#313: Dr. Jami Dulaney - This Cardiologist Stopped Doing Medicine the Old Way

 

What happens when a seasoned cardiologist realizes that prescriptions and procedures aren’t enough?

You get Dr. Jami Dulaney—a board-certified cardiologist who transformed her practice (and personal life) by embracing plant-based nutrition and lifestyle medicine.

Motivated by her own family history of heart disease and a desire to do more than simply manage symptoms, Dr. Dulaney shares her transformative journey from practicing traditional cardiology to building a lifestyle medicine practice that focuses on the healing power of whole food, plant-based nutrition and movement.

You'll hear how she made this bold shift in her practice after seeing firsthand how food can reverse chronic conditions like heart disease and type 2 diabetes. She also opens up about her personal evolution from golfer to runner, including her love of endurance running and how she stays motivated to live plantstrong.

Dr. Dulaney’s memberships include an annual comprehensive physical exam that incorporates screening and diagnostic tests, and focuses on nutrition, fitness and exercise, lifestyle management, mental wellness, stress management, and chronic disease management. The result is a customized wellness plan to guide you in achieving and maintaining optimum health and disease prevention.

Together, Rip and Dr. Dulaney explore:

  • Why she left the “pill for every ill” model behind

  • How lifestyle medicine is reversing chronic disease in her patients

  • Why oils—even so-called “healthy” ones—have no place in a heart-healthy diet

  • The power of community and education in sustaining health changes

  • Her training mindset as a runner and the connection between physical and mental health

  • How doctors can (and should) create space for deeper, more meaningful patient care

Dr. Dulaney proves that it’s never too late to rewrite the script—whether in your medical practice or your own life. This episode is a powerful reminder that food is medicine, and the future of healthcare starts with prevention, not prescriptions.

 

Dr. Jami Dulaney on the trails

Episode Resources

Watch the Episode on YouTube

Dr. Dulaney’s Website

Dr. Dulaney’s Plant-Based Wellness Podcast

Register for our 2025 Virtual Plant-Stock

Register for our 2025 Plantstrong Retreat in Black Mountain, NC - Nov 9-14, 2025

To stock up on the best-tasting, most convenient, 100% PLANTSTRONG foods, including our all new chilis, check out all of our PLANTSTRONG products HERE

Order the PLANTSTRONG Meal Plan Bundle

Give us a like on the PLANTSTRONG Facebook Page and check out what being PLANSTRONG is all about. We always keep it stocked full of new content and updates, tips for healthy living, and delicious recipes, and you can even catch me LIVE on there!

We’ve also got an Instagram! Check us out and share your favorite PLANTSTRONG products and why you love it! Don’t forget to tag us using #goplantstrong 🌱💪


Full Episode Transcription via AI Transcription Service

I'm Rip Esselstyn, and you're listening to the PlantStrong Podcast.

Introduction to Dr. Jami Dulaney

[0:04] What happens when a seasoned cardiologist realizes that prescriptions and procedures just aren't doing the trick? Well, you get Dr. Jami Dulaney, a board-certified cardiologist who transformed her practice and her personal life, by the way, by embracing plant-based nutrition and lifestyle medicine. I'm going to have her story right after this message from PlantStrong.

[0:37] What if one day could change your mindset and one week could change your life? Well, we've got both coming your way. First up, don't miss Plant Stock 2025.

[0:49] It'll be streaming live on Saturday, September 6th. This virtual event is your front row seat to the future of Food is Medicine. With powerful presentations from Brockstar doctors, experts, and real people who have transformed their health with the power of plants. Tickets are just $29, and partial proceeds support the rebuild of Blue Ridge Assembly, our beloved second home in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Then, in November, join us in person for the PlantStrong Retreat in Black Mountain. It's six days of total transformation filled with nourishing food, movement, connection, and the latest and greatest in lifestyle medicine and nutrition science. Healthcare providers, this one is for you. We are offering continuing education credits as part of your registration. So whether you want to join us online, in the mountains, or both, this is your chance to reset, reconnect, and reclaim your health. Grab your spot now at liveplantstrong.com and then click on events. I appreciate doctors and I know that you do as well who aren't afraid to challenge the status quo because I think that we all know it's incredibly hard to do this, almost impossible.

[2:15] But cardiologist, Dr. Jami Dulaney.

[2:20] She's one of those rare physicians who found herself working in a broken healthcare system and decided to do something about it. As she says on her website, visiting a cardiologist is not just about getting a stress test or medication for chest pain or elevated cholesterol.

[2:41] That's antiquated medicine, and it clearly hasn't worked. Instead, Dr. Dulaney has flipped the script on her practice. She wants to understand her patient's background, their health history, and how they currently live, not to place blame, but in order to better educate and empower them on how to cure themselves, primarily utilizing a whole food, plant-strong diet. it. Today, Dr. Dulaney shares how she came to this realization and then pivoted her practice and even how she incorporates it into her own life as a triathlete and ultra distance trail runner. Let's meet this heart doctor with a big heart for food as medicine, Dr. Jami Dulaney. Dr. Jami Dulaney, I want to welcome you to the PlantStrong Podcast. It's great to see you. and be with you today. Before we get rolling here, I'd love for you to tell me, is Jami your real name, nickname, birth name? What's with the name? Jami is my nickname. My real name is Jamila, half a James, half a Pamela. And because no one can really pull that off, I go by Jami.

