My name’s Rich Roll, and I am an ultra-endurance athlete. I’m a vegan. I am a husband and a father of four children. I also am a practicing attorney.

In 2009, Men’s Fitness magazine named him one of the “25 Fittest Guys in the World.” He has been interviewed and featured on CNN on several occasions, and invited by the network to write about his inspiring journey of self-awareness and health built on a plant-strong diet. Within two years, Rich Roll had transformed himself from a miserable 40-year-old in the worst shape of his life, to an extraordinary vegan athlete competing in the ultra-challenging, Ultraman World Championships… and placing 3rd overall in all Americans!

So in the wake of changing my diet, that’s when I began the process of getting back in shape and competing again. But it really began with changing the diet.

Just before Supreme Master Television visited Rich and his family in their gorgeous home, he and fellow vegan endurance athlete Jason Lester, had just completed the Epic5 Challenge – “an unprecedented athletic and spiritual odyssey” that involves not one, but five separate gruelling triathlons on Hawaii’s five islands – that’s five 2.5 mile swims, five 112 mile bike rides, and five 26.2 mile runs, in the span of five consecutive days! Perhaps PETA said it best: Superman is vegan!

Thanks, Supreme Master TV, for coming out to talk to us today. It’s a pleasure to have you.

Today, on the second of our 2-part feature on Mr. Rich Roll, we will continue our conversation with the quiet-spoken champion and learn about the diet that progresses his athletic performance and enables him to compete in these super human endurance trials. He shows us that nothing is impossible on the vegan diet.

And how did it all start for you? Why did you decided one day to “Okay, I’m going to start training?”

Well I was an athlete in college. I was a competitive swimmer at Stanford and had done quite well and loved being a swimmer. I’d been swimming my whole life, but when that chapter ended and my college career was over then that was kind of it for competitive sports for me for a long time. Life intervenes and it becomes about family and your career and that’s kind of what my focus was for a long time.

And, you know, I was turning 40, the eve of my 40th birthday and I was very overweight, very out of shape. I was weighing about 208 pounds at that time, so not like a super obese guy, but very overweight for me, and winded going up and down the stairs. So in order for me to really enact any kind of like lasting lifestyle change I had to do something kind of drastic. And so with the help of my wife and her encouragement, I did a seven day fruit and vegetable juice cleanse, which was something I’d never done before, never had even really thought of doing before.

But that was an incredible experience, and after being on just liquids basically for a week, I felt so good when I was done with that, that I was ready to really address my diet and do something different. So the first thing I did, was I started eating vegetarian. But I just thought, “Well I’m half way there, why don’t I just try a vegan diet, see how that feels,” which meant cutting out all animal products out of my diet, no more milk, no more cheese.

I never thought in a million years that it was something that I would be doing or interested in doing but I gave it a shot. And I think at the time it was almost to prove that it wouldn’t work for me. But what happened was within 7 to 10 days of doing this, I really felt a tremendous increase in my energy, I felt really good. And it just kind of built from there. I stuck with it ever since.So in the wake of changing my diet, that’s when I began the process of getting back in shape and competing again. But it really began with changing the diet.

The plant-strong diet powered Rich to compete in the Ultraman World Championships after just a few months of training. He sheds light on how veganism improved his athletic training.

I think that there’s a lot of misconception in our culture specifically about what kind of foods you need to eat to be an athlete. There is some truth that, yes, you need protein in order to rebuild your muscles from training, etc. But I think that there is a way to do that on a plant-based diet, in such a way that actually can improve athletic performance. For example, I believe that my plant-based diet allows my body to recover more quickly in between training sessions. And as an athlete, the more quickly you can recover the harder you can train and the better you’re going to get over time. So I think that it’s been actually a great benefit to me in that respect.

This aspect definitely proved helpful for Rich when he competed in the 2009 Ultraman. Even after crashing his bike the second day, he picked himself up and pushed forward with the competition. Despite injury, Rich had an incredible finish, placing 6th overall.

What do you do to recover quickly?

I would try to eat a 100% wholefood, plant-based diet. Which means trying to not eat too many of any processed foods. Eating foods that are alkaline forming, in other words, that properly balance your body’s PH. Because a lot of the foods, especially dairy and meat products, are acidic in nature or prompt an acidic response in your body, and that creates an inflammatory response which impedes recovery, makes you feel tired, etc. So it’s about eating an alkaline diet or an alkaline forming diet, and the best way to achieve that is through eating plant-based. Plant-based diet, a lot of greens. We eat a lot of kale, a lot of broccoli, a lot of all different kinds of greens; it’s a big part of our diet.

Are you now ready for some diet tips from a champ? When we return after this short message, Rich reveals what he eats in a typical training day. You are watching Vegetarian Elite on Supreme Master Television.

