Hippie Talk and the Rich Roll Podcast

Listening to the RRP gives you that fly-on-the-wall experience
except it's not gross and you won't be dead in 30 days or less.

     Imagine you’re at a restaurant and you’re catching bits and pieces of a very interesting conversation. One of the guys is baring his soul about his addiction.  Over the din you think you heard him say he’s clean now. And he lectures? Is that what he said? And the other guy, 50ish, he’s battled alcoholism but now he...runs marathons? You sure do wish you could listen in. 

     Now imagine they invite you over.

     That’s kind of what listening to the Rich Roll Podcast is like. It’s very simple. Two very interesting people at the top of their respective fields having a smart, engaging, transparent conversation. 

     Rich Roll became a successful ultra endurance athlete, fueled only by plants, after emerging from a serious struggle with alcoholism. His book Finding Ultra was a bestseller. But his podcast has taken him to new heights. In fact, he’s the Woody Allen of the podcast world. Not because he kvetches about the possibility of developing a tumor, but because he can pretty much get anyone he wants to be on his show.

     I first started listening to the RRP because Rich is a whole food plant based advocate. But his podcast is much more than that. He interviews movers and shakers from many different disciplines. Health experts. Writers. Athletes. Entrepreneurs. Teachers. Filmmakers - people you’d love to talk to if you had the access or, in many cases, even knew they existed!

.

     The first episode I listened to was Matt Long (Episode 131) the New York City firefighter and athlete who got hit by a bus and was impaled on his own bike. He broke innumerable bones and was given 68 units of blood and a 1% chance to live. He lived. He live to finish a marathon - without that all important butt muscle that helps you lift you’re leg!

Then there’s Casey Neistat (episodes 73, 144 & 174) the viral filmmaker who took the entire budget he was given to make an ad for Nike and instead blew it on a 10-day trip across the world. He didn’t really blow it of course. He filmed along the way and made one of the most successful, inspirational viral videos of all time. Nike was pleased.

   

 And finally there’s Kahlil Rafati (episodes 61 & 206) the illiterate, years-long heroin addict who somehow found sobriety and went on to become the founder of Sunlife Organics and a string of juice bars installed only at high-end retail locations. He got rich and poured his wealth into helping others. It’s a powerful episode. Profane. But unforgettable. 

The goal of the podcast, Roll says, is to unlock and unleash your best, most authentic self. It’s effective. It has inspired me to risk, reevaluate and work harder. It’s been the source of some great conversation with my wife. And it seems like no matter what the topic is I can get hooked. I wasn’t that excited about listening to Adam Skolnick (episode 218) the writer who covered a famous freediver. Silly me. Couldn’t stop listening. 

The episodes are long. Two hours is not unusual. But that’s not a bad thing. They’re perfect for the commute or a long hike. 

Also, if you’re put off by hippie talk you’re going to have to tap into your inner free spirit. There’s a lot of, “I really dig your book, man” and “listen to what the universe is telling you” type chatter. And every episode ends with Rich saying “Peace” long pause, then “Plants”. It’s the kind of thing that would make my former-Marine Dad roll his eyes so high and hard he might never get his pupils to come back down again. But it would be foolhardy to avoid the Rich Roll Podcast for such a trifle. However, if you’re a meat-and-potatoes guy don’t say I didn’t warn you, man.

Peace. Plants. 

Postscript: I noticed after posting this that I failed to include any women who've been guests on the RRP. There are many. Check it out. Just listened to Robynne Chutkan (episode 192). Wow. 

The Big Tent and Dr. G

     For better or worse I'm a Big Tent guy. I'm not talking about my current shirt size.

     Whether it's politics, religion or, say, hog calling, I think all groups are made stronger by expanding the tent and inviting as many different points of view as possible.  Instead our fears drive us to set up small tents and purity tests.

     "You don't want to build a border wall?! You're a RINO! Out!"

     "You don't believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale?! Blasphemer! Out!"

     "You would allow whistles or electronic devices in a Hog Call competition?! May you boil in the fiery pits of Mordor!"

