#111: Josh LaJaunie - Helping our Plantstrong Brother in the Bayou
Rip catches up with longtime plantstrong pal, Josh LaJaunie, in a moving conversation about remaining resilient, determined, and focused even when life hands you profoundly difficult situations.
Many know Josh as a former 400+ pound football player-turned-plantstrong ultra runner. He has appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, and even the cover of Runner's World Magazine celebrating his transformation, as well as his desire to help others. He wrote his book, Sick to Fit and even started the Missing Chins Run Group to motivate others to reclaim their lives with the power and life-saving intervention of plants.
As a Louisiana bayou native, Josh is a cajun, through-and-through. Unfortunately, his home and the trailer park he manages were obliterated by Hurricane Ida. Today, he speaks with Rip about the ongoing effects, devastation, and rebuilding efforts he, his family, and his community are facing. The media has moved on, but the pain and reality have not.
Josh shares his story with Rip, as well as his hope for remaining buoyant in a time when the hurricanes and floods have sunk nearly everything. There isn’t a more real and raw human than Josh LaJaunie and we appreciate him taking the time to talk on the phone in the middle of his stress and chaos.
As they said in the interview, “quitting is optional,” and we know Josh won’t quit, but we're also here to spread the word and extend a loving plantstrong hand to a friend in need.
Full Transcript
Josh LaJaunie:
We got like a Cajun French term called Tête Dur. That means hard head bro. We got a bunch of hard headed fellas down here, and ladies, and the harder it is to survive I think, the more likely it is we will.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh my gosh. I love it.
Josh LaJaunie:
Just to prove you wrong.
Rip Esselstyn:
Season three of the PlantStrong Podcast explores those Galileo moments where you seek to understand the real truth around your health and dare to see the world through a different lens. This season, we honor those courageous seekers who are paving the way for you and me. So grab your telescope point it towards your future and let's get plant strong together.
Rip Esselstyn:
Hello PlantStrong people. I hope that you're in a good place right now in your life. You're feeling confident and powerful and present. Because so many of us don't even realize how lucky we are. And this conversation that I have today will help to highlight that. This is a conversation that is very raw, it's very real and it's very timely, and it's with a gentleman that I've known for over eight years. His name is Josh LaJaunie and he hails from Thibodaux, Louisiana. And he is Cajun to the core as you're going to hear. He is quick as a whip, he is tough as nails and he's also hurting right now, as you're going to hear about.
Rip Esselstyn:
But Josh has a big change journey that he went through that is insane. At his top weight he was over 420 pounds. And he went from that to being on the cover of Runner's World Magazine winning 50 mile running races. Being on the Today Show and Good Morning America, where he talked about a club that he founded called the Missing Chin's Club for overweight individuals who were getting back or just starting to run. And Josh, he's a very special, special human being.
Rip Esselstyn:
And in the aftermath of Ida, he's in a tough pickle right now. And this trailer park that his grandfather founded several decades ago that Josh now runs, was basically obliterated by Ida. And this community has gone without power, water, basically scraps of food for weeks and 120 families that Josh feels responsible for. And so I would ask if you're at all moved by today's conversation and you feel like lending a helping hand in any way you can, let's do it. Let's help our PlantStrong brother Josh out. We'll have some ways that you can donate if you want in the show notes.
Rip Esselstyn:
And I know that you're going to, I don't know if enjoy is the right word, but I know that you're going to cherish this conversation. And there's a lot of great takeaways. I also want to let you know that Josh and I had to do this interview with his cell phone because his internet is still out. So forgive the audio quality of this one, but the conversation, I think you'll agree, is worth every moment of your time. Thanks.
Rip Esselstyn:
Before we jump in with Josh, it feels timely and very relevant to share how important it is to find and maintain connections with other people in the face of all the challenges that we have working against us right now. If you aren't already a member, I want to invite you to join our free PlantStrong community. It's an online space where you can share your story, search for recipes, offer support to others who are at different stages of their journey. Or heck, you can just discuss different podcast episodes. We've got an awesome team of moderators plus I drop in from time to time as well. To join, visit community.plantstrong.com and introduce yourself. We look forward to meeting you.
Rip Esselstyn:
And now let's jump in with my friend, Josh LaJaunie. I have a very special guest on the PlantStrong Podcast this week. His name is Josh LaJaunie and I've known Josh for gosh, probably a good six, seven years. I first heard about Josh when he was on the Rich Roll Podcast probably eight years ago. Josh, do you know what year you did the Rich Roll Podcast?
Josh LaJaunie:
That was in 2013.
Rip Esselstyn:
My gosh. So that was eight years ago. Almost exactly.