[4:01] Jamila. Wow. Wow. That's it. Most of the time people swallow their tongue on that one. Wow. Now, is that something that your mom and dad kind of dreamed up? My mother did. My dad was James, and a really good friend of the family was Pamela, and they liked that name, and so she hooked them together. I love it. Turns out, the funny part about it, turns out it's actually an Arabic name as well. It's very common. Of course, there's just some other different handles on it and, of course, pronunciations, so I've had a lot of twists on it over the years. Actually, supposedly means beautiful in Arabic, so I got lucky. Nice. Well, I really look forward to this conversation today. You know, in doing my research on you, I really love your spirit. And I want everybody that's listening today to get a taste of your spirit and what kind of, what drives Dr. Jami Dulaney forward. So why don't, again, before we really get rolling, where am I talking you to? I know you're in Florida somewhere, but where in Florida? I am in a little town called Port Charlotte, which is about an hour and a half south of Tampa on the West Coast. If you watch the Weather Channel, we were the direct hit of Ian a couple of years ago. So that's that puts us on the map during hurricane season.

[5:26] Yeah. Well. And so you did not you weren't born and raised, though, in Florida. You were like Pennsylvania, West Virginia gal, right? I am a mountaineer born in Morgantown, West Virginia. Yes, I moved here in 1999. So it's coming on, you know, I'm getting a good bit of time stored up in Florida now. But yes, I was born and raised in West Virginia, went to medical school there, crossed over the border to do my residency and fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh, and back to West Virginia and then made the trip south. And what was it that took you to Florida? My parents were snowbirds, and I was a golfer at the time. So after shoveling snow in West Virginia and my dad telling me about all the nice weather they were having, it's like I've had enough. I decided to get out of academic medicine. I was going to go into private practice, so I thought I would come to Florida and be a private cardiologist in golf, and I never did once I got here.

[6:32] No, I guess not. How many years did you golf for? I was an avid. I mean, our whole family was golfers. So vacations were around there. So I golfed through college. Med school had dropped, obviously dropped off substantially. But I grew up as a golfer, which is funny. Now I'm a runner. And so the two are not that connected.

[6:56] But yeah, my walking was all on the golf course early on. Well, maybe all the running you're doing is penance for the golf.

[7:06] Probably it is. Probably it is. You know, one of the things is, you know, when I moved to Florida and I saw, unfortunately, the golfing, golf is not, doesn't lend itself to that healthy of a lifestyle. And that's part of it that became a detraction. And I had a young daughter. And so I would take her to swimming practice and I would swim or then I'd take her to, you know, whatever, to soccer. And I started running and that's kind of when I caught the running bug because it's a lot easier to get miles in with a young child running than it was to do anything else and that's kind of how all that got started. Well explain to me so you say that potentially golf doesn't lend itself to a healthy lifestyle in what way because to me you're kind of outdoors you're you know you're getting sun maybe too much sun but what is it yes is the drinking is it the steaks at the club what What is it? Yes. Yes. It tends to be the people that, you know, amateur golfers, not professional golfers. It's kind of a whole different thing. But a lot of amateur golfers, it becomes a way to relax, put a six pack of beer on the course, eat hot dogs and hamburgers and steaks and, you know, and walk. When I was in West Virginia and I grew up golfing, I actually walked and carried my bag. When you move to Florida, everybody's riding a golf cart. So, I mean, that took that aspect out of it. And so it just wasn't it was a time consuming sport that didn't give me the exercise that I wanted, basically. Yeah. That's a good, that's a better way to put it.

[8:32] Yeah. So you're all about being healthy naturally and you've got a really interesting practice and kind of niche that you've carved out for yourself, there in Florida. I love for you to, Tell the listener, the PlantStrong listeners, a little bit about your practice and the different aspects that you cover in your practice. Well, I'd like to first give a big thanks to your dad. Because if it hadn't been for listening to how your dad went about his study with the first 25 people and then the 100 people, And what he said resonated with me was that if you teach somebody how to cook and you explain to them the why, they're more likely to do it. And I grew up in a family of teachers, and they always, you know, if you don't teach somebody the right, if somebody doesn't learn, it's because you're not teaching them the right way. So that was my attitude from the beginning.

[9:35] And once I decided to, my traditional cardiology practice, of course, I ran. I'd exercise. I put my marathon posters on the wall. Nobody ever ran a marathon because of it. But I was hoping to, you know, encourage people to exercise. And quite frankly, early on, I'd give them a book, Dean Ornish's book, and say, you know, read this. You know, if you can do it, good luck to you. And then I went vegan myself, and because of cardiovascular, terrible family history, one thing led to another. And I wanted to try to figure out how to incorporate the nutrition into the practice. And when I heard of your dad's study, I was like, that's what I want to do. I'm going to teach a nutrition class in the office, and we're going to get people to be plant-based that way. So I told my mom, I said, I'm going to teach an evening class. I'm going to coerce some patients into taking the class. I made them pay $25 each to make sure they'd show up for a 16-wing class. And I'm going to talk to them and cook in front of them so they learn how to eat plant-based. And she said, you're going to fall on your face. You can't talk and cook at the same time. And it's like, I'm going to try. So we started with 16 people in the back room, you know, 16 chairs, a whiteboard, and it didn't take very long until people were starting. I was taking blood pressure pills away from people. I was reducing their statins.

