How to Thrive & Perform Athletically on a High-Carb, Low-Fat Vegan Diet

Ask and ye shall receive. Today is Durianrider day on the podcast. And he has a message for you: Carb the f$%@ up! Aka Harley Johnstone, “Durianrider” is a self-avowed health vigilante committed to increasing public awareness of the benefits of a high carbohydrate, low-fat whole food plant-based lifestyle. A lifestyle modeled upon Doug Graham's book The 80/10/10 Diet*, or what is more commonly referred to as fruitarian — a dietary protocol based predominantly upon eating copious amounts of fruit. Let's just say it's not uncommon for Harley to proudly devour upwards of 70 bananas a day. In this regard, Harley is not alone. Although still on the fringe in terms of mainstream awareness and popularity, the 80/10/10 program is one that is gaining popularity (check out my podcast interviews with Michael Arnstein and Mac Danzig for more). But what distinguishes Harley from fellow healthy lifestyle advocates is his unique, personal style. Outspoken and unequivocal, Harley doesn't mince words. At times acerbic, and often on the perimeter of completely outlandish, Harley is a lightning rod for controversy — a role he relishes. Proponents of “fad diets” hawking unhealthy and unethical programs or snake oil products get called out. Taken to the mat. And on occasion, name-calling is involved. And don't even get him started on how he feels about the currently über-popular low-carb / no-carb / ketosis-based diets pushing high protein and copious amounts of fat. His fans are passionate. His critics equally so. But make no mistake — behind the larger-than-life personality, Harley is in many ways a regular guy leading a simple and active life, committed to helping people feel as good as he does, primarily via his YouTube channel. A guy frustrated by all the confusing and misleading health, diet and fitness information penetrating the internet, he's like Howard Beale (Peter Finch) in the 1976 movie “Network” screaming, “I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!” Durianrider may not be everyone's cup of tea. I get it. So does he. And he's fine with that. But regardless of any preconceived opinions you may harbor, I implore you to listen with an open mind. His message is powerful. And for the record – I like the guy. I hope you enjoy the show! 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 53, with the infamous Durian Ryder, aka Harley Johnstone.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:26Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Rich Roll here. This is the Rich Roll Podcast. Welcome to the show. What do we do here? Each week, I bring to you the best and the brightest, the most forward-thinking, paradigm-busting minds in health, and fitness, and wellness, and athleticism. I've had doctors, I've had nutritionists, I've had health professionals, I've had yogis, I've had meditators, and I've had entrepreneurs. And the common theme in the message is this: Think outside the box. The idea is to bring to you the best information. You can sort through it, you can take what resonates with you, discard the rest, but incorporate into your life the message that makes sense, that resonates with you, so that you can unlock and unleash your best, most authentic self.

• 2:12Rich Roll?

  For optimal, long-term, sustainable wellness. And when I say wellness, that means a harmony of mind, body, and spirit. So today on the show, I have a guy that certainly fits the bill. The infamous, the outspoken, the lightning rod for controversy known as Durian Rider, AKA Harley Johnstone. Now, many of you who are listening to the show, you've probably heard of Durian Rider. Maybe you've seen one of his videos. It's a very, very popular YouTube channel called Durian Riders on YouTube. I think he has a number of YouTube channels. And quite regularly, he posts little short videos, mostly featuring himself or his girlfriend,

• 2:56Rich Roll?

  where he advocates on behalf of a low-fat, high-carb vegan diet. Essentially, he's a proponent of the 80-10-10 diet, which is very fruit-based. If you've been listening to the show, you might have heard my interview with Michael Arnstein, elite marathon runner, Michael Arnstein, who has professed his adherence to this diet and advocates it not just as a very healthy way to live, but also as a way to perform exceptionally as an athlete. He's an elite marathon runner. He was the fifth American at the New York Marathon a couple of years ago. He also produces and hosts the Woodstock Fruit Festival every year, of which Durian

• 3:41Rich Roll?

  Rider is a regular attendee, they're friends. And also, I had Mac Danzig on the show, who for the last, I don't know, four, five, six months, has been playing around with this 80-10-10 fruitarian diet. And if you remember his interview on the show, he was talking about how good he felt and how he felt like his body was performing very well on it. So this may seem sort of marginal to a lot of people to basically just eat fruit all the time, but here's another guy who's going to come on the show and tell you how he is thriving, not just as a human being, but as an athlete as well, on this diet. Now Harley is no stranger to controversy. The guy is very outspoken. He calls it like he sees it. He, like I said, is a lightning

• 4:26Rich Roll?

  rod for controversy. He is not afraid to call people out by name, or take other health advocates to task for the message that they're putting out there, particularly when people are trying to, in his opinion, dupe consumers or sell them products that they don't need. And he's got thick skin, I gotta tell you, because I don't know that I could entertain the kind of controversy that he invites into his life. But he's very passionate about his message. And he has quite the following, too. Very rabid, loyal, and vast, global following of people. And I was glad to give Harley the microphone and let him tell his story,

• 5:09Rich Roll?

  particularly for people out there who may have never heard of him, or have never seen his videos. He's a speaker, he's an activist, he's an athlete, quite a fast runner and cyclist as well. And he's essentially on a mission to raise public awareness of the benefits of this high carb, low fat, vegan lifestyle. He's also a strong advocate of simplifying your life, of getting rid of all of the material possessions that don't serve you, and just living closer to nature. And I think that's a message that we can all benefit from listening to. And so whether you agree with Harley, or you don't, or you see things differently, or you have a different perspective on nutrition, hey, that's fine. Try to find the commonalities,

• 5:54Rich Roll?

  and try to set aside maybe the drama that swirls around Harley, and listen to what he's trying to tell you. Because essentially, what he's saying is, look, people, we gotta eat more plants. We're in a healthcare crisis. And this healthcare crisis is not focused just on North America. As a matter of fact, when this podcast airs, I'll be returning from DC. I'm going to Washington DC to speak at the DC Veg Fest, which I'm really excited about. It's my hometown. But then I'm gonna go almost directly to Pakistan. I'm speaking in Karachi, Pakistan. And that's really exciting. I've never been to the Middle East. It's a part of the world, you know, I'm really excited to experience firsthand. And I was

• 6:35Rich Roll?

  doing a little bit of research into the state of health in Pakistan. And I figured...

• 6:42Rich Roll?

  Well, their obesity rates and heart disease rates and diabetes rates are probably a lot better than they are in America. And I was surprised to find out that they're actually experiencing most of the same problems that we're experiencing here as the Western diet starts to spread its tentacles worldwide. And they're not immune from heart disease. The heart disease rates there are going nuts right now as are diabetes rates. And you know, you look at China, which is a country in certain parts of China that have really never experienced heart disease. And now with, you know, KFC and Burger King and fast foods and the Western diet kind of proliferating worldwide, China's having an obesity crisis for the first time. So this is not just about North America. It's not just about Australia.

• 7:27Rich Roll?

  This is a global problem. And what can we do about it? Well, it starts with personal responsibility. We have to make the best choices for ourselves and for our kids and think about what our legacy is and what kind of planet we want to leave behind for our kids. It's not a joke. It's something to take seriously. And sometimes it's hard to think, well, I can't make a difference. Look at what Monsanto is doing. And what am I supposed to do? Take on McDonald's? But the one thing that you can do is control what you put in your mouth and how you move your body. And don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. And this is a guy, Harley, who's coming on the show today, who's going to echo that in very strong, unequivocal terms, the great Harley Johnstone. Before we get

• 8:09Rich Roll?

  into it, a couple of little things I wanted to mention. I wanted to give a shout out to my buddy Pete Goddard from KBL Eyewear. Pete reached out to me on the internet because of the podcast, essentially, which is a great thing about the podcast. I get to meet so many cool people. Anyway, he sent me an email and was like, hey, man, I love what you're doing. I love this show, but you've got to get rid of those glasses that you're wearing, those Warby Parkers, man. You're in the public eye. You're getting your picture taken. You got to get rid of those cheap frames. And why don't you come down and let me hook you up with something decent? And I was like, well, I kind of like my Warby Parkers. Like, I like that company. I like that they provide, you know, a cost-effective eyeglass for the consumer, especially when

• 8:50Rich Roll?

  eyeglasses can be so expensive. And as I was thinking about that, I realized I could barely see through my lenses. They were so scratched because I bought cheap lenses. And anyway, I went down and saw him down at his office in Venice, and he hooked me up with some super sweet frames, these matte black finish frames that are beautiful. And so, thank you, Pete, KBL Eyewear. You can find out more about KBL Eyewear at kbleyewear.com. There's a list, there's a menu item on there to find out where the optometrist or the eyeglass stores near you are selling them. Pete hooked me up and my wife up with some sunglasses, and I bought another pair of sunglasses for my stepson, and they're really high-quality

• 9:32Rich Roll?

  frames, really, really nice stuff. So, if you want to see a little bit about what we got, check my Instagram feed. Put a couple pictures up there of me in the sporty new frames, which are awesome. So, thanks a lot, man. Really appreciate that. So, check those guys out. I love supporting people that support the podcast. What else? Plant-based nutrition enthusiasts, maybe after listening to today's interview, you're thinking twice about your paleo diet, or maybe looking to take your plant-based nutrition routine to the next level. If you want to learn a little bit more about how I do it, and my wife does

• 10:12Rich Roll?

  it, we have an online course, The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition. It's at mindbodygreen.com. It's three and a half hours of online content, broken down into five to 10-minute videos, each very specific to a subject that is, I think, pertinent and based on questions that I get all the time, like, what do you do when you travel? What do you do when you're in hotels all the time, or airports? And how do you deal with friends that are trying to tell you you're on the wrong path? And how do you raise kids on a vegan diet? And what do you eat before you work out? What do you eat during your workout? What do you eat after your workout? All those things. We made videos and addressed all of those questions, including all of the kind

• 10:52Rich Roll?

  of broader questions that arise around eating this way, the environmental concerns, and the ethical concerns, and what's wrong with paleo, and all that kind of stuff. There's also an online community where you can interact, ask your questions, and Julie and I chime in there, answer them, and the community jumps in as well, help each other out. So it's a win-win. Check it out. What else? Oh, the Plant Power t-shirts. Yes, lots of questions about the Plant Power t-shirts. We have them in stock, but they're not up on the website yet. They should be up in the next two weeks. We're just having to reconfigure the site so that we can sell these things. I'm bringing some with me to

• 11:34Rich Roll?

  Washington DC, so if you're there, grab one. But I think by the time I publish this, that will be over with. But anyway, hopefully by the time you listen to this, they'll be up and for sale. They're pretty groovy. So I will keep you posted on that as well. If you want to learn more about Durian Rider, you can go to his website, durianrider.com. He also has an online forum called 30 Bananas a Day, where people interact with each other and post a lot of stuff. It's a pretty interesting community there. And what else? Oh, his YouTube channel, Durian Riders. He's on Twitter, too. He's not that active there.

• 12:14Rich Roll?

  He's durianriders on Twitter, and durianrider on Facebook, I believe. But anyway, let's just get into it. We'll let him tell you all about it.

• 12:32Rich Roll?

  The Health Vigilante, the one and only, the controversial, the lightning rod for controversy. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm proud to bring you my conversation with Harley Johnstone, AKA Durian Rider.

• 12:52Rich Roll?

  Thanks for taking the time, man. Lot of demand to get you on the show. Like every single day, I get an email, like, when are you going to have Durian Rider on the podcast? So by popular demand. And the funny thing, too, is I feel like, like every other guest I've had on the show, it seems like lately, has been Ozzy. So you're continuing the trend. I wanted to bring you on, and I just, I want you to spin your yarn, man. Don't pull any punches, no, no, no rules, nothing is out of bounds. I just want, I want to hear it straight from the source.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 13:26Rich Roll?

  And, you know, I've been, I've been following you for a long time. I can't say I've watched every single video, but I've watched quite a few. And, and you're, you're an outspoken bloke, and you're not afraid to speak your mind. And I respect that, man. I appreciate that. We have different styles and how we approach things, but there's a need for guys like you. But yeah, man, I wanted to kind of, you know, peel back the layers a little bit. I mean, we want to talk about all the, all the stuff that you're passionate about. But I think I wanted to start with talking a little bit more in depth about something that maybe you don't talk as much about, which is how this whole thing started for you. Like, what was going on? I mean, I know you were a very different guy when you were

• 14:08Rich Roll?

  younger in terms of your diet and your, your fitness and what you were into and all that kind of stuff. But how did it, how did it all begin? Like, you know, tell me about what your health was like before you started this journey?

• 14:22Speaker 01

  I think as a kid, I was always sick. I'd go to hospital for digestive and breathing issues like asthma and Crohn's disease. And so when you're sick, you just, you want to feel good, you know? And then you get the days where you feel good. But it never lasted. So I just became obsessed about trying to pinpoint, connect the dots of what made me feel good and what made me feel bad. And it took me, I think, till I was probably maybe 1996, something like that, 98, 98, where I actually started to make the connection between diet, what you eat and how you feel. Before that, it was just like genetics or bad luck, or some virus, or some gastro thing getting around. But it never occurred to me. I think it was about 96, 98, those two years.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Um, I remember getting a voucher from McDonald's and eating a lot of burgers and just telling my friend one time, I don't feel so good. And I think, I said, I think it might be the burgers. And she said, do you really think what you eat determines how you feel? And I'm like, maybe, I reckon maybe it does. And we laugh now.

