#220: Robby Barbaro - Going the Distance with Diabetes: Robby's IRONMAN Story
Robby Barbaro, co-founder of Mastering Diabetes, finishes his first Ironman as a Type 1 diabetic.
If you've followed the PLANTSTRONG Podcast, no doubt you're familiar with Robby Barbaro, one of the founders of Mastering Diabetes and now, an official IRONMAN triathlon finisher!
If you don’t know, an IRONMAN is a one-day triathlon where you swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and then run a marathon! Crazy, right?! It's even more awesome since Robby did it as a plant-based, Type 1 diabetic.
In this episode, Rip and Robby talk about how he trained, fueled, and monitored his glucose during training and racing. They also talk about his mindset and training process, as he essentially started from ground zero as a triathlete.
As Robby says, you can always become a happier and better version of yourself and that’s exactly what he did. He found an area in his life he wasn’t happy with, and sought to make big changes.
We invite all of you to do it too, no matter what your goals happen to be. (and believe me, it doesn’t have to be an IRONMAN!)
Robby Barbaro, MPH graduated from the University of Florida and is the cofounder of Mastering Diabetes. He worked at Forks Over Knives for six years before turning his attention in 2016 to coaching people with diabetes full-time.
Robby was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 12 and has been living this lifestyle since 2006. In that time, while eating pounds of fruit every day, his HbA1c value has never exceeded 6.4%, and his blood glucose has been stable and easy to manage.
He is the co-host of the annual Mastering Diabetes Online Summit, a featured speaker at Whole Foods Global Headquarters, VegFest LA, Plant-Stock, Torrance Memorial Medical Center, and has been featured on Forks Over Knives, Healthline, Medical Medium, Vice, Thrive Magazine, Diet Fiction, Thrive Global, BestLife and the wildly popular podcasts Plant Proof and Nutrition Rounds, and is the author of the book Mastering Diabetes with Cyrus Khambatta, PhD.
Episode Resources
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Full Transcription via AI Transcription Service
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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 the PlantStrong journey, and I hope that you enjoy the show.
Introducing Robby Barbaro, Co-founder of Mastering Diabetes
[1:25] If you've been a fan of the PlantStrong podcast for over five years, then my bet is you're probably very familiar.
With my next guest, Robby Barbaro, a close friend and one of the founders of Mastering Diabetes, along with his partner, Cyrus Kambada.
You also probably know that I love the sport of triathlon and I competed at a world-class level for almost 20 years.
Well, wouldn't you know it, Robby Barbaro has also recently turned his sights to the sport of triathlon, and specifically the Ironman distance triathlon.
This is the granddaddy of them all. And if you don't know what an Ironman distance triathlon is, it's a one day triathlon, where you've got a certain set amount of time to complete a 2.4 mile ocean swim, a 112 mile bike, and then you have to get off that bike after you're dropped dead tired, your legs are aching and screaming, and then you have to run a marathon, 26.2 miles.
[2:39] It sounds absolutely ludicrous, I know. But it's also so exciting and awesome, when someone sets super high goals for themselves, puts in the work, maintains a positive attitude, and then goes on to accomplish that goal.
And that's exactly what Robby Barbaro does. And did I mention that Robby is a type one diabetic and has been since the age of 12.
We recorded this interview earlier in the summer after Robby completed his first Ironman in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
And we talk about how he trained and fueled himself as a type one diabetic on a plant-based diet.
I mean, I was super curious, like what did he eat over the course of the 12-hour race?
We also talked about his mindset and training philosophy because he essentially had to start from ground zero, as a triathlete because he's a former tennis player.
As Robby likes to say, you can always become a happier and better version of yourself.
And that's exactly what he does. And he invites all of us to do the same thing, no matter what your goals happen to be.
And believe me, it doesn't have to be completing an Ironman triathlon.
[4:03] Let's welcome our Mastering Diabetes Iron Man superhero, Robby Barbaro.
Robby Barbaro's Return to the PlantStrong Podcast
[4:12] Robby Barbaro, welcome to the PlantStrong Podcast. It's good to be here.
Good to have you in the flesh.
The last time that we were together in the flesh for the podcast was 2019.
I came out to visit you in Santa Monica, California, at your bachelor pad. That was fun.
And we had a fantastic interview.
It was actually my 30th interview of season one.
From Zoom to Face-to-Face: The Power of Connection
[4:39] And since then, we had COVID and I did a lot of Zooms. So it's really nice to be doing one of these live, face-to-face where the connection is unparalleled. Yes.
And for the people that don't know who you are, your background, haven't listened to that podcast. I'd love, let's just do like a short recap, Reader's Digest of kind of your journey to becoming a type one diabetic, and then writing this book, Mastering Diabetes, to your most recent incredible accomplishment, which is not only competing, but finishing and missing qualifying for the Ironman Triathlon.
[5:30] Like the King Kohona, by a minute and like 30 seconds.
And all the, everything that went into that effort. And I'm gonna ask you a question and then let's go back, but do you know anyone else as a type one diabetic that's done Ironman Triathlons?
There are other people for sure.
There was one person who was profiled on a really cool website called Beyond Type One.
It's an amazing organization. They really document stories and do a lot of good work.
And there was a man who has, he did it. His time was better than mine by like, I think an hour or so.
So that was very inspiring and motivating.
So, but there's a lot of tight ones and a lot of cool things.
And I'm excited to be part of the club.
[6:15] And you're even wearing your Ironman. Absolutely, I'm not taking it off.
I'm not taking it off until the next one.
I have my band and my t-shirt. Yeah, yeah, you've caught the bug, haven't you?
Absolutely have. Wow. Which you warned me about, you guys said, be careful, especially when you have a family and all that.
It's usually never one and done with Iron Mans, and we'll talk about that.
So where did you grow up, and when was it that you found out that something was a little amiss with your blood sugar?
Okay, so I grew up in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and I have two older brothers.
My middle older brother was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes about nine years prior to me.
So I was very familiar with the condition.
And I told my mom, I said, mom, I'm going to the bathroom all the time.
I am thirsty all the time. I'm drinking a ton of water. I'm just like always wanting liquids.
I think I have type 1 diabetes, just like Steve. She said, no, no, no, don't be silly.
You don't have type 1 diabetes. I said, okay.
So I just continued to live my life. And do you remember how old you were when you- I was 12, 12 years old.
And I was on the phone with my mom while she was out of town.
So we were living in Minnesota. My mom and dad were in Florida looking for homes because we were going to be moving to Florida.
And she called the check-in and say, Hey, how are things going?
And I said, mom, I couldn't sleep last night. I was cramping.
She said, okay, go upstairs, use your brother's blood glucose meter and test yourself.
[7:40] I tested myself on his meter and I was well over 400. And as a non-diabetic, you really should not be above 140.
Should be somewhere between 70 and 140 at any given point in the day.
Having a blood glucose level of over 400 is a big problem. So my brother said, right then and there, you have type 1 diabetes, pack your bag, you're gonna be in the hospital for a few nights.
[8:00] Your brother said that? My brother said that, yeah. So that was my type 1 brother being like, yep, you have type 1 diabetes. And how much older than you was he? Like nine years.
Oh, so he was driving and all that. Yeah, for sure, yeah. So he drove me to the regular doctor, just, you know, standard doctor, and they ran a few tests.
I don't know which tests they ran. I'd actually be curious to see which ones they actually ran and what the results were, but at that office, they said, yep, you have type one diabetes.
Now it's time for you to go to the hospital, check in. They'll put you on an IV, give you insulin.
And I only had to stay for one night because my parents were so familiar with the condition.
And I remember my parents came back and my dad said, look, this is just an inconvenience.
You can still do whatever you want in life. You're gonna be just fine.
And I think I really benefited from the confidence that my parents had in already being through type one diabetes for so many years.
So I was familiar with it, my brother was, my family was, it was just kind of like a more graceful way to handle the transition to a new life.
So when you were feeling cramping, urinating a lot at night did it also cause you mentally to feel a little bit wonky?
