#130: Rip's Rescue - Athletic Performance with Dr. Jim Loomis
Welcome to our Fourth "Rip's Rescue" Event, where we tackle big topics and arm you with trusted information and the resources you need to take agency of your own health and performance.
Dr. Jim Loomis, You are a PLANTSTRONG IRONMAN!
Speaking of performance, this episode covers the popular topic of "Athletic Performance on a Plant-Based Diet" with Dr. Jim Loomis. Both Rip and Dr. Loomis were featured in "The Game Changers" documentary and are also both accomplished athletes.
They discuss:
Why plants are actually a superior source of protein, and what makes animal protein do damaging?
The different fuel systems our bodies use while in motion and why plants provide the cleanest fuel source
Why beets, tart cherry juice and other sources of nitric oxide can actually be a performance and recovery enhancer
A few mistakes and misconceptions that people have about fueling for athletic performance on a plant-based diet
Supplement and vitamin recommendations
And, of course, protein requirements and recommendations
After this episode, you'll understand why a plantstrong diet that helps prevent and reverse chronic disease, is also the best diet for longterm performance and recovery.
Dr. Jim Loomis - Medical Director, Barnard Medical Center
About James Loomis Jr., MD, MBA, FACLM
James F. Loomis Jr., MD, MBA, received his medical degree from the University of Arkansas, where he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and graduated with honors. He subsequently completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Mo. In addition, Dr. Loomis received an MBA from the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. He is board certified in internal medicine, has completed the certification program in Plant-Based Nutrition from Cornell University, and is a Diplomat of the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine.
Dr. Loomis has served as team internist for the St. Louis Rams football team and the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, as well as tour physician for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Before coming to the Barnard Medical Center, he practiced internal medicine at St. Luke’s Hospital in St. Louis, where he was also the director of prevention and wellness. He was also on the clinical faculty of the department of internal medicine at Washington University School of Medicine.
When not practicing medicine, Dr. Loomis enjoys reading history books, cooking, and teaching plant-based cooking classes. He also enjoys running, biking, and swimming, and has completed numerous half marathons, marathons, and triathlons.
Episode and PLANTSTRONG Resources:
PLANTSTRONG Podcast Episode Page
Download our Free 2022 Big Game Recipe Guide
Center for Plant-Based Living - “Optimal Diet for Health and Performance” Webinar with Dr. Jim Loomis
Dr. Loomis offers telehealth appointments for residents of D.C., Florida, Maryland, Missouri, and Virginia. Learn More Here.
Shop for your Favorite Plantstrong Foods
Full YouTube Transcript
Dr. Jim Loomis:
You know, if you ask the fundamental question, as human beings, what did we evolve to do? Well we evolved to try to live long enough to find a mate and pass on our DNA. And that's true for any living creature. And for most of human history, we had to perform two tasks primarily for that to occur, find food when we're starving, not be someone else's food when they're starving. That's where our stress came from, how do we respond to this stress? Physical activity.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And assuming we survived, we didn't starve, we didn't get eaten by the leopard, that's when we to rest, recover and refuel. And what did we refuel with? Our ancestors, despite what we may perceive, weren't hunter gathers, we were gather hunters, right? And what we gathered was unprocessed plants, roots, stems, leave, seeds, fruits, nuts, vegetables, there was no white flour tree or canola oil bush. We didn't have dairy because we hadn't domesticated other mammals, that didn't occur until seven, 8,000 years ago.
Rip Esselstyn:
I'm Rip Esselstyn and welcome to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast. The mission at PLANTSTRONG is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based movement. We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living and envision a world that universally understands, promotes and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with. We welcome you, wherever you are on your PLANTSTRONG journey, and I hope that you enjoy the show.
Rip Esselstyn:
Welcome my name's Rip Esselstyn. I want you to know just to start off tonight that our mission at PLANTSTRONG is to arm you with as many tools, resources, information, tips, but really most importantly, the most supportive community on the planet to make this lifestyle as simple as possible to set you guys up for success where most of us need it the most, and that is with our health. As many of you know, I spent 12 years as a firefighter answering calls for help, and now I am dedicated, 100%, to helping people rescue themselves by sharing evidence based information, and dismantling and the misinformation that is swirling around out there.
Rip Esselstyn:
This is our fourth Rip's rescue event, tonight we're going to be concentrating on all things plant based and athletic performance. Our first Rip's rescue was about preventing and reversing heart disease. I invited my father, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, my mother Ann Crile Esselstyn and Dr. Brian Asbill, an amazing cardiologist to join me for that episode. Episode two was all about losing weight without losing your mind, and I had the brilliant Dr. Douglas Lisle, the author of The Pleasure Trap join me for that Rip's rescue.
Rip Esselstyn:
Our third Rip's rescue I had the incomparable Dr. Aaron Spitz, and it was all about men's health, and we specifically talked about prostate health and also erectile dysfunction. And tonight with the backdrop of the winter Olympic games in China, and just a stones throwaway in the future, the Super Bowl, we thought it would be appropriate to bring you athletic performance, utilizing a plant based diet. Why a plant based diet can optimize your athletic performance and support you and aid you everything when it comes to an active lifestyle and athletic performance.
Rip Esselstyn:
And we have one of the most brilliant physicians on the planet joining me tonight, and I'll bring him in, in just a sec. Before I do, as a thank you to each and every one of you, we're going to be giving you a free guidebook, it's called the Big Game Recipe Guide with 11 mouthwatering recipes, and we're going to provide a link in the chat section here today. And it also will be in the show notes of today's episode and also in the podcast. Now, I know we have a lot of new people here tonight. I want to thank you for coming and for your interest in all things plants.
Rip Esselstyn:
Let me say that, for those of you that don't don't know a lot about me, let me just give you a quick little intro here. I was hugely inspired to go down this path by my father, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr. and his research at the Cleveland Clinic going back to 1984, showing that you can not only prevent, but you can actually reverse heart disease by eating a whole food plant-based diet. I started eating this way, full kale, full stop, back in 1987. I had just graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, where I graduated with a degree in speech communications.
Rip Esselstyn:
I also went there on a swimming scholarship where I was a three time all-American, and now I was trying my hand at professional triathlons. Because I was just getting into fueling myself with plants to give me a leg up on the competition, I was just super excited as far as what plants could do to allow me to recover quicker between workouts, increase my stamina, increase my immune system, so I hardly ever got sick. It also sped up any potential injuries that I had, and it also, as you're going to hear about tonight, provided more blood flow to all of my working muscles where I needed it the most.
Rip Esselstyn:
After 10 years as a world class triathlete, I then transitioned to being a firefighter with the city of Austin, Texas, and it was there at Fire Station 2 that I introduced my love affair and my passion to plants to the guys at Station 2. And one of the guys was really a heart attack waiting to happen, as it turns out, he had a horrendous family history of men in his family dying before the age of 50 from heart disease, and so it was really cool to get everybody on board with this lifestyle, and the rest is history that then turned into the books, and a lot of other things.