[11:01] Diabetics were telling me they no longer had diabetic peripheral neuropathy. And it's like, wait a minute, this is actually working. For the first time in my entire cardiology practice, I'm actually taking medicines away from people. So when did you start this, and how long had you been practicing cardiology before you kind of started initiating some of these protocols? I came to Florida in 1999 to inter-private practice, 1998 to inter-private practice. And in 20, I'd say 2013, 14 is when we started doing the nutrition classes. So it took a while. I was vegan probably since 2000, 1999 to 2000. That area is where I became vegan. Initially not, you know, entirely Dr. Esselstyn vegan type of thing, you know, more of a vegan all around, not junk food for the most part. But I wasn't, I didn't, I hadn't given up oil early on, you know, until we kind of did that next loop into things. I kind of considered myself healthy and could get away with, you know, I had Rip Esselstyn's book. So I kind of dabbled both ways a little bit.

[12:18] But when I, you know, again, heard Forks Over Knives, your dad and mom's cookbook, we started by teaching that cookbook essentially. Those kind of recipes. 20 in that first nutrition class of 16 people. Yeah, yeah.

[12:36] And both your, if I'm remembering correctly, it was both your mother's parents, so your grandparents, that died early, like in their 40s and 50s from heart disease? Yes. And it's a quite interesting study I have going on in my family because my mom lived to be 90. I'm sorry. She lived to be 90. Her mom died at 56. Her dad died at 48, both heart disease, diabetes. She had three brothers that also died of heart disease, diabetes, in their 60s. One may have made it into early 70s. And then now we're at the next generation where people, my cousins, so late 50s to 60s, that aren't plant-based. I have one cousin that's in their 40s. I don't know where she is exactly that's plant-based because of, you know, I got her to get plant-based, but the rest of them actually have vascular disease or diabetes. So that family history has now gone into the third generation. So it's not a fluke what's going on as far as how people eat and what happens to them as far as my family goes. Yeah, yeah.

[13:52] 2013, 2014, you start embracing this. Your mother says you're going to fall on your face. You have, it sounds like, pretty phenomenal success, kind of reversing a lot of these diseases, getting your patients off meds. And so as a cardiologist, but I think even more importantly, as a physician that has taken this oath to try and help people, how gratifying was this now, this type of medicine? Oh, it was just so exciting. I couldn't get enough of it. So we went from one class to two classes to three classes. So I would do back-to-back like Thursday nights, one-hour class because we only had so much room. And then we went to a third class, and we actually moved off-site to a chamber of conference room area, a place where I had a bigger facility to have the classes.

[14:45] And the only negative feedback that I got, and people were just, I mean, you know, and these weren't people that wanted it. You know, these weren't people that came to me like, how can I get off my medicines? These were people that I brought into the class kicking and screaming a little bit. Would you want a hard cath or do you want to try this? Or maybe there's nothing left. Do you want to try this? That happened in some circumstances. So these people weren't, they knew nothing before they started the classes. But the only problem was when the six weeks was over, they kind of fall off. They didn't have the support.

[15:22] And that's when we decided to change the practice so that we continue the classes for everybody. And so that's how the practice revolved. And at that point, because, you know, and I'm sure you've experienced it, you know, if I saw 13, 14 patients in a day and I tried to give that 45-minute speech of, or it condensed down into 30 minutes of why you should be plant-based, you know, hoarse and exhausted at the end of the day, you know, because you have the, you know, the spouse sitting in the chair because I don't want to change the cooking and I didn't come here for this. And I just want, you know, so we decided to change the practice so we could get people that actually wanted to. And that helps out a lot, you know, as far as, you know, continued success to get people that have some idea that they'd like to do this.

Transitioning to Plant-Based Nutrition

[16:16] So you have these classes. It sounds like they're just continuing this as a means of support.

[16:27] And are these classes full? Is it online? Is it only in person? Is there a waiting list? How is all that working? We had three classes. And when we finally moved out, we'd have 20 people in each class and they would, you know, we'd cycle through a six week block and then I would do a different lecture. So I had actually it evolved into a beginner, intermediate and advanced. So the people that had stayed through like, OK, I'm going to do another one. You know, I kept up in the game as far as the lectures go more different, different material. You know, the first one is, you know, the basics of why and how. And then we would go into different diseases. Then I started to do a literature review. You know, so it was it was, you know, an entertainment of how do I keep these people interested and motivated to do this over time? And so that's so we, you know, we're all in person until COVID hit. And then when COVID came around, all of a sudden, you know, we were we became online and that became. And so until we got through code and then we gradually started the in-house classes back to some degree, and then now we do both. Nice. So it's a little hybrid model. Yes. Very good. We all learned from COVID. Yeah, yeah.

[17:50] I'd just like to take maybe five, 10 minutes and talk about not the paradigm that you're running there at your clinic, but the current paradigm within the practice of medicine. And you, on your website, you talk about a couple things that are going on there. And I'd like to just, for me to toss it out to you and then for you to talk about it for a second. So the first thing you say is that the current paradigm, it's hurried. Like, explain what you mean by it's hurried. They only have a certain amount of time to see each patient, and it's just not conducive to kind of solving the issue. Unfortunately, in medicine today, for a physician to make a living, it involves tests, and it involves seeing quite a number of patients. So it is not unusual for a practice to run 40 people through a clinic in a day.

[18:49] Clicking EMRs ordering tests that that is survival mode so if you have five ten minutes with a physician if you're lucky most of the time it's a allied health professional that you have five or ten minutes with what's your problem here's your prescription here's the test we'll order, the only comfort that people get is we've ordered these tests I get all the time we're following your carotid stenosis, we're following your kidney failure, we're following your diabetes, you know, into the grave essentially, but nevertheless, we're following it.