I don't really remember that.
Okay. I don't really remember that being an issue. Yeah. It was really just, I mean, you are so thirsty.
You go to the bathroom so many times, it is ridiculous. And is that typically a sign of elevated blood sugar?
Because, you know, I mean, I myself, if after like a long day.
[9:29] Like a five-hour bike ride and a 10-mile run, and then not having enough fuel, then going into the fire station, I can remember once going, man, I feel absolutely like I'm bonking.
I feel so wonky, mentally fragile.
And I tested myself with a glucometer and I was 41. Wow. Right?
And I'm not, I'm not diabetic whatsoever.
But it just makes me wonder, like when your blood sugars get elevated.
[10:01] Does it mentally do anything to like cause you to feel wonky or not really?
I mean, for me, when my blood glucose is high, I've had this sense of pressure.
I mean, everybody's unique. Everybody's different in how they feel with different blood glucose levels.
But for me, it's like this, like something is just like compressing. Like it's not good.
I'm pressing on your brain or just? Like my entire body, like it's just like this overall sense of pressure.
Interesting. It's very interesting. Yeah. All right, so help me.
So you got diagnosed with a type one diabetes.
You felt pretty comfortable because your parents kind of knew the game.
You had an older brother that was type one diabetic.
And so what's the next thing that you do?
So I mean, I had a really a type A personality. I still have a type A personality.
I just kind of like took it on. Like, okay, this is it.
You know, I was a competitive tennis player growing up. So in the Northern region, I was one of the top ranked players.
And so I think that sort of, cause it kind of keeps you distracted from things like this, right?
Like you have something to focus on. You just learn how to manage it, right?
[11:15] So that was next, and then I ended up moving to Florida, and that was so my mom could take care of her parents, and my dad would still travel back and forth. He still has a business in Minnesota, so he still does that.
Wow. And so we did that, and then also, so I had a chance for becoming a better tennis player, right, and then moving to Florida, instead of being like one of the top-ranked players, now I'm like top 50, right?
So Florida's a whole different ballgame of tennis players, but it was fun.
And while I was in Florida, as a high school student, I ended up stumbling across a book at Barnes & Noble, okay?
Which book? It's a book I'm not gonna recommend people read, but it changed my life. It's called Kevin Trudeau's Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About.
So some of your listeners, I have a feeling, will have seen this guy.
He was on infomercials.
He's a very handsome guy. He had this purple cover. He sold millions of copies.
But he ended up going to jail for some fraud and stuff.
So I'm not recommending this book, But the book planted a seed in my mind, that maybe it's possible to reverse type one diabetes, if I can heal from the inside out.
And so this book just set me on a mission. It's a lifelong mission.
I'm still on this mission. I wrote about it in the book.
[12:30] And I started to do anything and everything I possibly could to heal my body from the inside out.
And it was one thing after another, just learning about, oh wow, like maybe organic is better than conventional, or maybe you can try and avoid MSG or something, or, oh wow, dairy might not be the best for you.
It was just little bits of learning and all on a mission to do whatever I can to try and get my beta cells to work again.
Have you ever heard of anyone who's been diagnosed as type 1 diabetic getting their beta cells to work again and reversing it?
So there's a lot of controversy around this topic, but I have yet to meet a person who has done what I would be, we require to reverse type 1 diabetes. Okay, number one is you have a low C-peptide, okay?
Understanding C-peptide and its role in insulin production.
[13:22] My C-peptide is less than 0.1. It's undetectable, meaning that C-peptide is, it's in your blood, it's in a one-to-one, it's produced in a one-to-one ratio, insulin and C-peptide, one-to-one ratio.
Then they split off, and you can test C-peptide because it has a longer, like, half-life, okay?
So C-peptide is an indicator of how much insulin your body is producing.
Where's C-peptide produced? I don't even know. Okay, okay.
But you can test it very easily, it's inexpensive, okay? So my C-peptide is less than 0.1, meaning I have an undetectable amount of insulin being produced, okay?
So if you truly, to heal type 1 diabetes, we need that C-peptide to get back into a healthy range.
It's gotta be somewhere around like 2.5, somewhere around there, okay, above two.
So that would be number one. Number two is you have to demonstrate that you had diabetes antibodies, they were elevated, and you got them down to a point where they were not causing a problem anymore.
So that's the issue. So I have diabetes antibodies that are, to the best of scientific knowledge, they're destroying beta cells.
So on this journey of trying to figure out how to heal type one, even if I somehow found a way for my stem cells to produce new insulin-producing beta cells.
[14:35] Theoretically, the antibodies that are still present in my body would just destroy them.
So it's like a two-pronged issue here. We gotta get insulin-producing cells working again, and we gotta make sure the antibodies are reduced to the point where they're not destroying those cells anymore.
So I have yet to hear or see the story of the person who said, yep, look, I went to the lab, look at what my C-peptide was, look at what my antibody levels were, and here I am now, and I no longer use insulin.
The reason this story gets a little confusing, and it's a topic we love to talk about at Mastering Diabetes, is because of type 1.5 diabetes.
So you have a lot of people getting diagnosed with LADA or type 1.5, right?
The doctor puts them on insulin, all right? And then they make lifestyle changes, and then they don't need insulin anymore because they're still producing enough.
So LADA type 1, you're kind of like in that middle where your beta cells are still functioning, and you're still producing enough insulin to eventually get off, so it's a very nuanced topic.
So for everyone, just to give us a little education, tell us the difference between type 1, type 1.5, and type 2.
[15:44] Okay, type 1, that's the type that I live with, that Cyrus, my co-founder, lives with, and this is where we are not producing a sufficient amount of insulin to manage our blood glucose levels.
It's an autoimmune condition.
Our beta cells have been damaged. We don't know why, we don't know the cause, but I just don't produce enough insulin. I have to inject it in order to stay alive.
When you say sufficient amount, do you mean any amount or?
Well, when you're initially diagnosed, you're kind of in a honeymoon phase and your C-peptide might be a say 0.5, might be 0.4, it might be 0.3, right? You're still producing a little bit.
And then eventually over time, these antibodies end up destroying more beta cells.
That's what the science shows us right now. Okay. So that's type one.
So type one is the main thing to remember is you're just not producing enough.
Okay. So let's go to type two, the other side. Yep.
[16:34] So autoimmune type 1, type 2 is a lifestyle condition. You're actually initially producing excess insulin.
It is caused by insulin resistance.
Insulin resistance is the cause of type 2 diabetes. You can't have that as a prerequisite.
You can't have type 2 unless you have eaten your way or I would say eaten and not moved your body into a state of where you need to produce excess insulin in order to keep your blood glucose under control.
And over time, your body gets exhausted, right?
And then your insulin production can actually go down as a type two, and you can eventually become an insulin-dependent type two.
But it's characterized by the requirement of excess insulin because you're living with insulin resistance, and we can go to a whole nother story about insulin resistance.
That, we can go back to the first show, or the episode you did with Cyrus, to really learn about that.
But that's the difference. So type two lifestyle condition, type one, autoimmune, Do you think, just so we can, was it fair to say in a really, really tight summation that type two is for the most part a function of too much fat that has built up in the cells.
Insulin resistance in all forms of diabetes
[17:50] That then does not allow the insulin hormone to escort the sugar into the cells?
That's accurate, that's the cause of insulin resistance, but I do wanna clarify.
In the work we do at Mastering Diabetes, okay?
Insulin resistance can be present in all forms of diabetes.
I want people to really catch that, right? Whether it's type 1, whether it's type 1.5, whether it, you know, pre-diabetes, type 2, like, it can be present in all of them.
And so, it's the cause of pre-diabetes and type 2.
[18:25] You summarized it correctly, yes. Okay, okay, good.
And then- Then type 1.5, okay, this is an interesting one that most people don't know about.
And there's a lot more people living with type 1.5 than people understand, okay?
Well, everything I've heard is that like 90% of diabetes in this country is type 2 diabetic, type 2 diabetes. Yeah, right.