Rip Esselstyn:
It was while I was a firefighter for the city of Austin that I competed in the largest athletic competition on the planet, and that was the Police Fire World Games. These took place in Indianapolis, Indiana in 2001, and I competed in two, actually three events. I competed in the Olympic distance triathlon, it was a 1.5k swim, 40K bike, and a 10K run. I also compete in singles ping pong and doubles ping pong. In the Austin fire department I was really one of the top ping pong players, and so I thought I'd try my hand at the Police Fire World Games.
Rip Esselstyn:
Fortunately in the triathlon, I had a great race and I was able to bring home the gold, so I got the gold medal in the Olympic distance triathlon. In ping pong, I wasn't so lucky, I got my clock clean, so to speak. There are so many amazing ping pong players around the globe, and I didn't make it past the third round, but I had a lot of fun. And as you guys can imagine, because I've been swimming and biking and running for so long, it's literally, it's in my blood and I do it to this day. But two and a half years ago, I decided that I would go for the world record in the men's 200 meter backstroke for men 55 to 59.
Rip Esselstyn:
And I was fortunate I was able to break the old world record in July of 2019, and then a month later, I was able to break my own world record by a little over a second. And this is just to show people that you can be in your 50s, 60s, 70s and not only be at the top of your game when it comes to being optimally healthy, but also at the top of your game when it comes to being physically active and athletic. And so as you guys can imagine, I have literally dedicated this second half of my life to being a crusader for the advancement of all things plants, and I want people to understand the benefits of a PLANTSTRONG lifestyle when it comes to our personal health, when it comes to the health of the planet, and then also for us as human beings, just to be a more kinder and compassionate people.
Rip Esselstyn:
Now, I have known a lot of athletes since I embarked on being an athlete myself. Let's just say going back to when I was about 14 years old as a high school athlete, and I have known world record holders, I've known Olympic gold medalists, I have known all-Americans and Weekend Warriors. And I want you to know that, one of the things that I love about athletes is they are eternally optimistic. I adore that about athletes. They're very competitive in nature, they have an open mind when it comes to learning new techniques in advances in the sport, whether it's lifting weights, whether it's new positions, aerodynamic positions.
Rip Esselstyn:
When I first started in triathlons, they didn't have the aerodynamic bars and a lot of the athletes were a little reluctant to embrace this position, but before long everybody had adapted it. But the one thing that I have found that most athletes are really stubborn on is changing how they fuel themselves. And they've been so programmed in this archaic notion that we need red meat and chicken and fish for protein. We need dairy for calcium and minerals and strong bones. We need oils for brain health and heart health, and the science does not support this one iota. And you're going hear in just a sec from the man himself.
Rip Esselstyn:
But so these athletes, they are inadvertently putting in a dirty fuel source into these Porsches and Corvettes of bodies, and they're not getting everything that they could. And if they would embrace what they heard in the Game Changers film, embrace so much that's in so many of the groundbreaking books right now about enhancing performance with a plant-based diet, really the sky is the limit. So, with that, I want to say that, I have one of the most knowledgeable men on the planet when it comes to athletic performance and the power of plants, his name is Dr. Jim Loomis.
Rip Esselstyn:
And he's the perfect guy because, right ahead of the Super Bowl, we have a gentleman that not only has a Super Bowl ring, he also has a world series ring. That is because he won a world series ring when he was the team as physician for the St. Louis Rams, and he won the world series ring when he was the physician for the St. Louis Cardinals. Pretty darn crazy. But he's joining us right now from Saudi Arabia where it's 3:00 A.M. and I'm going to let him explain all about that here in just a second.
Rip Esselstyn:
A little ground on Jim, he is an internal medicine physician who has served as the team doc, as I said, for both the St. Louis Rams and the St. Louis Cardinals. He also is a diplomat of the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. And when he is not seeing patients at the Barnard Medical Center, just outside Washington, DC, he is swimming, biking, and running. And at the age of 63, just before COVID hit, he completed his first Ironman triathlon. So with that, Jim, if you could join me and turn on your screen, that'd be awesome.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Hello everybody. Thank for having me.
Rip Esselstyn:
It is, it is our pleasure. So for starters, will you tell me, what are you doing in Saudi Arabia?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Well, I'm here to speak, actually believe it or not, on exercise and plant-based diets at a lifestyle medicine conference, it's occurring later this week. It's part of a broader lifestyle medicine focus that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has. Saudi Arabia people, may not realize this, has one of the fastest growing rates of type two diabetes and obesity in the world, actually. Mainly because of westernization of their food. And so, we're here to educate both physicians and the lay public about the power of plants.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right? So tell me this, are you going to be tuning into the Super Bowl next weekend?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
I am, I get back on Saturday. So hopefully after overcoming jet lag, I will be rooting for the Rams to-
Rip Esselstyn:
You will.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Their world title, world championship.
Rip Esselstyn:
So even though it's not the St Louis Rams, it's the Los Angeles Rams, you're still have an affinity for the Rams.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
I do. I do.
Rip Esselstyn:
When the Game Changers came out, you had a really beautiful role in that film. But if you remember, the Tennessee Titans had like 15 or 16 members of their squad that were plant based, and this year they had one of their best years in a long, long time, do you know or are you at all in touch if they still have a large contingency of their team that's plant based?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah, I don't know that although across really all professional sports, we're seeing every day, you're reading the news, NFL players, NBA players, hockey players, soccer players, Olympians, who have adapted a plant based diet. And so, I think, and I hope, I would like to think that the Game Changers played a role in that. And really as you said earlier, dispelling all this mythology we have around plants. I remember we'd go to the ... I was with the Rams before I went plant based. And we'd go to the pre-game meal on Sunday morning, and what was the spread?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
It was chicken breast and steak and pasta because you had to get your carbs and your protein. It was really crazy how pervasive, and as you said, how unknowledgeable, if you will, that even these high level professional athletes were about how to fuel their bodies.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you just said that, and I'm seeing it too, I think we all are, everywhere we turn we're seeing another NBA player or, or NFL player, or a professional, a hockey player, baseball player, that's, race car drivers that are becoming plant-based, why do you think that is?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Well, I think the proof is in the pudding, as they say. And you've experienced this, I experience this. When you adapt to plant-based diet, your ability ... I think it's the ability to recover. I think that's the magic sauce there. When people transition to a plant based diet, and Derek Morgan from the Titans talked about this in Game Changers, the injury rate in the NFL is 100%. And the ability to recover after you get beat up during a football game, because a plant based side is so highly anti-inflammatory, it's packed full of antioxidants to mitigate the oxidative stress that comes with exercise, I think players feel so much better.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And it's very interesting at the LA premiere of Game Changers I was speaking with Chris Paul, the NBA player. And he told me, and I was ... literally kind of blew me away, he said, when he went plant based, he didn't want to tell any of his teammates or colleagues, not because they would've made fun of him, because that's what would've happened five or 10 years ago, it was because he didn't want to give away the secret. He felt like it enhanced his performance so much, he didn't want to let everybody else in on the deal. Which I was like, holy cow, that's amazing.