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah. That was December 2013 was the episode aired, I think.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yup. Yup. Wow. And gang, I can't wait for you to hear Josh's story, his big change journey. He wrote a book called Sick to Fit a couple years ago that is fabulous. You started the Missing Chin's Running Club that I want everybody to hear about. You at one point in time, not too long ago, you weighed 420 pounds. And you are now, you have been on the cover of Runner's World, you've been on Good Morning America, you've been on the Today Show. It's pretty incredible what you've been able to do and nobody's got a story like yours, nobody. I know that everybody has their own very unique story, but there's something about yours. Kind of growing up in New Orleans and Thibodaux and just that whole lifestyle and that culture, that is really like its own separate country. And everybody-
Josh LaJaunie:
It is, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. And so everybody, you're going to get a little feel for that. But Josh before you dive into that, I would love it if you would share with people just because it's so top of mind and what you've been going through for the last week or two due to Ida and then on its heels, Nicholas.
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah, I grew up in the Gulf South and dealing with hurricanes all my life and you always worried about the big one, the one that just kind of hits you square on the chin. And especially I grew up in a trailer park, and my grandfather owned a trailer park, so it was always very nerve racking around hurricane time, it was just always nerve racking. You see those destructive videos of destruction like Andrew in Florida back in mid '90s. So it's always been nerve racking and every year you kind of go, "Oh, maybe this is the year, maybe this year," and it builds a lot of anxiety honestly, it causes a lot of anxiety.
Josh LaJaunie:
But this year we kind of got a worst case scenario down here as far as hurricanes are concerned and we really took one on the chin. Worst one to ever hit Louisiana in history, worst one to ever make landfall and I mean we've had some doozies here. Between Katrina and Camille just to the east of us was a really bad, deadly hurricane. And hurricane Betsy here in the '60s in Thibodaux was our last big one. But Ida has just pummeled especially the southern half of my Parish.
Josh LaJaunie:
Thibodaux where I'm from, which is up in the very northern part of the Parish, which we call up the bayou. And up the bayou, while it's still the worst destruction we've ever seen in Thibodaux and in Chackbay where I'm from and the surrounding areas, it's nothing compared to Raceland going south and I haven't even been down there yet. But our parish just got pummeled man and it's hard to see and it's frustrating on so many different levels. We're still in a situation where we don't have... I just got power back a couple of days ago. We still don't have good reliable internet. So I'm trying to do this interview on our cellular network, which itself is a little sketchy at the moment, but that's what we got going on right now.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you grew up in a trailer park that you said your grandfather, and what's your grandfather's name?
Josh LaJaunie:
His name is Allan Parks.
Rip Esselstyn:
What do you call him? Didn't you call him bambam?
Josh LaJaunie:
Oh, my bad. Yeah, I called him bambam. Right, that's it. I gave him that name when I was like two years old, where he was at one of his, he was a contractor. And he was at one of his suppliers in a warehouse like a lumber vendor. And they were having a Christmas party or something and somebody randomly pointed at a picture of him to me, because I was the baby there and he said, "Who is this?" And I said, "Bambam," and the name just kind of stuck, you know?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Josh LaJaunie:
And we really don't know why specifically, there's a lot of theories. But yeah, that's what I've always called him. And he's been... Because my parents were basically teenagers when I was born, and so they played, my mom's parents, so that's, Bambam's my mom's dad. They played a huge role in my life and so he and I were extremely close.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. And so this trailer park, you're now kind of running it, right?
Josh LaJaunie:
Right. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. And how many families like live there?
Josh LaJaunie:
We have 120 families or households live there. We have some people who have there's multiple addresses out there with the same last name. People just grew up there and then when they grew up, they bought a trailer and put it on a lot, two streets down from Mama, you know and interesting. That's just our community. It's a family business, but it's also a family home, and it's a community.
Rip Esselstyn:
So 120 families, and of those 120 families, is everybody still there? Or-
Josh LaJaunie:
For the most part, yeah. But I would say probably just guessing between 8 and 10 have had to move out. Some plan on coming back, some lost everything. We've had some mobile homes in there where people just had the entire thing just pulled apart by the wind. We've never seen that kind of sustained wind before where we are. And some of them, we just had some of these massive trees ripped. It pulled a root ball up as big, that would have three cubic yards of dirt attached to it. It just pulled up the dirt out of the ground. I've never seen trees fall with such force. I've always seen trees kind of get blown and they slowly lean into a trailer and a limb might do a little damage or something. But I've never seen them just explode like a baseball bat whacking it, and I mean roofs smashed through the floor. It's insane the amount of force that was... it's just insane.
Rip Esselstyn:
So what has the last week and a half look like for you as far as running this place? What have you been doing to take care of all your tenants?
