, at the four and a half hour mark. But we were, we were right in the mix. I mean, the bomb went off less than 10 minutes after we crossed the finish line, and we were, we were very close.

• 14:12Rich Roll?

  Wow. So can you just describe a little bit about what the scene was like, the chaos, and, and what it felt like to be right in the middle of all that?

• 14:21Speaker 01

  We were obviously really happy to be done with the, the run. My wife was struggling quite a bit. She hadn't trained as well as she could have for the, for the race, because she had some, she had some nagging issues. And, and she, she really pushed to get, to get through. And she wasn't able to really walk that well. So we, we didn't get too far from the finish line in 10 minutes. So when the bomb went off, it was like, it was just surreal. I mean, I don't know if anybody listening has ever been in, around like a real explosion, but it just goes right through you. You know, it's like there's this shock wave and a blast, and, and you're stunned, you know, and you, and we turned around and saw this huge mushroom cloud, and then within a few seconds, another bomb went off, and

• 15:05Speaker 01

  then it, then you just have this like instinctual reaction of, of, you know, fight or flight. And, and My wife's reaction was flight.

• 15:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  And we just, you know, and that was everybody else's reaction. And we, we didn't know if another bomb was going to go off at any second. So it was pretty scary for, for, you know, a good 10 minutes.

• 15:25Rich Roll?

  Right. And so you just skidded out of there, just tried to get as far away from the scene as possible?

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, we, we just, we hopped over the barrier, which is pretty remarkable because, uh, walking fast wasn't really an option. Uh, you know, just prior to the explosions. Um, and then I said, we just got to get away from the crowds and we ran down an alleyway and kind of hid in an alcove. Uh, for about a half an hour until we kind of felt like things were safer and then we, we got out of there.

• 15:52Rich Roll?

  Oh my God. I mean, you know, just watching the footage on television, you know, I, I saw it was sort of on repeat on CNN. You see the first one, I think it was the first one go off and there's a guy in the middle of the road who just gets blown over. It doesn't, I don't think he was hit by anything, but just the sound wave, you know, the shock wave just knocked him to the ground and, you know, it's,

• 16:13Rich Roll?

  it's impossible to even wrap your brain around, you know, how devastating this is and, and what the impact is going to be on future events. And it's just so awful and tragic that an event that is all about celebrating a healthy lifestyle and is triumphant for so many people had to turn so dark.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Yep. I couldn't agree more.

• 16:33Rich Roll?

  I mean, what were your emotions, you know, coming home? Did you fly back to New York last night?

• 16:38Speaker 01

  We, we drove up and, and, you know, I've got, I've got a lot of mixed emotions to be honest about the situation. Obviously, anger is, is something that would be pretty acceptable in this kind of situation. And that's, that's really where, where, where I'm at. I'm angry. I'm angry for what's going to happen with the insurance companies now with big events, what's going to happen with police unions and, and, and, you know, bloated security budgets for, that are, in my opinion, pretty ineffective. And, and, and, and basically, uh, the culture of fear.

• 17:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  And, and, and people being, uh, manipulated in, in, living in a, in a way that's not very functional. And it's, it's a lot of it's wrapped around fear. And being an ultra runner, um, the only thing that you really want to fear is fear itself.

• 17:28Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  You know, having, having confidence in yourself and in, in, uh, And your ability to get through adversity is what makes success in sport and even in diet. And my overwhelming feeling after being in that experience is, you know, give me bib number one next year, I will be the first person on the starting line and I will run, you know, all the way to Boston with no fear.

• 17:52Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  And the people that are trying to push us back and have us hide out and not, you know, congregate in crowds and just be in fear is something that I want to fight to the death.

• 18:09Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, we do live in a culture of fear and it seems to be getting worse and worse and, you know, media doesn't help and it foments all of these emotions and it imprisons us, you know, and there's some, you know, the unseeing system that likes us, you know, afraid and cowering and it's tragic really. And the truth of the matter is, you can't police 26.2 miles. If somebody wants to do something, you know, they're going to be able to do that, whether they get away with it or not is a different matter. But, you know, you have a choice as a human being to, on what you're going to focus on, you know, and it'd be very easy and convenient to focus on this and put a lot of energy into it, but I think there's a better path.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Much agreed.

• 18:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so, you know, I think we're all struggling with it right now. It's so fresh, it's hard to have any perspective on anything that's happening. I mean, it just happened and I was actually in, I was in the CNN headquarters, right off the newsroom when it happened and I was going to interview Ronnie Selig for the podcast. She's the director of the health unit. She's like, you know, basically pulls all the strings. She's like Sanjay Gupta's boss. I was sitting with her in her office and, you know, they all have TVs on in their office and right when it happened and I watched her like jump into motion and start manning the phones and trying to figure out how, you know, how they were going to cover this. And it was, it was quite amazing to see how a major news organization, you know, manages

• 19:39Rich Roll?

  a breaking story like this. It was... It was incredible. But yeah, I mean, there's so much to be told still on this. And it feels weird to, you know, there's been a lot of people emailing me and tweeting me saying, "When are you gonna have Michael on the show?" And a lot of excitement about us sitting down and talking about diet and running and the like. And I want to do all that, but it also feels weird emotionally to, you know, kind of talk about anything but Boston right now. But I suppose we're gonna have to do it anyway.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree. It's tough to kind of focus on anything with such a horrific event taking place. I like to think that the message here is trying to look at how we live, whether how we associate our lives with certain foods that don't, you know, do well things for us, or whether our lifestyle choices with how we exercise or the lack of. I think we got to focus on not living in fear, looking for better ways to do things, and never giving up, you know, constantly trying to evolve towards sustainability.

