Ep 141 – Vegan Vitality With Bryan Ronig

Giacomo:

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of vegan protein muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is Giacomo.

Speaker 2

And I’m Dani. And this is episode 141.

Giacomo:

Ryan Roenig. It was so exciting getting to meet you at the Anaheim fit Expo and just to have a little bit of a conversation about who you are and what you do. But then after the fact when you were like, hey, we should keep this conversation going. I got a podcast. I let you know we have a podcast here. It was really interesting to get to learn a little more about you, but I honestly don’t know the first thing.

Speaker 2

About who you are.

Giacomo:

But what I want to do for listeners right now is just read out quickly what I read on the site where you’re one of the instructors for your. I don’t know if I’m using the right word, dojo, but where you practice and teach brazilian jiu jitsu. So what I’m reading here is that you have 40 years experience under your belt, and you’re one of only ten people to be prestigiously awarded a black belt in brazilian jiu jitsu.

Speaker 2

Well, by the guy that I got it from, a guy named Marcel Losado, who’s like a very highly regarded grappler himself. So there’s lots of jiu jitsu, black belts out there, but there’s a lot of fakes, and a lot of it’s become watered down. So the guy I got it from, it’s our style of training, and grappling is a lot more punishing. It’s a lot more physical, it’s meaner, and much more effective for actually fighting because it’s.

It’s kind of evolved now, you know, sport grapplings evolved to where it looks more like Cirque du Soleil than what you would actually see in a fight. So, yeah, so I have multiple. I actually have multiple black belts. So I’m also black belt and judo. I’m a black dalton, japanese catch wrestling as well, black belt and hapkido. So, yeah, I’ve been.

I started, you know, over 40 years ago, training when I was a little kid, you know, different styles, and just kind of worked my way up from there as a competitive fighter for many years, both in the kickboxing scene. I have a dutch kickboxing background, and I was also doing mma and pancreation back when MMA was not legal in California. That kind of dates me a little bit, but the irony of it all is that I’m lifetime plant based, so I was raised vegetarian.

I’ve been dairy free, so vegan for about 1718 years now. And that’s one of the things that people have always said to me, well, how could you be doing all this and be vegan or vegetarian? You know, there’s no way. You have to eat your meat. You have to do this and do that, otherwise you can’t be successful. Like, well, come on down to the gym if you don’t think that successful. There’s a reason why at my age, I can run circles around the 20 year olds and I still kick the shit out of everybody

that walks through the door. There’s a reason why, you know, it’s just, you know, there’s something to be said for a plant based athlete having a superior endurance, I believe. And you just, you simply do not see the health issues with plant based athletes that you do with people in general that are constantly just overloading their system with meat and dairy for you.

Giacomo:

I think you said 17 or 18 years of age, or did you say 17 years? You’ve been plant based?

Speaker 2

17 years, vegan, lifetime plant. So I was born and raised plant based. My dad was an athlete. My parents came from Cuba. My dad was an athlete. My dad, in the seventies and eighties, firmly believed in a plant based diet and super healthy. I wasn’t allowed to eat anything processed food or high sugar content. He was the first person that I knew of in the early eighties telling people to be aware of high fructose corn syrup and the dangers of high fructose corn syrup.

And so I’ve never eaten an animal in my life. I grew up now, I grew up also in the eighties when our kind of meat alternatives were this company called Morningstar, and it all tasted like cardboard, right? So if it wasn’t for my grandmother making the black beans and rice and platinum and all this, I don’t know what I would have been doing. Um, because, like, this morningstar stuff, our Morningstar sausages, it was just, it was bad.

I think it was made out of like, egg whites and soy, but there’s like no flavor to these things. It was, it was really, really bad. Really bad. So, yeah, I grew up at a time where there was no alternatives and there wasn’t, there was no dairy free cheese and none of that. So nowadays, the opportunities that people have now in terms of integrating something plant based or starting to substitute out meat for, like, a meat alternative, you know, I look at those as transition foods.

There’s so many options now. It’s amazing, you know? So this is, like, to me, it doesn’t make any sense. Like, why would somebody insist on eating meat. And I know people very close to me that they eat meat and they can’t live without it. I look at it, quite frankly, as an addiction, so I don’t put people down. People that are eating meat and stuff like that, I don’t put them down.