That's correct? Yeah. Right? And we're seeing a lot of people, again, I mean, maybe, I don't have any exact numbers on the topic, but a significant number of people come to us at Mastering Diabetes, right?
And they're thin, and they've been, they're underweight, and they've been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, they're put on like metformin or something like that.
[19:09] And that is a big red flag, okay? If this ever happens, where you are underweight, and a doctor diagnosed you with type 2 diabetes, you have to like ask for some more tests.
And the number one test to ask for is a C-peptide, all right?
And so, a lot of doctors and endocrinologists don't fully understand type 1.5.
We see this all the time. It's also known as LADA, Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults, okay?
So, basically what's happening here is, it's a slow onset version of type 1.
So, my type 1, it happened fast, right? I went, a couple weeks ago, I'm fully functional, zero problems, no dehydration, and then boom, it just happens.
And then the speed at which your C-peptide level ends up dropping is quite fast in type one.
Type 1.5, no, it's like slow, it's pretty slow. And we've seen that people who make lifestyle changes, they can, again, anecdotally, they can maintain a solid C-peptide, meaning that they have enough insulin production to delay the use of insulin, right?
It's not necessary, we don't want people to get confused that the goal is like, oh, don't use insulin, insulin's bad, you know, pharmaceutical medications are bad, drug companies are bad. We don't believe that massing diabetes, right?
Like insulin is why we can survive, right? So we appreciate that.
[20:28] And so you might need to use it, but it's gonna be in small quantities.
And again, if you make lifestyle change, you can usually delay your need for insulin.
And basically what you're doing is you're becoming more insulin sensitive.
The insulin that you are still producing is enough to keep you off of additional insulin or other medications.
So when you become like uber insulin sensitive, a little goes a long way. Yes.
And what's the benefit to not having to keep.
The Benefits of Becoming Insulin Sensitive
[21:05] For example, for yourself, or taking in less insulin as opposed to just more and doing everything you can to become as insulin sensitive as possible.
What's the benefit there?
For me, the primary benefit is the reduction in long-term complication risk, all right?
So people living with any form of diabetes, the number one cause of death is heart disease, including type one, all right?
So, that's a complication of the lifestyle that people with all forms of diabetes are living.
And so, when you become more insulin sensitive and you start living a healthier lifestyle, you are reducing your risk for heart disease and for a lot of the other complications.
So, reducing your risk for kidney disease, reducing your risk for developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol, okay?
[21:57] Alzheimer's disease, also known as type 3 diabetes, right? Insulin resistance of the brain.
So, you know, obesity, I mean, again, all types of diabetes, people are overweight.
We have a lot of people come to us, type one, they're looking to lose weight.
You just threw in a new kind of kid on the block there, type three diabetes, which you said is of the brain.
Is that like Alzheimer's or dementia? Basically, yes.
You can also consider insulin resistance of the brain. And is that something that is widely known or is that, are we just starting to hear about this?
I think the sharer's eyes are sort of, you know, giving some light to that topic.
Yeah, and they've been on the podcast, if anybody's interested.
Yeah, they're amazing. Yeah. So, yeah.
[22:43] Well, it's quite a world. It is. The diabetes world. It is.
It was a lot of confusion, Rip. Wow. Yeah.
We're saying like the exact opposite of what most people think they should do to improve their insulin sensitivity or lower their blood glucose.
And it's a lot of fun to open people's minds. And, you know, I love the objectivity of diabetes and the ability to really see, without any argument or confusion that you see the numbers and the numbers tell a very clear story.
And it's another reason why I'm so attracted to triathlon training and Ironman.
I love the objective data. Right, right, right.
And how would you say that what you just expressed? So conventionally people think that you need to be consuming for the most part a high fat, low carbohydrate diet, right?
Because they think that diabetes is a sugar issue. Correct. When in reality, as we just said, it's a fat issue. Correct.
But how has that informed like everything that you do now as you move through life in this world?
[23:55] I mean, really we're just opening people's minds. I mean, so what happens in the world of diabetes is that it's one of the few conditions you can self monitor.
It's one of the few conditions where anybody can go to the drug store, can buy a blood glucose meter, can get some test strips and prick themselves, right?
So you eat a meal, maybe people follow a recipe in the book or they see some fruit, they go, let me just try some bananas, let me see what happens.
They have type two diabetes or type one, any form of diabetes, they try these higher carbohydrate meal, they prick themselves and they see, oh my gosh, I went to 200, 250, 300.
How can you possibly say that this is good for me, that this is gonna help me lower my A1C?
That doesn't make any sense.
Because they see the numbers right on the meter.
And what they're missing is the education of the fact that it was their dietary choices in the days prior, the weeks prior, months prior, years prior, that have set themselves up to be living in a state of insulin resistance.
[24:56] They have excess dietary fat that is inhibiting insulin from functioning properly.
So the glucose comes in in that very moment because they still are in a very insulin resistant state.
[25:09] They see a high reading, but over time, if you know how to transition, we're very adamant about people in the beginning doing specific activities to transition to not see those annoyingly high readings and eventually get to a point where you can eat freely and not, worry about high blood glucose levels anymore with prediabetes and majority of type 2.
And you said eat freely.
Thank you.
A Spectacular Meal: Fruits and Greens Galore
[25:35] I've ever seen anyone eat as freely when it comes to fruits. Yeah.
I mean, it's really kind of spectacular. As you can see here in this photo behind me here, you had myself, my son Cole, plant-based addict, Adam Sud, and John Mackey over for dinner the other night.
We play pickleball every Sunday, and you thought it'd be nice to get us all over for dinner.
And you served the most really sensational meal.
And will you tell everybody kind of what you served us? I'm glad you enjoyed it.
And this is like, it's kind of like a Mastering Diabetes trademark, okay?
Because the way we ate at that meal was exactly what we do at retreats, okay?
So we have run many retreats over the years, some in LA, some in Costa Rica, and we provide individual ingredients in bowls and let everybody choose how much you want to eat, the combination.
So with this particular meal, I had, you know, in-season fruits.
So I had local peaches that I had just picked up.
I had some mangoes that are coming to season, all right? So these are the honey mangoes, the tuffle mangoes, put those out there.
[26:45] Let's see, what else did we have? We had plenty of tomatoes, we had blueberries, and we had greens, we had some hemp seeds, some avocado, some pumpkin seeds, people wanted to sprinkle those on top.
I think I had some dulse out there. So it was just a bunch of ingredients, like individual ingredients, that we could all just put together in our bowls.
And then we had a dessert of frozen bananas and frozen peaches.
And you also had a dressing. Ah, that's right. That dressing was good.
And tell everybody what the dressing was. Okay, it's got cilantro, passion fruit, mango, and lime.
Yeah. I can tell people the exact recipe if you want. It's 16 grams of cilantro, 40 grams of passion fruit, 75 grams of mango and a half a lime.
And so you just rattled off those figures pretty easily.
[27:37] Do you weigh and measure everything you eat? I do.
Now, okay, this is an important topic, right? So, oftentimes people don't like that idea.
That could be triggering. You know, I have to weigh things, measure, like that's not fun, okay.
So, one, when you're living with type one diabetes, in order for me to understand how much insulin to inject at any given meal, it is essential for me to understand the total amount of carbohydrate.
It's a ratio, you're using a certain ratio at every meal. And what is that ratio?
My rate, it's carbohydrate to insulin ratio. So mine changes throughout the day.
So in the morning, I'm injecting it like a 30 to one.
As the day progresses, I might be injecting it like a 70, 80, 90 to one, depending on my training.
Whereas a typical type one is probably injecting around like 10 to one or lower.
If you're on a keto diet, you're injecting like one to one, two to one.
So it's a dramatic difference. The insulin sensitivity that happens on the mastering diabetes method, it truly is extraordinary.
So I'm excited about it, I'm proud of it because what we do at Mastering Diabetes, we just stack together all of the evidence-based research.
[28:47] Onto one system, that when you all put it all together, your insulin sensitivity is through the roof. Like it is insane.
