Rip Esselstyn: The Plant Strong Movement, Challenging Your Beliefs, And The Magical Peak Performance State Called “The Feel”

Get ready for a very unusual podcast with my old friend and former professional triathlon circuit cohort Rip Esselstyn. After our swim, bike, and run journeys ended in the 1990s, Rip and I both continued the world of diet, health, and peak performance, and have been working hard to help people get healthy and fit for decades since.

Here’s where the story gets interesting: Rip has gone on to become a bestselling author and advocate...for the plant-based lifestyle! This honors the legacy of his father, mother, and sister, who are all involved in the movement and do cookbooks and retreats together. Rip’s father is Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn of the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute, and is famed for reversing heart disease with dietary intervention of the low fat, plant-based nature.

If you come from the ancestral health camp, this show is going to be an exercise in challenging your beliefs, being open-minded, and thinking critically. This could be a growth experience, even if you object strongly to a Rip’s passionate advocacy for radically different dietary strategy than the ancestral low-carb approach. Tune in as Rip and I bounce back and forth from exploring common ground (e.g., ditch processed food like nasty vegetable oils, avoid overconsuming protein and overstimulating growth factors, watch out for allergenic dairy products and excess calories from oils and juicing, get your butt moving more in daily life, pursuing athletic peak performance goals throughout life) and into the hot button, controversial items where ancestral health and plant-based are in direct conflict.

I strive to be open minded and receptive to feedback in all areas of life, and it was interesting to reflect upon how Rip and his movement have delivered great results, a passionate following, and honor the compelling goal of being good stewards to the planet. When you hear the infectious enthusiasm in Rip’s voice, you will realize that he is getting people to wake up and take charge of their health and fitness. That said, it’s often a difficult exercise to have your own belief foundation rocked, and this will happen when Rip launches into his plant strong boilerplate that all meat is bad, eggs are no bueno, saturated fat intake is a heart disease risk factor, sugar is a scapegoat instead of public enemy number one, and so forth. Wild times! I always enjoy engaging with Ripper and absorbing his positive energy.  Who knows, maybe some of your own beliefs will be reaffirmed, and maybe you’ll come away with a renewed appreciation for being open-minded and seeing all sides of the coin. Backing up a few steps, it’s easy to conclude that any step away from the Standard American Diet, where an estimated 71% of calories come from highly processed edible food-like substances, you are going to be a big winner.

Enough about diet, hang in there until the end when Rip talks about “The Feel,” a magical and metaphysical concept he exposed me to when we were athletes, that can be relevant in all areas of life. Sometimes when you try too hard, things get more difficult. And sometimes when you relax, go with the flow, you can get into the flow-like state that Rip calls “The Feel,” you access a higher peak performance state. Get ready for the one and only Rip Esselstyn and check out his Plant Strong podcast and website some time. PS – a short while after recording this show, Rip broke the world record in the men’s 55-59 swimming 200-meter backstroke with a time of 2:21!

TIMESTAMPS: 

We all agree that the first step is to get rid of all the shit in your diet. [04:49]

Rip describes a study where patients with bad heart disease were using a plant-based diet to lower cholesterol. [14:25]

When he was an athlete at UT between 1982 and 1986, the athlete’s dining hall was an “abomination!” [20:03]

The packaged foods we buy are loaded with sugar, salt and fat repeatedly layered on each other that get us addicted. [21:51]

Can different approaches work? [28:21]

The danger is excessive protein which can overstimulate the growth factors. [39:06]

We’ve been misled about milk. Olives have more nutrients that milk! [44:30]

Can you consume carbohydrates without jacking up your blood sugar? [48:18]

According to the American Heart Association, you should get around 10 percent of calories from fat which is lower that the Keto people. [58:10]

What does it truly mean to eat healthy? [0:00:11]

Does Rip, while espousing the plant-based diet, allow for any animal products? [01:02:15]

Rip’s wife has made an amazing success story in the Texas school system. [01:10:24]

Rip talks about “the feel”. [01:12:48]

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