Josh LaJaunie:
Luckily, some people have stepped in and helped out and I'm able to do things like we've been buying gas because we've been off grid for, we just got power back last night at the trailer park. So we've been off grid for a while now. And so I've been able to buy gas from people every day for their generators and a lot of people have donated food and supplies and money to buy supplies. We was able to go... When I saw how much damage we had out in the trailer park, me and my dad, we drove to a place about an hour and a half away because that's the closest we could get supplies.
Josh LaJaunie:
It was chaos here. People, they don't understand. And we just bought tarps, all the tarps we could get and filled up the back of my truck and came back so we could start tarping up and keeping the rain off because we're still in tropical season but their roof is destroyed. We've been filling up gas on the repeat every day. Putting up tarps. Right? And then the trees because the name of our mobile home park is called Woodland Heights and it was very... That's part of what we were is like we want to be nestled in the swamp, in the woods among the trees. But man, the tree damage, dude. Like wow. The trees, just mountains of limbs and trunks and tree debris.
Rip Esselstyn:
What exactly, because I think I heard reports that this before it hit land, was like 154 mile per hour winds. Do you know what it was when it reached you guys?
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah it was still sustained. I think they still had wind up here in Thibodaux and, got to remember where we are, we were on the weaker side of the eye wall and we still had 120 mile an hour winds that I saw from a Facebook live during the storm, some storm chaser had put himself, he was a mile away from the trailer park. I knew exactly, he was at the Academy Sports a mile away from the trailer park and he was clocking winds of 120 miles an hour and I'm just sitting there watching like, crying.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So where were you when this storm was going on? Were you here at the trailer park or someplace else?
Josh LaJaunie:
We drove to Huntsville, Texas. That's the closest place we could get a room. So me and my mom and my brother and my brother's girl, and some of her family and all of the dogs, and we just loaded up and drove out to Huntsville, Texas and found a little hole in the wall place that was okay with us having that menagerie, that petting zoo with us. And we stayed there and we watched news and just watched it. And I watched as bad as we had it really, if people don't know where Cut Off, Louisiana is, where Larose, Louisiana is, where Lockport, where Raceland, Galliano or Golden Meadow. That's all stuff we call down the bayou from here, we're up the bayou here. Those places got destroyed man. Destroyed, and it's insane.
Rip Esselstyn:
So when you say they got destroyed, you think that there are people that were living there, like it was just obliterated?
Josh LaJaunie:
Slabs dude. Just slabs of homes left, like Leesville and Larose. And when I got to about middle of the parish, like Raceland area, it took a turn and went due north for a little while. And when it did that it spared us, we still got really bad stuff but it spared us. That eastern eye wall stayed on Lockport, Larose and just crushed them and it just turned and pivoted on top of them, and so it was insane, it was bad.
Rip Esselstyn:
Because I know that you have a insane can-do, kind of make-do attitude and skill set. Like for example in your book, Sick to Fit, you talked about how, "Man I can take a rowboat and a little bit of duct tape and turn it into a Cajun submarine," right?
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah, exactly.
Rip Esselstyn:
So I'm wondering, is that the prevailing attitude down there that people have? I mean, have they rolled over or are they fighting right now to kind of get back?
Josh LaJaunie:
Oh no, bro. We got like a Cajun French term called like Tête Dur. That means hard head bro. We got a bunch of hard headed fellas down here, and ladies, and the harder it is to survive a thing, the more likely it is we will.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh my Gosh. I love it.
Josh LaJaunie:
Just to prove you wrong.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, speaking of proving people wrong, I think you proved a lot of people wrong when... So tell me kind of the story. If you can give us kind of the Reader's Digest version of how did you stumble into plant based nutrition?
Josh LaJaunie:
From running, really. Because I surrendered to running as an exercise as even an option. That's the first step that happened. And that's the first thing, when I look back at it, that's the first domino that kind of fell was me surrendering and saying, "Oh, I'm not a big ape gorilla... big man. I can be slimmer, I don't have to be a football player for the rest of my life. And so, I started doing running and that's when things changed and the running got difficult because I stayed heavy, because at that time it was all meat for meals. It was like low carb, low carb and I was like, man, if I do low carb and I run a lot, I'm going to get skinny, skinny, skinny.
Josh LaJaunie:
And it worked. And I started getting... I mean, I lost a lot of weight really quick. But I was honestly... I mean, we all family, I was constipated, it was rough. And the whole reason that I was doing paleo and stuff like that is because I was trying to find like that authentic nutritional norm. And it just hit me one day I'm like, "Where was the authentic human man getting his Metamucil and Dulcolax? The stuff that I'm trying to use." You know?