Rip Esselstyn:
And then you got people like, I think Carmello Anthony, Anthony Carmello, right. Carmello Anthony who's plant based. I'm actually surprised that he has not persuaded his good buddy LeBron James to do it.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think Kyrie Irving is the other big plant based NBA guy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah Kyrie's kind of getting smacked pretty hard right now because of his stance on vaccinations.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
As is one of the most amazing plant-based athletes out there, no big joke.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah I was just going to say, yeah, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
I mean you talk about a athlete that needs to recover quickly between their matches-
Dr. Jim Loomis:
That's exactly right.
Rip Esselstyn:
... player.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah my sister's a teaching professional and her husband down in Naples, and they're both very competitive. I think between the two of them they have 50, 60 gold balls national championships through the years. And they both transitioned to at least a PLANTSTRONG diet and they see that the benefit as well.
Rip Esselstyn:
So let me back up for a sec and, do you think it is interesting that the ideal diet, for not only warding off chronic western disease, heart disease, diabetes, major cancer also just happens to be the optimal diet for athletic performance?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Rip that doesn't surprise me at all because, as I've educated myself and really thought very deeply about this, if you ask the fundamental question, as human beings what did we evolve to do? Well, evolved to try to live long enough to find a mate and pass on our DNA, and that's true for any living creature. And for most of human history, we had to perform two tasks primarily for that to occur, find food when we're starving, not be someone else's food when they're starving. That's where our stress came from, how do we respond to the stress? Physical activity.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And assuming we survived, we didn't starve, we didn't get eaten by the leopard, that's when we rest, recover and refuel. And what do we refuel with? Our ancestors, despite what we may perceive, weren't hunter gatherers, we were gather hunters. And what we gathered was unprocessed plants, roots, stems, leaves, seeds, fruits, nuts, vegetables, there was no white flower tree or canola oil bush. We didn't have dairy because we hadn't domesticated other mammals, that didn't occur until seven, 8,000 years ago.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And our ancestors did eat a little bit of meat, but it wasn't very much, we don't know for sure. Probably 20, 25% of our total calories, and it was wild animals, not cows, pigs, chickens, and fish, stuffed with corn antibiotics and hormones. But I think most importantly, you could argue our ancestors had a survival advantage to have and concentrate an animal fat and protein to get big and strong, get away from a leopard before they died of some infectious disease when they were 30. So they never had to worry about, if I eat all this meat am I going to get cancer, have diabetes, because they were already dead.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And we've unmasked now these chronic conditions, all of which are associated with the over consumption of these highly processed foods and animal based foods, and then you step back, as you've already said, and think about the impact, the way we raise animals, so it has on the climate, the way we treat animals, it doesn't surprise me at all that the optum diet for human health, planetary health, human performance, and the most compassionate diet we can consume if we care about other creatures, is a plant based diet. It makes perfect sense if you look at it through the lens of our evolutionary biology.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well we just got to get people deprogrammed into thinking that they can get everything that they need in a better and safer, in some cases, more observable form from plants than animal products.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
That's right, that's right, that's exactly right. And it's this whole idea about nutrient density, right? Super Bowl's coming up, you open a bag of Doritos, how hard would it be eat 1,000 calories of Doritos before the game's over? Well not hard at all. You eat 1,000 calories of apples... Right. You eat 1,000 calories of apples in a week. It's like 10 pounds. And when you eat those Doritos, you're just getting ... there's no fiber, there's no protein, there's no cancer fighting phytonutrients and so again, that's why the plants are so important.
Rip Esselstyn:
So, let me ask you this, we have roughly 600 muscles throughout our body, what do our muscles need, crave for fuel?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Right. So we have three primary gas tanks that we use to fuel our cells. We have what's called ATP, which we use for very short, if you're going to run 100 meter dash, or lift weights, it's about 90 seconds worth, max, of energy. But the primary sources of fuel are glycogen, which is how we store sugar or carbohydrate in our muscles. And we use that for exercise, up to about an hour and a half, two hours, now you can train yourself to extend that a little bit. And we use that for exercise up to a couple hours for a little bit more intense exercise, if you have to sprint up a heel or something like that.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And then for longer, more low key, less intense exercise we use fat, which we can liberate into our bloodstream, which our muscles can burn for fuel. And in fact, especially an endurance athlete, the more effective you become at burning fat, the longer you can conserve that glycogen, that muscle because, I was a marathon runner in med school, pretty competitive, and I remember the first marathon I ran hitting the wall. And if you've ever had that experience, it's not much fun.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And that comes when you ... actually the cause of that is that felt to me because when you deplete your muscles of glycogen and you lose that fuel source. So-
Rip Esselstyn:
No fun at all.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah no fun at all. But glycogen is the primary source and then fat on top of that for longer periods of time when you exercise.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, you know who I had on the PLANTSTRONG podcast a couple weeks ago was Harvey Lewis, have you heard of Harvey?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
I mean the dude is the ultra distance running machine, and the bad water, 135, the big dog's backyard. He did 356 miles in like three and a-
Dr. Jim Loomis:
That's crazy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Crazy. But he has learned, he has taught his body how to basically optimize that perfect flame of carbohydrates and fat.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah, yeah, no it's interesting. And having gotten to know Scott Jurek, who's also an amazing ultra distance runner through Game Changers, same thing it's really phenomenal, and especially for ultra endurance, how effective a plant-based diet is in fueling your body.
Rip Esselstyn:
Tell me, when you were the physician for the Rams and for the Cardinals, did you have any idea the role that nutrition played in sports? No?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
No. Like everybody else, you needed carbs, you needed to, if you're going to go work out, you need to do your goose on a long run, and then you need your protein. And then you need to eat pasta after or before to carb load and all that, I really had no idea. And when I started, I went plant-based about 10 years ago, basically for some personal health issues. I thought eating healthy was low fat dairy and lean meat, and fruits and vegetables, and try not to eat too much ice cream. And unfortunately found out you can't outrun a mediocre diet after knee injury. After knee injury I gained a lot of weight the next thing I know I had sleep apnea, and I'm wearing a sexy CPAP machine at night, my cholesterol's through the roof, I'm on cholesterol meds.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
I got borderline diabetes. I'm in St. Louis, my buddies at WashU world class doctor didn't cure me, they didn't talk to me about this stuff. I'm on pills and CPAP on and on. Laying on the couch one day, and see Forks Over Knives and thought, wow, food is medicine who knew. Transition to a plant based transitioned to a plant-based diet and then made a commitment to rehab my knee, which I hadn't done after surgery, because doctors, aren't very good patients. Four months later, come out the other end, I'd lost 40, 50 pounds, my cholesterol dropped 100 points.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
I had atrial fibrillation from the sleep apnea, that went away. Allergies went away, asthma went away, sleep apnea went away, could exercise again, and that put me on this journey.