• 20:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and I think there's a lot in common, sort of this metaphor of food and fear in the sense that, you know, both you and I have made certain choices in our life about what to put in our body, and we both feel strongly about that and love to evangelize on some level, I suppose. And similarly, you know, you have a choice about what you put down your throat, right? And you have a choice about what kind of information you want to let in and affect your emotional body. And that goes to fear. Are you gonna live in fear? Are you gonna live in faith? Are you gonna put foods into your body that don't serve you? Or are you gonna put foods into your body that elevate you and have a higher vibration?

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:24Rich Roll?

  So, and I think it always comes down to personal responsibility, really. It's about, you know, taking a stand for yourself and, you know, having enough self-respect to treat your body, you know, in a more positive way. And I think it extends to emotions. And we were talking a little bit about before, before we were recording, you know, just about food and how everyone, you know, sort of wants to focus on the diet. And obviously, you're somebody- Who has chosen a particular diet, a fruitarian diet, and that raises a lot of eyebrows with people, and you've performed amazingly well, and your results speak for themselves. But also sensing a frustration from you that people want to just, that's who you are, you're the fruit guy.

• 22:08Rich Roll?

  And how do you penetrate beyond that and get people to understand that it's more about the food? Where is this food journey going to take you? And what is it going to unlock inside you? And how are you going to express this new vibration that comes with a different way of eating and living? Can you speak to that a little bit?

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I gave myself a trade name to carve out a niche in trying to gain some type of attention focus. And fruit is definitely that focus. But I like to think that what I'm trying to do is get people to not just think about fruit, but trying to get them to think more on their own two feet. Try to use more intuition, instinctual thought over necessarily what they're being told to

• 23:12Speaker 01

  believe. And diet is a huge thing in people's lives that I believe is heavily influenced by unnatural forces that really don't have the best interests for that individual. So I like to think that when I threw out all the traditional thoughts about diet and started listening more intuitively to my own instinctual thought processes, I saw a huge change, obviously, in my diet. But it also went well over into every other aspect of my life.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  How I thought about running my business, how I tried to develop or improve relationships with my wife, my kids, and even friends and family. So although the focus is change your diet, think about food differently.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  I like to think that I'm trying to get people to start thinking differently all the way around. And diet is one place to start that. And that's my focus.

• 24:21Rich Roll?

  Right, well, food is something we all share, and we all have to eat, and it's a starting point. You know, I always look at it like it's the first step on a journey that will eventually, and hopefully, take you to, you know, different places spiritually, emotionally, mentally, et cetera. And, you know, I think it's important, and I think it's a difficult leap of faith for people, though, because these messages about nutrition, at least from mainstream culture, are so deeply ingrained and embedded in our awareness from the time where little kids were taught, you know, milk does a body good, or, you know, you need steak for protein and all these things.

• 25:03Rich Roll?

  And kind of overcoming those notions, you know, I'm realizing the longer I kind of, you know, walk this path, just how difficult it is to get people to shift their perspective and even just question the status quo about it.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree. And I also think a lot of people don't add into the equation of diet is, you know, not just in, how is this food going to potentially affect me on a physical, on a health level? But, you know, where's the discussion about food being sustainable and morally, ethically part of the greater world that we live in and the world that's going to be created tomorrow? So, you know, I'm constantly hearing people challenge the way that I'm eating as a, on

• 25:57Speaker 01

  a nutritional level, but I rarely hear, or don't hear enough about those moral and environmental issues. So, you know, even if somebody came out and proved without a doubt that eating red meat or... Or, you know, chicken or fish was just like the best thing ever. And if you ate it, you'd, you know, live better or longer, be able to perform at a higher level. If that came at a cost of, uh, of just, you know, terrible social irresponsibility, uh, or on a level where there's just tremendous, you know, suffering on the part of those other creatures that we share this world with, then I don't think it's worth it to eat that way,

• 26:41Speaker 01

  even if it, you know, might make you run or jump more or higher or, or live longer. And I think that's, um, that's something that people just don't focus on enough.

• 26:50Rich Roll?

  No, absolutely. I mean, I share that completely. And I've said it before, if somebody said, oh, you could, you know, if I could prove to you that your performance would increase if you ate this or that, I wouldn't change. I mean, I, I have made a choice to not participate in that system. And I don't take any higher moral ground than anybody else. And I'm not preaching to anybody and I'm not trying to say that anybody else is doing anything wrong. I just am choosing for myself and what seems to resonate best for me, um, to, you know, to avoid those products and to try to eat more sustainably. And I think we do need to think about that more, you know? I think that, you know, it's impossible. I mean, there is a zeitgeist happening and there is a, there is a lot of momentum behind these ideas.

• 27:35Rich Roll?

  You know, when movies like Food In come out and, and people really are thinking about these issues in a way they never have before, but I also think that there's a long way to go. I mean, all you have to do is kind of go through airports or, you know, uh, you know, when you travel, you see, you know, it's easy when living in Los Angeles, uh, to eat the way that I eat, but, uh, you know, I've become increasingly aware of the difficulties and the challenges ahead when I, when I leave town. Um, so let's get into fruitarianism. Uh, this is amazing to me. You, uh, you know, I thought that I ate really well and you've really taken ultra running and, uh, and the vegan diet to another level completely, and it fascinates me.

• 28:18Rich Roll?

  Uh, so you've, you, you basically, why don't you just break down for the audience who might not be familiar with what that term means and kind of take us through what your, what a typical day in your, your life of food is like?