• 15:24Rich Roll?

  Serpentical concept.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  That's how unconscious I was.

• 15:27Rich Roll?

  I mean, Crohn's disease is no joke, man.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:30Rich Roll?

  I mean, Crohn's disease is a serious deal. Like, you know, talk a little bit about what, what it's like to have Crohn's disease.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, just, you know, just, you've got to have a bathroom nearby, you're crapping blood and it, it's just a lot of pain. Didn't, I didn't have a good time, but I didn't really talk about it too much because as a kid or teenager, you sort of been embarrassed about it, stuff like that. So you kept it pretty private.

• 15:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's, it's definitely something that people, I mean, I think now people talk about it more, but when I was younger, no one really talked about it. Cause yeah, it's like embarrassing and all that kind of thing. I mean, what were the doctors telling you when you would go in for, you know, stuff revolving around having Crohn's?

• 16:07Speaker 01

  They just said to my mom that I was making stuff up and things like that. The asthma, they could tell I had the asthma and stuff. So they gave me heaps of, you know, steroid medication, things like that. But the digestive system was often I wouldn't go in anyway because I was too embarrassed to talk about it. But occasionally when I did go in, they did x-rays and stuff and got me to consume this radioactive stuff. And they just said, oh, we can't, we can't find anything. Miss Johnson, I think your son's got a bit of imagination going on.

• 16:34Rich Roll?

  Oh, so they didn't even believe that you had it?

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 16:37Rich Roll?

  Wow. So how did you finally figure out that that's what you had? I mean, you, you couldn't have self diagnosed yourself with Crohn's at that age, did you? Or how did you finally figure out that that's what was going on?

• 16:46Speaker 01

  That was only, that was only when I basically got over it that I worked out what that's, that's what's happening. Cause I looked at the symptoms and I was like, okay, that's my symptoms, blah, blah, blah. And then a few other doctors, um, later in my adult years say, yeah, you've got some digestive issues, stuff like that. Um, I started to clean up my diet a little bit and symptoms got a lot better. And then I started doing the sport. Sport definitely helped a lot, but it still wasn't perfect. And then once I went vegan, like everything, everything just lifted. And I was like, whoa, this is how I'm meant to feel.

• 17:17Rich Roll?

  But what mo, what motivated you to try a vegan diet? Like, what was the impetus for that?

• 17:21Speaker 01

  I had chronic fatigue, you know, I just, I started getting into cycling, started getting into sport and I'd go and train, I'd be all excited. I wouldn't do much training, but I'd just get burnt out. I'd just be so fatigued. I just couldn't get out of bed and I was like, what's going on? And so I'd have to take time off, a few months off writing and stuff. And then met this guy one day, this real sort of naturopath, herbal sort of health freak, Mark Cock. And he just said, just try a vegan vegetarian diet. And I'm like, what the hell is that? I don't want to be a hippie. And he just said, well, you're pretty sick, mate, and you're only young. So if you keep going what you're doing, you're going to get cancer, heart disease, top two diabetes, mate. So, you know, I don't care how fit you might think you are, but if you keep eating the crap you're eating, you're going to get sick. And I said, well, to be honest, I'm pretty sick right now, Mark, and I'll try anything. And after a couple of days,

• 18:07Speaker 01

  that was it. That was no turning back. And I've been vegan ever since.

• 18:10Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah. I mean, I had a, I, I mean, I don't think, I wasn't as sick as you and I was certainly older, but what I remember about making the switch was just how dramatic it was in such a short period of time, you know? It didn't take very long for the body to respond. And that's like, it's like a watershed moment where you, you connect the dots all of a sudden on something you'd never really thought about before. Like that connection between what you're putting in your body and how it's making you feel.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Hmm. That was powerful. That was powerful.

• 18:40Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. I mean, when I started, I don't know what it was like for you, but I didn't know what I was doing, you know? I just tried it almost on a whim. It wasn't like I read a bunch of books or all the books that are out now. It was, uh, it was almost, you know, accidental. I didn't even have anyone telling me you should try a vegan diet. I just sort of experimented with it and was like, whoa, there's something going on here.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Definitely, definitely. And there was a lot of defining moments, a lot of people who contributed. And sort of little seeds got planted. People would say stuff about what's in McDonald's burgers, what's in meats pies and, you know, how meat doesn't digest and your colon just sits there for years or whatever. Just little seeds of truth that I heard that eventually just became a full grown root in my consciousness and just it took hold and grew.

• 19:23Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So, so you have this experience where you suddenly start to feel better. I mean, were you overweight then?

• 19:29Speaker 01

  No, no, I wasn't overweight.

• 19:30Rich Roll?

  So, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you weren't, you weren't that athletic then?

• 19:33Speaker 01

  I was wanting to be. I was always, as a kid, I was always wanted to be one of those fit kids. I always get picked last on a sports day. And a lot of my friends from school now, they can't believe how fit I am. They're like, hang on, hang on. No, you're hardly from school. Like, you're, you're the guy who got picked last on the sports day. You're the guy who, all the girls ran faster than. You're the guy who couldn't catch the ball or whatever. What are you doing now? You're running marathons, you're winning running races. Well, how does that work? So I was, I always wanted to be athletic. I really admired, I'd watch the Nike adverts on TV. There was no finish line, stuff like that. And I'd always wanna be like the kids riding the bikes around and, and be strong and stuff and have fitness and energy. I just wanted to have energy, but I never had it.

• 20:14Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. And then, so suddenly, so now that you have this sort of new lease on life by changing your diet this way, so I guess you're saying that, that, that's what gave you the, the energy or the, the resurgence of vitality in order to kind of then pursue that?

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Definitely. I, I think that's why I'm so evangelical and so passionate and so consistent and nagging, because I've felt so crap and I feel so good now. And I want everyone to feel how good I feel.

• 20:39Rich Roll?

  Right, right. And so then how is it, uh, how has it evolved since that first kind of experience? I mean, cause you, you've continued to experiment and play around with different things to kind of where the, where, where you're at right now, which I want to get into in a minute.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Just sort of stumbled into raw foods, eating more fruit, understanding that fruit was actually a good option, rather than just a snack. The concept of having fruit for a meal, uh, versus just a snack after a meal. That was definitely life-changing as well. Um, and just talking about getting more about, learning about low fat and how many grams of carbs to eat and how to be properly hydrated, when to eat, you know, things like that, sleeping patterns.

• 21:21Rich Roll?

  Were you like reading a bunch of books then, or just sort of experimenting on yourself?

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Both, just reading, reading, reading, talking, emailing, nagging.

• 21:29Rich Roll?

  So what were some, what were some of the books that you were reading that you found helpful?

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Well, the first ones, my friend Paul Reed gave me a copy of Fit for Life by Harvey Diamond.

• 21:37Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  And that was a real, uh, very good book to start with for me. Talked about eating fruit.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  For breakfast and lunch and I started doing that boom it felt great. Then got a book about raw food by Paul Nisson and that book is pretty confusing book to talk about breath terrorism and stuff like that but and they had an interview with Doug Graham in there and I was like wow of all interviewers all interviewees that Paul Nisson is interviewed this Doug Graham guy he's the only fit looking person in the whole book everyone else looks like crap looks like they couldn't run around a block surely nice people but I wanted I wanted energy so I'm like hey this thick guy he looks like he's got some energy and uh so I started doing some Google searching on Doug Graham and read some of his blogs and internet posts and then eventually started getting an email contact with Doug and went from there.

• 22:29Rich Roll?

  So was that before his eighty ten ten book came out?

• 22:32Speaker 01

  That was two thousand two.

• 22:33Rich Roll?

  Right and two thousand two is when you first got in touch with them or I can't remember when his book came out.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Two thousand two I got in contact with him briefly two thousand three I bought his uh and actually two thousand two I bought his books creating health program stuff like that is how much fruit's too much fruit C D basically bought all everything Doug had on sale at the time and just listened to it over and over and over again I'll do like two hundred K bike rides just listen to it repetition and then got into contact with Doug on email and he helped me out a lot for free as well very generous and went from there and then.

• 23:10Rich Roll?

  So it was pretty quick like evolution from just sort of saying I'm a vegan to really getting on board with this the high carbohydrate kind of subset of being vegan right like that was that was like a pretty quick process and and and you've never looked back so it's been ten years eleven years now doing this?

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Yeah twelve years been vegan eleven years into the high raw foods vegan lifestyle.

• 23:33Rich Roll?

  Right and uh and you know you continue to excel athletically and win races and get faster I mean how old how old are you now?

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Thirty six.

• 23:41Rich Roll?

  Thirty six.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  It's a bit of a late bloomer.

• 23:43Rich Roll?

  Have you been racing this year?

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Running races I have, yeah.

• 23:48Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. How's it going?

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, good. I set my best times last year. I was doing a bit more training this year. I've been a bit lazy, but last year definitely set my PBs from marathon to 5K to the mile.

• 24:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Doing about 10 miles a week, average over the year.

• 24:05Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. And quite a bit of cycling. I mean, I know like this past, was it last January when the Strava, the Strava Challenge happened and you logged more miles than anybody else on Strava for that? How many, how many Ks did you end up riding that month?

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Uh, 6,190.

• 24:22Rich Roll?

  And I mean, for people that don't know, Strava is a sort of a, a social network and online community for, it started for primarily for cyclists and I think it's still predominantly for cyclists, but it's still, it's open for running and, and other fitness related exercises. But it's, it's your way to kind of share your workout and you can see the map and see the data if you upload your stuff from your Garmin, et cetera. And, uh, and it's pretty popular with professional cyclists. Like there's a lot of professional cyclists that are logging their rides on Strava and they love to mix it up on there as well. And January is the time of year when they're putting in a lot of base miles. So you're, you're basically logging miles when there are guys on, you know, the Garmin team or, you know,

• 25:06Rich Roll?

  Liquid Gas or whoever, who are also, you know, doing it at the same time. So that's no small feat to be logging the kind of miles that somebody who's doing that for their profession is doing.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a big ego challenge for me. I remember what I like about Strava is a big community. It's like Facebook for cyclists and runners. And it's for everyone. It doesn't matter how fit or unfit you are or how fit you're getting. Strava is for everybody. I remember training with Andy Schleck in January with the Radia Shack Trek team and I met him in the city. They're like, oh, you've been riding this morning, you know, you look like you're already sweaty. I said, yeah, I've done a hundred K already. They're like, hey, it's only eight o'clock. How'd you do a hundred Ks? I got on the bike at four o'clock this morning, you know? And they were like, no way, no way. Show me the Garmin, show me the Garmin. And they're like, like Andy Schleck and Jens Voit are just going, bullshit. How are you riding so much, man? What's up with that? And they were tripping out. Um, they were just, all the teams are tripping out.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  And then they started talking about it cause I was riding a bamboo bike and they're like, is that crazy vegan guy on his bamboo bike? And he's doing, he's doing like a hundred Ks before he meets up with us and then he does extra afterwards and. It was definitely a tough month, but it was good.

• 26:12Rich Roll?

  Who was the runner up in that?

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Um, some guy from Guadalup.

• 26:19Rich Roll?

  Ah.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Who was, it was a bit, it was a bit of a controversy there. I was trash talking a lot of guys. Trying to get in fun.

• 26:25Rich Roll?

  Shocking, shocking, man.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  And so, so if you guys didn't want me to beat them, so they started doing manual entries. And a manual entry, for those who don't know, it's just, you can just make up a number, what you rode that day, but you don't have the GPS verify it.

• 26:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  So they're just saying, yeah, I rode 350 kilometers today, whatever. And they're just trying to piss me off and overtake me. But in the end, I still, I still won. And this year, I was speaking with Strava, some of the admin at Strava, and they said, this year, for the 2014 base model challenge, we're going to have no manual entries. So it can only be legit, GPS verified data, if you want to be in contention again. So that's going to make it more fair.

• 27:02Rich Roll?

  So you're going to hit it again?

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:04Rich Roll?

  All right, man. So, you know, I want to get into like where you went from sort of experiencing this on a personal level, like this resurgence in vitality that we're talking about, to be, to stepping into this kind of, not just an activist role, but you know, your self-proclaimed like health vigilante kind of status on the internet. Like, how did that blossom? Like, what was the beginning of that? And, and, you know, you know, I want to get kind of, I want to pull the veil back a little bit on like, what motivates you and inspires you to kind of pursue your activism in this way?

• 27:45Speaker 01

  I'd just, I'd meet people in real life and it was always a letdown. You know, they'd be like, they'd be writing books on health and they'd be smoking cigarettes or whatever. I wouldn't make them bad people. Well, hang on, how can you make, say, fruit's bad, but you're smoking cigarettes? So you're eating at McDonald's or whatever. They'd be saying fruit's bad. So I just wanted to like, let their followers know that basically what you're getting taught isn't always correct.