      I got thinking about this because of a conversation I had with Dr. Ben Gonzalez. (Dr. G as he's known by his patients.) Ben and I knew each other in high school a looooong time ago. (I ocassionally borrowed his abacus). In high school Ben was a skinny Student Government geek who played the violin. As time marched on he became a military doc who was awarded the bronze star for his service in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He's also a pilot. And he still plays the violin. Raconteur much, Ben?

     Here he is in a fitness challenge with a guy half his age. He's also a 1st degree black belt in Karate and Tae Kwon Do. (Big deal. My belts are way bigger and made from animals.)

     After a fifteen year stint on the emergency staff at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Ben started his own practice. Atlantis Medical Wellness Center in Silver Spring, MD. He wanted the freedom to make a real difference in the lives of his patients which meant spending more time with them and giving them the information they needed, especially about nutrition. Consequently, he gave up his relationship with insurance companies because they generally only reimburse doctors for prescribing pills and procedures. Sad but true. There's not a lot of money in preventing disease but there's mountains of cash to be made on people who already have a disease.

     Ben and I re-connected recently. He follows this blog. He's not a vegan, just interested. Or bored.

     He said something that got me thinking about big tents.

     "I consider myself a plant based doc."

     Now if I was a small-tent plant-based disciple I might cry "Hellish Carnivore! I shun you!"  And if he came to my house for dinner he'd have to shave his head and enter walking backwards and sit by himself at a separate table.

     But I'm not a small tent guy. So I asked why he considers himself to be a plant based doc. His explanation made perfect sense. He said he tries to get his patients to flip their dinner plate paradigm to include more plants. He wants them to see meat as a garnishment. Or at least as that small serving section of their plate. And he encourages them to fill the rest of their plate with raw fruits and vegetables.

     Now, that's not my food program. I'm a whole food plant based guy. No meat. No dairy. No oils. I've found it to be the best way to manage my diabetes. Who knows, I may make modifications in the future. But I'm not about to cast Ben's ideas in the dust bin because they don't adhere exactly to my chosen path. Imagine the health benefits if every American made the change Ben's advocating! In a few years we could reap a very powerful reward - we could start making fat jokes about people from other countries.

     I sigh when I read about plant based enthusiasts denouncing other plant based enthusiasts because they eat honey, for instance. Sheesh! We've got bigger tofu chunks to saute, people!

     So, I treasure my recent conversation with Ben. Not only because I re-discovered an old friend but because he expanded my understanding of what it means to be plant-based. He invited me to pull up my tent stakes and re-plant them a little further out. A tip of the hat Dr. G.

     That's all for today. Time to beatbox the hogs home for dinner.

Breaking Away

Breaking Away from Diabetes and Conventional wisdom

     I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes about 12 years ago. Since that time I have been evaluated by six or seven different doctors. Never, in all my conversations with all those doctors, was I told, "Brian, you can get off your medication and reverse the symptoms of diabetes by changing your diet." Not one time.

     If nutrition ever came up it was to say that a better diet would help the medication "control" my diabetes. Keep it from raging out of control. Other than that the sum total of my interaction with doctors has been an exercise in increasing dosages and adding new medications. This is a pretty typical scenario for diabetics in America.

     To be fair to everyone of those doctors - good, competent and decent people all - I was not a compliant patient. My diabetes was uncontrolled. I can well imagine the futility with which they regarded someone like me. Perhaps they did talk themselves blue in the face to several patients before I darkened their door. By the time I came around I was just one more hopeless case.

     But it's hard for me not to be a little angry at their lack of evangelizing. Did they just not believe I could do it? Did they want to avoid an uncomfortable conversation? Or did they, the doctors, those near demigods to most of us, just not know that eating a whole food plant based diet could reverse diabetic symptoms and eliminate the need for most it not all of my medicine.

     Perhaps its all of these things. But it's certainly the latter. I broached the subject with a couple of them. One told me he did not believe eliminating animal products had anything to do with lowering blood sugar. The other was incredulous. She asked what in the world I was reading and tried to set me straight. Medication was the answer, she said.