Dramatic Increase in Insulin Sensitivity on Mastering Diabetes Method
[28:55] Now, I wanna go back and understand this a little bit more.
You said in the morning, it's like 35 or 40 to one. That's 30 grams of carbohydrate to one unit of insulin.
Yeah, fast acting insulin. Okay, fast acting insulin. And then later in the day, it's like 75, 80.
Okay, and typically on a keto, if you're following keto, for every one gram of carbohydrate, they're doing one unit of insulin? Yes.
Okay, so they're not very insulin sensitive. No, definitely not.
[29:30] Yeah, they're not. And again, this is a fascinating argument, right?
To give, to understand their perspective, what they'll say is, look, we are not carb-adapted.
Like we are running on a different system, so we wouldn't expect that.
So, you know, I understand where they come from. Like, I respect everybody in the community.
I respect everybody who's doing all these different approaches because I think we all have a lot more in common than we don't have in common.
And I think the biggest problem we have when it comes to health in this country is apathy.
People who just don't care, just aren't trying.
But we offer a different approach and the results are very obvious and they come in very quickly.
But yes, you're exactly right. So insulin sensitivity is. So major, major, just major difference.
Okay, and I wanna talk about how that also affected your training and the discoveries that you made.
But I wanna ask you, this is a bigger question right now, kind of a broader question.
And that is, how did your discovery about what you made about, wow, I mean, I can eat all the fruit I want and all the vegetables I want and I'm eating massive amounts of carbohydrates, which runs.
[30:46] The counter to conventional wisdom. How did that, outside of diet, inform the way you move through life, the way you move through the world?
Does it make you question everything and everybody?
That's an interesting question. I haven't thought about it like that.
[31:06] So I first started to learn about this in 2006. That's when I changed my diet to the exact same diet I follow right now. low-fat, plant-based, whole food diet, fruit-based, 2006.
And was part of that also, is that when you encountered Doug Graham's?
Yep, and that's when I read Cyrus's testimonial in the 80-10-10 book.
[31:27] And I remember I Googled his name and there was an article written about Cyrus on this website called Organic Athlete.
And I saw him, like, he was doing biking and just looking ripped and fit.
I'm like, this is cool. Like, this sounds like a really good, because he's also living with type one, right? So I'm like, that's really inspiring.
And then that's when I started working with Doug, December, 2006.
Right. And yeah, I would say yes. The answer to your question is yes.
My life in basically every way changed.
I think I see this happen a lot when I talk to people who start making dietary changes.
It just opens you up to learning about so many different things, so many different bodies of knowledge I end up getting involved with.
So yeah, your life changes.
What makes you realize too that so many things that everybody takes for granted, the conventional wisdom maybe needs to be looked at again.
And there may be a better, more powerful way of doing what we thought was the best way or the correct way.
Exploring the importance of questioning conventional wisdom
[32:21] And for those that are interested, I had Doug Graham on the podcast a couple of weeks ago, and it was a very lively conversation.
He's a brilliant guy, quite a character. Quite a character, a lot of fun.
And, but I love the way he, you know, questions conventional everything and speaks his mind.
Yeah, no question. Yeah. Yeah.
[32:50] Okay. But anyways, I'll wrap up the question about the measuring, okay? Yeah.
Because, so I personally, I like to be as accurate as possible and I personally don't have a problem putting everything on a food scale.
I just like, you know what? If I'm gonna cut up the mangoes and put it on the plate, why not just have the plate sitting on top of the food scale write down the number. It's really not like that much of a.
[33:11] For me, logistically. So I do measure everything. I put it into a software called Chronometer, which I learned about from Jeff Novick many, many years ago.
I've used that software since long, but when it was just a desktop app, right?
There was no website to use it on. It was fantastic. I love that software.
How dead on is it? It's 100% accurate because it's using information from the USDA nutrient database.
So it's the most accurate we have, right?
That's where most of us are getting information. So I log everything in there, Helps me make educated decisions.
Now, for people who don't wanna do that, we have what's called a go-to meal at Mastering Diabetes.
So it's like, okay, you figure out meals that you have had many times.
And you know, okay, it's a can of beans, it's a cup of spinach, it's a cup of tomatoes.
You don't need to put that into the software every time. It's a go-to meal, it's the same thing.
You've had it over and over again, you know the carbohydrate count, you know how much insulin to take.
It could be the same smoothie. You know, I put in two cups of bananas, a couple blueberries, some spinach, whatever.
Go-to meals prevent you from having to use a food scale over and over again, but especially in the transition, it's important to become aware of how many grams of carbohydrate you're consuming and how much total fat you're consuming, because most people don't know how much fat is in their diet, and that's what's contributing to their insulin resistance.
And if you had to say, give me a guesstimate, or maybe you know exactly.
[34:35] What percent of your daily caloric intake is coming from fat?
[34:41] It's roughly 5%. 5%.
[34:46] That is, that's really low. It's very low. Wow.
And some people that might be too low for them. So, mastoid and ibetes, yeah, both have people get closer to maybe 10%, but it's totally, it's up to each individual.
And what to me is even more remarkable about that 5%, you know, having known you, is that you don't do, you don't do beans, you don't do potatoes.
Is it fair to say that the way that you eat is basically fruit and greens and an entirely raw food?
That would be accurate. Diet? Yeah. Yeah.
[35:23] Looking incredibly well for you. And this leads me to this.
Robbie's decision to compete in an Ironman triathlon
[35:28] So you were able to fuel yourself with fruits and greens to not only train for it, but also compete in Ironman triathlon in 11 hours and 47 minutes.
Yeah. Right? Yep.
Which is- 11 hours, 46 minutes and nine seconds. There you go.
There you go. I know, I just, I, I, okay. Every second counts, which is what I've learned in this sport.
It's unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah.
[35:51] So at what point did you wake up and decide that you, Robby Barbaro, want to do an Ironman?
Okay, so I have been learning from, this is an interesting story, but I'm gonna tell you just straight up how it happened, okay?
It kind of goes into a little bit of left field here, but this is the truth.
I've been learning from a partnership coach, okay? It's one of my highest priorities in life is to find a life partner, okay? Yeah. I'm looking for that.
And so I've been learning from this woman, and there was a track where I was, She was just teaching, you know, why do people in a relationship sort of like fall out of love?
Like, what happens? Like, they're at the top of the tree, and they fall, and they fall, and eventually they're on the ground, like the relationship's over. And she's like, you know, what she observes happens is people lose respect, admiration, and affinity for their partner through little actions.
It's like, little this, little this, little that. And this kind of like slowly fall down the tree, and all of a sudden the relationship's in shambles, right?
And so she said, okay, how do we fix this? She says, each person should make a list of the things that they are losing respect, admiration, and affinity for themselves. What things are you doing where you're losing that respect for yourself?
[37:00] Then make the list for your partner. What's happening with your partner?
Where you're losing respect for them.
And then, when you share them, you actually find out that.
[37:12] It's the same things. Right? So you're actually on the same page. So if you work together, you can solve these problems. It's very interesting. And I was like, okay, look, I'm not in a relationship right now, but this is an interesting exercise. What things do...
Am I doing in my life right now where I'm losing respect, admiration, and affinity for myself?
What is it? And the first thing that came to mind was, you know what? I'm not reaching my, athletic potential in any way, shape, or form. I am not excited about what I'm doing. Like, I was lifting weights twice a week, I would play some tennis here or there, I would maybe, go to an exercise class, like it was just nothing significant.
Starting to get into pickleball? A little bit, a little bit, right?
But there was nothing significant. I'm like, you know what, I've got to do something about this.
And I thought about it, and I didn't like come up with the Ironman immediately, but after some conversation and some thinking, I'm like, you know what, I'm going to train for an Ironman.
That would be fun. And if I did that, really, that would up my respect for my fitness and my commitment to that, my commitment to my physical health.
And so the initial goal was just a complete one. I was like, you know what, I just crossed the finish line.
If I get this thing done in like 17 hours or less, I'll be happy.