Josh LaJaunie:
But it was the backbeat of constantly trying to be better at running that made me want to sort of play with that nutritional equalizer board, if you will. And then reading Jurek's, well, I read Born to Run. And that introduced me to Scott Jurek. And then Scott Jurek kind of was the thing that ignited me when I was like, "Wait, people run marathons? Wait, ultra-marathons?" And then I took off from there. And that's what got me into the plant based side of stuff. And then by the time I'd adopted plant based, I still had probably 110-115 pounds to lose and it just flew off in record time. And all of a sudden now, I was running and I had times, it wasn't just finishing. I had goals and things just really took off.
Josh LaJaunie:
It was like an amalgam of not only the nutrition, but the inspiration from guys like you and Rich Roll and Scott and Brendan Brazier. And all of these people just really, it really provided the North Star of influence and inspiration for me to not just be plant based, but to try to become that authentic version of myself that Rich talks about. Like there's a default human version of all of us and I want to be as close to that as possible in this very unnatural world we live in. And that's what all of this has really brought me to and plant baseness is one of the facets of that. You know?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. You're trying to become a better runner, trying to live in a way that's truly authentic. What about all these hard headed Cajuns that you're living around? Your brother, your mother, maybe relatives, aunts, uncles, what do they think as they see you becoming this lean, mean plant strong running machine?
Josh LaJaunie:
Well, I mean, some of them just kind of roll their eyes and think it's a phase and Josh will eventually... just like all the other phases of my life, I'll evolve past it. Some of them, like my brother and my mom and my sister, really sort of took heed to the examples that I was. They were like, "Whoa, wait a while, none of us has ever lost all of the weight, that last 100 pounds." We always chipped away at it, but we would always cave back and put back a bunch on that we had taken off in the first place. And so, as that started to not happen and they could see me get further and further and further into leaner and leaner and more athletic, especially my brother, he's like, "I can't ignore the proof. I can't ignore what's right in front of my eyes."
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Josh LaJaunie:
And so that's the category where the nucleus of my family, we took it almost kind of like your family, it's almost like a family moniker now, that like, we're proud of that. And then there's also the other people in my life who... I'll introduce you to another Cajun term, where we just split drawers, where we don't see each other no more, it's over. And you got to be okay with those outcomes too. You got to be okay with that too. You got to be okay with it.
Rip Esselstyn:
What's that called? The split drawers? Drawers, did you say-
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah, split drawers. That means we don't mess with each other no more.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh my goodness gracious. I know. Isn't that something? I want to dive more into that. But before we do... So in reading your book, Sick to Fit, I was really just blown away with how you had to hit rock bottom at some point before you decided that you were going to kind of get better. Will you describe when you hit rock bottom and kind of what that looked like?
Josh LaJaunie:
I feel like I've been to a bunch of rock bottoms throughout my life and I've bounced, thank God I've never really buried myself. But some of the darkest times of my life where I'm abusing drugs and alcohol and doing all nighters and trying to just live a very untenable, unsustainable life for whatever reason. And looking back at things it's really just trying to find dopamine, really just trying to find something to make you happy. You know?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Josh LaJaunie:
And those things more from cocaine and alcohol to cheeseburgers and you proud of yourself because, well, at least I'm not doing the coke no more. But now I'm getting fatter and fatter by the year and it's just that life it snowballs on you. It just does, it just snowballs. And the sadness breeds more sadness, which breeds more salving with foodborne dopamine, because you've given up all other sources, and then running comes along, honestly. In a lot of ways running is a form of healthy punishment. It's like a healthy injury. It spurs anti-fragility rather than the other way around.
Rip Esselstyn:
How did you get back into running? What was that light bulb moment?
Josh LaJaunie:
That's a really good question. I think it's just like I read about it in an article in Runner's World at a gym that I was going to. I was lifting weights at the Larose's gym here in Thibodaux, which is an institution in Thibodaux. And after my workouts I had started getting on the elliptical and I would read magazine articles. And I saw a weight loss tip about running, about that low sort of zone 2 cardio effort, how that keeps you in a fat burn state. And I was like, "Well, damn, I need hella fat burner. I guess I need to start running." And so that's where it really started. And the way it started, is I would go workout for like an hour and then I would go get on the elliptical for 30 minutes. And then I would get on the treadmill and do the best I could to just jog nonstop for five minutes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow.
Josh LaJaunie:
And I started to get up to where I could turn the treadmill up to five miles an hour for my five minutes, which is 12 minute mile pace. But back then I was still 380. And the treadmill was, I was burning up the motor and the owner of the gym was like, "Hey, man, you need to slow the machine down or go outside or something." So that's what pushed me outside. That's the thing that made me go outside and say, "Okay, now I'm fat man outside running with flabby titties and all." And surrendering to that and just letting it be what it was, was really helpful for me looking back at it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, in the book, you mentioned how there's this technique, especially when you're starting out and you're over 100 pounds overweight, you call it jiggle jogging.
Josh LaJaunie:
The jiggle jog.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Can you explain to people what that is?