     There are reasons for these doctors' reactions which I won't get into in detail for now. Suffice it to say a) doctors get reimbursed for prescribing pills and procedures, not consultations. b) most docs are limited to 15-20 minutes with each patient.  c) Most medical schools in America teach nothing or at least very little about nutrition. And finally, d) many of those same medical schools are funded by pharmaceutical companies. (for more info on this read the books suggested below)

     But for those struggling with type 2 diabetes (or heart disease, or any life threatening disease), do yourself a favor. Go watch Forks Over Knives.

     Here's a powerful testimonial from a physician who was as unhealthy as his patients. All the major diseases ran in his family. He moved to a whole food plant based diet and changed his life.

     That's a good place to get started. Then you can read Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes. Put The China Study on your list and you'll see this is rigorous science not the latest health rage.

     Right now I'm reading "How Not to Die" by Dr. Michael Greger. Get on his email list. You'll get his video series from nutritionfacts.org. He'll explain how a plant based diet can prevent and even reverse all the major diseases.

     This particular video is about the effect of a plant based diet on a group of diabetics who had elevated A1c numbers.


     Heres a little teaser.

 

These colors represent (from bottom to top) non-diabetic, pre-diabetic, and uncontrolled diabetes. The vertical numbers are the 13 patients A1c numbers. The horizontal numbers are the number of months each patient participated.

Here you can see where each patient was on the diabetic scale. A few are pre diabetic. Most are struggling with uncontrolled diabetes. A couple of guys and gals are way up there in the rarified air I once occupied. 

With an average of 7 months of eating a plant based diet every single patient left the realm of uncontrolled diabetes. Many actually got into the non-diabetic zone, including the two who were the worst off. (Dr. Greger is careful to mention that this graph only shows those who stayed on the diet. Some, evidently, found it to difficult. That's a topic for another time.)

But most of all, I'm here to tell you from my personal experience that it works. Everytime I undertake it in earnest, it drives my blood sugar down and I begin to shed pounds and medication.
And here's the biggest surprise of all. The food tastes great!  The food I use to eat was like a bad movie, loaded with over the top elements. Sure it was thrilling for the moment, but in the end it left me uninspired. Today my food is more like one of my all time favorites. Breaking Away. Everything about it inspires me. And if you're in the grip of uncontrolled diabetes or heart disease, the title is appropriate for what eating a whole food plant based diet will do for you.

Be a Cutter. Cut your medication in half. Cut it out of your life altogether. 

Dad: What is this?

Mom: It's sautéed zucchini.

Dad: It's I-tey food. I don't want no I-tey food.

Mom: It's not. I got it at the A&P. It's like...squash.

Dad: I know I-tey food when I hear it. It's all them "eenie" foods. Zucchini. Linguine. And fettuccini. I want some American food, dammit! I want french fries!

Why I Backslide

Jon-Erik (5'10ish") Emma (5'4ish") Ben (5'7ish")
Maria (5'3ish") Me (5'8ish") Simon (5'8ish")
Not pictured is Adam (5'8ish")

     We Nissens aren’t a tall lot. We're somewhere south of the national average and somewhere north of Frodo Baggins. 

     When our oldest was a child he told our pediatrician that he wanted to be six feet tall. Dr. Melaragno put his hand on our son’s shoulder and kindly broke the news. 

     “Jon-Erik. You don’t get a great dane from two chihuahuas.”

     Ouch. That hurt. I was so annoyed, I almost bit his ankle.  

     

     There’s a reason our family’s height, or lack thereof, is on my mind. 

     Every time I’ve embarked on a Whole Food Plant Based lifestyle the results have been powerful. In a matter of a few months I've dropped thirty pounds, lowered my blood sugar and eliminated most of my medications. 

     But last night Maria asked me an important question. 

“Why do you think you stop doing it?” 

     I’m not sure I can identify the reason, but I can identify a certain healthy behavior I abandon prior to each backslide.

     I stop measuring. 

     Why? The answer can be found in the door jam of our first home.

     One of the hardest things to leave behind when we moved from our first home was the haphazard record of our children’s ever-changing height. There was something powerfully nostalgic about that door jam. It told a decade-long tale of our five children chasing down Mom and Dad. Sharpie scars noted each new milestone. But high above those crowded dates and numbers there was only one mark for Mom and Dad. Obviously. I mean, what’s the point of measuring something that’s stopped changing? 