I just look at it very similar to, like, somebody who has a heroin addiction. Meat is an addiction. You cannot downplay that. There’s a psychology behind it. There’s triggers behind it. Where I’ve known people that were trying to go plant based and started becoming like, say, 80, 90% plant based, we’d be walking around somewhere, and all of a sudden they would be triggered by the smell in the air of cooked, burnt flesh.

They would start salivating and go, oh, my God, I missed that. They would trigger, like, right in front of me. I would see them turn where they’re like, oh, my God, I think I need to go eat this. Whatever that was, that type of meat that was being cooked, because it was still within them, that trigger, or that, I don’t know, something wired into their brain where they felt the need.

And to me, that’s very similar to some, like a heroin addict or a cigarette smoker, where, okay, they’re off, they try to kick the habit, and then all of a sudden, one day, something triggers them, and then they’re right back on again. So I look at it as an addiction that you try and help people with, with compassion and, uh, you know, and show them that there is, there is an alternative.

And, you know, I don’t look at it in the sense that I don’t browbeat people and say, okay, well, if you can’t be 100% plant based, I can’t be your friend or, shame on you, something like that. I look at it more as like, well, what can I do to help you to maybe increase your plant intake into your regimen? So let’s say, okay, right now, if we look at what the standard american diet is, it’s all processed, it’s horrible.

Nobody’s really eating fruits or vegetables or anything like that. People are kind of commercially being sold this bill of goods that unless you’re eating meat, you’re unhealthy, you’re not getting protein. I’m like, well, my blood levels are fantastic. I’ve never taken a b twelve supplement in my life, and my b twelve levels are through the roof.

Okay? So I don’t know. I call bullshit on the whole marketing and meat industry of what they’re trying to do and intentionally toxify people because they know it’s addictive and they know that it breeds people to be sick. You see the direct correlation of illness, meat eating, and this ultra consumption of dairy products with illness, there is a correlation.

And for somebody to say that it’s non correlative. I’m sorry, you’re incorrect. Do you see? Time and time again, you know, I’ve been in the medical field for many, many years, for over 20 years, and there is a deep correlation between what I’ve seen of certain diseases, between meat eating and the disease. Because I’ll ask physicians, I’ll talk to them when I’m consulting with them with stuff that I do, and I’ll be like, what percentage of your patients with this disease eat meat?

What percentage are plant based? They’d be like, well, virtually none are plant based. Like, well, that’s curious to me, but I’m just. It’s fascinating that most of these doctor visits that we see with particular illnesses, there’s a common thread, meat eating, this overconsumption of dairy. And then on top of that, you have physicians that say, well, your diet has nothing to do with your health. Scary.

Giacomo:

Yeah, for sure. Well, walk me back a little bit. When you made the switch from vegetarianism to veganism, what was that like for you? And what was your, what was your catalyst or your reason behind it?

Speaker 2

So I think I mentioned I used to fight competitively, and I had been knocked out in one of my fights. And it was a pretty. It was a pretty good knock. So typically after fights, when you have. When you get knocked out, they have you go in for an MRI, all these scans, this and that. So they did the scan, and they noticed there was a certain amount of inflammation in my body that shouldn’t have been there.

And they’re like, you have an unusual amount of inflammation above and beyond what should be the brain swelling from the knockout. So we want to run some more tests. And they were doing all these tests, and they couldn’t figure out, initially, they couldn’t figure out what it was. And so I was working with this one neurologist that she had more of an integrative medicine vision.

She’s like, can we do some allergy tests? I’m like, yeah. And I’m like, why? What are you thinking? She’s like, I think it’s something that you’re eating. Like, huh? Okay. So we did a test, and she says, you are off the charts allergic to XYZ, different types of dairy. She’s just like, I can virtually guarantee you, if we clear you out of all this mucus and dairy, the inflammation will go away, and you’ll get a lot of pain reduction in your body.

Like, all right, well, let’s try. Let’s see. So what I did was, I did a 31 day juice fast. So it was just 31 days. Just fresh juices, fresh juices, fresh juices. And she was just like, all right, we’ll try that and see. And I was still, like, exercising, but I was exercising lightly just because, you know, I didn’t want to, like, push my body too much as I was going through this process.