• 28:07Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. I mean, was there a day where, you know, you posted online for the first time? Or, you know, I mean, how did it kind of begin? I mean, when did you start your YouTube channel?

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Uh, June 2008, I started it.

• 28:19Rich Roll?

  That wasn't that long ago, actually.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 28:21Rich Roll?

  I would have thought it would have been back a little bit further.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, freely. And other people said, you should do YouTube, you should do YouTube. And I'm like, I don't want to get involved with that stuff. You know, I just want to be like fruit turn and hang out in the jungle.

• 28:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  But then I realized, hang on, that's not going to help anybody. So I started YouTube.

• 28:36Rich Roll?

  But you so, but you made this conscious decision that you wanted to help people.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:40Rich Roll?

  Right. So what was, what was that about? That was just, did that grow just out of the frustration of, of seeing people professing something that you believed wasn't working or, or the confusion that was out there or the misinformation? Or, or what was it specifically?

• 28:53Speaker 01

  It was both frustration on misinformation, frustration on people lying for marketing reasons, frustration on, a lot of different levels, just seeing people getting ripped off.

• 29:05Rich Roll?

  Right. And so, so you've come to this place now where, I mean, can you articulate like your basic message to people out there for somebody who might be listening, who, who isn't familiar with kind of the work that you've done?

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Basically, I promote a drug free, 100% vegan, fruit focused, high carb, low fat vegan lifestyle. From like going to bed as early as you can, drinking your water, focusing your life purpose, living that, and just being part of the solution versus part of the problem.

• 29:34Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So controversial, Harley. I can't believe people are upset with you.

• 29:42Rich Roll?

  Come on, man. Let loose a little bit. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, when you watch, and I'll put this in the show notes too, and I'll do an introduction ahead of time. But you know, you have a really powerful, like your intro video on your YouTube page is just like, this is what I'm about. You know, there's a lot of BS out there. There's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of people with vested interest in having you believe that eating a certain way is good for you and it's nonsense. And you know, I'm here to set people straight. I'm not here to make friends. And you know, you always provide the caveat like, look, I'm sure they're good people or I'm not saying somebody's a bad person, but I disagree with this person. And then you're very, very frank. You know, you're, you have the courage in the spine to be a lot more frank than most people are willing, willing to be.

• 30:26Rich Roll?

  And you welcome the criticism because if you read the comments below. Your YouTube channel, like, I'm a thin-skinned guy, man. Like, I don't know if I can handle, like, people coming at me, like, they come at you. And you're just, you're wired for that? And, uh, and, and, like I said, like, I respect that, but, but, I mean, how does that, does that bother you at all? Or are you just, I think you're just, you're a guy who just, you, you, and you, on some level, you're enjoying this, right?

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 30:51Rich Roll?

  You have to be.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. I wasn't wired for it, though. I did stay up late one night and get a soldering iron out there and a, a TIG welder and, and wire myself up. I put on a bit of a battle wiring, because I wanted to help people. And I realized that I can't help people if I'm taking it personally, what people say about me. I can't help people if I care more about what they think about me versus getting information to them. I can't help people if I'm being soft or taking it personally. I can't help people if I take things personally. So I just quickly got over that and thought, ah, this is the job. This is the goal. Nothing else matters. It's like riding a bike. You get a flat tire, you fix it, and you keep going. You crash, you get on your bike, you keep going. You brake your pedal, you get a spare, you keep going. And so I just keep focusing on my goal. So it never, ever gets me down. If it starts getting me down a little bit, it means I need

• 31:37Speaker 01

  to get more sleepwater sugar in. Simple as that. I remember one time I did a bike race, and afterwards this guy was talking to me, he goes, "Oh, you're that guy from YouTube." Like, what, you, you know, he started laying into me. And I was starting to get a little bit offended. And I'm thinking, hang on, I never get offended. And I'm like, hang on, I need some more water. So I said, "Wait, I'll be back in a second, mate." So I grabbed a bottle of water, smashed it down, grabbed some dates, smashed them down, said, "All right, I can answer your questions." And I was a different person within literally a minute of getting some water and sugar in. Different person. So I didn't take it personally. So I know if I'm starting to take it personally, I need more sleepwater sugar. Or, or, or three.

• 32:13Rich Roll?

  So, um, so you begin to post these videos, and was there one video in particular that went more viral than the others? Or, you know, was there a moment where you thought, wow, I'm actually getting, you know, like, when did the audience start to arrive?

• 32:27Speaker 01

  My first few videos, I got about five, 10, 20 views. And my channel was pretty dormant for about three years. And then I started doing videos, critiquing, like, Daniel Vatalas, Dave Wolf, Susan Schenk, et cetera, just disagreeing with the information, and just sharing my, my, my opinion. And that sparked a lot of controversy in the health food movement because in the health food world, they're like, hang on, don't judge people, just accept everything how it is, even if it's bad information, just accept it. And I'm like, well, that's, I disagree with that. And this is my opinion, and I'm going to share it. I'm going to use YouTube and social media as a platform to share it with. And that went from there.

• 33:01Rich Roll?

  Right. So, um, did it begin with, with David Wolf? I mean, who was the first person that you kind of took to task?

• 33:08Speaker 01

  I think it was, uh, the recently deceased, uh, Aginus Vunda Planets. The, that's not his real name, but that's his, that's his author name. He was talking about Aginus.

• 33:18Rich Roll?

  Who's that?

• 33:19Speaker 01

  It's this guy promotes eating, uh, raw feces mixed on raw meat. True story, like, look it up. Primal diet.

• 33:25Rich Roll?

  I've never even heard, I've never even heard of that.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  He's, he, he was, he died recently, apparently from a heart attack. Uh, had a heart attack and fell off a roof in Thailand. Um, rest in peace. But so I did a critique on Aginus's book and Aginus tried to sue me for that, claiming a copyright claim and stuff like that, and which I got that overturned. Um, and that was my sort of first taste. And then I went after David Wolf and then he tried to sue me. And then, and then I was like, hang on, I'm getting sued for telling the truth. I'm gonna keep, I'm gonna keep telling the truth then.

• 33:56Rich Roll?

  Well, as a lawyer, I could tell, truth is the ultimate defense to, you know, any of those kind of claims, right? So, I mean, did you, did you successfully get all of these claims dismissed or what, what happened?

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Well, I just realized that it was civil versus criminal. And I talked to a few of my lawyer friends, like, there's nothing they can do, Harley. Like, it would cost so much money for them to try and do anything. This is just scare tactics, just, just, you know, just waste their time and they'll give up. And they did. Uh, now I learned that.

• 34:21Rich Roll?

  Were they actually, like, suing you or just sending you, like, cease and desist letters or that kind of thing?

• 34:25Speaker 01

  And I got one from Supreme Court of San Diego, um, from Dave Wolf and stuff like that. So, yeah. But, uh, at, at the time, I was like, oh my God, oh my God. And then I realized, I think this is a scare tactic. There's nothing to worry about. And now actually, I enjoy when I get some legal paperwork because what I do is I, I, I read it and then throw it in the recycling bin and then, uh, send an email to that lawyer firm, whatever. Say, actually, I've got the paperwork, but I lost it. Could you send out another copy? And I just keep doing that until it racks up, you know, a few hundred bucks, a few thousand bucks for the, whoever's trying to sue me. Eventually they get the message and they stop sending it out to me.

• 35:03Rich Roll?

  All right, man. So, I mean, we're in a situation, I don't know what the stats are in Australia, but in North America, you know, the, the health statistics are, are just appalling. You know, one out of every two Americans is likely to contract heart disease. One out of every three can suffer a heart attack. Childhood obesity rates are through the roof. By 2030, I think 50% of Americans will be diabetic or pre-diabetic. You know, 28 million people all over the world suffering from cancer. I mean, these are crazy, crazy statistics. And then we have all of these people professing this diet and that diet. And this is, this is how you're going to lose weight and blah, blah, blah. And there's a lot of confusion out there.

• 35:46Rich Roll?

  And I think that the food companies are, you know, enjoy it that way because the more confusion there is, then the more likely people are to just keep doing what they're doing. And saying, well, if these people can't even figure it out, then, you know, we're, we're going to remain golden. And, and you've taken this sword and you're trying to cut a wide swath through all of this stuff. And there are all these, um, you know, I'm like conflicted because there's all these warring kind of factions within the health food world. You have the, you know, the, just to sort of state the obvious, you know, the low carb, high fat people, the paleo people, the Atkins people. You have the raw food people, you have the, the, you know, primal, you know, these, these tiny distinctions between paleo and primal, and then the raw milk people.

• 36:31Rich Roll?

  And, and, and the vegan people who are doing it for ethical reasons versus the people that are doing it for health reasons. And then we have, you know, people like yourself and Michael Arnstein and Doug Graham, who are, you know, succeeding and doing well with this 80, 10, 10 diet. And you're, you know, you're the third person I've had on the podcast. I had Michael Arnstein on and I had Mac Danzig on more recently, who was talking about how he'd been, he's been doing it now probably four months, five months. And he was feeling great and, and, you know, couldn't say enough nice things about, you know, how great he was feeling and how he really believed that this was a good path for him. And my conflict really is, you know, I'm focused on the people that are still eating.

• 37:12Rich Roll?

  McDonald's and when we, when we go and we kind of go to the mat and we're fighting amongst ourselves. Are we helping that guy or are we hurting that guy? And I'm not saying I have the answer and you know my, I, I kind of come from a much softer place. From you than, than you do in terms of trying to bridge the gap. Whereas you come at it hard and you have this massive following of passionate people. So what you're doing is working. We're just, we're different. I think we have the same goals. I mean, is that accurate? You think that that's fair?

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. I think, no, I don't think, I know that there's different demographics out there and we need every single demographic represented. So we need people professional like yourself. We need clowns like me. We need everybody. Representing at some level that appeals to all the many demographics and subcultures and races and religions out there. So I think it's everyone's doing their, what they should be doing. And I think any, anyone's style is right. I think maybe a style is right for that demographic, but not for every demographic.

• 38:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  So I think we all need.

• 38:11Rich Roll?

  It was like, it was, it was funny because when, um, when my book came out, somebody emailed me and they said, oh yeah, you know, Dorian Rider, he reviewed your book. You should check it out. They sent me a link and I was like, ah, I had like a panic moment. I was afraid you were gonna like attack me, you know? And you were very kind and I appreciated the kind words that you said about my book. It meant a lot to me. But I was like, I was like, Harley makes me nervous, man. I don't want to get on the wrong side of this guy. He's gonna attack me, you know?

• 38:38Speaker 01

  No, that's a good point. As I did a big, I did a 200K ride on that book. I was like, yeah, Finding Ultra says I'm a good book to, to listen to. While I'm riding my bike and I did big rides. I did 20K ride, uh, June or July last year in the Gold Coast, Australia. And you're talking about this spring book, uh, facility you went to. And just as you said, spring book, I'm riding past a spring book sign to the Spring Book National Park.

• 38:59Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. That's crazy.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Just as you said it, man. And I like, she was up my spine. I was like, yeah. And I was just, so I did an eight hour ride that day, listened to most of the book. And then finished off next day. And I was like, this is, this is good stuff.

• 39:11Rich Roll?

  So I think I saw, well, thank you for that. And that's cool. I like when little the universe gives you little messages like that. I saw one video, it was a while ago, I can't remember when it was, but you had mentioned that you were gonna be, that you were working on a book.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:26Rich Roll?

  Is that, is that going on?

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Still going on. And I think this book's definitely gonna get me sued. Because the good thing about self-publishing a book is, I can write whatever I wanna write. There's no YouTube policing, or Facebook policing, or Instagram policing. So this book's gonna be, it's gonna ruffle a lot of feathers. And I've got stories I'm gonna put out there. I'm just gonna put it all out there in this book.

• 39:44Rich Roll?

  I know Michael Aronson's working on a book too.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is.

• 39:46Rich Roll?

  Fruit is, Fruit is Fast Food. So yeah, it would be great to, you know, get your, get your voice out there and, and, you know, get it in writing and, you know, go beyond YouTube and get something that people can put in their hands and read from your perspective. Because you have a very, very powerful point of view, you know, and, and it's reaching a lot of people, man, and you're doing a lot of good, and you are ruffling feathers. But, you know, it's, you know, I think there's a big part of me that's like, you know, we need a revolution, you know, people are really sick. And it's like, I've been traveling a lot lately, I'm in a lot of airports, and you just see really unhealthy people on the line at the McDonald's in the airport is a mile long, and there's no healthy options. And you just think like, what is going on? You know, we're just upside down on this whole thing.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  It's so easy now with social media. I'm trying to target the, the young, the young kids out there, the sub 20 or the sub 25 year old girls and guys. That's my target audience now. Because I feel that's the next generation coming through. And they're the most easy influence, because they wanna look good, wanna be slim and lean and, or whatever. And unfortunately, that's why.

• 40:50Rich Roll?

  And I think they're, they also have a lot, a lot of them have parents that are overweight or sick or whatever. And they're seeing that. And they're like, I don't, I don't want that. You know, what, what can I do to be different and not be suffering the way that my parents are?