Josh LaJaunie:
Well, when you're 400 pounds and you got titties and fat rolls, and like my armpits would clap and my fat rolls would clap together. So what it was, was back then I was maybe just saying a 12 minute mile pace, but that was like a sprint at the end of the workout. If I was going to go for two or three miles at a stretch, I was doing more like a 16 minute pace, a 15 minute pace, 15:30 something like that. And at that pace, I'm just juggling my big old body. That's all I was doing was really just jiggling on what we would call on the football field like when you go from one drill to the next drill, your coach would always tell you, "On the hop, let's go. On the hop in a hurry." And that's just how I did. I would get on the hop. It wasn't quite a walk, but it wasn't quite a run. It was just me doing a little jiggle jog. Jiggle my fat around and get it wiggling and sweating and see if we can't get it off. It worked.
Rip Esselstyn:
And in the beginning, when you were doing this, you were what? You were waking up at 3:00 AM so no one could see you out there. Is that right?
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah, that was a big part of it is I had my friend Jeffrey, who I went to kindergarten with and he was coming to the gym with me. And so I had a good steady partner. And honestly, I was... Another bayou word, I'm gonna teach you another bayou H-O-N-T, hont me is embarrassed. So I was a little bit hont, I was a little bit hont to go juggle myself outside, and just so everybody can see. But I would wake up early in the morning and we would... And plus it hurts. I was embarrassed for people to see my grimace, you know, like on my face. And so that was, I was hiding a lot of times by getting up early and getting started.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So, at some point, you must have run in the middle of the daytime. I'm wondering, did you have people yelling at you? And if so-
Josh LaJaunie:
No.
Rip Esselstyn:
No. Okay. That's good.
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah, that's all in your head. It was all in my head and even if they were yelling, who the hell are they?
Rip Esselstyn:
Exactly.
Josh LaJaunie:
But the first time I really sort of was testing running in the daylight where people could watch me, was my very first Crescent City Classic, which was in 2012. And so that was the first time I ran in the daytime. And it's a 10k run and I was still probably 320, 330 back then. And I was feeling nice and I was feeling good. But I used to do this thing where I would get a size too small undershirt and I would put it on and tuck it into my underwear. And then put my regular shirt on top of it to try to, it was almost like a little girdle, like Spanx does now for men. You know?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Josh LaJaunie:
Right? And so, I would get a tall shirt, like a long shirt so I can tuck it way down into my drawers and it wouldn't slide up. But man, I didn't realize running in the daytime with that getup, I was so hot. It was a big learning experience for me that's for sure. But yeah -
Rip Esselstyn:
yeah. Yeah. And then you went on, I mean you've gone on to win some ultra distance, what, 50K's or 50 milers, right?
Josh LaJaunie:
Right. I've been lucky enough to be on the podium a few times. When I say lucky I mean, it's not, yes I worked hard, but I'm also lucky enough to have the freedom of schedule. To train for those things, to have a brother who's got my back, to have a mom who's got my back, a wife who's got my back. So I'm lucky in a lot of reasons why I was able to get on the podium. And I was trying to honor them a lot of times. When I would go and do the hard work necessary to try to fulfill or achieve the goal I had set for myself, is really to honor the sacrifices that the people I love around me make for me to be happy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Josh LaJaunie:
And so yes, it had me pushing really hard competitively. And at that time too my bambam was getting close to the end, and you could just feel it coming and that's just real heavy. And that all mixed together one day at a 50 miler in Florida. And I mean, I just had a time goal that day, I didn't realize that time goal was going to get me first place and it did. And I was happy my bambam was there to watch it. And it was just one of the most amazing moments of my life, much less running.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. 50 miler. The thought of running 50 miles, did you have a lot of ups and downs when you do something like that? Or was it just-
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Josh LaJaunie:
There was a lot of ups and downs. Oh man, I came out, I think I ran the first 20 too fast. And you're second guessing yourself, you're, "Oh no, I slowed down too much. You should just keep pushing, that's what you trained for," and you're constantly back and forth. And I was actually in a real dark place feeling really tired when I caught the leader, I wasn't even aware because we were on a four mile loop course. So I was looping by all kinds of people so I wasn't really 100% sure what place people were in. And in mile 40 I just had my head down and doing work. Just getting it done and the dude was like, "Man, you just passed the leader." And I was like, "Ah, you don't know what you're talking about." And I just kept working. And it was true.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow, that is so awesome, man. And bambam got to be there. Well, I've met-
Josh LaJaunie:
Oh yeah, he high-fived me. He high-fived me. He knew exactly what happened. He said, "We won." And he had tears in his eyes. "We won the whole thing."
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh my. And so did bambam, was he able to embrace any of the plant based lifestyle as well?