That is, to be an official finisher, it's 17 or less? It's 17 or 18, I have to check.
Okay, I think you're right, I think it's 17. Yeah, so that's how it came about.
It's literally a mission to work on an area in my life where I wanted to gain respect for myself.
[38:40] I mean, and you didn't decide on a sprint triathlon or an Olympic distance triathlon or a half Ironman.
You just like decided, okay, I'm gonna do a full Ironman triathlon.
What are the distances for people that have no idea? 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and 26.2 mile run.
And it's one right after the other. You don't get to like go take a nap after each one.
You get a transition, but you wanna do that as fast as possible.
Oh, gosh.
Okay, and so you decided to do it.
And so what's your next step? I mean, for somebody that's trying to maybe potentially do a triathlon, they've never done one, they wanna up their game like that. Did you find a coach?
Did you go online? Did you have a bike?
Serendipitous Journey to Joining a Master Swim Team
[39:32] Did you decide to be part of a master swim team? I mean, it's three disciplines that you really got to figure out and master? Three disciplines that I did not have a history in. Wow.
So it was kind of serendipitous. The initial thought was, you know what, let me join some sort of group.
And so I signed up for a group. I don't know, I paid like $60 or something.
Are you in Miami at the time? I was in Miami at the time, yep.
And so I tried joining this group and then nobody wrote back to me.
I'm like, what's going on? I don't really trust this group.
I'm not very excited. So then I was visiting a massage therapist and I was like, hey, what do you think would be a good triathlon group for me?
She's like, well, there's this coach and she might work with you.
And I was like, okay, what's her name?
She's like, well, her name is Leanda and she's like a world champion.
I don't know if she'll work with you or not. I'm like, okay, let me just DM her on Instagram.
So I sent her a DM, I'm like, hey, this is my goal.
Would you like to work together? And so she's like, okay, let's talk and have some tea or something.
So we met, this is in October.
Of what year? 2022. Okay. Yep.
[40:36] So, 2022, we meet up and I'm like, look, Leanda, all I wanna do is just finish this thing.
Like, I just wanna finish an Ironman.
And the initial goal was April 22nd.
I was gonna do the Ironman in Houston in April 22nd. And I was like, do you think I can do it?
And she's like, let's see.
Let's like get you out there and let's see what you can do.
Because that's only about six months, right? Roughly.
Yeah. Yeah. That's a pretty ambitious undertaking. Yeah.
Six months to go from zero to an Ironman track record. I'd never run a half marathon, certainly I'd never run a marathon, like nothing.
I did have the tennis background, right? So I still had like some athletic background and all that.
But yeah, so we start with, I start with Leanda and she was, you know, she was pretty happy.
Like I started swimming in the ocean. She's like, oh wow, like you're pretty comfortable in the open water, that's great. I'm like, okay, I didn't really think about it, I'm just swimming. I did learn how to swim as a kid, so at least my parents took me to swimming.
I grew up in Minnesota, so we would go swim like in the lake, you know, land at 10,000 legs.
So we had a cabin and all that.
[41:37] But, uh, I didn't, I had just bought a bike off Facebook marketplace.
My friend, Jose Tejero, a really cool guy.
He works at mastering diabetes as well. And he had done an Ironman recently.
So he sort of coached me through getting a bike. So I got a bike and.
And just started doing group workouts with Leanda and the team and got into it.
My first event was an Olympic distance.
That was in November in Miami. And Leanda was like, oh, you might have to walk on the run.
I'm like, I don't think that's gonna happen. And I surprised her at that event.
I did pretty decent. You didn't have to run? I mean, you didn't have to walk.
No, I did quite well. Okay, okay. And so like, after that race, I was like, I'm really starting to like get the bug.
Like I enjoy this. Like this is fun.
And I think it's good for my body type, right? It's the right sport for me at this time in life.
And so, yeah, that was it.
I was off to the races and then, through a series of events, the April 22nd event got pushed.
I decided to not do that one, ended up going and doing it in Tulsa like a month later, on May 21st. That got me a little extra time. But what that allowed me to do, which is a major blessing, is fit in a half Ironman in Galveston on April 2nd.
[42:52] And that was huge, because I learned a lot. So April 2nd, you did a half Ironman, and then May, you did another half Ironman. And then a full.
Stair-stepping Races: Olympic, Half Ironman, and Full Ironman
[43:00] April 2nd was the half, May 21st was the full. That's right, that's right.
Okay, so you did the Olympic, then you did the half, and then you did a full. Right, that's right.
Okay, so you kind of stair-stepped your way up there.
The initial plan was not to do that, I was just gonna do the full on April 22nd.
So what did you learn in the half that was so valuable?
I learned a major blood glucose management error. So I did quite well.
I was on pace to be sub five. I was trying to do sub five hours in that race.
And my swim was right on point. My bike was right on point.
I got to the run and I let my blood glucose drop low.
[43:34] And I just, it's such a mind bat. Like when you, no matter how hard I try to overcome that situation, the body just can't perform.
My blood glucose, I think it got down to like 60 or so. And the ability to recover from that and then finish and do strong. I ended up with 533, which wasn't bad, but.
I was like, okay, I'm not going to make that mistake in Tulsa, which is the one event that I really care about.
And so learning how to eat, how to make sure the blood glucose monitoring system was working properly, it was a great learning experience.
It's almost impossible to replicate race day in training. So how are you monitoring your blood glucose?
So I wear a Dexcom continuous glucose monitor. Okay, where is that on your body?
So right now I got a G7 right here. Okay, on your tricep. Yep, and that communicates with a watch that I have.
[44:29] So while I'm swimming, I'm not monitoring my blood glucose, right?
I'm initially, I'm using my knowledge from training. Okay, where should I start?
How much am I gonna go down? But you have it on your tricep for the swim.
Yeah, but you'd also have to have my phone with me or some device to then talk to the, I've tried this, Rip.
I've tried swimming with like one of those buoys where the phone's in the buoy.
And I'm like, hopefully the phone will talk to my watch and I could see, just for whatever reason, I just can't get it to work. I don't know why. Just stop. It's just something about, I don't know.
So anyways, I don't see my blood glucose while I'm swimming.
I just start high, know that it's gonna come down, and then once I get on the bike, I can see my blood glucose on the Garmin.
And so actually, I made a mistake in Galveston, that first half, where I messed up a setting on my phone.
So for a majority of the background, I couldn't see my blood glucose, but I made sure not to make that mistake in Tulsa. Then when you get on to the run, you can see it on your watch. So what, so you say you're, so you're monitoring your blood glucose on the bike.
What do you typically, what are the parameters you want to see it between?
Okay, so this is a great question and I still have not figured this one out yet.
This is going to take more racing, more race experience to dial this in.
When I'm training, I have no problem keeping it somewhere between like 120 and like 160, 170.
[45:56] The goal, so for type 1 diabetes, the goal is to stay between 70 and 180.
That's the general range.
You mean during the day, just if you're a sedentary person? Yes, 100%.
Type 1 diabetes, you're doing active, whatever you're doing, your goal throughout the day, you know, it's called this whole concept we call time and range, something I'm very passionate about.
It's a new thing because of CGMs, right?
Which is a new technology, but you're trying to stay between 70 and 80.
So I take that into my regular training, and that's my goal.
I wanna stay in range while training. While doing a race, I currently have the goal of not staying in range.
I wanna stay above 200 the entire time for the primary reason of I just do not want to go low.
That just crushes the race. It's over. You're not gonna get a great time.
So you'd rather be high than low. Correct. Correct. That's my current strategy.
That would be my my ongoing strategy. But the question is, how high am I going to allow it to be?
And and when and more races are going to give me more confidence to ride it a little bit lower, closer to that in range.
Now, are you having to give yourself any insulin during the race?
So that's also been a learning experience.