Rip Esselstyn:
Did you even realize how miserable you were with all that going on? Yes?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
I did after the fact. I mean I did after the fact because, again, when you start to feel fuel your body, when you start to fuel your body the right way, it's amazing. It's amazing. Here I am, I'll be 63 in a few months and people ask me, how old I am I tell them, I'm 60 with 62 and a half years experience. I mean I'm 30 with 32 and a half years experience because that's how I feel. And I think that what people don't really realize, and you kind of alluded to this, that we have the ability when we lead a healthy lifestyle, through regular physical activity, eating the right foods, getting a good night's sleep, not drinking too much alcohol, not smoking, we can decouple our biologic age from our chronologic age.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
We can in fact become younger next year, and that's really the key here, to lead a healthful full life. Look at your dad, he's a perfect example, right? Unbelievable. So, anyway, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
So, let's circle back to, this is something you talked about in the Game Changers and you did it very eloquently, and it's the white elephant in the room typically everywhere that we go, and it's the question that if you and I got a penny or rather a nickel for every time it was at, we'd have a couple thousand dollars and that is, Jim, but where in the world am I going to get my protein? And then the second part of that is, okay, but is it an inferior source of protein and is it complete? How do you address that?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Well, so the simple kind of snarky answer is, when people ask me, I say, well, let me ask you a question. When was the last time you turned on National Geographic and saw a special show, mountain gorillas or elephants? And the first thing that popped in your mind is, oh my God, where do they get their protein? Like never, right. Well where do they get their protein? Some of the biggest strongest animals on the planet, their herbivores. They get their protein the same place the cow got its protein that we consume, the same place the chicken got its protein, on and on.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So, and in fact, back to this idea about evolutionary biology, if you think about it, those animals have just served as the middle men for the nutrition. They've eaten the plants, they've used all the good stuff, the fiber, the antioxidants, anticancer fighting pH nutrients to run their own machinery, they concentrate what's left into protein and fat, which we consume. And when we're starved for calories, yes, that probably did have a survival lens. But in the modern world, because most of us aren't starved for calories anymore, we have the luxury of skipping the middle man.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And so there is plenty of protein in plants. I mean there's almost as much protein in 100 calories of broccoli as there is in an egg. And people have no idea, plants have protein. And it's somewhat frustrating sometimes because people just don't get it. They just don't get it. And, okay, well, how much protein powder should I take after my workout? Even after you go through the whole spiel, they still don't get it. And that's probably one of the toughest myths to break.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And oftentimes, if you think about it, so let's just talk real quick about protein requirements. So for the average person, average activity, we need about 0.8 grams per kilogram of protein. If you're an endurance athlete, a little bit more, 1.2, 1.6, you're a weightlifter, maybe up to two grams per kilogram.
Rip Esselstyn:
So for people that, that means absolutely nothing, if I'm 150 pound male or female, what does that mean and-
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah so that'd be about 70, 65, 70 grams. Somewhere.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay. Okay.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So the thing is though, I'm training for Ironman, I'm not eating. So someone's on say a 2,000, 1,800 calorie diet, which is about average, that works out for an average size person right at 0.8 gram per kilogram. I'm training for Ironman, I need more protein, right? But I'm not eating 1,800 calories a day, I'm eating 3,600, 4,000 calories. So what's happened to my protein intake? It's doubled. Which is exactly what I need.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So it's not protein we need to worry about, it's calories. And if we get enough calories, you will get enough protein. And this idea, just the second part of that, this idea that, plant-based proteins aren't complete, is based on some research that was done a long time ago, that's flawed and it's just it's ... it is impossible, impossible if you're consuming enough calories to become deficient in any given amino acid. When we consume protein, we don't absorb protein, right?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So proteins are made up of these strings of amino acids, when we consume them they get broken down in our gut to the individual domino acids we absorb those, and take them to the liver, they're kind of reassembled into whatever proteins we need, whether it be building muscle or repairing tissue, or day to day maintenance kind of stuff. So again, this idea that we can't get the proper amount or that they're not complete is just not true.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right. So you mentioned at the very, very beginning that, so these animals they will eat, let's say the grass or the grains or whatever, and then it's concentrated in their, I guess, tissues as fat and protein. But why then when we eat this animal tissue, this animal muscle, what makes it an unhealthier form of protein or fat than the original protein and fat?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah, that's a great question. So there's a couple things. So number one is the average person in the Western world, we way over consume protein. So when we take in extra carbohydrate, we store that as muscle liver glycogen. When we take in fat, we store whatever's left in our fat source for energy, but we can't store extra protein. So once we've kind of done its thing, it gets converted to nitrogen and excreted in the urine. So it puts a strain on our kidneys and it's associated with other chronic diseases, cancer in particular.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And the reason is, is that the makeup, the amino acid, so some of the amino acids we consume are what are called methylated, they have sulfur compounds stuck on them. And those have been and shown to be much more likely to interact with our DNA and damage the DNA. So it's these methylated proteins, which are in much higher concentrations in meat and dairy than you see in plants. So it's these methylated amino acids. And that's one of the theories.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
In fact there was a study done a few years ago that looked at middle aged men, and they had like a 800 times increased risk of cancer when they consume animal-based proteins. And if you over consume protein in general, animal proteins in particular, and even if you over consume some plant-based proteins, it did not seem to carry the same cancer risk. And this theory was ... and then the other part of it is many of these proteins activate what's called IGF-1 and there's high levels of IGF-1 in particular, insulin growth factor one in dairy in particular, and that's a growth hormone.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Because what is dairy? Dairy is a biologic fluid that evolves species specific to facilitate baby mammals turning into mammals big enough to find food their own. And so cows need a lot of IGF-1 because they got to get big quick. And by the way, once that happens, we don't need our mother's milk. And that's why you don't go into the grocery store today and see big shelves full of human milk to bring home and put on your cereal. You would find that very bizarre, I think.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So the idea we should be consuming another mammal's milk that evolved to facilitate a 70 pound cow turn into a 700 cow, just doesn't make any sense whatsoever, biologically. And again, it's felt that the high levels of IGF-1, particularly in dairy, and then that gets concentrated in cheese is one of the reasons that these animal based proteins are less helpful.
Rip Esselstyn:
I want to go back for a second to muscles, because a lot of people they're concerned that eating a plant-based diet, they're not going to get as muscular as they'd like to. What are your thoughts on guys and girls that want to beef up, so to speak, can they do it with kale and brown rice and brown-
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Well, sure. Yeah. So there have been numerous studies that have looked directly at that question, comparing animal-based proteins versus plant-based proteins, and see if there's an advantage. And the thing is, they're equal. So there's no downside. You can build the same muscle with plant-based proteins, with animal-based proteins. It's not an advantage for muscle building animal based. But there's a health advantage. Because sometimes we practice health reductionism, just like we practice nutrition reductionism.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
We treat building muscle different than lowering your cancer risk, different than treating diabetes or preventing diabetes, different than treating heart disease, we think of those as different things. But if you back it up, it's all the same thing. So when we over consume protein, yeah you build muscle, but if you're consuming the wrong kinds of protein or you're over consuming it, you build muscle, yes, but you increase your risk for things like heart disease and cancer and diabetes and things like that.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So there's tons and tons of evidence out there to suggest that there's no downside from a muscle building standpoint, plant versus animal, there's lots and lots and lots of upside to plant based proteins if you look here over. And you've already talked, again, the environment, if you really broaden the lens, there's lots of reasons to use plant based-
Rip Esselstyn:
And so, like you and I, for example, as endurance athletes, our protein requirements might be a little bit different than somebody that's just trying to be a body builder, so to speak, right?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
That's right.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
But it's calories that are driving it. Now there are some very nuanced, this only applies to a very, very small percentage of people. If you're a professional body builder and you're trying to cut for competition or something like that. But, the vast, 99.9% of the general population, they're not Ironman triathletes, and they're not professional body builders, or professional football players. But even those, even like yourself high functioning world class athlete, for the most part, it's the same food your father eats, right? But you eat more of it, right?