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Sure, I'll try to talk a little fast, try to squeeze it all in for people that don't know my history or what frutarianism is for me. My kind of path, I like to say, started when I was about 16 years old. I'd say pretty much, it's been almost a 20-year journey at this point. When I was in high school, I decided that I wanted to try to improve my running and the magazines at that time talked more about, you know, "Stop with the red meat" or "The fried foods," and that's pretty much what I did for a while. I wouldn't eat burgers and I eventually cut out fried foods and never really made it kind

• 29:10Speaker 01

  of like my identity, but I'd say that it was becoming more of a focus in me to do everything I could to improve. My impetus was I wanted to, you know, win. That really was why I was making the dietary choices. As I got older, I got out of high school and I moved out west. I grew up in New Jersey and I moved out to New Mexico. I kinda got more into the natural, you know, holistic thing in living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I started to get more into the spiritual side of not eating animal products. And then I started cutting out what I thought was unhealthy foods at the time each year.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  On New Year's, every year, I would say, "Okay, well, I'm gonna give up chicken." And then the following year, I said, "Well, I'm gonna give up on cheese." And then eventually I said, "I'm gonna give up on eggs." And then the next year was anything made with eggs or had egg products in it. And then it was dairy. And by the time, I think I was about 25 or 26, I was pretty hardcore vegan. And I did try raw food, I think when I was about 27, for about three months. I read like a David Wolfe book and I started eating lots of avocados and nuts and seeds, really high fat. I did that for about two months and I did lose weight. I did not feel good, even though I...

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Was trying to convince myself that I was feeling better. I really wasn't feeling great eating those kind of foods and it wasn't long before I kind of gave up on it, went back to kind of the cooked whole foods, macrobiotic diet. And I continued to perform at a reasonably high level in marathons, triathlons, I did the Ironman in Hawaii and then got a little bit out of shape when I had kids and then worked a little too, maybe too many hours and kind of had a little bit of a midlife crisis when I was in my late twenties and decided that I wanted to go back into running more, maybe try to go back to the Ironman in Hawaii and I started reading more books

• 31:20Speaker 01

  on continuing to improve my diet. Although I really felt like I kind of had it dialed in, I was still reading supplement reviews and I spent quite a bit of money at the vitamin shop, but never really saw any type of improvements, anything really substantial. And then I did read a book by Dr. Doug Graham called 80/10/10 at my wife's insisting, which advocated a raw food diet, but very low-fat diet, which was very different from anything that I had ever considered before. I thought the other recipes in the book were quite comical because for breakfast, I think it would say, it said like, you know, six bananas, peel them and enjoy. And for lunch, it was, you know, strawberries and papaya, cut them up

• 32:05Speaker 01

  in a bowl, you know, and enjoy. And, you know, for dinner, it was lettuce and, you know, big salad and enjoy. You know, it's like, this is nuts. No one can eat this way. You know, you're just gonna eat raw fruits and vegetables. And of course, like a good, you know, obsessive compulsive runner and athlete, I'd said, oh, I'm gonna give this a try. It sounds nuts. And I tried it and I ended up losing quite a bit of weight and I knew weight was a big issue in really performing at the highest level. And the rest is kind of history. I dramatically improved my running times, qualified for the Hawaiian Ironman again.

• 32:43Rich Roll?

  Right. So just to put it in perspective, I think you were like a 242?

• 32:47Speaker 01

  245.

• 32:48Rich Roll?

  245?

• 32:49Speaker 01

  I'd run the marathon. At that point in my life, in my late twenties, probably 30 times, and I'd always run somewhere between 245 and 250 when I was training reasonably hard. And I was convinced there was just no way I could run much faster than 245. But I knew if I ever was going to run faster, I had to lose body fat. And I started eating nothing but raw fruits and vegetables, mostly fruit. And I think in about six weeks, I went from a 240, I had an initial PR, went down to 242, and then I went down to 234. It was like, I mean, that's for some...

• 33:32Rich Roll?

  In six weeks?

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, for somebody that knows about running.

• 33:34Rich Roll?

  For a seasoned marathoner, that's a huge time improvement.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  I mean, that's going from running like 615 pace to down to, you know, like, under six-minute miles for a marathon, which is entirely new gear. It's just...

• 33:51Rich Roll?

  And the training was the same, so you didn't alter anything in the training?

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. At that time, I was running about 85 miles a week. It was purely body weight. And it made sense to me. I said it's physics. I went from 130 pounds to 120 pounds. And I could cool better. I was always hydrated. And it was just easier to run. Just easy to run fast. I subsequently ran many, many marathons in the low 230s. And I really wanted to break that 230 barrier. That was tough. I had to bump up the training and put a little more dedication into working really hard towards that goal. But I definitely kind of give credit to improving my diet drastically to breaking that 230, which I did at the Boston

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Marathon, I think in 2009, when I ran a 228.

• 34:40Rich Roll?

  228, right.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  And that was incredible.

• 34:43Rich Roll?

  That is blazing. Yeah, it's blazing fast. And so, when you ran 228, how long was that? Then you had been on the fruitarian diet?

• 34:53Speaker 01

  I think it was about 2 and 1/2 years or something like that.

• 34:57Rich Roll?

  Right. But to get to the 235 was literally six weeks.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Very fast, yeah.

• 35:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And so, aside from the dropping the weight, what are the other sort of indications that led you to believe that this was suitable for you? On a daily basis, like, how did you feel in training? And what are you eating when you're training? And how are you recovering? And are you getting sick and run down and all of that?

• 35:21Speaker 01

  I saw a really big difference in my mental focus, clarity. I just, my mind was just really sharp. I can remember being at meetings at work prior to changing my diet. And I just, you know, I have that brain fog or like, you know, you just like, oh, man, maybe I should start drinking coffee again. You know, I'm just not able to stay on, you know, task with everybody. And after I changed the diet and I was just eating mostly fruit, I was so with it. It was just, I was three steps ahead of everything in my mind. And it was just a huge part of why I continue to stay on the diet is the mental clarity. So that's a really big thing. And then there are all kinds of physiological changes that happened that were just really dramatic.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  I never had dry skin again. Weird stuff like earwax, just, I just, you know, I put a Q-tip in my ear after I take a shower and there'd be like no wax in my ear. And I'm like, is this even normal? There was, I had fungus on my toenails that just went away and all of a sudden my toenails looked real nice. I never had mucus in my throat. It wouldn't wake up in the morning. I thought it was normal to like get in the shower every morning, just like, kind of like, you know, clear your throat and cough up some big yellow snot ball. And that was gone. Didn't even have a lot of, you know, mucus in my nose almost ever.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  I gotta really look at a list because.