First thing that happened is I lost probably about 25, 30 pounds, right? I leaned up so I didn’t have to cut as much weight for fights. And we went back, did another scan. Virtually all of the inflammation markers went away like that.

Giacomo:

That’s wild.

Speaker 2

And that was after, you know, we did that. I did that cleanse. I didn’t go back to any dairy. And it was like, within two months, we did the next test. Basically all the inflammation went away in my body. And she’s like, don’t eat dairy ever again. Yeah. She’s like, don’t eat dairy ever again. I’m like, no problem. And there was one time, and so what ended up happening was I had this little card I would take around to restaurants and say, here’s my list of food allergies.

Can you please give this to the chef to make sure that what they can make me doesn’t have anything in it? And I remember one time I lost the card, and I had said to his place, hey, can you make sure there’s no dairy? They’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. Then I’m eating the meal, my throat starting to close up, and I’m starting to cough, and I feel like I’m drowning in my lungs.

Turns out there was dairy, and my body reacted immediately. It was shutting down. I almost died. Had to get an epipen, benadryl, the whole thing. And I was just like, uh, this is not, this is not happening again. So, um, you know, I’m all, I try to be very, very careful where I go eat. I, you know, I always err on the side of caution. If they can’t tell me that they can make me something that is 100%, you know, vegan, plant based, non dairy, I just won’t eat.

Or I’ll be like, hey, just bring me some steamed vegetables. I don’t want any oil or anything. Just steam the vegetables, bring it to me. Or can you make me a salad with no cheese and it’d be surprising. They’d be like, what do you mean you don’t want any cheese? Like, just don’t give me cheese. What kind of salad dressing do you want? I highly doubt you have anything that doesn’t have dairy in it.

Either bring me a little bit of olive oil or bring me nothing and I’ll eat it plain. What? But that’s rare because most places these days, they have at least, you know, where I am in Orange county, southern California. There’s a ton of places I can go and there’s, there’s no issue. So, yeah, it’s been, yeah, 1718 years of non dairy.

It’s been amazing. My body feels way better. Um, my endurance has gone through the roof, and then I have five days a week where I’m lifting weights. So I have upwards of 1112 workouts a week. I’m pushing my body hard, and, uh, I survive every day, you know, it’s. I love.

Giacomo:

So here’s my question. You’ve been a vegetarian your whole life. You had this brain swell scare that you recovered from and have gotten stronger than ever after you went vegan. And you’re at the top of your game. You have all these credentials that you’ve earned for yourself and you’ve been teaching others. What is it like when someone walks into your training, like, under your instruction, under your guidance, like, what kind of misconceptions, how do you get into a

conversation with somebody about what they’re eating and how is that received? Because I know that you mentioned earlier, like, before he got on, like, the pressures around needing to eat meat. How does that affect others these days?

Speaker 2

Well, I think at least I can speak for, like, the MMA grappling industry. There’s a big push by a lot of celebrities to get people to eat meat and then to go hunting and kill your food and put it in a giant refrigerator or whatever and eat it for the next two years? You got elk and blah, blah, blah. So, ironically, I want to start by saying this. One of these particular celebrities, a very well known celebrity that everybody knows that is on this, um, meat crusade a couple years ago had

gone to an ayurvedic healer that I know in Newport Beach, a friend of mine who has a 100% ayurvedic vegan restaurant in Newport beach. And he, he went to met my friend through his daughter because he was complaining of how much pain and inflammation it he had in his body and how sick he was. And he says, like, I really feel like I need to get off me.

But they pay me so well to do the promotions. He’s like, I can’t. He’s like, but please help me. Please help me. He was begging for his life. He’s like, I feel like every day I’m gonna die. But mind you, this particular famous person is on podcasts every day and on all over the world expressing how great it is and how amazing it is to eat all this meat.

But in the behind the scenes, this is like, he’s got to take this particular medication, that particular medications on four different types of steroids, growth hormone and is suffering, has really serious health issues. And I was just like, and this is, I know both of them, so it’s like, oh, that’s kind of ironic, right? So I never lead, when somebody comes to my gym, I never lead with their health or diet and say, hey, you gotta eat like me.