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Especially the girls. I mean, most of my talks is a female audience, because they're like, well, I wanna get skinny, I wanna get slim and like freely, I wanna lose the weight, what do I do? You know, and they're sick of the starving, or the thyroid drugs, or whatever. And they just wanna get slim and still feel sane. So that's, we used to focus on health. And health's good. But unfortunately, people are more motivated by aesthetics than health today. So I understand that. But the good thing is, our aesthetic message is, is the best message for health as well.

• 41:38Rich Roll?

  So I can get totally down with 80 10 10 and I've talked to enough people that are that are, you know, experiencing great results like yourself on it. So I have no problem with, you know, being on board with that as something that, that, uh, you know, that is advisable because I've just seen too many people that are thriving on it. Um, and, uh, you know, Michael Arnstein just can't say enough great things about it. And like I said, Mac Danzig, et cetera. But I will say like I saw, so I've been, I watched a few videos and I've been watching the ones where now you're experimenting with all this processed sugar and you're pouring all this sugar on your, on your cereal. And then I'm like, yeah, I don't know about that, you know? So tell me what's going on with that, man. Come on. You're like, pour like half a bag of sugar on your cereal.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, like half a pound or more. I just want to help people understand the concept. In the raw food world, it's like fruit's bag is fruit's got a lot of sugar in it. In the low carb world or the standard American standard Australian diet world, people are like, oh, fruit's bag has got a lot of sugar in it. I've been eating so much sugar from fruit for over a decade. And I've got my blood tests, my hemoglobin A1C, my blood sugar levels, testosterone, my thyroid, everything's all perfect with no medications. So fruit's good. And I'm lean as and I don't do much training compared to guys.

• 42:51Rich Roll?

  I have no problem, I have no, yeah, I have no problem saying fruit's good, but let's, can we, can we create a distinction between fruit and the processed sugar that you're pouring on, on your cereal? Or are you saying that it doesn't matter?

• 43:04Speaker 01

  I'm saying it doesn't matter, but fruit is obviously a better choice because it's got all your enzymes, nutrients and fiber with it. I want to help debunk the myth that sugar causes obesity or whatever. And by pouring some sugar on some cereal in a YouTube video or in my smoothie, I can help create a little bit of a, a little bit of a wave there. But I honestly do consume that much sugar if I can't get enough sweet fruit. When I'm in Thailand, in the US, the fruit's a lot sweeter there. So I don't really have to go to the sugar. But in Australia, if I'm a bit strapped for sugars from fruits, then I'll just smash in some organic processed sugar on some, on some fruit or some rice or some sort of low sodium cereal with a bit of organic rice milk or whatever. I have no issue with that at all. And I want to give people options

• 43:48Speaker 01

  so anyone can eat healthy, anyone can eat lean and clean foods. And obviously the, the sugar, processed sugar's got a very, very bad stigma. But I'm so sensitive. I can only eat really, really clean food. So if I can get away with that. Then anyone can really.

• 44:04Rich Roll?

  But the problem is that there are people, you know, drinking big gulps left and right or drinking, you know, 12, 12 Cokes a day and, you know, and that's kind of like their go to thing. And these people are contracting diabetes all over the place, right? They're, they're obese, they're just on the, the high fructose corn syrup like all day long. And, uh, I mean, do you worry that when you put a video out like that, that it will get misinterpreted?

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Definitely. It's go, everything I do is going to get misinterpreted by someone. But at least they're thinking about it and maybe create a bit of discussion like, oh, that Dune Rider guy, he's crazy, but it creates a bit of discussion. If you look on any health forum on the internet and type in Dune Rider, I'm there. The people are talking about it. So I want to create discussion, but with the, the big gulps and stuff, the issue, I haven't drunk a Coca-Cola since September 2000 when I was watching the Sydney Olympics. I believe Coke is poisoned. It's not because of the sugars, because of the phosphoric acid and all the black stuff in there and the nasties in the Coke. I don't think it's the sugar. The sugars are fine, but it's what people have with the sugar. Generally, when people have a big gulp lemonade or whatever, they're having like ribs or chicken wings and all this fat with it. So they're putting all this fat in their bloodstream and they're having some, uh, some sugars and it's skyrocketing their blood sugar.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  But I've got some friends who are heroin addicts and they all just live on candy and like lollies, not chocolate, but just like lollies and, uh, soft drink soda and they're slim as. Obviously they're not healthy by any means.

• 45:26Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, yeah, like, I don't know what you're, you know, like, but yeah, I don't know any, there, there aren't very many overweight heroin addicts.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  No, but.

• 45:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but there's, there are some, but.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  You're right. There is some, I do, I have met some overweight meth and heroin addicts and they're the ones who eat the sausages and stuff. My experience with drugs, I used to do a lot of drugs myself back in the day in the nineties. Most people do drugs, I've found out, for weight loss. Most people are addicted to meth and that because they want to get slimmer or Coke and stuff like that. It makes you feel good, but then you start getting slim. You think, well, I'm, I'm sort of looking a good bit better. That's probably another topic, but the, the whole processed sugar is a not issue. It's what people eat the sugar with. And I wouldn't drink Coke because it's got all the phosphoric acid and all the nasties in there. But I'll pour organic sugar into my banana smoothie, organic coconut sugar in there, no worries. But if you had me, Ken and Kirk, I'd say no, thanks.

• 46:19Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's definitely controversial because you have on the other, you know, on the other side of this coin, you have this whole group of people and, and a group of people who kind of really have the microphone right now, who are saying, sugar's bad, not only is sugar bad, all sugar is bad, and your body can't distinguish whether this sugar is coming from, coming from fruit or processed sugar. It's all, it's all bad, and you should not eat any fruit either, and that this is evil, like coming from the Robert Lustig's and, you know, that kind of camp. So, your, your response to that is what?

• 46:53Speaker 01

  They are correct. Sugar's sugar, pretty much. Like, my diabetic friends, when they have sugar from fruit, or sugar from Coke, whatever, pretty much works the same. If you've got a little bit of fiber, it's a bit of a slow release, but it pretty much affects your blood sugar the same, if you're eating a high-fat diet. But, if people go into fruiterian, eating ten, ten-style diet, they reverse their type 2 diabetes in a few days or a few weeks. They get, they cut the fat out, and the creatinine out, their blood sugar's become down to a normal level. Same on the Neil Bernard reversing diabetes program, where it's just rice, rice, rice, rice, rice, pasta, etc., corn, high glycemic foods, whatever, just high sugar. They still reverse the type 2 diabetes clinically. So, it works. But people like Robert Lustig, the overweight guy, and there's that Richard Johnson guy,

• 47:36Speaker 01

  the nutrition expert, he looks like Barney from The Simpsons. I swear he's an alcoholic or whatever. He sounds like a nice guy, but he, it sounds like he's drunk in his presentation. He's saying, "Sugar's bad, and it's gonna make you fat." And I'm like, no offence, Mr. Johnson, but if you look in the mirror, you must be a closet fruiterian. So, my goal is to appeal to that younger audience, and be of a shock tactic, and go, "Hang on, this guy's eating 30 bananas a day, or 50 bananas a day, or 100 bananas a day," or whatever. And him and his girlfriend, they look like they stepped out of a concentration camp. And I follow them on Astrava, and yeah, they do a lot of training in January, but the rest of the year, they're not doing that, nothing that no one else is doing. What's going on here? Maybe there's something in this high-sugar diet, maybe there's something in the fruit, and maybe the fact that sugar is sugar, pretty much, whether it's GMO, high fructose corn

• 48:20Speaker 01

  syrup, or bananas, it's gonna affect your blood sugar pretty similarly. Obviously, GMO, I'm not supporting that at all. But the notion that people are getting fat from fructose is just, that is just absolute rubbish.

• 48:35Rich Roll?

  So then if, so then how would you articulate how people are getting fat?

• 48:40Speaker 01

  We just go to McDonald's and look what they're eating and they're having the Big Gulp and they're having Big Mac or something. And they're having all this high insulin index foods like the beef and the dairy, the things that spike your insulin growth factor. They spike your insulin. That's why professional bodybuilders, non-diabetic, they, they inject insulin because insulin is one of the most anabolic hormones around. And it's legal. It's very dangerous, but it's legal and it's so effective. So they've got guys in the gym shooting up insulin. Who don't have diabetes. It's very dangerous. People die from it. Every year, some, you know, local bodybuilders die or get put in a wheelchair from a diabetic coma because they inject too much insulin.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  So these people eating the beef and the dairy and the whey and stuff like that, and they're just sparking insulin levels right up, which is okay, but what happens is insulin levels stay up. They stay high. So they have an elevated, high insulin level, a baseline. It's always high. So that they just, they've become this anabolic machine. That's why the women are massive and the men are getting bigger and they ain't muscle. It's just mass. So they're just, people are just getting bigger and bigger.

• 49:44Rich Roll?

  I mean, if you, if you inject yourself with insulin, then you're going to be hypoglycemic, right? I mean, it's going to, it just pulls all the sugar right out of your bloodstream.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 49:52Rich Roll?

  Essentially, you're telling your body that I'm not giving you any glycogen and you're going to have to figure out how to function. You're going to have to find a different energy source to get done what you need to get done, whether it's in the weight, weight room or anywhere else, right?

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Well, that's why the top bodybuilders and athletes, they carry like jelly beans in their pocket or bum bag, you know? So they don't have, don't go into like a hypoglycemic shock or have some fruit on hand or something like that. So some sugars. But that's, that, the secret to mass, one of the biggest secrets is high insulin levels. And even Robert Lustig, Gary Taubes, Dr. Atkins, they all agree and all three of them overweight, but they all agree. High insulin is a necessity for a high body weight. And every pro bodybuilder will say that. I can't do a fruitarian diet because my insulin levels will get too low. And I'll be like a skinny dude, a lot like one of the triathlete guys or something. A lot of those kickboxes, I want to be like 250 pounds.

• 50:42Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  So that's why it's impossible to be a high body weight on a fruitarian or a high carb vegan lifestyle. Because your insulin levels are going to drop down to a nice, healthy, normal genetic blueprint. That's our primal blueprint is low insulin levels. But people are doing the primal diet, paleo diet and spiking the heck out of it insulin. And just getting massive long term. Unless they're doing like intermittent fasting where they live on a salad a day. A slice of bacon for breakfast and they go, well, I'm doing the paleo diet. So now you're doing the starvation calorie restriction diet. And again, that's not sustainable. You look at the long term primal pale people, Lauren Cordain overweight. Robert Lustig overweight, Richard Johnson overweight, Sally Fallon overweight, Dr Atkins overweight, dead with heart disease.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  I'm sure nice people, just good taking their physiological response there to that diet is dangerous. So.

• 51:34Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, I've noticed that with a lot of those guys, they, they rubber band. Like if they, if there's something going on and they're going to be in the media, then they, they trim down. But you catch them in between book tours and, and their weight fluctuates like it's.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Bingo.

• 51:47Rich Roll?

  Because there's not, I mean, if it's, if you've created a sustainable lifestyle for yourself, then you shouldn't have these peaks and valleys and ups and downs. I mean, certainly you'll have periods like, you know, in the off season when you're not training as much. If you're an athlete or wherever, when you're going to be, you're going to go up and down a little bit. But, but the, but those, the, the swings seem to be pretty profound with, with a lot of those guys.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Exactly. It like, it's normal for your body weight to fluctuate between a healthy baseline 10, 15%. That's normal. But what's not normal is when people go, wow, like what happened to them and holy mama. Like Sally Fallon, the, the West End price lady, the, the photo she has in a book isn't what she looks like in real life. And it does make her a bad person, but it's very misleading to think that people go, wow, look at Sally's book. She's very slim. And I'm like, yeah, Sally's a nice lady, man, but she looks like she's ready for a heart attack. And she's on, knocking on the door of a clinical obesity. Get up to speed.

• 52:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, if you could take a picture of Neil Bernard any day of the week and the guy looks exactly the same. The guy never looks, he looks, I mean, and he has like, he's drinking from the fountain of youth because I don't know how old he is now, but you know, he's incredibly youthful looking and every time I see him, he looks the same.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  And he's got a high-stress job.

• 53:01Rich Roll?

  Very high-stress, actually. Yeah, he's managing a lot with what he does. So, so, so here we are and, and I feel like I vacillate between being despondent and being frustrated with trying to get people to kind of understand what's going on and then being wildly optimistic because I really do feel like there's a movement happening right now and people are really interested in finding a real solution, like a sustainable solution for their health and their fitness. They're starving for it, they're yearning for it. I mean, just, just simply by the number of views that you get on your YouTube channel or the number of downloads that I get on this podcast is pretty, you know, powerful evidence of that. And yet, at the same time, we're kind

• 53:40Rich Roll?

  of in this situation where we're having to confront this other movement that has a little bit more momentum right now, which is this low-carb, you know, kind of paleo lifestyle. I mean, in, in, you know, in the United States, there are CrossFit gyms everywhere and the paleo diet is kind of interwoven with them. And there's a lot of momentum there. And part of me is like, well, people are interested in CrossFit, that's great, because if they weren't doing anything previous to that, then at least they're getting active and I have no problem with that. But at the same time, we have this paleo diet that is, that is super popular here. And there are aspects of that that I'm fine with and there are

• 54:22Rich Roll?

  other things that I disagree with. And then there's the perversion of it, of it, which is, you know, gets translated into, you know, you should have bacon like all day long. You know, I think people misunderstand certain aspects of that and then pervert it to their own needs. And so I guess my question to you is, let's talk about paleo, let's talk about low carb, let's talk about ketosis. And I want to hear like, straight up, like where you're coming down on this whole thing.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  It's crazy, but I'll just quickly say that, yeah, the CrossFit community, I've got some friends who do CrossFit and I think it's good, but I'm not a fan of the, they're doing it against the time and people doing the bad form and stuff like that. So what I've done is-

• 54:59Rich Roll?

