Plant-Based Marathon Transformation: An Interview with Wendy Fry

Written by Matt Frazier

Here’s what we talk about in this episode:

How Wendy went from out of shape to her first plant-based marathon
Making major life changes with you don’t have support from others
Taking control of your life and goals
Dealing with setbacks
Wendy’s roll in the NMA Community and live events

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If you’re a fan of NMA Radio, we’d greatly appreciate it if you’d leave us a rating and review on iTunes. Thank you!

Links from the show:

From Chicken-Fried Steak to 26.2 on Plants: Wendy’s Story
Doug’s 100 Mile Race Report
No Meat Athlete Community Blog
Community Forums
Contact Wendy at wendy(at)nomeatathlete(dot)com to be featured on the Community Blog

Jeff Sanders of 5 AM Miracle on How to Dominate Your Day

Written by Matt Frazier

I’ve written a lot about accountability and how it can help you achieve big goals.

From signing up for a race before you’re even close to ready, to paying someone 25 bucks every day you don’t write (done them both), I’m a huge believer that accountability is the difference between goals that get achieved and goals that get forgotten.

Jeff Sanders, host of the popular 5 AM Miracle podcast, is my personal accountability partner. Every Friday morning, we get on Skype for half an hour to talk about our plans for the coming week — and whether we made good on our commitments the previous week.

Jeff is into waking up early, productivity, and everything else you’d expect given his podcast name, but he also eats a high-raw vegan diet and is a many-time marathoner. A big part of Jeff’s approach to staying productive and creative is having the energy to do so — which, of course, comes from the diet and lifestyle. And that’s why I’m excited to introduce you to Jeff in this week’s episode of NMA Radio.

Here’s what we talk about in this episode:

The drastic physical and mental changes Jeff noticed after going plant-based
What to do when your partner eats differently than you do
Why early morning hours can be your most productive
How to set productivity habits that stick
Motivation and the power of accountability

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Engine 2’s Rip Esselstyn

Written by Matt Frazier

You can’t get far into the plant-based world without hearing Rip Esselstyn’s name, and seeing the ubiquitous Engine 2 brand he’s created to help people eat Plant-Strong.

Walk through any Whole Foods, and you’ll see Engine 2 foods everywhere.

In those same Whole Foods stores and any Barnes and Noble, you’ll find Rip’s books, The Engine 2 Diet, which started it all, and his newest, My Beef With Meat.

And if you’ve watched Forks Over Knives, you’ve seen Rip there too, using his arms to pull himself up a firepole. (You know — “Real men eat plants, real men eat plants …”)

The Engine 2 story is well-known by now. The son of whole-food, plant-based diet advocate Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Rip challenged his fellow firefighters in Austin, Texas, to try a 28-day challenge on a plant-based diet. The results were spectacular, and the Engine 2 engine was set in motion.

What’s less known, though, is that Rip was a “no meat athlete” long before it was cool (it is actually cool, right?). Before Scott Jurek starting winning ultras, before Brendan Brazier wrote Thrive, before Rich Roll burst on the scene — and long before some chump started selling running carrot t-shirts — Rip was a professional triathlete, fueling his career with what would become the Plant-Strong diet.

I had the immense pleasure of hanging out with Rip for a day when my book tour brought me through Austin, where co-author Matt Ruscigno and I gave a lunch presentation at Whole Foods headquarters before eating E2 bowls from the store with Mr. E2 himself.

For a giant in the movement, Rip is laid back and a ton of fun, making this lifestyle seem not just appealing and energizing, but approachable. It comes through in this latest episode of NMA Radio, where he’s our guest.

Enjoy!

Here’s what we talk about in this episode:

How Rip convinced a group of firefighters to go plant-based
The best way to adopt a plant-based diet
How the Engine 2 Diet resonates so well with men
Rip’s career as a professional triathlete
The Engine 2 food philosophy
How Rip is spreading the plant-based word with recipes and food products

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The Issue with GMO Foods: Interview with Brett and David Wilcox

Written by Matt Frazier

Big Goals: Running Across the Country with Nicole Antoinette

Written by Matt Frazier

I’ve been writing a lot recently about setting big, crazy, and unreasonable goals … and Nicole Antoinette certainly knows a thing or two about the subject.

Over dinner in Los Angeles two months ago when our conversation turned to running, I asked Nicole if she was training for anything. Knowing Nicole as someone who had run a marathon or two and likes a good challenge, I figured she might be thinking about a 50K or 50-miler.

Casually, Nicole told me that she had something slightly bigger in mind. She planned to run across the country — from Santa Monica, CA, to New York City. And not on some undefined, it’ll-never-happen day in the future, but starting on March 1, 2015.

Let me say that again — Nicole has run two marathons, and nothing longer. And she’s going to run across the country next year.

At a time of year when we tend to think a little bigger than usual, it was an absolute pleasure to have Nicole as a guest on the No Meat Athlete podcast. In this inspiring episode, we talk about goals, accountability, her plant-based diet, and so much more.