• 36:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, how about the beautifully floral bowel movements?

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, going to the bathroom was just, I mean, it was, you know, without getting into too much detail. I mean, it takes me longer to urinate than to go to the bathroom the other way.

• 36:59Rich Roll?

  Just slides right out.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just, I've got to look at my list because there's so many things that have changed that I've just forgotten about. Yeah, like crust in your eyes. Like every morning you'd wake up and you know, you'd have that little crust ball in your eyes. And everybody does that, right? That's normal. Well, I never have crust in my eyes in the morning when I wake up.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  What else is there? I, you know, my sense of smell got really heightened. I got. I never really had any injuries after I changed my diet. I think that has a lot to do with, you know, being hydrated all the time and

• 37:35Rich Roll?

  Because of the water content.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, high water content. Never get a cold. I mean, like, I can't get sick. It, I just, it's incredible. Incredible.

• 37:45Rich Roll?

  It's amazing. It's amazing.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  It is. And I'm not, and I'm like, I'm not selling anything. You know?

• 37:52Rich Roll?

  You're not financially invested in anybody doing this or not, right? You're just a guy who went from 242 to 228 in your marathon and you feel great.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm just saying, like, I got to pinch myself. I don't know what the hell is going on. I just started eating raw fruits and vegetables, mostly fruit, and like, I became like Superman. I mean, I was, I was a regular, like, you know, pretty good runner in, in like, you know, my local community. And like, then a couple of years ago, I was the fifth American finisher in the New York City Marathon. Like, that doesn't happen.

• 38:24Rich Roll?

  It's insane. How old are you now?

• 38:25Speaker 01

  I'm 36.

• 38:26Rich Roll?

  Right, so you look like you're 24. And, and, and also, for the listener out there, I mean, you know, the marathon times are kind of a benchmark. It makes, it's easy for people to understand what those mean, but, but really where you excel is in the ultra running and in these 100 mile distances where you're, you're in the absolute elite category. So, so when did you start getting into ultra running and, and how has, um, you know, how has that kind of evolved over the last couple of years? I mean, I can't even keep track of all your top finishes. It's like, it's too much work for me.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  When I, when I got into the, the marathon running and I, and I eventually hit that sub 230, I, I kind of said, well, maybe I should run, try to run 224. And I, I think I could run 224 on a faster course and perfect weather. And so, nah, you know, I, I'm really, the sub 230 was where I, what I wanted. I did that a couple of times. And now I wanted to move into a new challenge. And then the ultra running was like, wow, that's, that's tough. You know, I've done the Ironman. That's, that's a tough, that's an ultra. But like, wow, could you imagine a 100 mile run? Like, that's... That's like incredible just to wrap my brain around that and that I really, really got into, into that challenge and I started running the ultras and every single year that I've been on this diet, I have improved in performance, which I think is important to note.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  And I most recently ran the eighth fastest American time ever at the 100 mile distance, 12 hours, 57 minutes. I did that in December 2012, which is 7:45 per mile, average, for 100 miles.

• 39:59Rich Roll?

  That's absolutely insane.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  And I ran the last marathon just at three hours.

• 40:04Rich Roll?

  That is amazing.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  So I was, and I'm running, I'm at mile 78 and I'm running 630s and I'm, and I'm feeling good.

• 40:12Rich Roll?

  Not only that, it sounds like, I mean, most people will, will run 100 miler, you know, they'll peak for it and they'll do maybe one a year or two a year and it seems like you're racing, like you're, you're doing, you're, how many, how many hundreds have you done in like the last 12, 18 months?

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, the recovery obviously is, is just second to none eaten this way and I've proven that and I can stand tall and say it's true because I, I raced I think 1,400 miles in 2012. I was, I mean, basically every weekend I was doing a, you know, an ultra, a marathon and not just doing it, you know, kicking ass, winning, top three, doing really well. And the only reason I, I wouldn't race more is because I've got three kids and a wife and you know, it's, I've got a business to run and but I, I just love to get out there and just go and, and after a 100 mile run, I literally in, within, you know, 24 to 36 hours, I don't, I don't feel like I've run 100 miles.

• 41:10Rich Roll?

  You're not sore.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  And I've proven it. I ran, I ran Leadville and then two days later, I ran a 239 marathon and won it.

• 41:19Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  And I, and I could have run faster, but I didn't need to because I was winning.

• 41:23Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. Tell people who might not know what Leadville is.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Leadville is considered a quite difficult 100 mile race at altitude in Colorado. It's a trail race.

• 41:32Rich Roll?

  Very high altitude.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  And I finished as high as fourth place there, under 18 hours. And then, you know, within days, I'm, I feel like I'm ready to go, ready to rock.

• 41:52Rich Roll?

  But come on, this is preposterous, right?

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 41:54Rich Roll?

  Where are you getting your protein?

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, where am I getting my protein? And I'm getting my protein the same place that other animals in nature are getting their protein, from plants.

• 42:02Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  And it all starts at the lowest common denominator. You know, carnivores are eating animals that are all made of protein, but all those land animals are eating plants to build all that protein. So the cow, the horse, the rhinoceros, the dinosaurs, they all ate plants. And those plants have amino acids, which those animals can synthesize into proteins. So it's, you know, the science is gonna constantly involve of how people make their own protein and how it interacts on a molecular level in their body, and they're gonna understand it at a much more advanced level in 20, 30, 50 years from now. And it's like, you know, does it even matter? Does it even matter to do these tests and these studies?