  Well, I think, yeah, I think what happens is people get excited and it's very competitive in there and they're pushing really hard and they're not ready to go that hard. And I just read an article, I'll send it to you, I'll send you the link to it. There was a blog on medium.com that's that's somebody I follow on Twitter posted about this this thing that's starting to happen in CrossFit where people are getting what's called rhabdo. Have you heard of this? Rhabdomyolysis, which is this weird like, like sort of condition where the muscles are cannibalizing themselves because people are getting pushed way too hard and they're like eating themselves and they end up in the hospital.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  I definitely see it all the time with the paleo CrossFit crew, just pumped up with 500mg of caffeine, zero glycogen in the tank and just pre-workout powder on top of that, maybe a few lines of coke, whatever, and just going out and doing cleaning jerks like never before. Just, yeah, rotated cuff, slipped discs, cruciate ligament torn in the knee. It's crazy.

• 56:02Rich Roll?

  Right. And again, like, just to be clear, like, I'm good with people going to the gym and getting active. And if they're excited about CrossFit, then that's a good thing. But I think everybody needs to sort of be judicious and cautious about and be honest with themselves about what their fitness level is and not get over your head and take your time as you build up and not like go gung ho too soon and get into trouble.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  I was talking to the guy in New York recently. I said, what's the deal with steroids and CrossFit? He said, what do you mean? And I'm like, what's the deal? He goes, everyone is good at doing them, Harley. I'm like, I thought so. It looks like it. Some of the CrossFit women, like, you can't, I mean, you can tell they're a woman if you can see their face, but if you look from behind, you can't tell if it's a man or a woman. Just the amount of testosterone some of these people must be using is, I mean, you're gonna get some gains now, but long term, I'm concerned the amount of roid usage that some CrossFit people are doing. It's, you know, it's, yeah, that's another, it's an interesting topic there, but.

• 56:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'm not, I don't know anything about that. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me, I guess.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Well, you just have to look at their face. Like, I was first introduced to alomonic steroids back in 90, 97 in a friend's kitchen. He was shooting himself up some D-bol. He's like, Harley, you know, if we gave you some of this, mate, you'd be smashing up the clums on your bike. I'm like, I don't know about that, you know? So I've been in the steroid scene for a long time, not taking, but just being around it, friends dealing it, friends taking it, friends taking EPO, et cetera. So I'm aware of what to look for than the side effects of people who are on it. Women's easy to tell because they start to look like men.

• 57:33Rich Roll?

  Right, right. I used to live right around the corner from Gold's Gym in Venice, which is, you know, the birthplace of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno. And it's funny, you go in there and there are people that just, they come in at, you know, eight, eight in the morning and they're there all day. They clock out at five and like the professional bodybuilders that are in there and the women, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty extraordinary to see these women in there.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. And I, I've got friends that take steroids. I don't, I don't think it's a bad people, bad, I think it's a bad health choice long-term. I don't think they're bad people, but it's good for the public to understand how much steroid use is actually in the CrossFit world, the paleo world. You got, you know, paleo, I won't name any names, but you've got people writing books about paleo primal, obviously doing human growth hormones, steroids, testosterone, D-Bol, Winstral, Anavar, clenbuterol, cutting up for a photo shoot. And then they put that all over Amazon, whatever. And then the naive public go, wow, look at that person. He's like 60 or whatever. He looks really good. And it's like, he's on a probably about 50 grand of human growth hormone and clenbuterol a year and he's going to look aesthetic, but that's not how he looks all year long. And that's not how he's going to look in a few years' time. But that's what sells in the books.

• 58:40Rich Roll?

  Hmm. So, so let's talk about low carb paleo ketosis. Like what's, what's, you know, what's your, uh, you know, what's your perspective? Like, why is this unhealthy? For somebody, because there, there's a lot of people that eat paleo that listen to my podcast too. It's like, it's kind of an all comers thing. So I just want to try to provide, you know, a different perspective on this diet or give people a couple of things to, to think about who, you know, maybe are vacillating between the idea of eating a vegan diet or, or a paleo diet. Just, you know, like a couple of things that they should bear in mind or be aware of.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Do this, do this experiment in like a, a two days. All right. The first day, actually no, it's probably going to take a bit longer than a day, but because you're going to have to, you're going to have to recover from the paleo diet. So it might take a longer than a day to recover from the paleo diet, but that's. Say you do the paleo diet for a week, you eat as much dead flesh, pig, pig flesh, bacon as you want, as much coconut oil as you want, um smashing the caffeine, maybe, maybe, no, no, cut the caffeine out because if you, if you're using stimulants, it's really hard to see the, the effects of a diet. So no stimulants, all right. We're not, no coffee, no tea, no chocolate, no clenbuterol, no EPO, no Coke, whatever. We just eat as much bacon and coconut oil or lard as we want and throw in some kale leaves. And that's your paleo diet essentially. That's how you, rice makes you fat, fruit makes you fat,

• 59:58Speaker 01

  blah, blah, blah, whatever. Don't eat fruit, eat fats. When you're on your bike, drink coconut oil instead and go and do a thousand miles in a week.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  And then next week, or the next month or whatever, when you recover from the paleo diet, when you're feeling healthy again, when you come to hospital or whatever, when you can function, probably do the vegan diet, as much fruit as you want, as much rice as you want, as much water as you want. And again, don't use any caffeine. So you don't get too, uh, too confused there. Keep the variables the same regarding the stimulants and just see what happens. And the reality is, is not a single person on the planet, no athlete on the planet ever, who does the paleo diet, which is basically low carb ketogenic diet. Because people say, well, no, that's not true, Holly. Rice and fruit's good on paleo. No, no, no, it's not. If you read all the books, Rob Wolf, Marxist and Gary Taubes, Lustig, uh, Wheat Belly

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Guy, the Meat Belly Fat Guy, William Davis, they're all saying carbs are bad, you know, a handful of blueberries is okay. They're all saying that the body's peak performance is in ketogenesis, ketosis. That's what they're saying it is. So we've got to stick with that. That is the low carb power. There's no sneaking, uh, super starches like Peter Attia does, or Cliff Bars, or glucose shots, or whatever. That's, that's high carb diet. It's not the paleo diet. Paleo diet, he says, sugar's bad. There's no, there's no athlete in the world who's doing better on that low carb ketogenic diet than they would on a high carb vegan diet. Zip, zero, nada. I said to fifty, uh, I said to Peter Attia, I'm getting excited now. I said to Peter Attia, the ketogenic.

• 1:01:28Rich Roll?

  I want you excited. This is what I've been trying to get you to do.

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  Peter Attia, guys.

• 1:01:32Rich Roll?

  Peter Attia, yeah. I want to, I want to hear about this because you hear the name Peter Attia and you hear Gary Taubes get thrown around a lot. And, uh, you know, so what's going on?

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, Peter Confuser Tia and Gabby Tubby Torbs. Sure, nice guys, but I did a video of Peter Tia uh, critiquing his information where he's saying keto is the best state for cyclists. I said, all right. Next time in the USA, I'll bet you $50,000 US, I can beat you up Mount Washington.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  I've got no response. Now, if someone said to me, Duran Rider, I'll bet you $50,000, I can beat you up Mount Washington and you don't have to pay me if you lose, but I'll pay you if you, if, if you win, which I said to Peter, I'd do it.

• 1:02:16Rich Roll?

  Right, but in fairness to Peter, he's not a, he's not a cyclist.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  But he is a cyclist. He says he's an elite level cyclist.

• 1:02:23Rich Roll?

  I didn't, I didn't know that.

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, he says, he says he's got, if you read his blog, he does a bit of cycling. He's not, but he's not even on a Strava. I said, Peter, maybe show a little bit of a powered data, you know, if you use a power meter, put it on a Strava, let's see what your watt per kilo is. No response, nothing, just totally ignored. So Peter is a cyclist. I'd even bet any of those paleo weightlifter people, I'll lift more weight than you in an hour than you ever lift.

• 1:02:49Rich Roll?

  Didn't, didn't Ben Greenfield just do uh, an Ironman where he experimented with, with that diet to see how it would go? Do you know, do you know Ben at all?

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know Ben. Ben is, he sort of changes his trend every week. He changes his diet like he changes his jocks. One week he's doing low carb, one week he's doing high carb, one week he's like, I don't use a lot of these labels on myself. So Ben, I think he's sincere, but he's obviously sincerely wrong. He likes to experiment a bit and I, I read his little nutrition chart and he says, don't eat lemons and cucumbers because they contain sugar and make you fat.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  I'm thinking if you say lemons and cucumbers make you fat, I'm, I'm not sure if he was trolling or what, man, but.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  I, I said, confuse people out there. And then you've got Vinnie Tortellini to Tourich, who just unfortunately overcame cancer on his diet. I'm thinking if you're getting leukemia.

• 1:03:37Rich Roll?

  Vinnie, I know Vinnie, I mean, Vinnie is a, like a training partner or like neighbors out here.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Vinnie, Vinnie sounds like a nice guy and I was listening to that podcast where he was critiquing my diet and, and saying that, you know, coconut oil is better than sugar for training. I'm, I'm just. I can't believe people are saying that. I can't believe, and now I still look up photos and Google images of Vinny and he's eating like, uh, drinking Coke or eating like sugar sorbet ice cream or something. And I'm like, hang on, like I thought coconut oils and bacon's the best training fuel, but you're eating sugars. Oh, okay. Interesting.

• 1:04:07Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, he's, he's a big proponent of, of ketosis and, you know, I love Vinny. He's a, he's a friend and, uh, and we go way back and we spent lots of time on the bike together, but we have completely different perspectives on, on nutrition. And the thing that I just can't wrap my brain around is this idea that like, when did it, when did ketosis become like this thing that we should all aspire to when really it's this, it's really like an emergency scenario in your body. Your body is going into like this condition that it doesn't want to be in.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  It's insanity. So like, when did Dr. Atkins become a sports nutrition expert? When did Dr. Atkins say, hey, you know, I could probably line up the Tour de France? Dr. Atkins died obese. Rest in peace, Dr. Atkins. 258 pounds. Autopsy reports indicated chronic heart disease, coronary thrombosis. He wasn't in good shape.

• 1:05:03Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  Why is there not a single Tour de France rider drugged up to the gills, whatever, EPO, clenbuterol, uh, ACAR drugs, the peptide hormones they use. Now, why aren't they doing low carb if low carb is better performance? A lot of them are playing with the fruit and the vegan diet though. I'm hearing that. I've got friends in cycling circles and I hear them all the time because they want to lose the weight. They, these Tour de France riders want to get so skinny. They're not doing keto ketogenic diets. They're not even like bodybuilders. They want to get super skinny, super lean, get that body fat level right down. Chris Froome in the 2013 Tour de France almost got dropped because he ran out of sugar. He got Richie Porte to go back to the team car and get some sugar.

• 1:05:41Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how you could be a competitive professional cyclist without, I mean, you need glycogen. That's your fuel, you know. So, I mean, I guess I could sort of understand when you're in training, trying to, uh, trying to get your body to become more fat adapted in your aerobic state when you're training. But when you're pinning it and you're above your aerobic threshold and you're anaerobic, like you need glycogen. And there's no way around it. Like, how are you going to compete otherwise?

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  You can't. Impossible. Even in the powerlifting, it's glucose derived ATP gives you the most strength. That's why a lot of guys do testosterone because they can store more glycogen. It's all about fueling red blood cells. Red blood cells run on glucose. Your red blood cells don't have enough fuel, they start dying off, it can't work properly, your performance goes down. Even sprinters using EPO to boost their red blood cell, red blood cells give you power. The notion that ketosis helps red blood cells is bogus. Phagocytosis, which is basically your immune system, where your phagocyte cells can engulf the bad cells or the toxins or whatever, that is dependent on your level of glucose. So the less glucose you have in your system, the lower your immune system is. That's why in cycling, we always

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  get taught, never go hungry, because if you get too hungry, if you run out of sugars, you can thrash your immune system and get sick.

• 1:07:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're putting your body into a crisis state. And the other thing that never gets really addressed or talked through is this idea that when you're eating this high-fat diet and all these animal products, you're creating a tremendous amount of inflammation in your body as a response. And all that's doing is slowing down your body's ability to recover in between workouts and creating a scenario in which you're more likely to get sick and fry your immune system in this state of like chronic acidosis.

• 1:07:34Rich Roll?