[47:11] Or yeah. Yeah. So I use multiple daily injections. Okay, so I have pens, I use Bazagladder for my long-acting insulin, I inject that once, a day and then for my fast-acting insulin, I use Humalog and it's a pen and I have the junior pen, okay, so I can do half units because as you become more insulin sensitive, being able to use those half units becomes very important and a half unit can go a long way when you're very insulin sensitive and very active.
So I...
Adjusting Basal Insulin for Ironman Triathlon
[47:42] Then I did not inject any additional fast-acting insulin. I had the pen with me in my jersey on the bike ride and the run.
I didn't need it because I ended up going low.
Part of going low, I was like, well, you know what? My basal rate was too high.
[48:01] That basal rate is basic. For you and the majority of the people listening, your pancreas is releasing a drip feed of insulin all day long. It's keeping you in check all day long. That's your basal rate.
And then when you have a meal, you have phase one insulin that's ready to go to help with your meal and then starts making more insulin immediately to always keep you in check. You don't go above 140.
I guarantee it. You're in, you are always somewhere between 70 and 140. No matter what you eat, you don't have to think about it. You don't have to measure anything. Your body's doing all that work for you? Okay, so I have to inject some sort of basal insulin that keeps me in check in between meals. And so the version I use is called Basigla, right? So it's you inject it and it forms a crystal and then this crystal starts to slowly dissolve over a 24-hour period and that's the basal rate. So in Galveston, in hindsight, I had too much. The basal rate was too high. Like I literally was eating hundreds and hundreds of grams of carbohydrate without injecting any, additional fast-acting insulin, which is crazy, but it's because you're doing an Ironman.
So in Tulsa, for the full Ironman, I lowered the basal rate a little bit, and I did inject a half a unit of Humalog on the bike ride to keep me in check, because I was a little bit higher than I wanted to be.
And so we'll see what I'm going to do moving forward.
[49:30] I was a little higher than I wanted to be during the race. What's higher than you wanted?
It was like above 300 for the majority of the race. And then when I got to the run, it started to come down.
And to get more, the run, I was more like 180-ish and it was slowly coming down.
So I think towards the end of the run, I was like maybe 150 or so.
But it was very, I saw how slow it was coming down so I wasn't getting concerned and I had enough dates with me.
I did snack on a few dates. So, which is my next question, which is, so as a kind of, you know, a fruititarian, greenitarian.
[50:08] What are you fueling yourself with during the Ironman triathlon?
Yeah, so based on advice.
It's not goose. Yeah, it's not goose, no. That would not meet my standard.
So I was consuming date water. So basically, take dates and you just soak them in water and then you squeeze it with like through a nut milk bag and you have this water and it tastes amazing.
Like date water is incredible.
So that was one of the liquids. Then I had coconut water and then I had whole dates, but obviously I pitted them beforehand, but just like dates in a plastic bag in my jersey.
So that's it. That's it. That's all I consumed and regular water.
I got regular water on the bike ride. They give you water.
You can pick up like, I don't know, every 15 miles or so, something like that. And then on the run, every mile, there's an aid station, you can get water in a cup.
[51:06] And so how many dates would you say you ate over the course of the Ironman?
You know, I had this spreadsheet where I planned everything out and, you know, how many to eat per hour. This was advice given from Leanda and Doug, and it was great to see.
So tell me, tell me how many calories did they recommend, and or did you discover you wanted to have each hour?
Is it about 180, 200 or no? I have to pull up the spreadsheet, but it was more on the bike, a little higher on the bike and then lower on the run.
Because on the bike's your opportunity to actually fuel. Correct.
It's harder to do when you're running. Yeah, exactly.
Fueling on the Bike: Carbs and Calories
[51:42] It was definitely higher than 180. Okay. I think it was more like.
So maybe I meant what I meant. Yeah. It was about maybe a hundred grams.
Yeah, that might be. Of carbs an hour. Correct, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that's about 400 calories. I think that, yes, that sounds more right, a lot.
Yes. We'll have to look on the spreadsheet, but yes. Okay.
And then it runs a little bit lower. Okay, and so the date and the coconut, are those waters, are those things that you had either in your own special needs bag and also then on the bike?
Yeah, so this is the fun part about doing an Ironman, right, like your first time, obviously it's gonna be easier the second time, but like the logistics.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, okay, you were just nerding out on it.
Yeah, totally. So, once you get out of the water, you're done with the swim, you transition, and on the bike, so your liquids are already on the bike, you were able to put them in the water bottle holders in the morning, and then the nutrition that you wanna put in your jersey is sitting there ready for you, okay?
So I had like several bags of dates, right? So then that's your first chance to start to begin fueling on the bike.
Then halfway through the bike ride, you have a special needs bag.
So in that bag, I packed more dates, more coconut water, more date water.
Then you get to the transition. Any problems, issues getting your special needs bag? No. No?
[53:07] No, it was super smooth. They were great. Like you're coming up with your bike, they see your number and they like, they get it out and they hold it for you. Love it. Love it.
We're good.
Okay, so then once you finish the bike, you get into the run transition zone.
And again, there I had a new batch of dates, new coconut water, new date water.
Then you start running. And then on this particular run, it was like an out and back and you had to do it twice.
So I can get to that run special needs bag twice. That was interesting.
So that run special needs bag, again, has more dates, more coconut water, more date water.
Introduction and Background: International Distance Triathlon and Ironman Experience
[53:47] Now, my specialty was the international or Olympic distance triathlon, which is, An hour fifty to two hours is what I would usually do it in I did two Ironman triathlons one in 1994 and one in 1996 and I can tell you that I didn't train appropriately for them and The run was was always pretty darn ugly, And so my question to you is, you know for your first Ironman triathlon, it sounds like you I mean you trained appropriately for this thing Yeah, I mean huge shout out to my coach. Okay, Leanda cave is is just been so supportive.
She's a legend. I mean, she's a four-time world champion. She's the only woman to ever win a half and a full in the same year. No joke.
And so that gave me a lot of confidence. When she said, hey, you know what?
And I asked her, do you think I can finish this full Ironman?
She said, yes. That gave me all the confidence in the world.
And I didn't question or think about a single thing.
[54:45] I never even looked more than a week in advance of any of my training.
All I did, I got this app called Training Peaks and I just kind of really looked one or two, I looked like a week in advance.
I would put it on my calendar. So, you know, I often had to get up at like 4.30 a.m.
To fit, because I would do all my training in the morning.
I do not like doing a separate session later in the day. You end up finding a lot of different excuses of why it doesn't get done, things happen at work, and it's also just more challenging for diabetes management to do one of those serious trainings later in the day, because you just have less insulin on board, less food in your system.
So yes, like it was a system that a coach that I trusted who'd just been there, done that, looked at the entire map of this journey and I just followed it one day at a time.
Would you typically do two?
[55:33] A day, one sport? Yeah, two a day. Two a day. Yep. Okay. And plus weights with Doug.
So sometimes it'll be three.
Wow. Now, I want you to walk me through the Ironman and let me know, like, what were your toughest moments, points?
Because I find that everybody has highs and lows because you were out there for almost 12 hours, right?
11, 1146. Yep. And, you know, my, I remember being out there on the run, in on the Island of Kona, the searing heat coming off that black pavement and thinking everybody that's out here, showing up and trying to make it through this is an absolute hero.
They're such a champ. And I can remember thinking, just being vertical was difficult. Just being vertical.
All I wanted to do was lie down And I just, and along with 15 other people, we just trudged on and on and on. Amazing. So talk to me.
[56:38] So in the very beginning, I get in the water, I start swimming, and it's like in hindsight, like I talked to Leanda about what happened.
She's like, it's okay, it's totally normal. But like, I felt like I was having like a mini panic attack.
There's like so much adrenaline. I'm just like, what is going on?
I've never felt this before.
It didn't happen in Galveston. It didn't happen in the event I did in Miami.
Like, is my wetsuit too tight? Like, is something wrong?
And then eventually, it took a couple minutes, right?
I calmed down. Okay, wow, like it feels normal now.
Now I'm just like swimming. So that was the challenging thing.
And know that you're not alone there. That's happened to everybody.
And it's even happened to me once or twice.
