so as he said I'm Josh I grew up in a
family of meat and potatoes
I had a gourmet chef grandmother a deli
daycare where I would be dropped off
every day eating amazing food and so if
you take a look at my family background
that's not really surprising so on my
mom's side they grew up in Argentina
this is the place where you have a lot
of dairy farmers including my family you
add to that my dad's side of the family
Fort Worth Texas born and raised myself
as well this is a place where you
literally still have cattle drives to
the middle of town so you put those two
together and what do you get not
surprisingly pretty much every meal that
I ate was a giant pile of meat at one
point in my life I really would
literally brag that I ate steak every
day for 40 days and I thought that was
an accomplishment
so it all changed on a very fateful trip
I like going up to Lake Tahoe one of my
favorite things to do you know this is a
trip that normally takes four or five
hours we got stuck in a really bad
snowstorm so about 10 hours into what
should be a four or five hour trip we're
all really stir-crazy in the car we're
having lots of crazy conversations at
one point we were making animal noises
to keep ourselves entertained we got the
car turned off everyone was basically
sleeping in their car and we got on the
subject of nutrition so a very good
friend of mine up in the back and the
audience Brian Robin was really the man
with the plan he started talking about a
plant-based diet and you had a car full
of extremely skeptical people myself
included we had you know four other
people in the car besides Brian we were
peppering him with questions saying this
there's no way this is possible there's
no way you can be healthy you know
coming from my perspective you know all
I really knew I had learned a lot about
cooking from my grandmother and I really
enjoyed cooking I enjoyed cooking for my
friends but the foundation of everything
that I would cook was really meat and so
I may make a side dish but it's a side
dish it's a second thought and so you
know after this long conversation with
Brian I think he did a very good job of
inspiring the rest of the group so those
four other four others of us in the car
all decided to go seven days no meat
whatsoever so a little bit of a support
group in each other challenging each
other to try seven days of no meat
I think if you were to ask those who
knew me at all they would say Josh going
seven days with no meat not only no meat
but no animal products whatsoever they
would have told you that's absolutely
impossible and so after those seven days
day eight the first thing I did
a was I ate a giant pile of pulled pork
and then B I sort of reflected it was
actually very easy for me to go seven
days with no meat no animal products
whatsoever
and I took a look at my own family
history I have two grandfathers who had
quadruple heart bypasses not very
surprising giving what I've been talking
about about my family history I have a
grandmother who passed away from
diabetes I have lots of cancer and my
family and so all these things together
really said well maybe I can try 30 days
and so 30 days quickly turned into more
than a year and a half on a purely
plant-based diet and so I didn't go into
it lightly when I took a look at my own
situation I spent ten or twelve years
really building my body I really enjoy
physical fitness I really enjoy
bodybuilding and I had a major concern
that I would waste away I would be
skinny and sickly and all of this work
that I put in would just completely
disappear so after more than two and a
half years now of doing not only
plant-based but then made me mostly
vegetarian totally a non-issue
I actually found that not only was I
able to continue increasing my strength
and my performance but also saw massive
gains and endurance as well so the other
big concern one of my favorite things to
do is to eat it's one of my favorite
ways to interact socially and so I was
concerned that you know this is going to
be a very difficult thing for me to do
if it's going to be a battle day-in
day-out resisting things so for me it
was much less about what I was giving up
and much more about what I was actually
coming to learn so rather than feeling I
was missing out on foods I really felt
that I was opening my mind to so many
different things that I would have never
put on my plate how they been focused
still on that giant pile of meat the
results you know unfortunately I didn't
get younger or taller as a result of
this experiment I did precipitously drop
my cholesterol you know this is a level
that maybe some people people wouldn't
say was extremely dangerous but a pretty
high level of cholesterol that
cholesterol drop happened extremely
quickly as did the weight draw
I didn't think I had 35 pounds to lose
but I lost 35 pounds I dropped my
cholesterol precipitously notice massive
improvements in my performance my my
ability to function and my work and in
my job so mental improvements as well as
physical improvements and so I think
this all really started with my friend
Brian and a lot of the literature that I
read in my own family history inspiring
me to take about you know 30 days to
make this change and hopefully my
inspiration these things that inspired
me can also be an inspiration for you to
believe that this is possible for you as
well thank you