[19:23] There's no time for education. You know, it is, if anything, it's eat healthy. And again, as we know, but I don't like that excuse that no physicians aren't given nutrition education. I don't think that counts. I know a lot of things that I didn't know when I walked out of medical school. I learned on my own. So everybody has the opportunity to explore nutrition. It's just not something that keeps the practice door something. And unfortunately, that's why we change the whole way we do the practice because you can't, again, I can't see, I can't say what I need to say. I can't educate how I need to educate and see 45 patients. There's no way. And I never did do that. I never, you know, I was never a physician. You know, in a bad day, we may have run 13, 15 patients, you know, in an office setting. And even that would be a very high number. So, but you can't educate people that way. And you can't answer their questions, especially if somebody comes in completely.

[20:31] Um, you know, a novice to, you mean there's some way that I could reverse my disease without a stent? Um, so you can't start that conversation with five or 10 minutes. And that's, that's really the, the, the basis that the whole thing is. And then, you know, let's face it. Um, if a doctor's not convinced that it works, right. They're not going to do it. You know, I have, You know, when I go to the hospital, because when we first started the practice, well, and I still go to the hospital if need be. The only time I really have to go to the hospital now is if somebody falls and breaks a leg or has, you know, something. But it's not a heart issue. I don't have any heart attacks happening.

[21:14] And but if I go and I happen to walk through the doctor's lounge on the way out, you know, you know, first it's, you know, do you still run? How are your knees? And I couldn't eat that way. You know, I mean, those are the sentence that I get while they're loading their plate with cheesy eggs and bacon and sausage. You know, so, I mean, the physicians aren't going to really tell you what to do. You know, you should eat plant-based, but I'm not, you know, I'm not going to. You know, nobody wants to hear anything bad about their bad habits. Mm-hmm well yeah and it is amazing how i think that the the american psyche is such and the way that we have been kind of educated that the the thought of food being able to reverse something as, you know as radical and as intense as heart disease you got to be kidding me i mean i can reverse it with fruits and vegetables and beans and whole grains? That sounds like a pipe dream, but they just don't know, right? Yes.

[22:22] Once we got going, it's like, this is the easiest disease to fix. Isn't that something? This is the easiest disease to fix between cardiovascular and diabetes. I mean, taking people from a hundred units of insulin down to nothing. You know, that had been on insulin for all these years. And it's like, this is the easiest thing to fix in the world. Now, are you talking about heart disease now? Are you talking about diabetes? Both. Both. Both are the two easy ones. You know, I tell people, it's like, these are the easy ones to fix. You know, cancer, when you have cancer, and we do see, because now I see a variety of people come into the office. You know, so when that has progressed, you know, it certainly can get better and certainly has helped, but probably a little bit more strict, maybe tougher, but it doesn't take much to take angina off the table. I mean, you could, you know, the first guy that I had that I saw in the face, you know, I mean, he was in my practice for years and finally stents are clogged, his bypass grafts are clogged. And it's like, you know, he's in a little bit of heart failure. He could walk three miles. Now he can only walk about 25 feet without getting angina. And it's like, you know, there's one last thing to try here. I said, if you would be willing.

[23:41] And his daughter was with him and it's like, you know, we're try this. And they came to class. His daughter lost 30, 40 pounds. He lost weight. His chest pain was gone in weeks. He was back to walking and he became, you know, he became a little poster boy. We had we gave everybody T-shirts, you know, Jami Dulaney, plant face, all this kind of stuff. He would wear it to Sam's Club and, you know, find people and make them put their stuff back.

[24:04] You know he was my little disciple going out you know it's like you're dr laney's practice you can't eat that you know um explain to the listener right now, So this gentleman who's an absolute train wreck as far as his arteries are concerned, it sounds like, and he's got the angina, you get him to go basically whole food plant-based and you say within weeks, the angina kind of disappears, goes away. What is going on at a physiological level that allows that angina, the chest pain to go away? We opened up collaterals. So with the nitric oxide producing greens, so, you know, six, seven cups of greens, that's our main focus. Of course, taking the oils out, taking the animal products out. But those greens allow his little tiny collateral blood vessels. And we describe them as the side streets instead of your thoroughfares. So all your little side streets open up and you can get where you need to go.

[25:06] And you know so is yeah his big vessels probably we didn't do another catheterization but they didn't open back up but all those little collateral ones did and he could do what he wanted to, and we've seen it over and over again you know and we've seen we've done some stress early on i did some stress tests nuclear stress tests something you know dean ornish's studies looking at the perfusion of blood to the heart before and after and we've shown reversal that way it doesn't mean, and it doesn't mean that the big arteries opened, but the blood flow to the heart was such that it looked completely normal. Is that through like the PET rubidian scans? Back in the day, more, more just a nuclear stress test. So just, you know, so not as fancy as PET, but the traditional treadmill nuclear injection, a system maybe, you know, so same and same imaging, but a different machine. Yeah. I've seen a lot of before and afters that my father has shown me of some of his patients. And in literally two to three weeks, it's incredible the profusion of blood that gets to the heart and how much just more extensive it is. It's phenomenal.

[26:14] And, you know, we have people that their heart function was not very good and, you know, they're doing what they want to do. And, you know, it's, you know, it's just amazing. And and quick. Now, there's a lot of different types of cardiologists. What kind of cardiologist are you? I was a traditional cardiologist that I did heart catheterizations, pacemakers, stress tests, echocardiography, you know, trans esophageal. So I call myself a generalist. I did not put stents in. I did the cath. I would refer for the stents, you know, but I would do the diagnostic caths to see what the blockages look like, what the bypass graphs look like.