Because a lot of times they don’t know, when they come in, they just see this, this guy who comes to class and they’re like, oh, what’s the deal? They want to train with me and then they get beat up, right? And everybody asks the secret. They’re like that. It’s always like, well, what’s your secret? What kind of steroids you’re on? What kind of meat are you eating?

And then they find out, oh, this guy’s plant based, he’s been plant based his entire life. He doesn’t do steroids. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs. You know, I’m a single dad. I manage two kids by myself for the last, you know, you know, seven years. I do everything, I do everything on my own. And, you know, not to like, specifically date myself, but I’m, I’m way, I’m significantly older than most people that come to my gym, right?

Most people come to my gym, they’re in their twenties, sometimes early thirties, and everybody thinks they’re going to be a world beater. And then it’s just like, well, you’re nothing, you know, I can weed them out really quickly. You know, everybody leads their life with their ego and I think that’s the issue too. Everybody so bedazzled by what they hear about, oh my God, no.

You’re going to be so much stronger if you eat this pork or you eat this steak or whatever. I’m just like, it’s just simply not true. I’m like, you guys are all complaining about how sore you are. I’m doing eleven workouts a week. I have my weight training routine. I don’t do bodybuilding, but I have a significantly intense weight training routine every morning.

You know, first thing in the morning, first thing in the morning, I do a cold shower, right? So I do my cold plunge first thing in the morning. Then I go right to the gym and I lift for 35 to 40 minutes. You know, I have a routine that I do five days a week. And I go to work, I do my thing, and then I’m back in the gym at night teaching, you know, jiu jitsu submission, grappling, and I’m rolling around with these guys.

I’m doing it. I’m right there with them, and they’re all huffing and puffing and sweating, and I’m not, and then I’m right back at it in the next morning. So when they’re going, oh, well, you know, well, you must be on some. I’m not on anything else, you know, one of the keys, though, I will say, I believe to my success, this is not just the plant based thing, but I do intermittent fasting.

So I’m actually, I actually do the 16 eight intermittent fast. And that, that helps me a lot. So sometimes I do five or 4 hours. So I’m not the guy that counts calorie, that typically counts protein grams or stuff like that. And I’m plenty lean. You know, I’ve got muscle, and people are like some magical, you know, animal that I’m eating or some chemicals I’m putting my body and simply not, I just dialed it in for me, that works best.

And I know the fact that because of what I’m eating and how I’m eating, I’m eating for fuel, I’m not eating for fun. So my mindset is very different. I like to, I just eat for fuel. And my mindset is also like, I need to maximize my performance in the gym. I need to maximize my performance on the map. And I’m, you know, I’m, because I’m a middle aged guy, because I’m older, I want to stay as fit, as lean as possible, and I need to be able to run my gym.

I need to be able to lift weights in the morning. I need to be able to maintain that, that, that fitness. And I know for a fact there’s no way I’d be able to do that if I was eating meat and dairy and all that, because I don’t know anybody that can keep up with me. It is what it is.

Giacomo:

You mentioned that one, that one big voice in the grappling world. Can you give me some more? Can you give the listeners some more insight as far as the pressures around your sport in specific when it comes to eating meat.

Speaker 2

Oh, yeah. I mean, I’ve. So I have, I guess you could say I have a really thick skin. I’ve been made fun of my entire life for being plant based. It’s really challenging when you’re a kid. At least when I was growing up in the eighties, it was really challenging because kids are eating hot dogs like regular hot dogs. And then for a hot dog day at school, your, your mom, my mom, my grandma’s giving me the, at the time, whatever it was, the particular soy hot dog that tasted like cardboard.

Right. Could you just go along with it and make sure there’s enough ketchup and mustard and whatever? So I’m used to being made fun of and humiliated and, you know, or these attempts and this is like, whatever, you know, you guys are the ones with the physical problems, not me, you know, so it’s constantly that ridicule. But at the end of the day, my performance speaks louder than their criticism.

And I think that’s really important because societal pressures and peer pressures are very, very intense and overwhelming. Overwhelming. Especially if you’re a beginner in the plant based world trying to get plant based and you have people around you mocking you. Well, why would you do that? Or you have these geniuses that they always say, well, where do you get your protein?