Where there is something about being completely constricted and wearing a wetsuit that does kind of sometimes, I think, accelerate those feelings of anxiety.
[57:30] Especially when it's a big race and you're hyperventilating and getting psyched.
Yeah, you've put in so much time and energy and training and it's just a lot.
So anyways, I realized that that's okay, so I'll be prepared for that next time.
Congratulations on walking yourself through that difficult moment.
Yeah. So then I kept going and the swim was pretty graceful.
Um, I think that was like one hour and 16 minutes. So I felt good. And again, I felt really well coached while prepared Leandis, like at any point in this event, where if it feels like really, really hard, you're going too fast. Like it should, feel like pretty graceful, you know? And so I had that mentality in the swim.
Yeah. And were you because, and fortunately, because I was I was always, you know, out in the lead.
I didn't have to deal with this, but I know for a lot of people, it's just elbows and assholes everywhere. Like, literally.
And so, were you bumping up against people? It definitely happened, but it was, you know, I feel like there's enough space.
I feel like I got out to the right enough for it to really not be a big issue.
Did you have any issues? Because one of the challenges a lot of people have with open water, outside of, you know, the fear of it, is sighting.
Did you have any problems sighting, seeing the buoys, like, you know, knowing which direction to go? I asked you for...
Goggles fogging up. The goggles are great. I asked you for tips about this and you helped me.
[59:00] And so luckily, swimming at Barton Springs, Yeah.
Lot of sighting. You don't want to hit people. It's not fun.
This doesn't feel good. Like I feel bad. You know what I mean?
It's like I've hit a few people at Barton Springs. You're like, oh man, you really got to pay more attention because they're just like sitting there chilling or maybe some other people that are actually like swimming and training and hit each other like anyways, I had a lot of practice of avoiding, people. Yeah. Barton Springs helped me in that respect. So I think the sighting was not an issue. Good. Yeah. Okay. So you, They come out of the water.
They come out of the water, okay. Then I get on the bike and I'm just feeling excited, right?
Like one event is down. I love the bike.
The bike is the best for me. It's fun.
[59:44] This course had like 4,800 feet of elevation. Oh, which is actually nice.
Yeah, it's good for me because I'm light. It's light and my bike is pretty fast.
So anytime I'm going uphill, I start catching people. And then when we get on the flats, they start passing me.
And then when we go downhill, I'm pretty fast downhill too. I started passing people downhill.
But the bike was again graceful because Leanda said, look, she said heart rate trumps everything.
So I'm just watching my heart rate. Just watching my heart rate, pedaling along.
What were your goals? What were you trying to keep your heart rate at? 145 on the bike.
Okay. And I did, I nailed it. It was actually 145. Wow.
That was the average. Sometimes it goes higher when you're going uphill, Like it oscillates, but the average was 145. So 145, and in training, did you do a lot of 145 heart rate?
[1:00:34] Not that much, actually. I feel like I was training a much higher than that.
Oh, higher than that.
So in the actual Ironman, it was a little bit, maybe more of a more relaxed pace?
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Which is smart, that's what she wanted you to do. Right, exactly.
So the most challenging part on the bike was towards the end, my being in the TT position, I had never been in that position for that long, consecutively, right?
So you've done a ton of plenty of long rides with the group here or on the trainer at home, but usually you get a break, you kind of lift up a little, you know what I mean?
Like, but I was really focused. This is the race, like stay in this position.
In terms of the end, I was just like, I can't, I need to like, I need to stand up straight, right?
And that's not good for your speed.
You're losing time there. But that was, I wouldn't say it was challenging, it was just something I had to deal with.
But the bike was great, and I will tell you, so my buddy, co-founder Cyrus, gave me a piece of advice before. He's like, hey man, I know you put a lot of energy into this, but I hope when you're out there, I hope you smile.
I hope you're smiling.
And I thought about that a lot. And because of that tip, when...
[1:01:46] I would pass family members or people who were cheering on somebody that they loved, right?
When I would pass them, I would interact with them. I'd be like, let's go, and then they would yell back at me, even though they really had no reason because they didn't know me, right?
But I sort of like called that, I sort of brought that in, and it fueled me up.
And then there were some cool people that I met beforehand.
There was like a 45 minute delay because they were fog. So I met some cool people while we were just waiting, And they were supporting this, you know, it was like two friends and a daughter supporting this one woman, right?
Uplifting Energy from Cheering Crowds
[1:02:21] And when they saw me on the course, they would go crazy. Like it was, and that uplifted me so much, Rip.
I cannot tell you what it means to like have people there cheering you on.
And like, you would just like carry that through, through the next, you know, till you see them again.
Well, and that's nice that, because the way the course was laid out with loops.
Yeah. or was the bike?
I think it was two, but there was something, it was different.
Like there was something, it wasn't the exact same loop. Right, right.
There was something about it that felt kind of different.
There were some parts that were the same, but yeah.
So. Okay, okay.
[1:02:58] So the bike was pretty much a slam dunk. Yeah, the bike felt great.
Okay. I think that's my strength.
Okay. Okay. And you fueled great, you hydrated wonderfully. You didn't have any real low points on the bike.
Wow, the bike just was smooth. Yeah. Okay.
[1:03:15] Now I've seen some video of you getting off the bike. And you don't look like a spring chicken. No.
So even though the bike felt great, going from biking to being vertical and running probably didn't feel too great.
That was not great. So also, I'm just not that good at running in bike shoes.
That's part of the reason I look a little...
Okay. I'm like, I'm crouched over. But I also saw you come out.
Yeah, yeah. coming out of the transition in running shoes. Your body's feeling it, your body's feeling it for sure.
But the run, this is where it gets tough. And I knew this, right?
I watched plenty of videos on YouTube of people saying the run is the most challenging part, but it's also it's where you make grounds, like where you really get your best performance.
And it's a mental battle.
I was told that beforehand. I knew there's this one video on YouTube called Iron Minds.
And it's a couple of world champions talking about their mindset in the run.
And there was a specific woman in that video that said, once you get to that last half, you have to think about something bigger than yourself.
You have to think about other people. You have to find something, otherwise your mind, because your mind is just like telling you to stop.
[1:04:32] I had to fight not walking. Something I'm very proud of is I did zero walking on that 26.2 mile run.
Which is incredible. Even when it came to the aid stations, I would slow down to get the water and wait for my new friend that I met on the run, her name is Kennedy.
She was my saving grace. I'm telling you, like something I know about myself, I benefit from doing things with people, no matter what it is, especially athletic training.
We sort of pushed each other, supported each other. One of the coaches from the NVDM team, Natasha, she was on a bike, she came out behind us, and she said, like, look, you guys are on schedule for this time.
And I was on schedule to finish at 11 hours and 35 minutes at that point in the run.
And my goal was 11.34. And I was like, wow, like, and then I remember Kennedy saying to me, and we were with another guy at the point, but he sort of dropped it off.
But she said, I'm gonna get you there. And that sentence, I was like, okay, we're going together.
Let's do this. At what point did you run into Kennedy and become friends?
Meeting Kennedy and running together for 20 miles
[1:05:37] I think that was a mile, like, I think we'd run maybe like six miles in or something.
So we probably ran together for almost 20 miles.
[1:05:45] The pain ripped, the pain. So what- You know, you know, I like, I cannot, and I'm telling you, like, I listened to so many YouTube videos, all this inspiration.
And I will say, like, I really, truly, I'm really proud of this.
And you see here, this video is saying of like, like the pain is temporary, but if you give up, the feeling you're gonna have after, that's gonna last you for life. Yeah.
Like if I started walking and finished at what? 1230, 1245, oh, that's cool, great.
Like you did an Ironman, congrats. The feeling I would have compared to like, I really dug deep. Like I couldn't have done better. Well.
I'm telling you for my first Ironman, for the training I was at and I talked to Leanda, like Leanda, we didn't do enough long runs.
And that was because I had a couple minor injuries that I really babied.
If anything minor came up, I was like, let's just chill. I'm just trying to finish the Ironman, right?