[26:57] If you were to grab 100 people just off the street in any major city and just to see if they have blockage, what percent do you think, and these are people that are 50 to 75 years old, what percent do you think would have blockage? 50 to 60 years of age, probably 45 to 50% of them. You get over 60, you're going 50 to 60% of them.

[27:23] Yeah, it's quite high as far as, and that's kind of where I think the cross, you know, we are trying to detect vascular disease early and earlier by imaging calcium scores and CT angios now that they're not invasive. Yeah. When I first started in, you know, 1999, we would do a stress test. And if the stress test was abnormal, we would go directly to an invasive procedure, the heart catheterization, where we would access the patient's artery and take the catheters up to the heart and inject dye. And that had carried a risk. It carried 1% stroke, heart attack, death risk, just doing that procedure. So you were a little bit more conservative because the procedure itself could cause a problem. So, you know, you thought about it a good bit. You know, now we have CT angio where you just jump in a scanner, get some dye in, and there's mathematical algorithms and they can say, well, you've got a flow rate change and maybe you have a 60 to 70% lesion. Now we're going to go put a stent in directly. But again, we're going to go back to that. You asked me the general population walking around without any symptoms.

[28:42] They're there. So the question is what causes them to progress to a heart attack? And that is typically an unstable plaque or a soft plaque, which is not picked up by a calcium score. That's a healing plaque.

[28:57] So, you know, again, we're putting, we're, we're taking people to procedures where they have no symptoms. What's interesting is you just said that's a healing plaque. And I think you're referring to the calcification. Yes. Right. Right. And so it's the soft juvenile plaques that are the, the major culprits for the, um, for the heart attacks. True. True. And it could be as little as 20%. So a 20% plaque can rupture and a clot can form in that two and a half millimeter artery and cause a major heart attack. Yeah. And do you ever have a rupture and then a blood clot that doesn't cause a heart attack? And if it, what does it cause then? If it doesn't cause a heart attack? Yes, all the time. So if, you know, you can have that plaque rupture. And if you think about it being a straw and the plaque ruptures and the blood clot completely fills the lumen or diameter of that straw, that would be a major heart attack. Sometimes it just ruptures a little bit and the body kind of clots off but doesn't clot completely and it seals down. So maybe the plaque would go from 20% to maybe 35%. No symptoms. People, you don't even feel it.

[30:19] Maybe it progressed to 50% or 60%. When it gets over, we know about 75%, 80%, then people start to have symptoms when they walk or they do heavy exertion. So the scary ones, you know, the ones we'd all like to prevent are the ones that go from 20% to 100% and people have a heart attack and die. That's the one everybody's trying to prevent early on. But the reality of it is most people do tend to have a little bit of progression of symptoms as opposed to just right then and there, you know, it happens. Right.

[30:53] What, in your opinion, are the biggest risk factors for cardiovascular disease? Diabetes, number one.

[31:04] And a lot of Americans are getting diabetes. Metabolic. We might as well just make it big and bigger metabolic syndrome. So, you know, if your hemoglobin A1C is abnormal and your triglycerides are overweight, you carry the same risk as somebody with full-on set diabetes. So when people say, ah, my doctor says I just have borderline diabetes, doesn't matter. The clock's, you know, that's a big risk factor for progression of vascular disease. And then, you know, I'll go with hypercholestinal, high lipids, being overweight, high blood pressure, smoking, obviously, add them on. But, you know, to me, diabetes is really, because there's so many things associated with diabetes. Your insulin is high, you're producing insulin-like growth factors, you're producing more inflammatory factors, you're producing more clotting factors, and that sets the stage, you know, for everything to start to progress. I don't believe one thing causes anything. You know, there's got to be, you know, people just don't have one thing and then something bad happens. There's a bunch of little factors that go together for them. Yeah, a constellation of things. It's not just my family history.

[32:24] Yeah. What about what foods, in your opinion, are the most, I'm trying to think of the best word here, dangerous when it comes to promoting atherosclerosis?

[32:45] I'd be careful because if my members are listening, they'll say, but you said. I know. Have you ever heard that? You know, it's like one thing, which one thing can I cheat on? Exactly. You know, so, I mean, obviously, you know, animal protein, you know, that's the cause, the drives inflammation.

The Success of Nutrition Classes

[33:06] I would have to say, not animal protein, let's put it this way, animals, you know. Um so eating beef uh pork chicken you know it causes so much inflammation in the sip but again it's not in a vacuum it's cooked in oils it's you know it's there's so many people just don't do one thing wrong you know um certainly dairy to me if somebody says what's my cancer risk the dairy seems to be you know to me scares me more than anything but it again it doesn't happen to vacuum you know um people that i always say if you say you don't eat or i'm not worried about eggs because people say well i only ate one egg a week or one egg a day you know or one egg a week and it's like but if you're not looking for it the eggs are in the pastry that you ate the eggs are in the bar you ate the eggs are in the product the coating the whatever you ate so the reality and you're not looking for them you know if you go to starbucks and you buy the pumpkin bread you're not looking for the eggs yeah you know that's a really good point yeah so if you don't put up so i tell you if you don't put a fence around it you're not aware like i don't have to i don't have to go to the bakery in publix because i know everything there has eggs and oil in it so there's no reason for me to walk that way i if you don't put a fence around it you are not aware. Oh, I've never heard that before. That's so good. So many great soundbites. You are great.