Rip Esselstyn:
A lot more of it, a lot more of it. So when you were training for your Ironman two years ago, did you ever keep track of how many grams of anything you were getting?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
No.
Rip Esselstyn:
No You just ate.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
I just ate. I ate when I was hungry and I ate a lot, like you said. Because it's actually interesting, the hard part's keeping weight on because you're, especially toward the end of your cycle when you're exercising 15, 20 hours a week, it's hard to keep enough calories in.
Rip Esselstyn:
So, that might be the answer to my next question but so, I think we may have a lot of new people that are interested in adopting apply plant based diet to optimize their athletic performance. What do you find are the one or two major mistakes that people make as they weighed into this lifestyle as athletes?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Well, so one thing is, especially if you're not on a PLANTSTRONG diet already, you certainly don't want to make that switch in the middle of a competitive cycle. Because it will take some time for your gut to get used to it, it's a very high fiber diet, a lot of people will experience some transient GI distress. And so just like you don't go from zero to 60, you don't go from not training at all to go out and running 26 miles, you train your body.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
We have to train our gut over the course of four to six weeks, to get used to that high fiber diet. So one is jumping right into it all the way and then you experience a lot of gas and GI discomfort. And so you say, I can't do this. The other thing I think, a lot of people still have this notion that they're not getting any protein. And so what I do there, I have them use a food tracking app for a couple days, like Cronometer or My Fitness Pal, and actually have them keep a food diary.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Because again, and look at those numbers and see. And I have never had anybody who did that who came back and said, "I was right, I wasn't getting enough protein." So I use that sometimes just to reassure people that they are in fact, you're getting plenty of the nutrients that you need including protein. I think those are the two biggest ones. So one is jumping in too much with the GI stuff, and then the other is overcoming the fallacy of protein.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. The other one that I'll throw in there is I find that a lot of times people, they transition to this lifestyle and they're eating about the same quantity of food, getting two thirds of the calories and so they don't feel quite as energized, and it's just a matter of them, they have to eat more.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Right, right, no, that's a great point. That's exactly right. And so it does, you know this as well, you're gnashing all day long, right? I've got fruit, and you know what I mean? So it's really, because you do get full, because a plant based diet is so nutrient dense, you do have to consume a much larger quantity. And so you're exactly right, helping people understand that, that you may have to have three or four, five meals a day, small meals a day, paste out through the day to get enough because you can't load up ... the thing is you can't sit down, there is a physical limit to how many plants you can eat because of all that fiber, you get full.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So you do have to feed more frequently to be sure you're getting enough calories, that's-
Rip Esselstyn:
And not only the fiber Dr. Loomis, but the other thing that plants have in abundance that we love as athletes is H2O.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
And what are we 60% water?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah. That's exactly right.
Rip Esselstyn:
And you lose 10% of your 10% of your water by getting dehydrated and that severely affects performance.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Sure, that's exactly right. And thirst is not a good indicator. And so that's another thing a lot of people struggle with. And so I usually either have people weigh every day, any short term weight loss is not fat. On average, if you're trying to lose weight, you might see a one to two pounds a week. So one pound a week is a seventh of a pound a day, you go out on a hard bike ride, or a run, you come back you've lost two or three pounds, that's not fat that's water.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And the rule of thumb is, a liter of water weighs a kilogram. So a kilo is about 2.2 pounds. So, every two pounds is one liter to put back. Now if you don't weigh yourself every day, you can just monitor the color of your urine. And if your urine is dark yellow when you wake up in the morning, you're not drinking enough water. And it gets cumulative though, because you lose, I remember I had one of my really hard training runs, my Ironman was in July and in DC in July it's pretty damn hard and humid, right?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And I was out for an 80 mile ride with a five mile brick run on the back end of it on 95 degree humid day, I think I drink five, six liters of water during the day, and I was still four or five pounds down when I got home. And-
Rip Esselstyn:
Remarkable.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah, it is.
Rip Esselstyn:
So I just wanted to let you know, I'm looking at some of the comments and questions that are going through in the chat right now and just to puff you up a little bit, Agni Dass said, "Dr. Loomis is 63? He looks like he's in his 40s."
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Well, thank you. Thank you for that comment. But you know, like I said earlier, that's how I feel, it's really astounding.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. So the next thing I want you to address is, there's a lot of information out there about the power of beets, beet juice, to help dilate vessels, get more blood flow to working muscles, it's all about, I think, nitric oxide.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
That's exactly right.
Rip Esselstyn:
And if you know, my father is a huge fan of green leafies for his heart patients. Again, what is the overlap? How does eating green leafies and beets help with athletic performance?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So it's the same exact thing. So our blood vessels there's a single cell lining on the inside of the blood vessels called the endothelium and that controls the ability of the blood vessel to contract and dilate appropriately. And when we develop ... there's a lot of things we do lifestyle wise, unhealthy diets, smoking, blood pressure, secondary lifestyle, diabetes, it impairs endothelial function. And that's felt to be one of the first things to happen as a precursor to developing coronary artery disease, heart disease.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
It's interesting because, we also need endothelial function, and I'm sure Dr. Spitz talked about this, for erectile function. And many people now think that erectile dysfunction is the canary in the coal mine for heart disease, because it's one of the first things to go, indicators that you're starting to develop endothelial dysfunction. So an athlete needs strong endothelial function as well, because we need to deliver as much oxygen as we can to our working muscles. And there's research suggests that beet loading can increase endurance performance by up to 10% which is a lot, right?
Rip Esselstyn:
That's like doping. That's like doping.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
It is, it is. It is. So not only does it increase athletic performance, it's like nature's Viagra. And then beets also are fairly potent antioxidants. And again we talked earlier about the ability to recover, because exercise in and of itself is a highly inflammatory event, and it's because when we exercise, we generate what are called ... we burn oxygen and one of the byproducts of that are called oxygen free radicals, and the oxygen free radicals and small doses are good, right?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So they tell our muscles, hey, I'm getting ready to damage you, get ready to fix me when I'm done. But at high doses, it's associated with increased risk for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, on and on and on. And our bodies have a very limited ability inherently, innately to mitigate oxidative stress. So the only way we can augment that is through dietary antioxidants. And the only place you find those is in plants.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Because actually antioxidants are the plants' natural antiinflammatory mechanism to protect itself from bugs and fungus, and things like that. And in general, the more color of food has, the higher the antioxidant capacity.
Rip Esselstyn:
Beautiful.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And what's even amazing to me though, when I first started to do a deep dive into my own personal, maximizing the recovery from my Ironman, I did a deep dive into anti dietary antioxidants, most people don't know this, but the foods that have one of the highest what are called oric scores, that's a measure of the antioxidant that's your food aren't ... I used to think blueberries, raspberry, strawberries, very potent antioxidants, for sure.