And before you download the episode, I have some good news: Nicole has been generous enough to offer her 15-Step Bullshit-Free Goal-Setting Formula (which normally goes for $28) completely free as a bonus for anyone who buys my 31-day program, Wake Up, before the end of the day on Tuesday, January 7th. If you could stand to have a little bit of Nicole’s optimism and ability to think big rub off on you, you can get all the details about Wake Up here before Tuesday.

Enjoy the episode!

Here’s what we talk about in this episode:

How Nicole set a monster goal as a way to change her story
The essential components of an effective goal
What goes into running across the country
How Nicole plans to stick to her plant-based diet while crossing the country
How to stay excited about a goal that’s more than a year away
3 steps to goal setting that most people get wrong
How to make choices now to keep your goal on track in the future
Why Nicole quit drinking alcohol

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Weight Loss and Ideal Eating Habits with Ray Cronise

Written by Matt Frazier

From his appearance in The 4-Hour Body to an ABC Nightline interview to his TEDMED talk, Ray Cronise is making waves in the nutrition and weight-loss worlds.

Ray is the guy whose ideas led to what in many people’s eyes was the most memorable part of Tim Ferriss’ epic fitness bestseller The 4-Hour Body — that cold stress, in the form of cold showers, ice baths, and cold packs, can play a significant role in aiding rapid fat loss.

Back in 2008, when it was reported that swimmer Michael Phelps ate 12,000 calories a day, it was Ray who noticed that something was amiss. Phelps might have trained harder than anyone, but he wasn’t doing the 10 hours of continuous butterfly per day that under the traditional “calories in / calories out” model would have been necessary to avoid weight gain, when so many calories were coming in.

The missing part of the equation? That the pool was cold, and Phelps’s body had to expend an enormous amount of energy just to keep itself warm.

So Ray, a former NASA scientist who himself had put on some extra pounds over the years, used his scientific training to dive headlong into the study of nutrition and health — and in the process, lost 50 pounds.

And as it turns out, the diet Ray chooses — the one he believes is optimal for weight loss in the short term, health and longevity in the long term — is 100 percent plant-based.

Like any good scientist, Ray is skeptic; indeed, his mindset of questioning long-held assumptions and dogma is what’s primarily responsible for his history of disruptiveness wherever he turns his attention.

But (warning!) this approach means that when you listen to Ray, you’ll likely hear a few things you don’t want to hear: along with his belief that some beloved health foods aren’t so healthy, Ray has recently begun to question whether exercise is really necessary — for weight loss or even long-term health.

In this interview, Ray and I talk for well over an hour to dive deep into his understanding of nutrition and health. He’s not afraid to stand apart from the crowd, and if you listen with an open mind, I promise you’ll learn something new and foundation-shaking.

Here’s what Ray and I talk about in this episode:

Ray’s background of disruptiveness with NASA and Zero-G
The role cold stress plays in weight loss
How Ray got started with a plant-based diet
What Paleos and vegans have in common
Why it’s utterly ridiculous to label foods as proteins, carbohydrates, and fats
Should we avoid added oil and salt altogether?
The optimal diet for health
Do we really need to exercise at all?

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Achieving ‘Unrealistic’ Goals on a Plant-Based Diet: Matt’s Book Tour Talk

Written by Matt Frazier

What else is there to say? The book tour is done (today is the final event), I’ve written what there is to write about the adventure, and I’m pretty well stoked for the next chapter for No Meat Athlete.

2014 holds some major changes for NMA, the biggest in the five years since I started this little blog. While there’s a lot I can’t unveil quite yet, I can tell you that one change, for me, is a big shift in what I personally do. A shift away from the roles of managing, emailing, accounting, and more emailing, and a return to the simple job of making things — blog posts, podcasts, ebooks, webinars, and a lot more that Doug, Susan, and I have in mind for the next year and beyond.

And what has brought about the desire to make that change is, of course, the experience of the past two months … meeting literally thousands of readers from all across the country, listening to their stories of change, and being inspired to focus again on the things that really matter for this blog. And for this movement.

So in this final post about the tour — and trust me, it’s been amazing but it’s with great pleasure that I move on — I’m pleased to share a live recording from our event at Bearded Brothers in Austin, Texas. You’ll hear me and co-author Matt Ruscigno give what became our standard talks, so that you can get a small taste of what the events were like, in case you couldn’t make it out to one.

Hope you enjoy it — and even better, I hope you use it.

Here’s what to expect in this episode:

The best parts of the book tour
Matt Ruscigno’s talk at Bearded Brothers in Austin, TX
My talk at Bearded Brothers in Austin, TX
The “easy” trick for becoming comfortable with what scares you
How Doug actually took my advice and put it into action
Doug’s plans for his 100-miler
The importance of “burning desire” when it comes to habit change

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‘Approaching the Natural’ with Author Sid Garza-Hillman

Written by Matt Frazier

Last week — after the most beautiful drive of my life along the Pacific coast from southern Oregon to Mendocino, California — I had the pleasure of spending a night at the Stanford Inn by the Sea, an (all-vegan!) eco-resort.