  So then I guess my question is, so given all of this, like, why is this so popular? I mean, is it just because people, they want to eat that stuff and they just love hearing that it's good for them, that they can do it and, you know, bacon all the way? I mean, it's just weird how suddenly it's like, everybody's so excited about eating bacon all the time, where it's like, I mean, for the last 50 years, we're all pretty clear that like, it's probably not a good idea to eat bacon, it's not good for you. And then suddenly, everybody's praising it like it's the second coming.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  I remember in 1998, I was a bicycle courier and I was talking to this overweight receptionist, lovely lady, she's like, "Hi, I'm doing a new diet, wish me luck." I'm like, "What's the diet's about?" She goes, "It's Dr. Atkins diet." I'm like, "What's that?" She goes, "I just eat bacon and steak all day long and lots of cream and eggs." I'm like, "You gotta get fat, man, I wouldn't eat that stuff. I'm a cyclist and I'd burn it off, but it's gonna make you fat and give you heart disease." She goes, "No, no, it's apparently it's pretty good." So that was back in 98. People love to hear good things about their bad habits. I said to this lady, "Why do you want to do that?" She goes, "I love eating this stuff." And I'm like, "That's why you want to do it, isn't it?" She goes, "Yeah, you know, I'm not gonna buy a book that tells me the truth."

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  And she said it in like a tongue in cheek sort of way, but that planted a seed. That's why these books sell, because people with low consciousness or low standards, they just, they want to believe bullshit. They want to believe good things about their bad habits. Like, "Yeah, smoking's good for you, makes your lungs stronger," or "Lots of meat clears up your arteries," or "Lots of fat helps you burn fat better." It's absolute rubbish. And they will go to talks and they'll buy books from overweight people who couldn't even run around the block without risk of heart attack. They'll buy books from people who've got cancer. They don't care, they just want to have good things about their bad habits and live in fairy tale land that they can eat this crap and come out skinny looking like Frilly. And that's why on Instagram, we just started off on Instagram, I'll take a picture of Frilly

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  first thing in the morning when she's got all her knickers and lingerie on and she's doing some sexy pose, and I'll hashtag it paleo diet, primal diet, Atkins diet, paleo. So when people search in paleo, primal, Atkins diet, whatever, they'll come up with this picture of Frilly and they'll go, "Oh wow, look, there's a hot chick and she's eating all the bacon she wants." And then they'll click on her, they'll click on her profile and just get bombarded with the truth. The fat you eat, the fat you wear, if you want to smash endothelium cells and increase your risk of heart disease, eat as much animal protein and fat as you want.

• 1:09:54Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, the thing is, is that people can lose weight on Atkins, but it's a short term thing. I mean, who, who, who, who sustains that? You know, like it doesn't, it's not a sustainable health solution. It's a short term way to drop a little bit of weight and damage your body on the way down.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  I call it make yourself sick diet. You lose, you lose water weight. Just stop drinking water for a week and put your kidneys in the overdrive, but you'll lose water weight, but it's not healthy. I'm, I'm wearing to things that give you energy and keep you slim without deprivation and starvation. I'm lazy as, Freely's lazy as. And what the benefits of this lifestyle is pick up some fruit, eat it, put some rice in the rice cooker, put some sauce in it, eat it, whatever. Freely's inside making a banana smoothie right now. It's just real simple stuff. The vegan lifestyle is the easiest. It's not a lot of food prep. You don't get food poisoning from eating some Peter dog food or whatever. It's, it makes sense. And when you're in ketosis, your mood sucks. Your breath stinks.

• 1:10:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I was gonna say a bad breath.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  I had a friend one time doing the raw paleo diet and actually she died unfortunately. My friend V, she did a water fast and died, but she got food poisoning from eating some animal products. So she did a water fast and then she died of kidney failure. This is back in 2009. And, uh, you know, it just, it just pains me to see people getting caught into this whole gimmick, man, of this ketosis and stuff. But it, I, it's just like people have got a cloud in their brain. They can't, they see me and Freely and Doug Ram and McDougal and Bernard and yourself. They see us out there slim and energy and they see it, but they, some part of their brain just doesn't make the connection. They're like, oh, but isn't rice fattening or isn't fruit fattening? Or they're, oh, I've got to eat more bacon. I'm fat from eating the fruit. Actually, I don't eat fruit, but no, I'm, I don't know

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  why I'm, oh, maybe it's just, they just don't know. They're making up all these excuses in their head. So that's any more action.

• 1:11:52Rich Roll?

  Well, there's two things I think that are going on right now that are powerful and that are impediments to people seeing what it is that you want them to see. The first is our ridiculous obsession with protein, this completely misplaced, misdirected, you know, sort of marketing message that's been imposed upon us since, you know, who knows when by vested interests who are standing to profit, you know, countless dollars by having you believe that you need a tremendous amount of protein, not just to be an athlete or excel as an athlete, but just to live. And it's crazy and ridiculous and it's killing us, right? So there's that.

• 1:12:31Rich Roll?

  And then we have this sort of new, the new like sort of popular idea that fat is not your enemy and everything that you heard about saturated fat is wrong and cholesterol is not bad for you and everything that you used to think about that has been disproved, right? So there's this notion swirling around right now by a lot of these, these sort of people that are writing these books that are, that are telling people that that's not the cause of heart disease. And that just astounds me when we've kind of known since, you know, Dean Ornish did his studies, you know, eons ago, that this is what is causing heart disease. I mean, you're on board with that, right? I mean-

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  Oh, people are getting heart disease from organic mangoes and peach pudding.

• 1:13:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  They're getting obesity from steamed rice with pinto beans and broccoli.

• 1:13:25Rich Roll?

  Right. And, and you know, you look at China, the China study, you know, and sort of heart disease rates historically in China, which were close to nonexistent in many parts of China, and now with the introduction of the, the Western diet to China and the proliferation of KFC and these fast food chains there, they're having an obesity problem and a heart disease problem for the very first time.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  Bingo. Oh, it's because they're eating rice now, because they're eating rice.

• 1:13:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's right. I mean, this is a culture that ate rice and vegetables forever, right? And we're perfectly healthy. So, so yeah, so I mean, right now, it's it's cool to put, you know, butter in your, you know, grass-fed butter in your coffee and, and just put copious amounts of coconut oil and everything you're eating and drinking all day long. And there's this, yeah, this like high-fat craze that seemingly came out of nowhere. I don't know how that's related to paleo or where that's coming from specifically, but there are these, these guys like Peter Attia, who are, who are getting a lot of traction and are like well-funded to put this message out there that fat is actually your friend.

• 1:14:37Rich Roll?

  And there's all this research purportedly from their perspective to support this idea that saturated fat is not causing heart disease, right? I mean, is that, you've probably read more of this stuff than I have. I mean, is that your understanding of like what's going on right now?

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  They're basically trying to debunk Dr. Ansel Keys in the 50s, who did the Minnesota study, stuff like that, who's such a pioneer. But here's, here's the crunch line. None of these charlatan snake oil, high-fat sellers have ever published a single clinical study with a multitude of people indicating evidence of reversing heart disease. But you know what? The high-carb vegan doctors like McDougal, Esselstine, Ornish, they've, they've published clinical studies. They've published the angiograms, the photos, the, the dye and stuff like that, showing that the arteries have cleared up and that. But none of these hucksters, these high-fat butter lovers have done that.

• 1:15:41Rich Roll?

  Who are the guys that are, that are fighting this? We've got McDougal, we have Esselstine, T. Colin Campbell, Jeff Novick, Mark Bit, well, Mark Bitman, not really, Neil Bernard, John Robbins. I mean, who are the other kind of champions that, that are on this side of that equation?

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  Doug Graham. In terms of clinical published studies, I'd say it's McDougall, Esselstein, Barnard, Ornish, Campbell.

• 1:16:06Rich Roll?

  Ornish.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  There's a lot of others out there as well. There, there, there's all the high profile ones.

• 1:16:11Rich Roll?

  So, um, on the eighty ten ten thing, I heard something really interesting. Um, it was secondhand, so I don't know if it's actually legit or, or true, but, uh, uh, do you know who Jeff Novick is?

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:16:23Rich Roll?

  So Jeff Novick, a friend of mine was saying, oh, have you heard Jeff Novick's opinion on eighty ten ten? I said, no, what, what is it? And he said that, uh, that his belief was, and I'm just interested in what you think about this, was that it seems to work really well for people that are extremely active, like yourself or, or Ornstein and guys like that. But that because our, um, the nutrient density of our, our fruits is so much lower, uh, than it, than it used to be, that you have to eat a tremendous amount of the fruit in order to get the micro, the necessary micronutrients. And so if you're a more sedentary person or somebody who's not that active, uh, then, uh, you're not going to have the, the appetite to kind of eat the volume of fruit

• 1:17:05Rich Roll?

  that somebody like you or, or Mac Danzig is going to be eating on a daily basis. And then, and you might run into trouble with making sure that you're meeting all your micronutrient needs. I mean, have you heard that before?

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I've heard that before and I agree with that a hundred percent. But here's the thing, being sedentary ain't healthy. So it doesn't matter what you're eating. If you're sedentary, you ain't going to be healthy.

• 1:17:28Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  So the fruit quality isn't what it used to be. I mean, Brian Clement says the fruit's fifty times sweeter than it used to be. Well, that means someone who's eating thirty bananas a day now used to have to eat maybe fifty times, fifteen hundred. Brian Clement says that fruit's fifty times sweeter today than it used to be. So if you're eating thirty bananas a day today, it means back in the day, you'd have to eat fifteen hundred bananas a day. So some people are saying fruit doesn't have as much sugar as it used to. Some people are saying it's got more. I say it's got less because fruit tastes like crap compared to what it used to even twenty years ago, in general. My grandparents, my mother says, the fruit used to be much, much sweeter. Sweeter fruit is nature's way of saying this has got nutrition. Eat this fruit, spread that seed and don't eat the sour stuff.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  And that's the rule of, that's the rule of nature. The animal who gets the most sugar is going to get the most nutrients because they're going to have more energy. The body's going to work better. The lymphatic system's working better. So Novick is correct in saying that if you're sedentary, you won't get enough nutrition. But I say that's like a hypothetical, like, why are we recommending people to live a sedentary lifestyle? That's not healthy.

• 1:18:33Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, in fairness to him, I don't know that he's recommending a sedentary lifestyle, but if somebody actually is, then that might be, that might become an issue.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  I'd say their issue would be not with nutritional sufficiency, but they're going to have health issues because they're not putting their lymphatic system out there. They're not getting deep oxygen breathing from a bit of cardio. They're not getting enough vitamin D because they're staying inside. Their posture is not going to be the best because they're sitting behind a computer all day. I mean, that's me. I'll sit behind a computer all day, but I make sure I go outside and get some fresh air. And I make sure I do some sport just to get my blood flowing because I know it's healthy. I don't have to do, freely in myself, we don't have to do sport for weight loss. We have to do sport for health. Our diet is weight loss.

• 1:19:12Rich Roll?

  Right. And, and the sort of, uh, the Peter Attias of the world would say that eating, eating the way that you're eating is extremely unhealthy and that's going to lead you towards um fatty liver and what other kind of, I mean, what are, what are the other claims that people are making about the ill effects of eating the way that you're eating? And then I want you to talk about like, what's actually going on with your blood tests.

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  Those guys say, I'm going to be obese. I'm leaner than all of them. Those guys say my blood tests are going to be bad. I've got better blood tests than all of them. In fact, they don't even put their blood tests up. Rob Wolf put his blood tests up. That was shocking. At least he had the courage to admit that his blood tests were shocking.

• 1:19:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I think it is, it is cool that Rob's at least honest about that kind of stuff. Like he's transparent with his own process.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  I appreciated that. But all the, they say my hemoglobin A1C is going to be high. I've got that tested. It's perfect. They say my hormone levels are going to be out. They're all good. And I don't take synthetic testosterone like a lot of these guys do. Doesn't make them bad people. But when they put up their blood tests, or they never have, but if they did and had good testosterone, I'd be putting a bit of money on it that they'd be slipping in some synthetic testosterone there. Because when you eat a low carb diet, it stuffs up your hormone levels. It stuffs up your hormone levels. So your body starts to, it just can't work properly. They say I'm gonna have high blood sugar, my blood sugar was always good. They say I'm gonna have high potassium levels, I'm gonna have hyperkalemia. My potassium levels are always good. They say I'm gonna have cramping from not enough sodium in my diet.

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  I don't get cramps unless I have too much sodium, because then it makes you dehydrated. They say I'm gonna have inflammation. I'm slimmer than all those guys. They say it's bad for women. My girlfriend's slimmer than all their girlfriends, and it doesn't make me a better person or whatever. It's just, basically, whatever they say is the opposite. And I say to all the people, judge by results versus theory. Look at my blood test, look how lean we are compared to them. Where are their blood tests? Where are their drug-free athletic results? They're not there.

• 1:21:06Rich Roll?

  The funny thing, the interesting thing is that, is that then the response you get is, "Well, you're too skinny. You look like a Holocaust victim." And it's like, "Well, what is it? Are you telling me I'm gonna be fat, or you're telling me too skinny?" Like, it gets confused with the whole thing, so...