Rip Esselstyn:
What is it?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Beans. It's beans.
Rip Esselstyn:
Beans.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Dark beans. Dark beans. It's the pigments in the skin of the beans are the most coated antioxidants out there. And so if you take a black bean and you cut it in half, what color is the middle? It's a creamy white, right? So it's the color, red kidney beans, Pinto beans, black beans, again. So when you're using beans as your primary source of protein, guess what? It's antiinflammatory, lots of fiber, on and on and on. So again that's the real beauty of all this, that the same foods that are going to increase ... lower our risk for chronic disease are also going to increase our athletic ability to recover from athletic performance.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And in fact the muscle soreness and stiffness that you get after hard workout comes from damage to the muscles and ligaments, the cell walls because of oxidative stress. Every athlete I talk to at Game Changers, I'm sure you've experienced it, I experienced it, when I started training harder than I've ever trained in my life, I rarely got sore stiff, it was astounding that at 60 years old, 61 years old, when I'm training for this Ironman, how quickly I recovered. It was crazy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I want to alternate now ... we got a slew of questions coming in for you from the audience and so I'm going to hit some of these. One of my questions for you, and it's also the question that Alina Alvarez has is, "Dr. Loomis, what about supplements? Are there any supplements as a athlete that I should be taking, whether it's iron, whether it's B12, calcium, what are your thoughts?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So we could have a whole hour discuss about that. So the Reader's Digest version is B12 for sure. I personally recommend about 500 micrograms a day, that's a little on the high side but I've never seen anyone come in either too high or too low on that dose, that's what I take. One of the other drivers of inflammation comes from the over consumption of Omega 6 fatty acid. So again, we can talk for a long time at this but, in general we over consume Omega 6s and they create inflammation. Omega 3s are antiinflammatory.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And you're looking for a dietary ratio of about two to one, three to one. You can do that but you have to go almost completely oil free because the major source, even on a plant based diet of Omega 6 is our edible oils. Even olive oil, for example, has a 13 to two Omega 6 Omega 3 ratio and what you're looking for is about three to one. So I do take a algae based Omega 3 supplement to help boost that antiinflammatory. And then the other thing I used a little bit of was just a turmeric ginger supplement.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Again, this is just a potent antiinflammatory for, I'd had knee surgery and such, and I did use a little turmeric and ginger, but other than that you really don't need anything. There's plenty of iron in plants, there's plenty of calcium in plants so you don't really need to worry about the rest of them.
Rip Esselstyn:
What about, you mentioned iron, obviously for the people that don't know, you get a different type of iron in-
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah, yeah. So, yes, thanks for pointing that out. So the iron we consume for meat is called heme iron. So it's iron that's attached to the hemoglobin molecule. Hemoglobin's how we carry oxygen in our blood. So basically what we're doing is consuming that dead animal's blood, which is really disgusting when you think about it. Heme iron though is highly inflammatory it's pro-inflammatory, it's also very easy for our bodies to absorb. There is iron in plants, but it's not bound to hemoglobin, it's called non heme iron.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
The problem is it is a little bit harder for our bodies to absorb. But, if you co ingest a source of vitamin C with these high iron foods, and those are legumes and green leafy vegetables and things like molasses, and things like that, you'll see absorption rates that equal or exceed non heme iron. So the idea is, again, snack on citrus fruit, red bell peppers, put a little lemon juice or lime juice in your soups or salads, things like that, iron be is not an issue.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. The other thing I'd like to add to that is that I think of the non heme iron is kind of a more intelligent form of iron because-
Dr. Jim Loomis:
It is.
Rip Esselstyn:
... your body can regulate it and it doesn't-
Dr. Jim Loomis:
That's exactly right.
Rip Esselstyn:
... much.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
That's right.
Rip Esselstyn:
Whereas with the animal iron you can go into a state of what's it called homeo?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Hemochromatosis. Yeah so we start to store the extra iron in our liver actually, and some people are genetically predisposed to that. It's very interesting. So the way we treat patients with hemochromatosis is you blood let, you take blood out because you want to make them iron deficient. I've had three or four patients now after they went on a plant based diet, no longer had to get phlebotomy, had their blood drawn, because you're not storing all that extra iron, you're just using what you need. It's crazy.
Rip Esselstyn:
All right. Michelle Kiest wants to know, "Dr. Loomis, what are your thoughts on collagen? That seems to be like a hot thing these days."
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Well. So collagen is what makes up a lot of our connective tissue in our cartilage and ligaments and things like that. Here's the issue, I mentioned this earlier, collagen is a form of protein, and if yo consume collagen, what happens to that? It gets broken down in our gut to the individual amino acids and we absorb them and we put it back together. So taking collagen has never been shown to really improve joint health function, or joint health because it's not like the collagen is magically getting things from your gut into your joints intact.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So as long as we're eating a healthy diet, then again, there's no ... and plus collagen is animal based as well, that's really the only place you find it, it's in the connective tissue. But there's no strong evidence that collagen has a health benefit supplemented.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So, David Harden wants to know, "How about fats for someone that does vigorous strength training and cardio, I struggle knowing how much I should get without putting my heart at risk."
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So if you look at the natural macro nutrient ratios of a whole food plant based diet, it's about 75% unprocessed carbs, about 15% protein, and about 10% fat. Now we do need to consume some fat because there's vitamins that we need to absorb that require fat. So again, a whole food plant based diet, again, it's one of those other things you just don't have to worry about it. Where you get into trouble, there's two or three places that some people get into trouble. So one of the edible oils, which I don't consume for the most part, I try to stay away from that, because again, most of these oils are very high in Omega 6s.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
You can get into trouble with nuts and seeds. And so again, if you have a lot of heart risk, I really have patients try to limit that. And again, I think using a food tracking app like Cronometer, typically you don't want to exude about 30, 35 grams of fat a day in your diet. That's kind of the threshold that for healthy heart. And that corresponds to about that 10% of fat for normal, the standard number of calories that most people consume.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, thank you. Here is a question from Arlene, which actually is perfect because you and I were talking about this right before we went on, and that is, "Dr. Loomis, would you recommend tart cherry juice for athletic recovery?" Maybe this is a time for you to tell us about your recovery shake.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah. So as I was preparing to train for Ironman I did a really deep dive into the science of recovery and antiinflammatory. And so I concocted a ... and so there are some foods that have evidence that show that they are highly antiinflammatory, things like tart cherry juice, watercress is another one, watermelon actually. So I concocted a recovery shake that I would use, tart cherry juice is the base. I'd throw in some frozen banana, just for the glycone and the carbs, a big handful of kale. I put in some beet, beet root powder or roasted beets. I'd put in cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, chia seed for the Omega 3s, and I would drink that.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And I told you the story of my son, now lives in Washington, DC, and he's in his mid 20s and he took up cycling. So we would go this summer on 40, 50 mile bike rides in DC and he would tell me that he would get sore and stiff afterwards. So, I brought him some of my recovery shake to drink after one of our long rides, and I called him the next day and he said it was amazing that all the muscle soreness and stiffness that he had experienced in the past went away completely. And it's exactly what we're talking about.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well that sounds delicious, I wish I had a big glass right here, right now. I'm hungry. So we're getting lots of comments, Dr. Loomis on, so what are your thoughts on taking a plant-based protein powder, especially after a workout? The bro science is everywhere.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
It's funny because this question always comes up. So again, if you're eating a well-balanced, whole food plant-based diet and consume enough calories, you don't need to worry about it. Now that being said, if you're using say you're a busy lifestyle and you get up in the morning, and you don't have time to make a breakfast, using a little protein powder in a shake or something like that just as a meal replacement, not a supplement that's okay.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
But again, it's back to this nutritional reductionism. When you take a pea and you strip out all the fiber and all that and turn it into a powder, or hemp, you've stripped out all the Omega 3s and the fiber which are helpful and just concentrated into the powder, you've lost a lot of the nutritional value of those foods. And so if you have the luxury of just eating the plants, that's by far a better way to consume protein.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So protein powder is a supplement, it's not necessary if you're consuming enough calories. It may play a role. we talked earlier about ensuring you're getting enough calories through the day, it may play a role in a busy lifestyle and as a meal replacement, if you will, but not as a supplement.