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Because, you know, it's like, you just eat what's in nature as it's created, it's worked for, you know, all of eternity, and, you know, trying to break this stuff down and, you know, go and bring it into the laboratories is just, you know, it's just a waste of time.

• 43:03Rich Roll?

  Well, it's also, it's a complex system, you know? So I think we've seen that with supplements, when you extract a particular nutrient out of a whole food and take it as a supplement, it doesn't interact with your body in the same way that it does when you consume it in the context of a whole food. So it's a matrix, and, you know, I think to be able to fully understand it is, you know, I don't know if we're there yet, you know? But I think that the touchdown of what you're getting at really is eat nutrient-dense foods that are low on the food chain, really.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Simple stuff that just found in nature, and try not to like, you know, make it more complicated than it needs to be. And uh

• 43:40Rich Roll?

  That's the thing that I think people struggle with though is they think it is complicated because they think it it it sounds extreme and I guess on some levels you know when compared to the way most people eat you know you could characterize it as extreme and it just it scares people so you know how I mean

• 43:58Speaker 01

  It is extreme

• 43:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Extremely unusual to eat this way

• 44:01Rich Roll?

  Right

• 44:02Speaker 01

  In America in industrialized cultures and that's what people are are feel fearful of is socially it's totally different economically it's it's extremely expensive which is a whole nother topic and and one of the main reasons why I think people really can't eat this way uh but if you take yourself out of this this matrix that we're living in of of the way we think about food and you put yourself in a totally different environment like and and and and I mean like you bring yourself back to nature go to like a super remote area in a tropical region very similar to where humans probably evolved

• 44:41Speaker 01

  and you put yourself there and let's see how easy it is to make a fire in in a in a in a tropical jungle where everything's wet let's see how easy it is to catch animals to eat them you know it's let's see what you're gonna be eating in that environment and and I've had the the fortunate experience to uh to do a lot of my business in a country called Sri Lanka in a very rural very far removed area in the world that hasn't been corrupted where there isn't anything but maybe Coca-Cola uh where people eat extremely simple and and when I go to this country on a frequent basis I see how people eat and I see their their psychological culture around food and mangoes are growing everywhere

• 45:22Speaker 01

  papayas are growing everywhere and peep and coconuts are growing everywhere and this is what people are eating as a primary source of calories they're not thinking about Doritos or the supplements or you know am I getting enough protein or you know they're just eating what's free what grows naturally and what sustains them And is sustainable in, in, in, you know, environmentally and, and, and that's, they, they're not scratching their heads thinking, what am I gonna eat today? Am I getting all my nutrients? And blah, blah, blah. They're all at, at a good, healthy body weight, body composition. Whether they're 70 or 18 years old, they're all basically able to function at the same level in terms of walking or carrying things.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  And it's a sustainable way of life that's been going on for, forever.

• 46:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  And so when I see that, it gives me a lot of confidence, but like, you know what? It's not crazy to eat nothing but apples for, you know, a day. Or papaya, mangoes, or lots of tomatoes. It's like, this stuff's grown in nature and it sustains everybody if that's what they're eating because it's healthy and it's like, man, it's, it's like, stop, stop trying to find ways of, you know, finding the, the, the problems with stuff and, and, and focus on just enjoying life.

• 46:34Rich Roll?

  What do you, what, what would you say? I mean, there's this huge trend in diet right now to the kind of, uh, "Hey, sweetie, it's okay."

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Sorry, my daughter just...

• 46:43Rich Roll?

  It's alright. Um, this, this, uh, you know, low carb, no carb, uh, no sugar, no sugar, no grains kind of protocol, um, which, to be fair, is very focused on, you know, all the artificial sugars in, in all of our foods, but also kind of says, "Hey, even fruits are bad. Hey, even fruit juice is bad." You know, you gotta stay away from all the fructose and all the sugar and that's the, that's the roadmap to health.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm not gonna say that if you just eat, you know, bacon, eggs, and ham, um, you're not gonna lose body fat. I mean, every, everybody, I think, sees that Atkins works to some level to lose body fat. You know, it's...

• 47:25Rich Roll?

  Well, ketosis is just a physiological process that occurs when you're not eating any carbohydrates.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, Shackleton went to, you know, this, to, to Antarctica and survived for, you know, I think like two years eating whale blubber and, and seals and stuff like that. I mean, it's, the human body is incredible. We can sustain ourselves on, on virtually anything. I mean, you can eat your shoes if it's made out of leather and like get by for quite a while. But I think it comes down to what's, what's optimal, what's most sustainable, you know, in, in our, in our, in our world that we live in right now. And, uh, and what, what's morally the right thing to do. So, so, like I said before, even if it's, even if you could have better nutrition eating that stuff... You know, where's the discussion of this not being sustainable? There's too many humans on the planet.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  We can't eat animals consciously when we really care about our future generations. It's just, we can't do it. So, whether it's healthier or not, I just think it's a moot point.

• 48:21Rich Roll?

  Well, there's also this debate about, you know, grass-fed beef and raising animals in a more ethical way, but I just kind of look at that and say, "Yeah, but you're still raising animals to slaughter them." You know, I mean, the endpoint is the same. They might have a brief, you know, somewhat happier existence, and maybe there is an argument that that, on some level, that's more sustainable, but it's not a seismic shift in sustainability that I think we need, and given where we're headed. I mean, we're headed for a serious crisis point in how we, you know, how we provide food to this massive population that continues to explode in growth.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 49:05Rich Roll?

  What are we gonna do?