     And there you have it. For me, once blood sugar drops to a consistent and acceptable level, the thrill is gone. Once your scale needle drops to your high school weight plus a respectable 10 pound “adjustment for inflation”, motivation grinds to a halt. You stop measuring. And once that happens it's like Gerald Ford stepping off of Air Force One.

     The fiber in apples and spinach is replaced by the fat, salt and sugar in enchiladas and the cookies. A few weeks later you don’t really want to measure anything. You begin living in that strange world in which the consequences of your behavior seem distant or unimportant. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Someday you’ll pay. 

     So this time I’m determined to keep measuring. I’m stubborn. I’m tenacious. We chihuahuas are like that. 

"You're a Dabbler"

Years back, I asked a good man to offer his evaluation of me.  His answer cut me to the quick.

"You strike me as a dabbler."

Nailed it.

That's me.

I dabble.

I'm a dabbler.

Case in point: Two years ago I was on fire. I was eating a Whole Food Plant Based diet and had lost 30 lbs. I was shedding medication too. And my blood sugar numbers had improved dramatically. Then it happened. Like the dogs in "Up", I got distracted. But it wasn't a squirrel that caught my fancy.


















I'm trying to figure out how not to be a dabbler.

I've noticed that other grown-up people seem determined to become Masters of their endeavors. Like the pioneers of space, they climb in their rocket ship, execute liftoff and stay with it until they no longer feel the effects of gravity. Dabblers go at things somewhat differently. After the thrill of lift-off they think to themselves, "I'd like to try hang gliding."

I've tried living the WFPB way three times now. Each time the pattern has pretty much been the same:

1) Lose weight
2) reduce medication
3) feel great
4) commence dabbling

The question on my mind now is "How good is this lifestyle if I can't live it consistently?"

And yet, here I go again. And here's hoping that diabetes and dabblerism are both curable.

"Eat until you're...what?!"

There I was. About ten years old with a heavy encyclopedia in my lap. Volume W-X-Y-Z. The only volume of the World Book series that contained four, count ‘em, four letters.

My Dad bought this set from a door-to-door salesman
decades ago. He recently asked if I wanted them. I told
him, "Thanks, Dad, but I have all that information at
home on a thumb drive."

        Mom said that was because less words started with W, X, Y and Z, but I knew the real answer. The poor sap who had been forced to write an entire encyclopedia had to be so freaking bored by the end, he naturally started to do some condensing. 

        This seemed obvious to me because at that very moment I was being forced to write a report on “Washington, George” and had, at loooong last, come to my final paragraph which tumbled out like this: 

“An English guy surrendered to George Washington. Then Washington went back home. Then he turned back into a farmer. Then he died. The end.”  

The people who caught the last helicopter out of Saigon could not have been more anxious to be finished than I was. 

The only thing that could have made this event worse would be having
to write a school report about it.

  All I had to do was come up with a more original word for “died” and I’d be done. 

        "Croaked?" I thought. "Yeah, Croaked." 

        I called to my Mom in the next room.

“Mom, how do you spell “croaked”?! 

And then she said it. Those three words that have the power to make a young student cry out in despair and confusion.

“Look it up!” 

“Look it up?! What do you mean?! Just look at all the pages in the whole stupid dictionary and hope it magically appears?!”

  Of course, as the years passed, I came to understand this phrase. But when I became an adult (and got a little paunchy), an equally perplexing phrase took it’s place.

“Eat until you’re satisfied.”

        "Eat until you're satisfied?!"

For twenty years this phrase gave me fits. Every time some one offered up this little gem of nothingness I wanted to say, “Um, excuse me, but I’m not satisfied until the last morsel I swallow drops a mere quarter of an inch down into my esophagus and stacks itself neatly on top of the rest of my meal.”

202 lbs. (Due to the size of my wife, objects
in the picture may appear larger than
they actually are.)

172 lbs. (Son, Ben, ain't helping me much
either.  He's 129 lbs soaking wet)

        Seriously, for most of my adult life I have eaten until I simply can’t take another bite. That’s what "satisfied" had always meant to me. It never dawned on me to stop eating before the bursting point. Why would it? There was more food on the table. My jaw still worked. I could still grip a fork. Why would I stop shoveling stuff into my mouth?!