[34:35] How long have, well, first, how do you refer to yourself when people, if somebody was, you're sitting next to somebody on an airplane and they're like, oh, hi, I see you ordered the, you know, the vegan meal. Why, why is that? How do you eat and how long you've been doing it? I'm a plant-based cardiologist. I've been doing this for a long time. You know, it's working. You know, I have a strong family history of heart disease. This is how I live. This is this. And so you use the term plant-based as opposed to whole food plant-based or vegan. You know, early on, I will tell you that we just go vegan. But that alienated so many people.

[35:23] Um that you know it's like no i i want to be a healthy plant-based person um and when i say plant-based it's like well i don't eat animal products and they'll say you know of course then you go down the road nothing it's like no none of them you know but um yes i get the plant-based uh whole food is plant-based yes i don't eat processed food i'm if somebody wants to know more, I certainly will give them the spiel. Right. But, you know, it's I usually don't, you know, on an airplane engage, you know, it's as far as, you know, do what you want. This is, you know, if somebody asks, I'm willing to tell you, I'd let you know every secret I have. But.

[36:05] And it works and it works for me and it works for my family. You know, I'll say all my family, it's this way, you know, so I'm not doing anything. I don't ask anybody to do anything that I don't do. Yeah. If I was sitting next to you on an airplane, what if it was, let's say a three-hour flight, you probably came prepared, what would I see you eating?

[36:28] Um, well, three hour flight, if you saw anything anyway, I, I might bring some fruit or I might have actually even a bowl of something that I, that I made a salad or bring out, we, I make sourdough bread. So there's a chance that I would, you know, pull out some sourdough bread or sourdough bagel that I had made. Um, that would be what we would do. Um, we're pretty good about, um, locating, you know, when we get off an airplane, we're typically, um, going someplace to run or do something. So we're kind of hungry. And, uh, so we'll, we'll have it mapped out where there's some place that we can find good food. And we typically will head to some Thai restaurant or some restaurant that has some sort of make-your-bowl of sorts that you have some control over. But that's usually how we roll for the most part. You might see me eat some oatmeal in the airport before I take off. But nobody ever starved to death on a three-hour flight.

[37:23] No, no. So did you find when you made the transition, did you find it to be difficult or were you just were you just all in and nothing was going to get in your way? Yes, I was just an when I say I was all in, I'm plant based. I'm not going to need any more animal products. That was, you know, game over. I did it. That's it wasn't like I'm going to phase out things. I just became plant based. Now, I did not give up oils right away, so I wasn't without doing some oils and.

[38:03] Another great learning experience. My mother had reflux and stomach issues and my mom was Italian, you know, and did the oils and things on salad. Not a tremendous amount, but did, but had a terrible stomach. And when I turned 40, I had the same type of issues. And it wasn't until I got rid of the oils that I got rid of those GI issues. Yeah. And so that became, you know, so when somebody comes to my office, say, oh, I can't eat hot peppers or I can't eat this because I have indigestion. It's like, no, you don't. You have too much oil in your diet. And, you know, and it's been 100 percent accurate. You get through all the people's diet, their indigestion goes away. You know, it's just. And why do you think that is? What do you think is going on there? It's just an inflammatory because sometimes people have, you know, eat oils and they have joint issues. but I believe it's an inflammatory issue that some people get GI issues and the acidity associated with the oil.

[38:59] And just, you know, I produce a lot of acid probably, and the inflammation that the oil causes in my GI tract will just light me up. Some people, it lights their joints up. You know, I never had joint problems, but boy, I tell you, you know, you get a piece of fried zucchini near me and, you know, I'm in trouble. You know, or even nuts. You know, I don't even eat a lot of nuts because of it. And, you know, I can if I went, you know, sometimes, you know, you'll you'll go someplace or you'll be exposed to something and you backtrack and there it is. So I'm very careful because it was bad. And that was one of the most things that caused me more discomfort than anything that I've ever had experienced as far as that, you know, that reflex symptom. And so I don't want the meds because we know those meds carry with them the risk of everything else. You know, the proton pump inhibitors increase your risk of heart attack, osteoporosis, you know, malabsorption of different vitamins and minerals. So I don't want any part of those. And your body gets very addicted to them. It's not, you can take them once in a while on and off. It's not an easy thing to get rid of. Hmm.

[40:11] I'm going to go back to oil for just a second because there's so much, it seems, I'm going to call it misinformation and just kind of debate going on around the benefits of some of these oils, specifically, you know, extra virgin olive oil. Do you do you keep up with the literature or do you um like do you ever like go oh maybe there was something to oil or you just like hey i'm just not gonna i'm not gonna go there i'm not buying it i don't think i don't see as something we need i i don't think that oil is going to prevent any bad thing from happening um you know if if you know you substituted extra virgin olive oil and hydrogenated oil. Could you, you know, would it be better? You know, it's better than what, but you know, is smoking a filtered cigarette versus, you know, I mean, it's, it's the same thing to me. I haven't seen the benefits. I think that there's not much in the way of pure oils. So you're getting a lot of combinations and the omega threes, I'm sorry, omega sixes tend to go to make inflammatory compounds. They make clotting compounds and.