• 49:06Speaker 01

  What are we gonna do? And the writing's on the wall. People only want to hear, you know, good news about their bad habits. The reality is, is like, if fish might be really good for you, it might really be healthy, and I don't know all the science behind it, and I'm not gonna try to attempt to figure it out, but there's no more fish in the oceans. And it's just, it's not a sustainable way to eat. It's if you really have compassion about future generations, we've gotta be eating raw plants in their whole natural state as they're growing in nature as our primary source of calories. So, I don't even, I don't even try to argue the points about all this stuff, you know, related to animal proteins, or, "Oh, you don't get any B12 in your diet."

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Well, it's like, okay, so I take B12 supplementation, 'cause whatever, whatever the science is, I actually... Not getting enough B12 in how I'm eating. It could be related to the fact that I, you know, eat too much conventionally grown food. Maybe it has to do with the fact that my food's just too clean because, you know, and there's just no dirt on it and then the bacteria's in the dirt. Maybe I gotta eat, maybe I should be eating some bugs on my produce, but since I'm washing all the bugs off, I mean, I don't know all the science behind it. I try to eat whole foods. If, if, if, uh, if I need to take a B12, I'll take a supplement. I'm not gonna start eating fish and red meat because that's just a whole nother discussion about something that's not sustainable in my mind.

• 50:32Rich Roll?

  Right, and I think the problem, uh, occurs when we make the choice to engage, overly engage in this argument. I mean, neither you or I are physiologists. I don't have a PhD in biology. I'm not a nutrition scientist. Uh, and, you know, a lot of other people out there that are espousing this diet or that diet aren't either. And we can go around the merry-go-round on this thing forever and never convince other people and they're not gonna convince us. And, and is that productive? Is that a productive use of, of this forum? You know? I try to, I try to, you know, stop pointing the finger and point it at myself and try to honestly evaluate the decisions that I'm making, the choices that I'm making and, and

• 51:17Rich Roll?

  do an inventory of how I'm feeling emotionally, physically, spiritually. Is this suitable for me? Cause that's all I can control. You know, I mean, is this working for me? Is it not? And, you know, what I'm doing is working for me and after listening to you, it's like, I could do better, you know? I'm gonna try this. Like, I'd like to see if I could feel better than I do, you know? Maybe there's something here and, and being, you know, remaining open-minded to new ways, I think is important too and not devolving into name-calling and, and these labels that I think can get everybody into trouble.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Yep, I agree. I think it's, uh, it's important to, uh, to always keep the focus on trying to improve and keep an open mind. And, you know, ma- maybe I, I try to strive to only eat, you know, 100% raw fruits and vegetables, mostly fruit. And if somebody can't match that or, you know, live up to those ideals, they, they shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Uh, try to eat, and my suggestion is try to eat mostly high-water content fruits, at least during the day. And if you eat some cooked food at night, whether you eat some baked potatoes or... Even if you're just, you know, you can't stay away from that fresh Atlantic salmon, you gotta have some of that. I think the focus that I like to push people towards is eat mostly whole water content fruits and vegetables.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Mostly fruit because they have a lot of calories and you'll get most of the benefits.

• 52:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's this idea of perfection, I think, that creates a problem. Because somebody will look at you and say, you know, that's just too extreme. Or maybe they try it and they make it for a couple of days and they slip up and they just say, well, that was too hard. And then they just go back to eating the way that they were eating before rather than, alright, well, that happened. Like, how can I learn from that? Like, what do I do next? What's the next best, right choice? Rather than, like you said, throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I try to stay away from foods at all costs that have control over my behavior and that affect me in a negative way. So I do not eat processed foods. I try to stay away from foods that are, you know, that are made for stimulation, for entertainment. Not that I can't be really entertained eating black mission figs. Incredible. They're delicious.

• 53:29Rich Roll?

  So what would those foods be? Like, what would be your flashpoints? Like, if you were to have a craving or, you know, what are some of those old things that you used to eat? That used to stimulate the pleasure center?

• 53:41Speaker 01

  You know, I think that's a very good question. And a lot of times when I first started out eating this way, I wondered if I'd ever get over some of those like flashpoints or those like, those crutch things that I just had to have. And some of those things were, cheeseless pizza, thin crusted cheeseless pizza with, you know, some vegetables on top and some sauce. That was just like heaven for me and I ate that a lot.

• 54:05Rich Roll?

  I eat that now.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I just, I thought I was never gonna get over that craving and I fought it. And I, you know, I fell off the wagon quite a few times. But lo and behold, I stopped craving that food after I just gave it up and I ate it less and less and less. And it doesn't have control over me. Just like when I gave up smoking cigarettes when I was in high school. I don't ever feel like having a cigarette anymore. It's out of my consciousness. I don't want thin crust pizza with sauce. Even if I romanticize it in my mind, it's out of my, you know, my consciousness. I'm not interested anymore. And it's really important that, you know, you think you're never gonna be able to stop eating chocolate or drink coffee. If you just give yourself a chance to let it go.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  And you just, you know, you fight those urges, you know, enough times, you will get past it. And I'm free. And that's one of the greatest things about eating the way I do is that who doesn't control my emotions? It doesn't control my actions. I don't obsess about it. And it's liberating. It's incredible to not have to eat certain things. And I can't stress that enough.

• 55:12Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, it's total freedom. And I talk about this a lot. I mean, you hear a lot about these diets that are, that give you a cheat day. And for me, and part of this is informed by the fact that I'm a recovering alcoholic, and that's kind of the prism through which I tend to approach these things. But if you have a cheat day every week, or whenever the case may be, then you remain imprisoned to those cravings. And if, you know, just speaking for myself, I would walk around all week thinking about that one day when I'm going to get to eat that cheeseless pizza, or whatever it is. And you're never really free. And the truth is, is that you can be free. You do have to weather that detox and break that cycle of craving. And it takes a little fortitude and a little bit of time.