Rip Esselstyn:
So to dovetail on that, here's a question from Charlene Black. She says, "Dr. Loomis, there's some pretty strong research suggesting that seniors need higher levels of protein, what is your understanding of the evidence?"
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Well, so first of all you have to remember that almost all of this research that's done on nutrition and is done on a population of people that is fundamentally unhealthy. They don't exercise, they go to sedentary lifestyle so they lose muscle mass as we age. So I'm of the opinion, I'll be 63, I don't know if that's senior or not, but I don't take extra protein because I'm worried I'm going to end up on a walker because I eat a healthy diet and I exercise, and I maintain muscle mass.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So I think, again, I think you have to, there is research around that, but again, it's in people who lead a secondary lifestyle, they eat a relatively unhealthy diet, they're losing that muscle mass, they're losing function, and yes, in that situation, that is true. But I think for someone who leads a healthy lifestyle, you probably don't need to worry too much about it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So I know you're in Saudi Arabia and you're speaking about, I think the benefits of exercise.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
That's right.
Rip Esselstyn:
For those people that have joined us that currently aren't engaging in any kind of regular physical activity, or exercise. And I know you could give a two hour lecture on this but, I don't want you to go over two minutes because we got lots of questions. But what are some of the inherent benefits of exercise that should get people excited about moving?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Well, the list goes on. So decreased risk for heart disease, healthy weight, lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol prevented reverse diabetes, bone health, cognition, dementia, lower risk for dementia, improving ... exercise is as effective as antidepressants in the treatment of depression. Anxiety, lowers anxiety, improves sleep, improves immune function. People who exercise regularly had a significantly decreased risk of having severe COVID, getting hospitalized by COVID, and dying from COVID, just from exercise and control for diet.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So there's, across the board, cancer, breast cancer and colon cancer in particular, significantly decreased risks of both breast and colon cancer in people who are physically active compared to not. So again, exercise is kind of part of the vital triad, right? It's about physical wellness and movement, nutritional wellness in what we eat and what we don't eat, and then our emotional wellness through stress management and recovery from stress through sleep. And when we find that balance, that's really the key here.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Listen, that right there, that was powerful. I mean, come on, that's a lot of great reasons to get out there and move our bodies. Here's a question from Sam Make It Simple. "Dr. Loomis, what is the recommendation or equation for how much exercise to do daily when dealing with heart disease?" So this is somebody that has heart disease. "And is there any kind that you would recommend that I avoid?"
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Well, as a disclaimer, that's something ... you certainly need to talk to your cardiologist about this. But it's really interesting, and this is something I explored a lot in getting ready for these talks on exercise, we actually did not evolve to exercise, what we evolved to do would be physically active. And exercise, physical activity has devolved into exercise in the modern world. Because physical activity is movement that burns calories, exercise is a willful event to move.
Rip Esselstyn:
They're very different, aren't they?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
They are. And so really the key to really preventing these chronic diseases is not training for an Ironman necessarily, it's to move it's to be physically active. And we need 30 minutes to an hour, most days, something to get your heart rate up couple days a week, we need to replicate picking stuff up, moving out of the way, light weights, that's really it and it doesn't matter. Taking a walk after dinner, walking a dog, just kicking a sock around with your kids, hiking the woods, bike ride around the neighborhood. Take the stairs instead of the elevator, park on the far end of the parking lot.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
And it's even been shown that you can break up that activity into three 10 minute blocks during the day, and it's almost as effective as 30 minutes. So that's really the key for, even if you've had a heart attack, cardiac rehab is a very important part of that. We know that when we perform regular physical activity, we grow new blood vessels. Athletes grow new blood vessels, capillaries to increase blood flow to their legs, they increase blood flow to the heart, that's also true for patients with heart disease.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So there's really no restrictions but, again, that's something you probably want to discuss with your, especially if you're talking about doing something, training for a marathon or a 10K or something like that, that is something you probably want to talk to your cardiologist about.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well to me what you just expressed there and your difference between physical activity and exercise is kind of what Dan Bune's been talking about with the blue zones, right?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
That's exactly right.
Rip Esselstyn:
They naturally move because it's part of their everyday existence.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So, think about it. I would suspect that your great, great great, great grandparents would find it bizarre because you sit around, not you, but we sit around in front of a computer all day that we have to pay money to go to a place, to get on some machine that we don't want to be on. That makes us sweat and we don't like the way we look in clothes, and it's painful, it's kind of crazy if you think about it. And so really it's really about just incorporating physical activity in your day, whether it be exercise or not, and that's really the key, right?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah. Here's a comment. This is just a nice, fun comment from Kathleen Sullivan. She says, "As a 56 year old tennis player who had four consecutive matches in the past four days, I have no soreness like I used to when I was a vegetarian eating lots of oil and cheese."
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Right. That's exactly right.