I’m like, wait a minute. I’m lean, I’m jacked, and I have all these workouts and I run circles around everybody. You’re overweight, you’re flabby and wrinkled, and you’re asking me where I get my protein from. Don’t you think that’s a little weird? I’m like, why are you so, I’m like, why are you so consumed about where I’m getting my protein?

Well, I just need to make sure I get enough protein. I’m like, look at you. I’m like, what are you actually doing? You’re so obsessed with protein. And this is really, if you look at the stats, this is the most protein obsessed country in the world. Its great marketing, but we are the most protein obsessed country in the world. Were now probably the most overweight country with the most diseases, the most obesity, the most diabetes.

This is like, huh, interesting. We consume the most meat, we eat the most protein, and we have the most health issues. So what does that tell you? Maybe theres correlation there. So, yeah, people will say stuff to me all the time. I remember one time I was like, I said, I don’t do any drugs or anything like that. I’m what you would call straight edge.

And I remember in the grappling community, there’s a lot of people that do drugs and smoke marijuana and all this stuff, which they all are obsessed, thinking that if they do drugs, it’s going to make them better grapplers. And it doesn’t. It simply doesn’t. But I remember one time there was a couple of guys that were at a gym that I was training at at the time, and they were really high.

And one of the guys just starts ripping on me for no reason because I’m not smoking with them and they’re high. I don’t eat meat. And they were grilling some steak or something. He said, well, you think you’re better than us because you don’t eat meat? Screw you. And blah, blah, blah. Dude, what are you talking about? I’m like, that’s your own insecurity speaking.

I’m like, I’m fine. Are you upset because I beat you up on the mat and it bothers you? You think I’m better than you? I go, I’m not thinking like that. You can put whatever you want in your body. If you want to drink a gallon of poison, go ahead. I’m not necessarily going to call 911 for you, but go right ahead. You want to drink a gallon of poison, drink a gallon of poison.

You want to eat some horse poop, eat some horse poop. I don’t care what you do, but everything we do, everything we put into our body, everything we put into our psychology, it manifests within us. It has consequences, and sometimes it could have dire consequences. And I think people are ignorant of that because they are sold this fantasy that meat makes you strong and milk will make you, your bones more dense or something like that.

I’m like, huh, okay, well, whatever. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s not true. But I have noticed that, at least from my perspective, and maybe. Cause I keep my lifestyle pretty quiet, but everybody knows, right? They make fun of me, the vegan assassin and the vegan assassin, but everybody knows. But the thing is, they are the ones, it’s like these ultra meat eaters, these people that are celebrating this type of lifestyle are the ones that feel most threatened by plant based

eating. I don’t feel threatened by a meat eater. I can sit at a restaurant if you go on to eat a steak, go ahead. I’m not going to insult you for it. I’m not going to throw up or anything like that. I’m concerned for your health, but at the end of the day, you’re the one making the choice in terms of what are you putting into your body? Flip side. They see me eating something plant based, they get offended.

How could you just eat that? Oh, my God, I’d be so hungry if I ate that. That looks so terrible. Like, you haven’t even tried it. You don’t know if it’s good or not. Oh, I could never do that. Okay, then don’t. Just get off my. Get off my ride, man. This is like, I don’t have the time for that negative psychology. And I encourage anybody that’s going on that plant based journey.

Just, number one, you have to develop a thick skin, but just let it be like duck in water. Just let the water roll off. Let it roll off your back. Because the people that are making the most noise are the people that are the most insecure, and they have the least amount of assurity in what they are doing that it’s the correct thing to do. So their only option is to insult others and threaten others.

And regardless of what information is out there, they still think they know better, right? So that’s how I

look at it. I don’t really care what they say. To me, it’s a lot of noise. I’m like, all right, well, if that’s what you believe, come train with me. Let’s see. And there’s a lot of them that come train, and they never come back because they experience a certain level of pain and then ultimately humiliation because they talked a lot of shit, pardon my language, where they.

They just. They just, you know, they become humiliated. And it’s just like that. That ego again. And, you know, it’s just like, I appreciate. It’s nice when people say, oh, my God, you’re so lean, or you look so fit. What do you do? And then I just tell them, well, I could never do that. Good. Keep putting your. Keep putting in your brain. I could never see where you are in five years.