[41:23] I don't need those things. You know, most of the people get way too many omega-6s. Again, you're not looking for them. They show up everywhere. You know, everything you pick up has five or, you know, three or four different oils stacked in them or made with. You know, if you go into the freezer section and you start to try to find some, you know, vegan meal or so, different oils. They have to use them to kind of mask, you know, mask flavor. Um perhaps shelf life but but you get so many omega-6s that you outnumber the omega-3s and i think that's where we get into the problem um so i tell people you know everybody needs to cut down omega-6s um because we're getting we get plenty you're not yes they're essential fatty acid but we're all getting plenty of those and look at the ratio of three that the threes where we're trying to get but you can't you can't eat enough chia seeds to outnumber all the omega-6s that people are exposed to. Yeah. No, I couldn't agree with everything you said more. And, you know, with a, with a American population that is somewhere in the neighborhood of two thirds, either overweight or obese, the last thing we need is unnecessary, uh.

[42:39] Empty calories, which I think you and I both would agree is what oil oil is. So, well, I do, I, you know, in the cooking demos, I, you know, People say about a tablespoon of oil is 140 calories. You've got nine calories per gram of fat. I'll show people a real tablespoon measuring, not the one that you just keep pouring and the girls are inside. It's like nobody cooks with just a tablespoon of oil. It's not just an oil. It's one of these things. Watch any cooking show.

[43:11] It's horror to watch people use oil when they're doing a cooking demonstration on TV. And, you know, it's like it's cups. It's not tablespoons. It's cups. It's quarts for Pete's sake. Yes. It's like it's, you know, and so are they using the, you know, the fine virgin olive oil that the guy up in the mountains in Italy is using and measuring just so much because it's so expensive? Of course not. And it's like they don't have that many olives to make this much oil. Yeah. I would love to talk a little bit now about your running.

The Benefits of Running

[43:46] Good. Because you, it sounds like you really love running and I'd love to know from you, like what gifts have running given you? Um, mindfulness, um, mindfulness, I would say, and take, I guess, take the edge off, so to speak, but it's been a, it's been a great outlet. Um, but you know, a great way to stay fit with a short period in a shorter period of time.

[44:18] Um, and it's just been a challenge, you know, with a marathon, I started out with marathons and, you know, always laughed something. There was always a story when I would come back to work on Monday, you know, I did something stupid, you know, um, and I learned from it, but that nothing ever went perfect in 26 points. There was probably four good marathons, you know, but otherwise something stupid, whether, you know, whatever I would do, you know, so it made for a great story. And it also made for, if I can do it, you can do it because I was a golfer and I, you know, decided to go from running three miles to a marathon. So if I can do that at, you know, age 40, when I started, then anybody could. Um, and then it just, you know, and then it became The first one, my mother said, again, my mother, you would think she wasn't encouraging by her quote, these quotes, but she would say, did you get that out of your system?

[45:09] It's like, no, I said, I think I can go a little faster, you know, but it became a way to travel because we would base, you know, instead of golfing trips, I started basing my family vacations around going someplace to run, whether it was in Europe or wherever we'd run. And so it's a great place to see a city, great place to see, you know, an area by running. And then it became the positivity of people, you know, where can you find people line up around a street cheering for complete strangers who are running, you know, way back in the pack? They're just hoping that they live to the finish and they love to see the struggle, you know, and it became such a, you know, I always said if I could take the scene at the marathon and all the people cheering and happy and positive thoughts and affirmations and put that into my practice, then everybody would run. If they could just see what it would do.

[46:03] I have to share one funny. I had a little lady that was, you know, I saw her a couple weeks early on before the practice changed. She had heart failure, and she came in, and I had my Rome Marathon picture up on the wall, and she said, so were you in the Olympics? And I was like, no. And I said, I just ran the Rome Marathon. And she looked, and she said, did you win? It's like, no. And she said, well, what place did you come in? And it's like, you know, 10,000 or something like that. And she was so disappointed. She's like, you know, maybe if you practice.

[46:39] And it's like, no, I'm taking care of you. So I, you know, I only can practice so much. So, you know, we'll just go with what it is. Yeah. I don't think she quite got it. Now, you know, and people ask, you know, I mean, that's, that was the kind of comments I got early on. it's like, if you know you're going to lose, why do you go anyway? Yeah. Well, you've started, you've started, or maybe you started, I don't know, 10 years ago. I don't know the timeline, but you started gravitating towards some of the ultra distance running events, these 50 and 100 milers. Why, why, and what kind of.

[47:17] Um, depth of meaning did you find in doing those longer events that for me personally have, I have no interest in those, but I, I know enough people that do that. There must be something that you get out of, get out of them. That is magical. It is, um, again, you know, the longer you go, the more things happen, the more you have to troubleshoot, but you go to one, the beauty. So most of the ultra marathons are in, you know, trail marathons. So you're out in the woods. They're smaller. The community, you get to know more people. You know, you can run the New York marathon with, you know, people all the way around you and you never talk to anybody. But in an ultra marathon, it lasts long enough. People talk. And, you know, the people that are supporting other people, it just becomes more of a family type situation. Or, you know, you get to know people, there's something in pushing yourself to the point where you didn't think you could go.

[48:19] And it strips everything down from everybody, you know, and so you're just there raw. And, you know, it's, I'm not, I'm not quite certain how to explain it, but it gets to point where you're right there in the moment when I'm trying to manage nutrition and mileage and hydration and where I'm going I'm not thinking about anything else you know I you don't think about anything else except right then and there and it takes you to a mindfulness that not many other things allow you to do you know you can do most anything in your mind can wonder but when you don't want to get lost in the woods and or get sick or whatever you know no there is something beautiful about being a hundred percent present in something that's one of the things i love about mountain biking is i find that i have to focus so much on the trail and and everything that i get back from like an hour and a half two hour mountain bike ride and i feel absolutely, cleansed, certain rebirth of sorts.