I was only there for one night — 18 hours in total — but in that short time I had two amazing vegan meals at the resort’s Ravens Restaurant, a fire in my room’s fireplace, and a view of the Pacific Ocean from my balcony (sliiightly different accommodations from the roadside motels I’ve been staying in for most of the rest of the book tour).

It was all arranged by Sid Garza-Hillman, director of the Stanford Inn’s wellness center and author of the fantastic book Approaching the Natural. And someone I’m happy to call a friend after hanging out for a few days in Oakland and San Francisco, where Sid joined me in speaking at two of my tour events.

But the truth is that Sid and I became fast friends long before we met in person — our approaches to health and the active, plant-based lifestyle are so similar in their simplicity and affinity for small steps over big leaps, that it was only natural that we’d connect.

All of this, of course, is a long way of introducing a new podcast episode that Sid and I did together. We lit a fire at the Stanford Inn, sat down without any plan, and talked for an hour (or so) about health, what’s “natural” for human beings as a species, and why “approaching” that ideal — slowly and one step at a time — is the best strategy for sustainable health. We recorded it to use on both of our podcasts (check out Sid’s here).

Hope you enjoy it!

PS — As the tour enters its second month, the most common question I’ve gotten has become, “How’s the tour going?” The short answer is that it has been both incredible and incredibly hectic. The fact that it took me a week and a half just to get this episode published should give you an idea … so ignore our asking you to “come out to our San Francisco event,” unless you’ve got a time machine.

Here’s what Sid and I talk about in this episode:

Moving past the diet paradigm
Making gradual improvements in diet and fitness
Balancing technology in your day-to-day life
Finding the best calorie source
Does eating healthy make you happy?
Honesty and eating habits
Viewing mileage differently
The importance of creativity for a healthy life

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How to Find the Time to Do Everything You Want

Written by Matt Frazier

Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I thought it could be. — Peter Gibbons, Office Space

Shortly after I started this blog back in 2009, long before I added ultramarathons and kids into my life, a lot of people started asking me: How do you find time to do it all?

Back then, “it all” meant marathon training, eating a vegetarian diet, not flunking out of grad school, writing a blog, and being a husband.

I never thought it was that much, honestly … I always had plenty of time to do nothing; time to just be.

But now that two young kiddos are part of the picture — along with a 100-mile ultra, a new book, and a 40-city tour to go with it — this year there hasn’t been so much time to do nothing. I have a new understanding of “busy,” something I’m never proud to be.

So with that understanding — and the skills and tricks I’ve learned for accomplishing a lot of different goals without going insane — I’m ready to take a decent shot at answering the How do you find the time? question.

That’s what this episode, number 17 of No Meat Athlete Radio, is about. Doug and I sat down and talked about how we manage to balance fitness, healthy eating, and family life (because that’s all pretty important, you know) along with all the extraneous stuff we want to do.

Here’s hoping you’ll find a nugget or two that’ll help you handle what you’ve got on your plate, or maybe even add something more — even if that something more is just some precious quiet time to yourself, with which to do nothing.

Here’s what we talk about in this episode:

The classic time management tip: important vs. urgent
Is multitasking really any good?
The power of turning “shoulds” into “musts”
Choosing to spend time on activities that create more time
Being efficient with your workouts
My plans for running on the book tour
Time-saving tips for eating a healthy plant-based diet
Meal planning strategies when you don’t have much time

PS — We had some audio issues this time around that made the sound a little bit distorted at times. Sorry about that!

Click the button below to listen now:

Farm Sanctuary Co-Founder and Ironman Gene Baur

Written by Matt Frazier

Gene Baur would be pretty darn cool if he were “just” the co-founder of Farm Sanctuary.

Through his work there, Gene has become a published author and speaker, and a respected leader in the vegan, vegetarian, and animal advocacy worlds.

But when I go from admiration to downright jealousy is when you add, to all of Gene’s other accomplishments, the fact that he’s also a marathoner: after speaking at our pre-race No Meat Athlete dinner before the Rock ‘n’ Roll USA marathon and half, Gene proceeded to run the marathon faster than anyone in our group, en route to qualifying for Boston on his first try.

Oh yeah, and now he’s an Ironman, having completed his first one last month, in under 12 hours — breaking four hours in the marathon, following the 112-mile bike and 2.4-mile swim. No big deal.

It was a pleasure to have Gene as a guest on No Meat Athlete Radio. In this episode, we talk a bit about Farm Sanctuary and its mission, then compare how we trained and fueled our recent races — Gene’s Ironman and my 100-miler, which coincidentally took place on the same weekend.