See where you are in ten years. You know, I’m not the person that. That has that negative self talk that I could never. You know, it’s just like, if I want to do something, I manifest, you know? Okay, well, I’ll figure out what I want. But at the same time, to me, like I said earlier, for me, food is not recreation. Food is fuel. I don’t go to a gas station to fill up gas in my car and have a party.

I just go to fuel the car and keep driving. It’s the same thing with food for me, and it’s a different mindset than a lot of people. I don’t eat food to have a party. If it tastes great, good. Okay, that’s nice. But my world does not revolve around what I’m eating. I simply look at it as fuel and as a tool for my achievements.

Giacomo:

What’s the typical day for you? Before and after training? What are your favorite go to meals?

Speaker 2

So I don’t eat anything in the morning because I do the intermittent fasting. So I do that cold shower. I go lift, and I typically break. If I break fast, it’s past 10:00 a.m. so typically I cut off around 05:30 p.m. the first thing I do is I have a protein shake, so I make my own. I do mix it with different mushroom powders, so I use reishi mushroom, Chaga, cordyceps.

That’s a big one for me, is cordyceps. I’ll put, like, ashwagandha. I change the protein powders up all the time because most of them taste bad. I don’t like any of them, and they’re all expensive. I think they’re all overpriced. So I just kind of find whichever one’s on sale. I’ll use that as long as it’s got a good, uh, you know, amino acid profile.

So I’ll put that in there. Some blueberries. You know, it’s really just a smoothie. First thing in the morning is a smoothie. I typically do not have more than two solid meals a day because I noticed, for me, my body runs better on less solid food. So a lunch meal for me, I go to. I don’t know, everybody has a trader Joe’s by them, but at Trader Joe’s store by me, I get this red lentil pasta.

It’s literally pure protein. So I just. I make that red lentil pasta. I’ll put some vegetables with it. I do a light stir fry on the vegetables, and I’ll put that together with, uh, you know, usually, like, some tomato sauce or something. So right there, that’s another 50 grams of protein right there if I’m counting protein. Right. So my smoothie in the morning is 50 grams.

My second meal is about 40 to 50 grams. Whatever. If. If I eat a second meal, um, it’ll kind of be something similar. I don’t know. It’s just like, whatever I have on me. Maybe I make, like, a sandwich or something that I want, and then I’ll typically have my last meal, so to speak. It’s the same smoothie I had in the morning. So on average, I’m probably doing between 100 to 150 grams of protein a day.

I don’t, like I said, I don’t really count it. I used to count it. I used to count macros, but I got too obsessed with it. The only thing I manage, my macro, the only macros I manage is my fat content. Just because I don’t have a gallbladder anymore is a genetic thing. So I don’t have a gallbladder. I don’t process fat very well personally. So I do take enzymes.

I do know I was listening to one of your podcast episodes. You guys were talking about leucine and making sure you’re absorbing the proper amount of amino acids. So what I do is I actually use a brand called bio optimizers. That is the, in my opinion, the best quality enzymes I’ve been able to find on the market. So I use the bio optimizers mass times as well as their probiotic.

And then I use from enzymatic, I use something called lipo gold, which is for my fat breakdown digestion. So with every meal, I take those three groups of enzymes, so to speak, it helps me process my food. And the other thing that it does, which has been shown scientifically, is to maximize the absorption of the protein and the macronutrients into the body.

So basically, I can take in a lot less protein and get a much higher absorbable value within my body and run it more efficiently. So, yeah, I don’t, I don’t count calories. I really don’t count macros. I just make sure my fat content is low. And if I, my body feels a particular way, I kind of know what it needs. Uh, just because I’ve been doing this such a long time, I kind of know what my body needs.

So if I want something, I just, I just grab it, you know? And typically, in the evenings after training, I don’t eat after training at night. Um, so I typically have a decaffeinated green tea. Uh, I do a hot decaffeinated green tea with stevia powder. And the reason why is I notice that the stevia, because there’s no calories in it, but it’s sweet, it makes me feel satiated.

And then the green tea has good chemicals in it to calm my body down and relax. So I feel full and satiated and I don’t feel hungry. So I’m not binge eating at night. So that’s really all I do. And that’s what keeps me going.