This is Rich Roll saying Be Veg, Go Green 2 Save the Planet!

Welcome back to Vegetarian Elite and our 2-part special program on plant-powered, ulta-endurance athlete, Rich Roll.

So how is it a day of yours like, what would you eat from the morning to night?

If I’m doing a training session in the morning, if it’s a short one, sometimes I will just go out and train without eating anything. But if it’s going to be a longer, like long bike or something, I will make a Vitamix smoothie in the morning that has some endurance boosting foods, super foods like chia and maca, beets, and some kale, and maybe some coconut milk and some Vega Whole Food Optimizer which has a lot of your daily vitamins and minerals in it.

Not a big breakfast, you know, maybe some toast with almond butter to get me going. And then my recovery nutrition after I finished a workout is all about replenishing my glycogen stores and then getting enough protein in my body so it can repair itself. And so I’ll have a Vitamix [smoothie] with different kinds of plant-based proteins like hemp protein, pea protein, brown rice protein and I think that there is a lot of confusion about plant-based protein. A lot people don’t realize that these plants actually do have protein and you can get enough protein from eating them to be an athlete and sustain yourself.

Physician and nutrition expert Dr. Michael Klaper further explains the truth of the protein myth:

If you’re eating whole plant foods, there is no way not to get enough protein. Any whole plant food, any tomato, any ear of corn, any green bean, is anywhere between 8 to 12% protein. If you get your 2000 calories a day from whole plant foods, no matter what they are, fruits, vegetables, greens, etc. you’re going to be getting your 40 or 50 grams of protein.

I’ve been a physician almost 40 years; I’ve never seen anyone walk in the office with the diagnosis of protein deficiency, even long term vegans. It’s not really an issue.

Plant proteins are, in fact, superior to animal-derived proteins. A varied vegan diet, like the one Rich shared with us, improves one’s health, vitality, and longevity. Renowned nutrition expert, physician, and author Dr. Joel Fuhrman agrees:

If we mix the greens and the beans now with nuts and seeds, almonds, cashews, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, they have almost magical super-foods, protective compounds that prevent against cardiac arrhythmias, irregular heart beats. They lower your cholesterol, they make people live longer. They prevent sudden cardiac death. They stabilize the brain. They also make the protein very complete.

Don’t forget green vegetables are high in protein, that’s how come gorillas, hippopotamus rhinoceros, elephants, giraffes get so big because they eat green vegetables, eat a lot of protein. But here you have the protein packaged with lots of micronutrients, with the phytochemicals, with the antioxidants, with the things that make the body age slower. And we keep our youthfulness, our vigor and our good health until later years.

Authenticity speaks louder than words. Everything that I’ve been trying to do is really an effort to just be my more authentic self, to try to connect more deeply to the things that move me, that I’m passionate about and that I love, and then to share my feelings and emotions and my truth and my experiences in doing that. And I think that resonate with a lot of people. Because if you’re speaking from the heart, if you’re speaking your truth or you’re living your truth, that is like a magnet for the universe that people are attracted to that.

Are you ready for the New Earth?
Stand up, get ready to shine
Being is the place to be Let it happen in you

So future projects are building Jai Lifestyle and producing our retreats, which I’m very excited about, and then training and racing. Those are really the focus, so getting the nutrition products out, getting the cookbook out, and being prepared for Ultraman in November for a great performance and seeing what the world has to offer. So I’d really like to expand my wellness advocacy and do public speaking engagement and the more that I can motivate and spread the word to help people make healthier choices about their diet and their activities. That’s something I really want to move into as much as I can.

Rich and I are going to join together and spread this message of wellness and giving people an example how to refine their environment and their physical body and their spiritual body, so that they can hear who it is that they were designed to be. They can hear their own voice, their higher self. And if Creation wants that, then we’re ready. But I also know that it may not be the case, so whatever it is I am in service to that Consciousness.

During our day spent with Rich and his family, he conveyed a warm message to Supreme Master Ching Hai.

Thank you, Supreme Master. Appreciate the love and the beauty that you spread.

We send our gratitude to Mr. Rich Roll for inspiring many on this path of wellbeing simply by living as a shining example of health and integrity through the humane vegan diet. We wish you continued success on your journey of self-realization and spirituality.

Visit www.RichRoll.com to learn more about Rich Roll’s adventures and vegan ventures. Information on Jai Lifestyle, along with Rich & Julie’s vegan cookbook “Jai Seed,” can be found at www.Jai-Lifestyle.com

Brilliant viewers, we appreciate your company today on Vegetarian Elite. Please come back to join us on Friday, November 19th as Rich, Julie, and the rest of the family share a recipe and a sneak peek of their newly released vegan cookbook, “Jai Seed.” Coming up now is Between Master and Disciples, here on Supreme Master Television. May your day be filled with laughter and the blessed company of loved ones.