Rip Esselstyn:
So what is it about the oil and cheese that's giving her soreness?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Well, it's again, we just talked about it, it's the ... so A it's the lack of antioxidants, when you're eating oil and cheese, there's no antioxidants, and the biggest source of saturated fat, that's what the Omega 6 is, is, in the American diet is dairy, right? It's dairy and oil. And it's also in meat because it's really because of what we feed. Corn oil, for example, corn oil has an 83 to one Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio. It's the most highly inflammatory oil you can consume.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
How do we fatten up cows, pigs, chickens? Corn, you actually mix corn into the feed. And that gets into the eggs, it gets into the cheese, and the dairy and on and on and on. So that's the reason why. So when you're consuming that, you're not consuming antioxidants, and you're over consuming Omega 6s.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. I've actually also read a lot of research showing that the healthiest most antiinflammatory nut is the Walnut, that it's about three to one, Omega 6 to Omega 3.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
And then the most unhealthy pro-inflammatory nut is the almond, it's 2,500 to one.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah, so you have to be careful. That's what I said earlier, you have to be very careful with nuts. Again, is one Walnut going to hurt you? No. Eating a huge handful of walnuts every day, and people get sidetracked with that because it is a plant-based food, and it is an unprocessed whole food plant-based food. But, as you said, you have to be very, very careful with nuts and seeds and because they are in fact, also very cholerically dense because of the fat.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. We're just getting flooded now with comments on oil and really is it, should I be omitting oil? Isn't a little bit good for optimal health and-
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So let me-
Rip Esselstyn:
People do not want to hear you telling them they can't have their olive or their sunflower, or whatever.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So let's reframe this for just a second. So think about money, when we have extra money, we want to invest it in our financial future. And what we're looking for is a positive ROI, right, return on investment. That's how we should think about our calories. Because every calorie you put in your mouth is either an investment in your health future, or it's not. Unless you say you have 100 calories to invest health, right this a minute, and you could invest it in olive oil or coconut oil because you heard that was healthy, some boneless, skinless, chicken breast or broccoli.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
What's the nutritional ROI of 100 calories of olive oil? Well first of all, it's only about a table stone. How much space does that take up in your stomach? Not very much. What do you get back from that nutritionally besides fat? How much protein? Zero. How much cancer fighting phytonutrients? Zero. How much fiber? Zero. Edible oils are the absolute worst return on your nutritional investment that you can consume, it's 4,000 calories per pound. A pound of broccoli is 100 calories. Somewhere in there.
Rip Esselstyn:
40 X difference.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah, exactly. 100 calories of boneless, skinless chicken breast or steak, or salmon is about an ounce. What do you get back from that protein? Fat. There's none of these other cancer fighting phytonutrients, antioxidants recovery, on and on. Broccoli, 100 calories is 12 ounces, if you want 14 ounces, it's a lot of broccoli. What else do you get? You get protein on and on and on. So just reframing this, nuts would be, just take it out of it and just look at it from a nutritional ROI standpoint, whether you're trying to lead a healthy lifestyle, prevent, treat, reverse chronic disease, athletic performance, I think reframing is in terms of nutritional ROI, should, I think give some clarity on why oils are not so helpful.
Rip Esselstyn:
I like that, that was a really good analogy. Really, really good. So let me ask you, we're getting some questions here and I want to see if you can address both these and I feel like you have, but they're still pouring in. So, let's say you're an athlete that's trying to lose weight on a plant-based diet, what do you do? And let's say you're an athlete that's trying to gain weight on a plant-based diet. Do you want to address calorie density for a second? Would that be helpful for this crowd?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah. Again, it's this whole idea, you do have to be careful. And so again, the thing is, if you want to lose weight, a plant based diet's great because, it is so calorie dense.
Rip Esselstyn:
Calorie light.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
If you want to gain-
Rip Esselstyn:
Calorie light.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah. So nutrient dense, sorry, nutrient dense not calorie dense. The bigger challenges actually to gain weight, we've already talked about that. Because it is so nutrient dense and you really have to beef up your calorie game. So again, it's just as simple as just cutting back a little bit and creating that calorie deficit you need to lose a little bit of weight. Frankly though, what I found was, I just listen to my body.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
When I'm hungry, I eat, when I'm not hungry, I don't eat. We're kind of programmed three meals a day, three squares on and on. I've had some success personally and even with athletic performance in a training build doing some intermittent fasting, there is some evidence that may increase insulin sensitivity, which makes you more efficient at burning fat over the long run, that's one way, doing intermittent fasting, 16:8 strategy which really isn't it, it's more time restricted eating where you take all your calories in an eight hour window, or you do a couple days a week, you do a 24 hour water fast kind of thing.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
That's another way to accelerate the weight loss, and if you do that smartly, it shouldn't affect your athletic performance in the early part of a training cycle if you're a competitive athlete.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Good, good, good. So we have come to the close of our fourth rescue event. I want you to get back to bed because sleep is a very important pillar, and what is it, 4:08 A.M. there now?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah, exactly. Yes it is.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh my goodness gracious. But I want to thank you, Jim, for, for joining us from Saudi Arabia. We've got close to 1,000 people that have heard you here live tonight and your wisdom on this subject is really unparalleled and so thank you for sharing with everybody.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Thanks for giving me the opportunity, this has really been fantastic.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah, our pleasure. Let me just say before we hang up with Jim, we have people from Australia, Canada, New York, California, like 30 other states, I absolutely adore this community. And a reminder for everybody, just visit the comment section and you can get your free downloadable recipe guide for the big game next Sunday. Jim's rooting for the Rams, I'm rooting for the Bangles, we'll see who comes up on top. What do you want to bet? You want to bet a plant-based dinner somewhere?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah that sounds great. Can I add one more thing real quick Rip-
Rip Esselstyn:
Please, absolutely. Absolutely.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So my-
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah because I also want you to let people know where they can go for more information on you and-
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yes that's what I was just going to lead into. So my good friend and colleague in St. Louis, Caryn Dugan has a center for plant-based living, which is a brick and mortar culinary education center around teaching kitchen, helping able to develop culinary literacy. We're doing some online programming, and later this spring, the date hasn't been determined, we're actually going to do a half day seminar on exactly this subject, do a deeper dive along with some cooking demos, portables to take with you.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
So, we will have more information about that, I think it'll probably be ... the links will come out before the podcast is my understanding, but-
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, we'll put them in there for sure.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Yeah. Yeah. And I do do telehealth, I'm licensed in a few states, Florida, DC, Missouri, Maryland, and Virginia. You can go to barnardmedicalcenter.org and find more information. We have other providers who are licensed in other states. If you're looking for a plant-based provider, I know you had Lori on last week, we offer some of those similar services. We have some we plant based dieticians available. So if you're interested and if you've got some chronic health issues, you'd like to have addressed, I'd love to see you online as a patient.
Rip Esselstyn:
Fantastic. Hey Jim, are you going to wake up and go for a run? What's the weather like there?
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Well, so first of all, it's relatively cool, 70 during the day, 40 at night, kind of desert winter. But I tell you something, the infrastructure here, the build environment for exercise here is completely nonexistent. There are no sidewalks, there's absolutely no place to go for a run. I'm going to have to unfortunately get on the dread mill I'm afraid, or bike in the gym here because it's really ... the reason is, in the summertime it's 120 degrees every day. So, they haven't made that investment.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
There's a big mall culture, people walking and such, but one of the things they're trying to change by the way. But I'm not going for a run unfortunately, I would love to. The weather is beautiful, nice and sunny, 70 degrees, perfect running weather but, I don't feel like getting run over by a car here in-
Rip Esselstyn:
Don't do that.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Right, right.
Rip Esselstyn:
We need you alive and well.
Dr. Jim Loomis:
Right. Right.
Rip Esselstyn:
All right. Well hey everybody, I hope you enjoy the remainder of the Olympics. A lot of excitement going on right now over in China, the big game next Sunday, Jim's going for the Rams, I'm going for the Bangles, would love to hear who you're going for. With that let me just say, peace engine to you, keep it PLANTSTRONG.
Rip Esselstyn:
The PLANTSTRONG podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick Gavin, and Wade Clark. This season is dedicated to all of those courageous truth seekers, who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth. Most notably my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr. and Ann Crile Esselstyn. Thanks for listening.
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