• 55:56Rich Roll?

  But if you can weather it and see it through, then you are, like you said, completely, you are free. And it won't occupy a thought in your head anymore. I mean, you'll have maybe the occasional flare-up craving, but you won't walk around obsessing about it. And I think it's huge.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  It's awesome. I mean, it's self-love, and that, it's just freedom. It's great. And it's not, you know, feeling like you're deprived. I really, honestly, don't miss, or feel like I'm missing out on pizza anymore. I've used the example in the past that I was brought up in a Jewish culture, kind of a, you know, kosher, religious household. And growing up, I never felt like I was missing out because I couldn't eat ham sandwiches. It was just something that, you know, growing up as a Jewish kid, we just never ate, and it was not in my consciousness. And... And I think, I think my friends, you know, maybe at lunch at school would be like, "Oh, you know, poor guy, he can't have a ham and cheese sandwich."

• 56:55Speaker 01

  It was just something I didn't think about. I wasn't into it. And, uh, and I, I, people probably don't believe me a lot of times when I sell them. I say I just don't miss eating pizza, or cookies, or donuts, or brownies, or, you know, Rice Krispie treats. I just, it's, it's not something that I'm, that I'm thinking about. I love eating, you know, strawberry papaya. I love yellow watermelon. I, I love, you know, caramoyas and just incredible, incredible endless ranges of fruits and vegetables.

• 57:27Rich Roll?

  And I, I read, I think it was in the, uh, Outside, uh, oh, is somebody coming in here?

• 57:32Speaker 01

  That's alright.

• 57:33Rich Roll?

  That's alright. Uh, in the Outside magazine piece on you that, uh, they said that you were eating up to 30 pounds of fruit a day. Is that true?

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I'm, when I'm-

• 57:43Rich Roll?

  When you're training really hard?

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I'm training, you know, I mean, there's days when I'm doing heavy mileage, I'm out there. I'm doing a long run, uh, eight hours, running literally 30 hours a week. Um, I, I, I'm sorry, one second.

• 57:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, no problem. Uh, what were we talking about? Oh, um, yeah, training, uh, when you're, when you're in, uh, peak training, uh, your fruit intake is upwards of 30 pounds, 30 pounds a day.

• 58:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so when I'm, when I'm working out at, at an extreme level, uh, upwards of 30 hours of running in a week, and, and, and that's, that's really what I was doing, um, and what I do do when I'm really training for peak ultra races. I, I'd eat 30 pounds of food a day and if, if you, you know, if, if you get a 15-pound watermelon, you know, maybe, maybe there's five pounds of, of that, you know, fruit that you don't eat, but it's, it's, it's still 15 pounds of, of weight that I gotta, you know, take somewhere and open up. So when it was, so when I, when I go shopping at, at the fruit wholesalers, I, you know, for 10 days, I'd really be taking home like, you know, 300 to 500 pounds of food and, and it's, I'm going through it.

• 58:50Rich Roll?

  Right. And, and it's interesting too that you sort of rooted out the wholesalers. Like, you know, in New York City, you can walk down the street and there's food vendor, you know, fruit vendors all over the place. You can buy that and I'm sure there's, some are better than others, but you figured out the source where you, the, the wholesaler that's providing all of these people with their fruit and just go directly to them, right? So you're getting the, the preferred price on it.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, to get down to some of the nuts and bolts of why people I think have a hard time even attempting to eat this way is because, one, our society is not set up to help people to eat healthy. The dollar menu costs a dollar because the government, in a lot of ways, subsidizing, controlled, and influenced by these huge, large corporations. And fresh fruit and vegetables, there are very few large singular growers of these things, and the food's perishable, and it doesn't have shelf life, and there's not a lot of profits in it, there's a lot of risk.

• 59:44Rich Roll?

  And it's not conglomerized like the grain industry and the processed food industry, so they don't have an effective lobby group in Washington that can throw a lot of money at that and make it shift in those pricing structures.

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, so even though I make a reasonably good living, I don't want to go and spend 30 bucks on 10 pounds of apples. I mean, $3 a pound is crazy, especially when I'm eating as much as I am. So I had, I mean, it's crazy, I go to warehouse loading docks and I'm buying fruit in these industrial zones.

• 1:00:23Rich Roll?

  These guys must think you have your own store or something like that. There's no way that this guy could be eating all this fruit.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's pretty funny to go talk to these guys, and they just don't believe that I'm gonna eat this stuff. And I'm like, nah, my wife eats a lot of fruit, and so do my kids, and I've got a 12-passenger van that I fill up with fruit every 10 days, two weeks, and take it home to my four refrigerators in my basement.

• 1:00:47Rich Roll?

  Oh my god.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  And, yeah, I'm committed, I'm committed, but health is what is most important to me, it's my number one priority, and the results speak for themselves. And, you know, I put that, that's very high priority in my life. Unfortunately, for most people, they don't have the infrastructure to consider even doing that. Unless they live in a big city, there really isn't a place to go where you can buy stuff in bulk. And it sucks. You know, there's a lot of people that can't eat this way logistically.

• 1:01:18Rich Roll?

  And yet, you know, a lot of people live proximate to a big city or in a big city, and probably with a little bit of research, they could find a wholesaler in their area. I mean, is there anything online? Is there like a resource online that you go to or that you could share with somebody to learn a little bit more about maybe, you know, a more cost-effective way of approaching this?

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  I mean, just a simple Google Maps search and just type in like fruit wholesaler, produce wholesaler, and you'll probably find, you know, the closest place near you. And I think, you know, like I said before, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. If, you know, if you can't get good fruit at a particular time of year, or because you're in a kind of a, you know, a location that's just not supplied well with these type of things, you should still focus on trying to eat as much whole, high-water content foods as you can. And that is, you know, the message that I want people to hear.