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  Which one is it? "I won't have enough energy as a vegan, but Duren Rider's skinny because he does so much sport." Hang on, but I thought you said vegans don't have enough energy, and now you say I'm lean because I do so much sport. And then you say, "I can't do a vegan diet because I wouldn't have enough energy." But that Duren Rider guy, he's got a lot of energy, but he's only slim because he's... Oh, oh, um, um, what's the next question? They contradict themselves. They're so undercard, they contradict themselves all the time. Cars make you fat, you're too thin. Um, "We won't have enough energy as a vegan." "Oh, you train too much." It's nonsense.

• 1:22:00Rich Roll?

  And then I think the next thing is, that always comes up, is, "Well, it's just, it's just too extreme to do what you're doing." You know, it's just, it's, there's no, how am I gonna, you know, there's no way I'm gonna go about my day and eat, you know, thirty bananas a day, or whatever it is. I just can't imagine myself doing it. So there's a lack of willingness there to experiment, I guess, I suppose. But also, just to acknowledge that, you know, even, even when I had Michael Arnstein on that podcast, he's like, "Yeah, it's extreme. I have to go to the fruit wholesaler, and back a truck up, you know, and I have four refrigerators and all of that." Like, it's just, it's not something that is, you know, that you see on a, on a daily basis. He's made it work in his life, and you have, obviously, successfully, and Mac Danzig has, and others have.

• 1:22:42Rich Roll?

  Um, and actually, I share an office space here with a guy who just finished, my buddy Greg Smith. He just did his third 100 mile race and he's been eating 80 10 10 for about two years right now. And this is a guy who was like never a runner, never done anything. And he doesn't even train that much. And he just, he just did the Headlands 100 up in, up in San Francisco the other week. And he's so excited that I was going to be talking to you. Like he's totally fired up, like

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  I think I spoke with Greg on a few emails.

• 1:23:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, probably. I mean, he knows Victoria. I think, I think he's had a lot of emails with Victoria Ornstein or whatever, but he was all fired up. And yeah, I mean, he just, and his business, he's an architect and a designer, has exploded since he changed his diet. And he said to me the other day, I am absolutely convinced, not only is the reason that I'm able to run these 100 mile races because I've changed my diet, but like my business is better. Like I just, I think, I think more clearly, I'm more present in my life, my relationship with my wife, my kids is better. Like he is, and he looks super fit and he looks, he looks much younger than he is. And, uh, you know, there's no way that you can take issue with it. Like he's just a walking example. So you can say

• 1:23:52Rich Roll?

  whatever you want, but it's really how you live your life and the quality of your relationships and how you kind of walk through your day that are much more powerful than whatever comes out of your mouth. And, you know, this, my friend Greg is an example, you're an example. But people still say, well, good for you, but there's no way that I'm, that I could do that. Right? I mean, is that, you know, I mean, is there, is there, for somebody who's interested in kind of embarking on this 80 10 10 way of life, I mean, how does somebody get started who might be intimidated?

• 1:24:22Speaker 01

  That's an awesome point. And I wish people would come to me straight up and say that Harley, I know it all makes sense. You know, but you know what? My family's going to make fun of me, my workmates are going to make fun of me, I can't do it. And I'll go, you know what? I can totally relate. I understand you. I understand that. I get my backup when people make up all those excuses like their, their cholesterol myth and, you know, paleo diet, growth hormone, author book, whatever.

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  End of the day, I understand that people are scared of social disapproval.

• 1:24:54Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:55Speaker 01

  They wanna be lean and healthy, but they're like, oh, I know this sort of rice diet and the fruit diet works and stuff, but what's my, what's my husband gonna say, or my wife, or my kids, or my, and they're scared of that. But I'll tell you what, if you keep living for social disapproval, if you keep worshiping the god of public opinion, it doesn't matter what you're gonna do in life, you're always gonna be suffering because you're so scared of what people think about you. And that was, that was the biggest hurdle for me, changing my diet. I was like, I learned about what was in sausages, like knobs, nuts, groats, throats, thyroids, ears and lobes in sausages. My grandma put a sausage on my plate back in ninety ninety six, and I was like, um, I looked at her and she's like, what's wrong? I said, oh, nothing, nothing. She goes, eat your sausage. And yeah, I will.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  But it took me about an hour to work up the courage to say, actually, no, I don't want to eat the sausage. You know, so I was scared what my seventy five year old grandma was gonna say.

• 1:25:48Rich Roll?

  It's a real issue. And the thing that I always kind of bear in mind with that kind of stuff is, most people are self obsessed, so you project all this kind of thing on other people.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  Bingo.

• 1:25:58Rich Roll?

  And the truth of the matter is, they're, they're thinking about their own life.

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:26:02Rich Roll?

  They don't really care that much, you know what I mean? And like, and, and they'll get over it.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  I'll get over it.

• 1:26:06Rich Roll?

  So, a great example is another guy who I think you know, who's a friend of mine out here, Evan Rock.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:26:13Rich Roll?

  You know Evan? Right, so Evan, Evan is, Evan's a cool dude, and he, you know, he got on board the eighty ten ten thing, and he is, uh, he works in commercial real estate, like he works in a straight up office in a business context where he has to go to lunch with these people or whatever. And I'll run into him at Whole Foods at lunch or whatever, and he just goes and gets an entire watermelon and just sits there and eats the whole thing. And the guys at Whole Foods, all like, you know, the guys that work at Whole Foods would make fun of him, but now they know what he's getting when he comes in and they get it ready for him. And his, I said, you know, how do your coworkers deal with it? Like, he's sitting in a, in a tie, you know, in a suit, on his lunch hour from his office, and he's eating an entire watermelon. And that's just not something you see.

• 1:26:57Rich Roll?

  As like a norm in the normal course of going through your day, right? I'm like, so do you, the guys you work with make fun of you? Like, how does this go down? And he's like, yeah, at first, but you know, now it's just, that's Evan. You know, people adapt and you have to, you know, you have to have a strong sense of yourself to take that stand and do that. But I think you realize like, once you do, it's not the big deal that you project upon it.

• 1:27:18Speaker 01

  I've got to say, don't take nothing personally. And when you go vegan, you learn to be more tolerant and accepting other people's little shenanigans, whatever. I don't take nothing personally anymore. I have fun with it.

• 1:27:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I don't know if, I don't know if you would be characterized as tolerant though. Are you, are you tolerant? I don't think you're that tolerant.

• 1:27:36Speaker 01

  You've got to be tolerant. I was going to be punching people in the face when they make fun of your diet. I, I know, I know what people are going to say even before they open their mouth, just by looking at their face. I can lip read them. You know, and I also already got my answer and my little wisecrack remark already ready. You know, it's like even a street fight, you already know what side the punch is going to come from. Or you can look at someone's foot stance and know if they can fight or not. Or I know exactly what they're going to say. And I've got like a hundred different answers. I'm going to have fun with it. They're going to have a laugh and end of the day, they're going to be empowered. I'm going to, I'm going to walk away from the situation like, yeah, that was a pretty cool answer. Harley, well done. Good for ego, but they're going to walk away going, you know what? That, yeah, that was interesting. I'm going to check that website out. Or yeah, I'm going to, my, my grandpa died of heart disease.

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  I'm going to look up that book of Mr. Esselstine or, you know, fruit's good, but I might read the 80 10 10 book. I'm going to, they're going to leave my conversation empowered. A hundred percent every time. And that's my goal. And objection is a request for more information. So if someone says, oh, you eating your rabbit food again? I'm like, yeah, you eating your vulture food again? And they'll have a bit of a laugh and we'll have a dialogue, a communication.

• 1:28:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, everything is an opportunity for a dialogue or a conversation, you know? And it's just how you approach that, I think. And, um, you know, so, so walk us through like a typical day in, in what you eat from when you get up in the morning and like where you get your food and how much it costs and, you know, what, what are the budgetary constraints? What are the logistical constraints of making sure that you have all of these kinds of foods on hand? And, and how do you make it all work?

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the next one is situational inconvenience. We don't live in a fruit friendly world. So the person's got to, you got to, you got to hunt for it. Cause I can, between my house and my, the fruit shop I go to.

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  There's about five different places that sell junk food. So I've got to go past that to get to the good stuff. You've got to go from the mud to get to the gold. Just quickly then, the other topic we're saying about social disapproval. Before I met freely ten years ago, when I was in the fruit thing, I I used to go and pick up girls just by walking around eating a watermelon. And I just, I just go to the mall or whatever, and the girls would come to me and go, what are you doing eating that watermelon? It's really healthy or funny or whatever. And you just meet women. So it's a great way to meet really like minded people. But getting back to the question. Where do I get my food from? How should I spend what I eat in the day? Breakfast is always fruit, lunch always fruit, dinner. Most of the time fruit, but if I can't get enough fruit, then it'll be some sort of like McDougall, Esselstein, low sodium.

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  Low fat starch dish like corn or barley or maize, rice, pasta, whatever. Um, but I do prefer the fruits. I honestly feel best on fruits. So starch is something I do promote and do consume as more of a backup plan. I don't think the starch diet works best as a staple. I think it's excellent. I just think, I just know that fruit's better. But getting fruit is hard. People say, that's not, what do you mean, man? Like, there's fruit shops all around the place. I can get fruit anywhere. You can get fruit, but it's not edible fruit. The fruit sold in most groceries, especially in Australia, it it tastes hideous. It tastes like.

• 1:30:43Speaker 01

  Pesticide, Vaseline and rusty water. There's no sugar in it because this is picked way too early. It's grown with crap. Like potassium nitrates, whatever, just. So to get fruit, edible fruit is very challenging. And that's why I do promote a backup plan, McDougall style diet, because I don't want people going, oh, eighty ten ten is awesome. And they eat fruit from their local fruit market and then go, man, I'm just starving. Like, I'm flopping. I'm not getting no calories here. Where's the burgers? Where's the meat? So I want to give you a backup plan. So what do I eat for breakfast? My preference is generally banana smoothie.

• 1:31:17Speaker 01

  Lunch, banana smoothie, dinner, banana smoothie, or dates, blended dates, or some sort of rice dish, and I'll eat as much as I care for. I don't limit my calories, I always make sure I get at least three and a half thousand calories a day. At least, I'll do, I'll do quick math by four o'clock and think, how many calories I had today? Alright, I've got to get some more in. And people are, what are you crazy? You want to eat less calories, man? Calorie restriction, I say, I disagree. I want to feel strong the next day, I want to have my glycogen restored the next day or the day after. I want to be like ready to go again the next day, be it a two hour discussion in the street with someone I just met and I've just finished a a ten K hike or a hundred K bike ride and someone says, how are you doing, rider? You know, they've got internet, oh, have you got, have you got a second?

• 1:32:01Speaker 01

  I'm like, man, I've got as much time as you want. Then he grabs some carbs, let me get some water, just sit down and talk. I want to have that energy I can give to people every second of the day, from when I wake up to go to bed. I never want to be starving or listless or thinking about food, I just want to be nourished. And that's why I eat so many carbohydrates, because I want that stamina. I'm obsessed with drug free stamina. The reason why I don't do stimulants anymore? Stimulants work, speed works, meth works, coke works, but the next day it drops you, because it fries your adrenal glands. I want to have rock solid energy every second of the day, in standby. And Frey's just walking out, he's just giving me some, some blended dates with vanilla powder in there.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  Frey's walking around in some bike shorts and a, a sporty sexy bra top. Fruit's good for the body.

• 1:32:51Speaker 01

  So where do I get my fruit from? Organic wholesalers are good, I heard in LA they've got a good produce market there.

• 1:32:56Rich Roll?

  So you, are you, are you always trying to get organic? Or, you know, one of the things that was interesting when I was talking to Michael Arnstein was I said, you know, what's the percentage of, of organic fruit that you're eating compared to conventionally grown? And he said that that was one thing that he really could improve on, that he doesn't concern himself that much as to whether something is organic and conventional. And I, and I thought that was a little interesting and surprising because, especially with the volume of the fruit that he, that he's eating, you're eating that much conventionally grown fruit, so you have To, you know, look at the amount of pesticides and toxins that you're probably intaking as a result of that. And, you know, I mean, I understand that if you were going

• 1:33:39Rich Roll?

  to do it organic, that's going to drive the price up considerably. But, I mean, are you, it sounds like you're a little bit more judicious or cautious about, you know, where your fruit is coming from than, than maybe he is. Or maybe it's just not as available to him. I don't, I don't know.

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  In the US, the quality of fruit is exceptional because most of the fruit in the US comes from Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, et cetera, where they've got a better fruit growing culture down there. So the fruit quality is pretty high, even conventional. Conventional fruit in the US tastes better than the top shelf organic stuff in Australia, generally.

• 1:34:13Rich Roll?

  Oh, really? Why is that?