But earlier this year, a few days into a whole food, plant strong diet, I contemplated a second bowl of lentil chili, but then I thought to myself, “I guess I could eat more, but I’m...hey!...I’m satisfied! What the-?! So, that's what they mean!" The planets aligned! (Turns out there's an actual reason for this.)

        Five months later I’m 30 pounds lighter and 30 inches slimmer. Next month, I’ll get some blood drawn and find out whether my A1c number has dropped significantly. I'll let you know how that goes, but for now (sigh) I'm done writing. You get the point. Blah, blah. Wrapping up. The end.

Cooking Date Night: Thai Portobello Wraps

     When people explain their propensity to "eat big" you'll often hear something like this:

     "Well, my mother is Italian, so..." OR -
     "We're a typical Jewish family, so, you know..." OR -
     "I grew up in a traditional Mexican home, so..."

     Seems like everyone thinks their culture has the corner on glutony. The other day I read about a woman who was trying to reverse the effects of all that "traditional Scandinavian cooking". Really? I married into a traditional Swedish family. No one gets fat on crisp bread, herring and beets.

Most Swedes look like this because...

...they eat sandwiches that look like this.

   



     Here are some explanations for "eating big" that you NEVER, EVER hear:

     "Well, we're Japanese, so..." OR -
     "Well, you know how we Vietnamese are..." OR-
     "My mother is from Thailand, so, naturally..."
 

Sumo wrestlers eat 20,000 daily
calories of chankonabe (a meat soup)
to get fat. Kim Jong Un is on a peasant
diet. He eats 3 small farmers every day.

 Sumo wrestlers and North Korean despots aside, the incidences of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are still amazingly rare in most Asian countries. In fact, The China Study revealed that "in certain pockets of China where plant based diets were most common, researchers could not find a single person out of 100,000 who had died from heart disease." The study also revealed that "American men were seventeen times more likely to die from heart disease than rural Chinese men." Unfortunatley, for the Chinese, all of this is changing. You can probably guess why.

Some people fear that China is plotting our takeover. Don't
worry, America. Invasion and occupation takes a lot of
energy. Let's see how ambitious they feel after a couple
of generations of fast food.

   





     For this and thousands of other reasons, it appears the verdict is in. To over-indulge in the so-called Western diet is to invite the Grim Reaper to your dinner table.

     But here's some good news: A) The right food can heal you. B) Eating a whole food, plant-based diet is surprisingly tasty! and C) Making the switch is NOT as hard as you think it is going to be.

     Not surprisingly, a lot of the best tasting recipes come from the Far East. Maria and I have long been fans of Thai food (a shout out to our friend PC at Thai Pepper in Newhall, CA) and this Forks Over Knives recipe for "Thai Portobello Mushroom Wraps" is at the top of the list. We made it for a recent stay-at-home date night and, well, you can watch the little movie below.

     So, how can you tell if your diet is having a detrimental affect on your health? For starters, it's a bad sign if the guy carving the meat is using a scythe.

THAI PORTOBELLO WRAPS

from

Forks Over Knives: The Cookbook

SERVES 4

• 1 tablespoon grated ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• Zest and juice of 1 lime
• 3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 large shallots, diced small
• 1 pound portobello mushrooms, stemmed and finely chopped
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped cilantro
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped mint
• 4 green onions (white and green parts), thinly sliced
• 4 large romaine lettuce leaves or 8 small ones

1. Combine the ginger, garlic, lime zest and juice, soy sauce, and crushed red pepper flakes in a small bowl and set aside.
2. Heat a large skillet over high heat. Add the shallots and mushrooms and stir-fry for 3 to 4 minutes. Add water 1 to 2 tablespoons at a time to keep the vegetables from sticking to the pan. Add the ginger mixtures and cook for another minute. Add the cilantro, mint, and green onion, and remove from the heat.
3. To serve, place some of the mushroom mixture on the bottom of one of the lettuce leaves and fold the lettuce over the filing. Repeat for the remaining lettuce leaves.