Giacomo:

Simple food is fuel, getting in the right amount of protein. Gotcha.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I honestly, I wish I had more of a foodie vibe to me, you know, but it’s not like I have somebody at home that makes food for me or anything like that. I’ve tried to do the meal prepping things. I know a lot of you bodybuilders do meal prepping. I would love to do it, but I’m so disorganized with that. It’s really hard, and it’s hard for me, that time management, where to say to me, okay, well, Sunday, you’re going to take out 3 hours out of your Sunday to meal prep for the

week. I’m like, dude, that’s too much for me. You know, it’s way easier for me to just, in ten minutes, make the lentil pasta during the day and just have that. Have that ready to go. It’s way faster for me, you know?

Giacomo:

Yeah, the pasta is convenient and you have your whole everything laid out, so you eat like an athlete and you’re eating healthy. And for sure, what would you say to somebody who is experiencing a lot of pushback from others just because they’re vegan? They’re not even necessarily looking to get into the conversation.

You mentioned having a thick skin, but any parting words that you want to share with the audience for someone who’s struggling and doesn’t necessarily have the same approach as you, where they’re happy to push back at somebody and say, hey, this is me. Do you?

Speaker 2

Yeah. I mean, the way I look at it is, kill him with kindness. And if you can’t kill him with kindness, send them to my gym. I’ll kick the shit out of them for you.

Giacomo:

We’re going to be sending people.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I try. Honestly, I’d say just try and be as accommodating as possible and be like, hey, you know what? Look, everybody. The thing is, everybody lives in a different place. I’m blessed to live in Southern California where I can take people friends of mine that I go, hey, you know what? Can I introduce you to the best burger you’ve ever had in your life?

Yeah. Are you sure it’s going to be the best? I go, it’s going to be at least one of the best. And we got a place called Nice Burger, nice guy burger. It’s all vegan, okay. And 100% of the time when I take my meat eating friends, there they go, this is one of the best burgers I’ve ever had. In my life, if you didn’t tell me this was vegan, I’d never know.

And that is awesome. When I get to share that with them and then they go, oh, yeah, well, I want to go get sushi. No worries. I got. I got a great vegan sushi place over here. What? Vegan sushi? What? How do you do that? Just try it out. Let’s see. Then they go, oh, shit. This was pretty good. What, you want Vietnamese? Let’s do Vietnamese. Oh, you want pizza?

I got a place called vegan pizza. It’s great. Or we got a place in Venice Beach a couple hours away called Double Zero. Double Zero is a restaurant that’s owned by Matthew Kinney. He’s got restaurants

in New York, all over the world. This dude, his designs, he’s got the only virtually gluten free regular flour that exists. I think it comes from Italy or something.

And let me tell you, these pizzas, 100% vegan. I always bring meat eaters there and they go, this is some of the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life. And they all want to come back. So I’m spoiled being in southern California because I can go from LA to San Diego, and I can have the best of everything in terms of whatever ethnicity, whatever region of the world, I can find it.

Vegan, right? And I can shut up anybody that pushes back every time. Every time. Unfortunately, that’s not for the rest of the world. It’s not for the rest of the country. So you’re going to have issues here and there. So it’s really about just being creative. If you have people that really push back that much or they’re insulting you to that degree, stop.

Just stop hanging out with them. Maybe it’s your association, is you’ve outgrown your association. And that’s. That is something that we need to really evaluate within ourselves is look at our circle and go, is the circle serving me, or is it holding me down? Right. And that doesn’t mean, again, to put yourself as an elitist going, well, I’m plant based, so anybody who’s not plant based, they can’t be in my social circle.

No, I know plenty of people in my life that are wonderful human beings that are not plant based, and I would never pull them out of my life because of how much they mean to me. Now I try to incorporate plant based meals into their life, and they’re grateful and they love it, but I know that they’re never going to be plant based. I just want to contribute whichever way that I can to that little bit of effort.

They go, you know what? That wasn’t bad. Okay, I get you. And then we just find a place where we can have common ground, right? You like carrots? Great. I like carrots too. You like broccoli? I like broccoli. You like apple? You know, it’s like little things, but we have to just really be mindful of our association and our circle, not take it personally.

Realize that people feel threatened by anything, that they are not comfortable, right? I don’t even know what percentage of people in the world are vegan. I don’t even think it’s 5%. Right? It’s a very small percentage of people. So you’re already in, in my mind, the elite group of quality eating. And we see the studies that show that plant based eaters have the best longevity, they have the best mortality rates, they have the best health.