And so based on where I was, the training I had coming in, that was the best I could do.
So I understand that's the best you can do.
[1:06:49] Do you think you could have done anything differently on the run to go 11.44?
If anything differently, so you're right. So you said at the beginning of the show here, like I missed qualifying for the world championships by one minute and six seconds, okay?
So in hindsight, what could I have done to get back that time?
It would have been faster transitions. Right. I was a little too slow on the transitions.
And I feel like in hindsight, I probably have the ability to push a little bit harder on the bike.
[1:07:28] Right. I honestly don't think I could have done better on the run.
I think that was so, the pain, like it's so funny when I see that video of me crossing the finish line, I'm like, I wish I was running a little faster.
I wish I looked a little stronger, but I'm telling you that's all I had.
So try and help everybody understand when you say the run was just painful, Like painful how, where, like is it in the brain?
Is it in the body? Where is it? It's physical pain. For me, it was in my calves primarily and my hip flexors, which are areas I'm gonna work on.
I think I need a little more flexibility there and I just need more long runs.
But that every single step is just excruciating pain. It wasn't cramping.
I don't have any cramping, that wasn't a problem. It was just like, this is painful.
A Difficult Triathlon Journey Begins
[1:08:22] I know, I know. I told you the story when I did the Nice International Triathlon in 1989, actually 88, and I told myself I would not walk.
It was 20 miles, it was completely flat, and I did it, and I'm so glad I did, but it was one of the most difficult things.
And you, you were, you did 26.2 miles, And you were running for how long, four hours and what?
I have to remember, I think it was like 4.09 or something. Yeah, that's a long time to be kind of grinding it out.
Yeah, I want to get it done faster next time.
Well, and the reality is, you know, you get a longer stride, you do the proper weight training and everything so that when you come off the bike, your legs aren't just a complete wreck.
Correct. And it's a much more pleasant experience. Yeah, it's great to hear that from somebody who has the experience that you have.
Yeah, well. I'm looking forward to that. And so what's next for you?
I mean, have you decided that you wanna do another one? Are you done?
No, the training has already begun. And I'm- I am. November 4th, Panama City, Florida. Wow.
And what I love about this sport is everybody is so supportive. Like, it's not-
[1:09:41] Like in the morning, hey, I hope you have your best race ever.
You know, it's not like the basketball team goes into the other locker room is like, Hey, man, hope you guys do great today, you know, like, it's really about just your improving yourself. And so my goal is I don't know, I don't have the exact number I'm looking for. Yeah, like, we'll figure that out through training. But I'm going to do better than I did last time. And, and, and I just love the structure of the sport. I love having something on the calendar. I've really enjoyed surrounding myself with people that I really respect.
Communicating with Leanda every day is like inspiring to me.
Doug Graham has been helpful and inspiring. We communicate on a daily basis.
Like, it's really, it's improved my quality of life and I plan to continue.
Well, you know, it's nice having a carrot in front of you. Yeah.
It's nice having a support group.
[1:10:31] Yes. To help you chase after that carrot. I have to say, okay, my support group, okay.
My friend, Taylor, is also a huge part of this team. And I gotta say, when I was on that run, okay, and I was thinking about that Iron Man, Iron Minds video, like you gotta think of something outside of yourself.
The number one thing I was thinking about that entire run is like, I cannot let Taylor down.
Like Taylor has been putting so much energy, so much support has been there every step of the way.
[1:11:03] The biggest cheerleader, like you can do this.
Like times when I'm just like struggling or whatever, it's like, you can do it, you can do it.
Like just in the training process, right? And I was like, we are not gonna drive home for seven hours with some result that is disappointing, right?
And I was just like, having, just like playing on what you're saying here, like having those people that are supporting you on a day by day basis and you don't wanna let them, it's just like, it's kind of like a beautiful energy, sort of feeds each other.
Yeah, you didn't have any bananas? No bananas.
You know what's funny is like on the run, I considered grabbing a banana, but when I looked at the tray, they were completely unripe.
And I'm like, I'm not putting an unripe banana in my body right now. I couldn't believe it, but I was fine.
I mean, I had the dates were fine. The coconut water on the run felt real good.
That was really nice.
[1:12:03] Very, very refreshing. It tastes great. I mean, that really worked well.
Well, that's awesome.
Well, you've always been, you know, after the first podcast in our write-up, we referred to you as, you know, Robby the seeker, right?
Yeah. Seeker, seeker of the truth, seeker of, you know, different things in life. And, you know.
[1:12:30] My hat goes off to you on, you know, seeking to better understand, you know, what you wanted to do to be, I think maybe a happier, better version of yourself, right?
As you talked about. And then not going after some little rinky dink thing, but like an Ironman triathlon, which is like one of the most incredible endurance events on the planet, right?
And then you did it like literally six, seven months after you decided you were gonna do it. That's remarkable.
And as a type one diabetic, right? And now you got another one in November. Flying high, man.
That's fantastic. Thank you, Rep. I appreciate it. Wow.
Acknowledging Support and Gratitude
[1:13:13] So thank you so much for coming on the podcast, sharing, updating us on this journey that you went on.
And after your November, you say it's in Panama City?
Panama City. Panama City? Yep. Let's come back on and we'll talk about it.
Let's do it again. Before we go. Yes. I have to, first off, I just want to tell you, I love this space.
Okay. This like, like the Forks Over Knives poster, so many great memories of that time together.
Seeing your food products all over the place, what you've created, it's such a gift.
Like I've been saying this, you know, to our clients and people I know, like you creating these incredibly clean, healthy products.
[1:13:59] That people can use to get into their daily life. Like, it's not easy these days, how busy people are, their family, and there's not, you needed to create these products, because they didn't exist.
And you've done it. And it's not an easy task to be creating these products and doing what you're doing. So, just want to like acknowledge that and say thank you.
And this is fun to see us all in this space.
But also, like, you've just been the most incredible friend throughout all these years.
Like, we first met through Forks Over Knives. And you have always been an inspiration to me at a lot of levels, you know, of course the athletic endeavors and you climbing that pole, real men eat plants, like that's amazing, but just as a human being and a father and like the family you have, and how I see you show up in that way and the relationship you have with Cole, which I've gotten to see in a beautiful way, like I just really, really appreciate like the example you set, it's definitely impacted me in a lot of ways.
So I want to thank you for that.
[1:14:59] And I also want to congratulate you for this show. I mean, you saw I was episode 30, a lot has happened between now.
We're almost at 200. And then, and you know, the guests that you have had on, I've listened to many of the shows, I thoroughly enjoy them.
And you're just, again, it's another example of just you in life in general.
Like you've been so helpful to Cyrus and I when it comes to book things and just you're consistent, You're committed and you produce results.
And those are the type of people I love to surround myself with.
So I'm just grateful to know you and grateful for your friendship.
Yeah, well, thank you.
[1:15:34] Thank you very much. And it's been great having you here in Austin, having you be part of the family.
[1:15:42] And you know, our family loves you and it's been fantastic playing pickleball every Sunday.
Absolutely. And I look forward to a lot more of it. 100%. All right.
So, let's you and me, let's split this mango.
Let's split this mango. Is this a champagne mango? Yeah, you can call it champagne, you can call it toffo, honey. Yeah? Yeah, it's got a lot of different names.
All right, all right. All right, my man, playing strong. Thank you so much.
Let's all wish Robbt good luck as he tackles his second Ironman triathlon in Panama City, Florida on November 4th.
If you're interested in learning more about Robby and his terrific work with Mastering Diabetes, I'll be sure to put a link in the show notes for you.
The Ironman triathlon slogan is anything is possible. And I mean that no matter what goals you're trying to achieve.
We're here to help you make it happen as you dream big, step outside your comfort zone and journey into the unknown.
With that, all my best, and be sure to keep it Plant Strong.
Support the Show and Spread the Exciting News
[1:16:56] Strong podcast, you can support the show by taking a quick minute to follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. 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. The Plant Strong, 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.