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah, he did. To be completely, 100% disclosure, he did. But it's not like he put up much of a fight because by the time he went plant based, we were feeding him every meal and he was just happy to eat. And he liked bananas a lot. And it was real easy to transition him. It wasn't really that hard. But to be fair, if you'd have put fried chicken in front of him, that's what he would have ate. But we did that on purpose, because of the stuff we learned from your dad and from Dr. Campbell and the things that I was learning and trying to pass along to my family. And yeah, in his 80's, he lost 200 pounds.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh my god.
Josh LaJaunie:
And it didn't, it didn't reverses his vascular dementia. It did mitigate a lot of the factors involved with it, but it didn't reverse it, but he did become more ambulatory. I mean, you lose 200 pounds and all of a sudden now, we don't need to hover around anymore, because you can walk. And that breeds other positive outcomes. The more he walked, the better he felt, the happy, the better his mood was. And it was a wonderful thing there. Until eventually, we all know once the horse is out the gate, once the horse is out the barn on the vascular dementia stuff, we know from the Sherzai's what's up. It's not pretty. That's why we don't want to get there.
Rip Esselstyn:
No. Yeah, exactly. So it sounds like you've been doing this for maybe right around a decade or so. How is your resolve? Are you just like, "Hey, this ain't no thing. And this is just now a natural extension of who I am"? What would you say to people that are struggling with it?
Josh LaJaunie:
Dude, I struggle. The me from about two years ago would have a different answer to that really. But the me from right now is my safety net really, not to disappoint any Esselstyns, but my safety net isn't vegan. But I know where the path is and sometimes you have the bread, you have the peanut butter that maybe has hydrogenated oil in and a thing in it, because it's all you got available right now. And trying to release the idea of the perfection for myself has been a struggle, because that's a fat person given himself some excuses a little bit. Right?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Josh LaJaunie:
And so, I really want to own though how the struggle is ever present. Because I don't know if it's something, I think it's a real big misnomer, and tends to set people up for failure to just, and I did this for so long, just do it, just get it done. And man, I'm really understanding more and more about life circumstance and about meeting people where they are. And about forgiveness and about easing up just a little bit and giving people time and even giving yourself some space.
Josh LaJaunie:
But my resolve is there and I'm forever grateful for what I've learned. I know how to not get heart disease. I know how to eat in a way that isn't going to make me morbidly obese in short order, like the old way of eating. Even if I do have crackers and chips in there from time to time. And I would say that what really helps my resolve is this overall identity to what it means to me, like I was talking about earlier, the entire picture of what plant based is a part of, that's what my resolve is for. To try to be that human animal that lives on love and community and that type of thing. And we're ever evolving beings in a very dynamic culture.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Listen, that was also so well said. And you're right, everybody's in a different circumstance. And I think that's really smart to have that forgiveness and meet people where they are. And not be... One of things I've learned is, don't judge, just do everything you can to be supportive and helpful. But I tell people, "Listen, I don't care if you fall 100 times. I just would ask, make sure you get up 101 times if you fall down 100 times." In your book, you have a concept of naturally attainable quantities, I think you call it the one idea to rule them all. Can you speak to that?
Josh LaJaunie:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, it just makes sense to me. It's like I've been hunting and fishing all my life. And the first thing you got to know is as a person who wants to take another animal as food, is you need to know what that animal uses as food. All right, it just so is like I understand what squirrels eat, I understand what fish eat. And it just makes good sense to me to look around. Howie talks a lot about biomimicry and stuff, right?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Josh LaJaunie:
And it just makes a lot of good sense to me look around at other animals like me, and look at what they eat. And not only this particular things they eat, but think about the quantities with which they can obtain these foods. And as an example is like the nuts thing, we always, you know how it is in whole food plant based, that's the loophole food for all of the fat people is everybody goes to the nuts. And I'm talking about fat people like myself, I know the weaknesses. And you go and you find these loopholes and the loophole gets dried up. The loophole can, my sort of naturally attainable quantities idea kind of closes that loophole in other words, to me. Because, yeah, okay, are nuts a natural food? Is it a whole food? Absolutely. But how do they come in nature? How would you happen upon them?
Josh LaJaunie:
And, how long would it take you to find and shell? How many steps would it have taken you to collect all those three handfuls and nuts that you just scoff down from your Costco bucket. And so, it's not just about identifying the foods that are whole food, plant based, natural, protective against chronic disease and obesity and those things. It's not just about finding the foods themselves, but it's also about thinking about quantities of these foods in a way that makes sense for me. And for a sportsmen in Louisiana who grew up hunting fishing, that makes sense to me. It just makes sense to me to follow the food patterns of similar organisms, and not only the types of food, but also the quantities.