So now this is kind of indisputable, you know, you should know. I mean, one thing I always push back on, when people say, well, how could you survive without meat? I go, look, I just talk about the intestinal tract. The intestinal tract of a carnivore is three times the length of its body. The intestinal tract of a herbivore and a human is like more than twelve times the length of its body.

The reason why a carnivore has such a short intestinal tract is because it is eating meat. And if they don’t push it out quickly enough, it putrefies within the intestines. Within a human, meat putrefies. This is how disease is created. Leave meat out on the counter, what happens? You see maggots, you see worms, all kinds of stuff. This putrefaction process happens within the body.

Additionally, the hydrochloric acid percentage that exists within a carnivore is way higher. It’s like 20 times higher than that of a human. So between hydrochloric acid and intestinal tract length alone, I fail to understand the logic of anybody that wants to put meat into their body for a health reason, just

solely for, quote, a health reason.

I understand they like the flavor of fire and spices. So I always reframe that conversation as it’s not the flesh that you like, it’s the combination of the fire, how it’s cooked and the spices. Because if I asked you right now to go outside, cut up whatever animal you think you’re going to eat, an elk, gazelle, cow, pig, whatever, and just start eating it raw, just cut out the organ and start eating it.

What would you do? Oh, that’s disgusting. I would never do that. Well, why? Well, it has to be cooked. Or what’s cooked. Cooked is altering the flavor. Cooked is altering the composition. And you’re putting spices to make it palatable. It’s unpalatable as raw flesh. But guess what? I can eat an apple and it’s palatable. Anyone can eat an apple.

It’s palatable. You can eat a strawberry. It’s palatable as is, as its natural state. So these are things that they need to. Need to consider, right? Look, at the end of the day, being plant based is you have a target on your back. And that’s just really because of marketing. And it’s because of the way we have set up this society, of this consumer based, meat based society.

It’s designed to keep you sick. It’s designed to keep you in the wheel of never healing. You never go to a doctor to heal yourself. You go to a doctor. What? To treat the disease? It’s not to heal or cure the disease. It’s always to treat it. So they want to maintain a certain level of illness. I’ve gone to so many doctors because I work in the medical field during the day. What would happen if all your patients were plant based?

I’d be out of business. They all say the same thing to me. If all my patients were plant based, I’d be out of business. So I don’t want that. Because they will readily admit 90 plus percent of the patients they see for that particular disease are meat eaters and dairy consumers. They’re not plant based eaters, is what it is.

Giacomo:

Where do people find you? How can we point our listeners to you after this episode?

Speaker 2

Yeah, so. So anybody wants to come out and train, so you can go to pcijujitsu.com. that’s my website. I’m also on Instagram at pcijiujitsu. I do have a distance learning program. So just because I’m in Southern California and you’re not doesn’t mean you cannot train with me. Anybody can train with me through distance learning, online coaching for submission, grappling and mmade. We also have a podcast called level up grappling. You could also find that on Instagram.

That’s level upgrappling. It’s controversial, it’s fun, it’s very entertaining. It’s rapidly growing to be one of the top grappling podcasts in the world right now. So we have a bunch of rabbit fans. So yeah, at PCI and at level up grappling, you can find me, shoot me the questions. Anything you need, anything I can help you with from, you know, plant based eating, motivation, learning, self defense, questions about fighting. Hit me up. I’m always available.

Giacomo:

I might do just that the next time we’re in LA in January. Take an introductory class with you so you can show me the ropes for sure. Thank you so much for sharing your story, Brian. Thanks so much. Been on the podcast and giving our listeners something to think about in terms of how to carry themselves as a vegan and just getting into the inner workings of the mind of an incredible athlete like yourself. I’m assuming that if we say that if someone says the vegan assassin, they’ll know

it’s you and they’ll be able to reach you at your gym. Anyways, thank you so much for coming on the show, Brian. All right, everybody, thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of vegan proteins muscles by Brian Radio. Stay in touch with us on socials, eganproteins and musclesbybrussels. Hit the contact button on veganproteins.com and you will get a response from one of us every single time. Once again, my name is Giacomo and I’m Dani, and we’ll talk to you soon.