• 1:02:08Rich Roll?

  Right. And where do you break down on organic versus non-organic?

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  I personally do not eat a lot of organic fruits or vegetables. It's a major concern for me. It's a real hole in how I eat, and it's kind of, it's the last frontier for me, is trying to grow either my own food or be able to, you know, maintain a consistent supply of really high-quality, organically grown fruits and vegetables. And I don't really have a good answer for that. If you got the money, I say spend it, spend it on organic, whole, you know, fruits and vegetables, and then let that be your health insurance investment instead of your 401K.

• 1:02:59Rich Roll?

  And how do you kind of navigate this with your kids? How many kids do you have?

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  I've got three kids, 12, 11, and 7. And they don't live in a cult with some crazy father. If we take them to the amusement park and they're seeing funnel cake and they gotta have it, I just say, "Listen, if you want this stuff, it's not healthy for you to eat it. I wish you'd rather go for the apples or the oranges or the sliced up fruit. But you're gonna be able to make your own choices." And I try to lead by the example. And my kids, now that they're getting older, definitely are trying to make better choices. And they eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. But yeah, they eat pizza too.

• 1:03:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, that's very similar to what my wife and I do with our kids. We just try to lead by example in the house, prepare really great nutritious meals. And they go to their friend's house and they're gonna do what they're gonna do. But they're armed with the information to make the best choice. And I have two teenage boys and to see them wake up in the morning and blend kale in a smoothie or something like that in the morning is because they want to. Not because I'm... Whether I'm watching them or not, they're making that choice is pretty cool.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's awesome.

• 1:04:17Rich Roll?

  I mean, speaking of that, where do you come down on juicing and Vitamix-ing and blended drinks versus just eating the fruit in its natural state?

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  I'd say the only reason I don't juice or blend more is strictly because I'm lazy. I don't have anything against it. I think there's a lot of discussion about how you could probably get more nutrients and digest food maybe even easier, especially vegetables with blending or juicing. I just don't do it because I'm lazy. I love the simplicity of just grabbing a piece of food and sticking it in my mouth.

• 1:04:47Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Okay, and what do you have coming up? What are you training for right now?

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  This is 2013 and I've actually made a commitment to my wife and kids that this is kind of like the year that I...

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  Take it easy, or focus, not take it easy, because I don't think I really know how to take it easy, but focus on other things. I'm spending a lot more time into, spending time with my kids, I'm putting a lot more time into business, trying to, you know, get my financial situation a little bit more improved, because over the last seven years, I've sacrificed a lot to kind of prove to people that, you know, this type of diet and lifestyle is not only sustainable, but it's optimal. So I'm, I'm really not training for anything serious right now. I'm probably running anywhere from 60 to 90 miles a week. I run to work a lot, so it's part of kind of my lifestyle. I still exercise, but I'm not really, I'm not training per se right now. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do some fun races at a recreational pace, like the Leadville 100 mile race, probably gonna go back to

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  Greece and do the Spartathlon. I just ran the Boston Marathon, I've done that 18 times. It's kind of, you know, more lifestyle at this point than, than just be real competitive. I'm 36 and it's time for me to, to kind of move on. I don't want to say that I'm retiring, but I think probably until I'm 40, I'm gonna be backing off quite a bit.

• 1:06:04Rich Roll?

  Right, priorities shift a little bit. But we gotta find a way to make sure that as many people out there as possible hear what you have to say, because it's, it's a really powerful message, man. You gotta write a book.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, I'm, I'm in the midst of writing a book. I'm actually going, going away for like two weeks to lock myself in a cabin and, and just bang it out. And I've got, I've got a lot going. I've got, I've got some really good stuff that I'm writing, and I'm excited about it. Hopefully by the end of this year, I'll be, I'll have that book out. It's gonna be called Fruit is Fast Food. And it'll, it'll, it'll talk more about what I've been talking about.

• 1:06:39Rich Roll?

  Nice, man. Well, if there's anything that I can do to help you with that, or help get the word out, or whatever, consider me a resource. Well, cool, man. I know you've got a, you're super busy here, so let's wrap it up. I could talk to you all day, though, for sure. So hopefully I can, maybe when I get back to LA, if you come to LA, I'll have you on the show again, or we can Skype or something like that, because there's so many more questions I want to talk to you about, about training, and, and, you know, lifestyle, and parenting, and balance, and all of that. And, you know, all I can say is that you're an inspiration. You've set the bar, you've set the bar high, and I think I'm going to explore some, some new dietary and lifestyle changes, because you're exuding

• 1:07:21Rich Roll?

  health, and you are an athletic specimen. I mean, your results are incredible. You're, you're a very elite athlete. Yeah, he said...

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Alright, man, take it easy.

• 1:07:30Rich Roll?

  I'm serious, man. You have inspired me.

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 1:07:34Rich Roll?

  And it's awesome to at least grab a little bit of your time today. So I appreciate you carving it out.

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  Alright, fruit is the future. It's the original fast food. And eat it and live life to the fullest.

• 1:07:47Rich Roll?

  There you go, man. Is there anything else you want to promote or anything like that? Any website? People can connect with you at thefruitarian.com. Is that the best place?

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, thefruitarian.com. And I think, you know, if people want to spread the word to try to get the message out, I love talking to reporters. I definitely believe fruit is the future. It's the ultimate health food. And it's gonna happen. I think we're all moving in that direction of sustainable food for this incredible population of humans on the planet. And I've got complete confidence that raw fruits and vegetables are just gonna win. We're gonna win, guys. So that's the good news.

• 1:08:31Rich Roll?

  Alright, dude. Alright, man. Thanks for your time. Peace. Plants.

• 1:09:44Rich Roll?

  The.