Rip Esselstyn:
That makes complete sense. And just to go a little further with your example with nuts, I'm 58 now. And I can remember when I was growing up we would have nuts but you'd have to have the little instrument they would crack the shells and you'd have-
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah, the cracker.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Exactly. And you'd have maybe 10 and you'd be done. You didn't have to-
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah. Exactly. People would pick their favorite ones.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah. You didn't have the luxury of having a big bin of cashews, pistachios, almonds, peanuts, you had to work for it.
Josh LaJaunie:
Not only that's not good enough these days, they got to spray it with some sort of oil and then coat it with salt on top of that. Or sugar and call it a honey baked cashews or honey roasted something or another. And it's like these layers of caloric density on top of an already extremely calorically dense food. You know?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yup. Yup. Totally. So, you and I texted the other day a little bit and I mean, you're in a very unique situation right now. What've you been doing for food? Has it been-
Josh LaJaunie:
It's been bad. Yeah. I have a good friend of mine, Jason Harper, I love him to death. He's one of the Missing Chin's brothers, one of the OG Missing Chin dudes. And he's not from here, but he lives right here in Schriever. And he's been amazing and come and donate his time and money to come refill gas cans for tenants, and just been an amazing human. And he brought me a whole three grocery bags full of bananas and apples and Granny Smiths and all kinds of stuff. And that's the first time I'd seen food like that in a couple of weeks because we have either been on the road and it just been whatever we can find. Vegan processed food, chips, crackers, peanut butter, bread and those calorically dense processed things are just not good. Especially when I'm not moving very much any way right now. And just all we're doing is picking up limbs. I'm operating either an excavator or a front end loader. I'm picking up either trash or limbs.
Josh LaJaunie:
And before the hurricane even came... You can't see me right now, but my hand is all wrapped up because I fell and I cut two tendons in my finger on a machete. And the reason I was even in the woods cutting a trail to walk in in the first place is because my back's been bothering me for a couple of months. And it was just like snowballing on me. But this storm is just really, it's been find something at Taco Bell, bean burritos at Taco Bell while we on the road. Just things like that. It hasn't been optimal. There's been no eat loaf made recently.
Rip Esselstyn:
No.
Josh LaJaunie:
I was looking at your plate on Instagram last night, I was like, "Oh my God. That looks so amazing. Filling and healthy, guilt free."
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, I feel so I feel so spoiled here. In Austin everything's safe and easy and you know, plentiful. So it sounds like you have been put through the wringer and you're you're being challenged mentally and physically kind of in a way-
Josh LaJaunie:
1,000%, right.
Rip Esselstyn:
That you've probably never been... is it fair to say this is like the most you've probably ever been tested in life?
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Josh LaJaunie:
This is by far. Right? And then tested is a much better word and feeling like you know, I'm trying to be defeated for some kind of reason or something you know. And it was terrible timing. It was a great article, but it's terrible timing with Scott Jurek wrote about sometimes you just get defeated. Like, I don't know if you read that article, it's a really good article.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, was this in the New York Times?
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah. And I was like bad timing Scott. It's not what I need to hear right now. Sometimes you can be defeated. And I'm like, "I don't want to be defeated right now."
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, you know what, I think that... You know, here's the thing. And Scott, you look at Scott... What I love about what Scott did? Scott, he showed up and he went for it, right? So he basically decided, "You know what, that AT record is a little bit soft. I bet you I can break 40 days." and he went for it. Right? But he you know, he got a little bit... He didn't do it this time, but I think there's some lessons learned. And he'll probably go back and try it again. But, being challenged in life is inevitable, but being defeated is optional. And so just don't-
Josh LaJaunie:
Yes sir.
Rip Esselstyn:
Don't roll over. You just keep fighting.
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
I mean, nobody said life's easy. And I mean, you have all people know that, but I want you to know this, you are... due to some unforeseen natural disasters, you're in a position that not many of us have been in. I'll speak for myself. And so what I'd like to know is, what can I, what can this wonderful, loving, nurturing, plant strong community do to help out a family member that is in need right now? Do you have a Venmo fund set up? Is there some way we can contribute to kind of help rebuild this trailer park community? Any thoughts on that?
Josh LaJaunie:
Yeah. Well, I mean, Howie helped me and set up and did a podcast on his podcast, the Plant Yourself podcast. And I love, that's a whole nother side story, but he's like one of my best friends in the world now. But-
Rip Esselstyn:
And for people that don't know, this is Howard Jacobson, who helped you. You guys both wrote Sick to Fit together. And he's-
Josh LaJaunie:
Right. He's my co author and Sick to Fit. But I know about him from his coauthoring "Whole" with Dr. Campbell. That book was a huge game changer for me mentally, it let me release the grip on all of the science I was getting drowned by at the time. And yeah, so he's just been like a mentor and a big brother figure to me for years now. But he convinced me like to just say, "Hey, man, let me throw it out there on the podcast. Send me a Venmo. And let's just see. And we'll just tell people if you trust Josh, it's not a 501(c)(3) or nothing, but if you trust Josh and that he wants to do something good. And you want an avenue to get money to him here's his Venmo."