• 1:34:15Speaker 01

  Because in Australia, we have virtually no competition for fruit quality because we have the strictest quarantine laws in the world in regards to importing fresh fruits and stuff. So basically, if you, if you go to a fruit shop and you're like, these mangoes taste like shit. I want to get some Mexican mangoes. They're like, well, go to Mexico, buddy, because we only sell Australian mangoes. And yeah, you can get some good fruit now and then, but it's not as consistent as the US. The US is much better fruit quality. And all my friends that come over to Australia go, the fruit's so expensive. It's $10 a mango or whatever. And it just tastes like crap. So you can get some good fruit, but you really got to hunt for it. That's why whenever someone says, oh, I'm doing the fruit diet in Australia. I just, just found it out about it. Makes so much sense. I cringe inside because I'm

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  thinking, fuck, where are they going to get their food from? It's so hard. And that's why I give the backup plan. I like to be realistic. I like to say, okay, here's, here's the bar. Here's the gold standard. And here's silver. And just juggle between those two. Don't drop from gold down to lead, not a palliative or whatever. Stay up there. Stay of the high carb vegan lifestyle. Do the best you get your fruits. If you can't get your fruits, add in your, your maize or your corn or whatever, McDougal style meals for dinner to get your carbohydrate calories in. Because organic means a lot to me. The reason why I get organic in Australia, to be honest, the biggest reason is it just tastes better in Australia. The conventional fruit in Australia is just, is just hideous. 90% of the time, it's hideous. So I go organic, A, because it tastes way better than the

• 1:35:45Speaker 01

  conventional crap in Australia, and B, it's the right thing to do for the planet. C, it's the best thing for my health. And D, it's, it's, it's logic. Pesticides ain't good for us. And the less we can consume, the better. But end of the day, a vegan diet is still gonna be lower in overall residual pesticides and environmental toxins than someone eating a, you know, a wild sort of, let's say someone's out in the bush and they're eating like rabbit dung, rabbit guts, moose brain, et cetera. They're still gonna have more toxins than someone eating a, a conventional vegan diet because those animals, all the toxins are stored in the animal fat. So even if you're having your organic dairy, all those environmental toxins, the roundup glyphosate,

• 1:36:26Speaker 01

  that's all stored in the animal fat and tissue, the protein. And if you cook that stuff, you've got the heterosilic amines, the benzopyrene, the advanced glycated end products, which can cause in the meat products when it's heated. So, yeah, you might get a lot of pesticide exposure from eating your conventional fruits, but it's nowhere near as much as someone consuming animal products.

• 1:36:49Rich Roll?

  Right. You know, the next thing I kind of want to know is, is, you know, where are you, like, where are you taking all this? Like, what's the, what's the goal? Like, what's the next step? I mean, you're just gonna continue with the YouTube channel? I mean, you're working on the book, I know that, but, but like, what's the, what's, what's the goal here? Like, what, what are some of the things that you'd like to be doing or, or see yourself doing in the future that maybe aren't happening quite yet?

• 1:37:11Speaker 01

  I've got some personal goals. One is Amazon bestseller, New York Times bestseller. Just more hits on the YouTube. Just create a cult following, not for my ego, but for the benefit of the planet, the animals and humanity. I want to get people understanding that they have a choice when it comes to health. They have a choice when it comes to drug-free stamina. They've got a choice when it comes to natural weight loss. They've got a choice at the end of the day. They don't have to buy into the lies of the big agro meat, military medicine industries that tell people, you've got to have your protein, you, you've got to do all that stuff. That's my goal is just to create world change.

• 1:37:50Rich Roll?

  Well, I mean, I think that, and that's a laudable goal, of course. You know, I think that one of the reasons, you know, my theory, or like one of my, you know, my opinion on why I think your message resonates so powerfully is maybe you don't say it that often outright, but really like what's behind, you know, everything that you're doing is this idea that we all need to be more self empowered and educated about the decisions that we're making, right? And that it's incumbent upon us to do our own research and to take ownership or responsibility for those choices and where our dollars getting spent. And, you know, you and I agree that, listen, if you want to do the most, if you want to,

• 1:38:35Rich Roll?

  the best thing you can do for yourself is to start eating more plants. And in the most basic sense, that is going to revolutionize your health. It's the best thing for the planet. It's the, it's the most ethical choice that you can make. There's a whole battery of reasons why this is, you know, in my opinion, really the optimal only human diet if we want to persist as a species. And people can take issue with that and we can argue about that and all that sort of thing. But at the end of the day, you know, it's really about self empowerment and taking ownership of your decisions and getting people to evaluate what's going on in the world, like in terms of the messages that we're being bombarded with, right? Like what is really going on?

• 1:39:20Rich Roll?

  Like, take a look at what you're being told and peel the layers back and look at why you're being told that and try to look beyond the message into the motivation behind it. Who stands to gain from this? Why are you being told this? And I think you're really getting people to open their eyes and look at things in a different way. And that's, that's empowering, man. That's a, that's a really cool thing.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  Cheers. Always tell people, when you're getting told something, ask what's being sold.

• 1:39:49Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. For sure, right? So what are you selling, man?

• 1:39:54Speaker 01

  I've got a $2 audiobook.

• 1:39:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there you go.

• 1:39:59Speaker 01

  So basically-

• 1:40:00Rich Roll?

  What is the, well, let's sell some of those for you. What is the audiobook?

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  I just, it's just a few more talks. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to get my arse in gear and put a better compilation out there with more interviews.

• 1:40:11Rich Roll?

  Right, but you got, I mean, how many videos do you have on your channel now?

• 1:40:15Speaker 01

  I've got over, I've got, I've got about seven different channels and then there's, and then I-

• 1:40:20Rich Roll?

  Why do you have so many? Well, hold on a second. First of all, I remember like your YouTube channel got pulled down at one point last year. What happened?

• 1:40:28Speaker 01

  Don't even really know, to be honest. I had, I've got a few friends in Google and they wrote emails and then the channel got put back up. So I'm not sure if, they don't even know. Google's just so big and so, it's like a wild, wild west out there. Anything can happen. Any day of the week. Your channel can go viral, it can get shut down. It's just, it's the law of YouTube. So it's back, I'm grateful.

• 1:40:48Rich Roll?

  Right, but we don't, you don't know if there was some kind of nefarious activity where somebody sabotaged your channel or, or, I mean, you probably have your theories about that. So why do you have seven channels? Why don't you just have one channel?

• 1:41:00Speaker 01

  Well, I've got the one main channel during that.

• 1:41:01Rich Roll?

  So they can't, they can't all go-

• 1:41:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. Yeah, because if one goes down, there's still-

• 1:41:08Rich Roll?

  Alright.

• 1:41:09Speaker 01

  And, and what I've also done, extra trolling, is I've, I've said to anyone on YouTube, I said, "You can upload my content, you can monetize it, you can do whatever the f you want with it. I don't care." So now there's people uploading, you know, a couple of thousand of my videos or whatever on their channels and this, so I'm just, I can't be deleted off the internet now. It's just out there. It's just, I've infected the, the YouTube community with the positive health method.

• 1:41:33Rich Roll?

  Right. Excellent, man. Well, yeah, I mean, you get, you know, you've done quite something with your, with your YouTube videos, man. It's, uh, it's, you're a force to be reckoned with and my hat is off to you.

• 1:41:47Speaker 01

  And that, that's my motivating factor every day. Help people.

• 1:41:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and keep stirring the pot, man, right?

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, definitely. I just want to get people thinking.

• 1:41:56Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, good, man. Well, hopefully, uh, today we've given people something to think about. If people want to, uh, learn more about what you're up to and want to follow your mission, your, uh, YouTube channel is... Main one? I mean, I just go to Durian Riders, right?

• 1:42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the main one. That's where I upload most of the videos, so Durian Riders.

• 1:42:14Rich Roll?

  There, and then, uh, and, uh, you're on Twitter at Durian Riders. You're not that active on Twitter, though, really, right?

• 1:42:19Speaker 01

  No, I'm, I'm more doing the Instagram thing.

• 1:42:21Rich Roll?

  Right. What are you on Instagram?

• 1:42:23Speaker 01

  Durian Rider.

• 1:42:24Rich Roll?

  Durian Rider there, and, uh, and Facebook and all that good stuff, right?

• 1:42:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, Durian Riders there as well.

• 1:42:30Rich Roll?

  And are you doing, like, speaking gigs? Are you traveling around speaking to people?

• 1:42:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, we just come back from Woodstock Fruit Festival, which is a great event, and that's gonna be on in 2014 as well, so we'll be there. It's two-week, two-week vegan and fruit festival. That's a really good place to meet people and other crazy fruit eaters and vegans and stuff like that. That was a great event.

• 1:42:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there, there was like 500 people there this year, right?

• 1:42:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, close to 600, and, and even a lot of people weren't even vegan. They just, they just thought, I'm curious, I want to learn more about this crazy lifestyle. Let's check it out. So they come and live with fruit for a week.

• 1:42:58Rich Roll?

  Right, and, and then, um, Sanjay Gupta at CNN interviewed Michael Ornstein, and they gave, they gave the fruit festival a little bit of love and a little bit of coverage, and so I'm sure next year, it's gonna be double the size. And I think, is he doing a second week, or they're expanding it, right?

• 1:43:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, as Mike Ornstein, you know, if a little bit's good, a more's better, and he's just such a hard-working guy, and he gets the team going, he's, he definitely inspires me a lot, that guy. He's just a machine.

• 1:43:24Rich Roll?

  He's an amazing guy. So if people want to check that out and learn more about the Woodstock Fruit Festival, it's just woodstockfruitfestival.com, right?

• 1:43:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, they would just Google up Woodstock Fruit Festival, and all videos will come up, and the website will come up. That's a good thing about Google now. People don't have to get the exact website, they just sort of Google it in, and it'll come up.

• 1:43:40Rich Roll?

  Cool, man. Uh, anything else you want to let people know about?

• 1:43:43Speaker 01

  Just... Life quality is all about sleep, water, sugar. You're not yourself when you're hungry. You're not yourself when you're thirsty. You're not yourself when you're tired. If you take care of your sleep, water, sugar, every day, life is going to be a lot better. You're going to have a greater participation in your daily reality. Drink enough water so you're peeing clear every couple of hours. If your urine is yellow or straw, you need to drink more. Go to bed as early as you want, six, seven, eight, nine P M. That's what we're designed to do is get a lot of sleep. Look at animals in nature, they're getting a lot of sleep and rest. Don't let anyone tell you're sleeping too much. Go to bed early and get up with the sun. Get out there and start smashing life. Carbohydrates, eat as much as you want. I recommend five grams of carbs per pound of body weight per day.

• 1:44:25Speaker 01

  Or if you're using the kilo system, add 10 grams of carbs per kilo body weight per day. So if you weigh 70 pounds, sorry, 70 kilos, it's about 700 grams of carbs a day. If you weigh 150 pounds, it's about 700 grams of carbs. That's 35 bananas or a two pound bag of dates or two pound bag dry weight of rice or pasta or corn, et cetera. Just get the carbs in, keep your diet low fat, keep your sodium intake low so you're having less water retention. Check out videos out on YouTube. Check our website, thirtybananasaday.com, there's a lot of support out there. It's all free. You don't have to buy anything, maybe buy a book or something, but that's about it. You spend 30 bucks, 50 bucks and some knowledge and you're set. And just listen to podcasts and YouTube videos and embrace yourself in the community. Spend less money, buy less stuff, but do more.

• 1:45:11Speaker 01

  Try things out, experiment, listen, be objective, write things down, do a food journal, write down how you felt, et cetera. And just take advice from people getting the drug free results you desire. Avoid getting caught up in taking advice from people on drugs because it can, you can get, you get ripped off, man, because you do what they did. You buy their product or their six pack shortcuts or whatever and you, you know, I'm not getting the results. It's like, yeah, because you're not on the gear and they were. So just be aware, there's a lot of people out there who just want your money and that's all they want. If you see them on the street, they'll just pass you off, brush you off, like, "Yeah, whatever buddy, see you later." If you meet me or Freely on the street, come and say "G'day", we'll give you our time. You got some questions, we'll answer them.

• 1:45:53Rich Roll?

  Alright, cool. Well, I mean, that's an awesome place to, uh, to, to wrap it up and, and, and, you know, it's hard to argue with that message, beautiful thing that you're doing. And, uh, just keep it up, man. Keep up the good work. And I hope one of these days I get to meet you in person.

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  For sure, man. We'll go for a ride together.

• 1:46:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you ever gonna, you're, you, you ever see yourself coming through Los Angeles ever?

• 1:46:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was there last year, but it was a bit of a last minute thing. We'll go, we'll go, we'll go for a swim. I'll be on the surfboard and you can tell me while you're swimming.

• 1:46:22Rich Roll?

  No, yeah, it'd be good. It would be cool to get out there and go for a run or a ride, or, or, or, you know, if I'm in New York, or maybe I'll go to, go to the Free Festival next year and we can hook up, because I'd love to meet you. And I appreciate what you're doing. Uh, big respect, keep it up, and, uh, let's stay in touch, man.

• 1:46:37Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:46:38Rich Roll?

  Alright, thanks for your time, dude.

• 1:46:39Speaker 01

  No worries, Rich.

• 1:46:41Rich Roll?

  Alright, peace. Plants.

• 1:47:48Rich Roll?

  The.