Josh LaJaunie:
And so, you can do that if you want to. And I'll share the QR code or whatever with you.
Rip Esselstyn:
That would be great.
Josh LaJaunie:
If people want to do that. And, if you would rather find like an actual nonprofit that you can donate to that you'd feel more comfortable with, if you want to do that in a different way. Maybe you want to make a big sizable donation and you don't want to put that on me, I would recommend just look up the Bayou Boeuf. That's by Bayou Boeuf Volunteer Fire Department. That's very near to Chackbay where I'm from. And they're a very unique fire department, they're community funded, they're self funded. And they're doing amazing things right now to feed their community. And not only their community, but all of the little swamp communities around there that we're all part of. And so, I would also encourage you to do that.
Josh LaJaunie:
And Google those towns that I talked about earlier. Because I haven't been on the internet much, so I don't know where there's GoFundMe's or campaigns to raise funds. But just Google around on the internet and find out South Lafourche, that's the parish I'm in. Look what's needed down there. Follow the Lafourche Parish Government on Facebook and see if you can catch a clue and a link on maybe how to donate to a family in Larose or Lockport or a church or somebody helping down there. I'm not saying just my Venmo is the only way to help down here. I'm just me.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Josh LaJaunie:
I would encourage you to just familiarize yourself with the bayou parishes in South Louisiana, what we've been through. And maybe you want to adopt a town and send them something, I don't know. But just think about some things like that, that can go a long way. But we're all down here right now like army ants, just fixing our home, fixing it back up. A bunch of blue tarps and generators, the generators less so as the day's progress. But as long as we can have the rain hold off, and we can get recovered, and we'll be back to normal soon enough.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, Josh, you're a good man. You are a good man. You're a strong man. And to me, you know, one of the things when I spent some time with you, I think it was 2017 or '18, when you hosted me. You're about as real as they come and what you see is what you get and it is a beautiful sight.
Josh LaJaunie:
Yup.
Rip Esselstyn:
It's a beautiful thing.
Josh LaJaunie:
Well, it means a lot to me Rip. I really... you know, I really look up to you. I really look up to Rich. Your dad obviously, your sister Jane is amazing. And your mom has been awesome to me throughout these years. And you know, we're all very different. We come from very, very different backgrounds. And, we're not the same at all. When it comes to certain things, I mean, we just have different life experiences. But at the end of the day, I really consider you a brother and I really look up to you. And I thank you for all of the help that you've given me over years, and especially this phone call that we're having right now.
Rip Esselstyn:
Hey, one thing I know is you and me, we're not gonna separate drawers. Is that what the saying is? What's the saying?
Josh LaJaunie:
Yes. Yeah, that was so funny.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's right.
Josh LaJaunie:
We ought to have a TikTok of just like Yankees trying to say Cajun things. That'd be hilarious.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's right.
Josh LaJaunie:
No, we're split drawers brother, we're never going to split drawers.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's right. That's right. No, never split drawers. All right. Hey, Josh, this has been really important conversation. Thank you for taking this, because I know you got a jillion things going on right now. But we're gonna do what we can to help out a PlantStrong brother in need. And I'll check in with you really soon. Okay?
Josh LaJaunie:
Yes, sir. Thank you Rip. Appreciate it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Thank you, Josh. Peace Engine 2.
Josh LaJaunie:
Peace.
Rip Esselstyn:
Keep it PlantStrong.
Josh LaJaunie:
Yes, sir.
Rip Esselstyn:
Man, you know, there's not too many people that are as real and raw as Josh. And I super, super appreciate him taking the time to talk to me on the phone in the middle of all the stress and the chaos that he's going through right now. And I also want to appreciate all of you for taking the time to listen and get the real story about life right now in the bayou. As we said in the interview, quitting is optional. And I'm pretty confident that Josh isn't going to quit. We're here to support him. And if you'd like to help or learn more, visit the links in the episode page at plantstrongpodcast.com. We give Venmo links, as well as other information on the true devastating effects of Hurricane Ida. Thanks so much for listening.
Rip Esselstyn:
Thank you for listening to the PlantStrong podcast. You can support the show by taking a quick minute to follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Leaving us a positive review and sharing the show with your network is another great way to help us reach as many people as possible with the exciting news about plants. Thank you in advance for your support. It means everything.
Rip Esselstyn:
Have you had your own Galileo moment that you'd like to share? What happened when you stepped into the arena and shed the beliefs that you thought to be true? I'd love to hear about it. Visit plantstrongpodcast.com to submit your story and to learn more about today's guests and sponsors. 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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