[49:28] Tell me about your nutrition. So if you're doing a, have you done Leadville? I have done the 50 mile Leadville and I am signed up for the 50 mile Silver Rush this year. And I'm signed up for the a hundred mile this year. Oh my goodness gracious. So tell me this, you must, you've been doing these long enough. You must, for the most part i would imagine have your nutrition kind of dialed in, and i would imagine that's one of the greatest things to to kind of figure out give me an idea, how many grams of carbohydrates are you trying to take in every hour over let's say a 12 to 24 hour period.

[50:14] I'm trying to do 80 grams. 80 grams. And how are you doing that? Is it liquid or is it something else? Combo. You know, depending, you know, the more elevation or heat would be more liquid. And then, you know, the thumb solid food. As you know, the longer you go, the more difficult it gets to look at some of those gels. Yeah. You know, and you can get even the sports drink I've got. But the one I use, I'm pretty tolerant of it, so I haven't gotten sick of it. You know, I remember, you know, the old days of Gatorade when, you know, I can't even look at a bottle of Gatorade. It makes me ill just. But, you know, I use a gnarly, a powdered stuff that I dump in water. And so I can measure. I have a pretty good count of how many grams of carbohydrates that I want to get in an hour. You know, I tell people, I'm very honest with people. It is not a Dr. Esselstyn-improved carbohydrate regimen during those things. It's how can you get glucose in any way you can. So, you know, sprouts, gummy worms that have natural color flavoring are not off the table, you know, but anything. But there's, you know, there's often bananas, oranges, that kind of thing, sometimes watermelon. But, you know, I am not. That is one place. It's the only place where I will do peanut butter. I will do peanut butter and jelly sandwich on an ultra.

[51:39] Just because it's there and there's some sort of solid food. Potatoes are great. White potatoes if they have those.

[51:47] But it's what you can carry and what you can get in fairly quick. And the reality of it is, you know, the liquids tend to do better than anything. Yeah. You look like you are... You look really sturdy. You look strong. You don't look, to me, like when I see you, you don't look emaciated, as I would think some ultra-distance runners would look. Are you doing much strength training?

[52:16] What are you doing to preserve your muscle mass? I do strength training. I do strength training twice a week. My son-in-law is actually a collegiate strength coach. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, so I get my programs for free and, you know, call him up and he troubleshoots with me to get me back on track. But, yeah, that has been the big changer with going to running the ultra distance is to have the strength training program alongside. Before I did ultras, I did Ironman for a while. And the Ironman keeps you pretty well-rounded because you're swimming and biking and running as you've done, you know. So that kept me, I was probably less prone to injury, and I didn't do much strength training when I did all three. But going just to running, you tend to get a little bit unbalanced at times. So the strength training is important. And that's the other thing that I try to promote, actually. I don't think, you know, I think that vegan gets a bad term when you talk about somebody, you know, really skinny and emaciated. And, you know, they can't, they don't ever go outside and da-da-da-da-da. You know, I mean, I think a healthy lifestyle involves exercise as well as, you know, plant-based nutrition and, you know.

[53:39] More and more literature comes out that, you know, you have to be able to maintain muscle mass to be able to utilize calories. If you can't take food and turn them into energy because you don't have the muscle to do so, then disease will progress regardless of what you're taking in.

[53:56] How have you fared as far as remaining injury-free over the years? I have little niggles. When I did my first 100-miler, it was complicated by four miles of ankle-deep mud and with the posterior tibial tendonopathy that lasted quite a bit from squishing around for all those miles because you repeated it six times. So every time you did a 16, you got four miles of Kentucky Derby-type mud. You know, I've had some back issues over the years, sciatica and things like that, mainly muscle imbalances, not discs for the most part, but just muscle imbalances, hips, you know, so maintaining hamstrings to match my quads and so forth, glute strength and things like that. Again, not being a natural athlete, being a golfer, you know, it was, you know, so some of those muscle systems. that have had to come along over the years. And then trail running also was much different than road running in that those little tiny tendons and muscles get much more of a workout on uneven surfaces that you would –.

[55:12] You know it's that way, but you just don't know how bad it is until you go into it. So I had the cardiovascular fitness to go longer, but my little muscles and the little tendons would scream some. So that's been the focus. In your opinion, if you're going to go out for a run, does it have to be at least a certain amount of mileage in order for it to count? What is your philosophy on that? Don't put my shoes on for less than three.

[55:46] Yeah, I mean, I've, you know, as I've gotten older, there's, you know, there may be, yeah, I still, you know, three miles is probably the bare minimum that I would, that I would go out, you know, I might take a walk if I'm like, you know, it's hard to take what we call a rest day, you know, because again, the rest of my job is not that physical. So when I say, you know, it's a rest day, it may be something easier, but just to, you know, I don't really ascribe to do nothing days for the most part, unless I am injured or sick or something like that. But for the most part, I'll do something. Have you, I know you've had your own podcast, the Jami Dulaney Plant-Based Wellness Podcast for years, over 500 episodes. Congratulations on that. That's an amazing feat. Have you ever had Harvey Lewis on your podcast? Yes, I have. He was actually one of my first interviews. No, not Harvey. No, I'm sorry. Harvey I have had on. I had him on a couple years ago, but I had Harvey. But there was another guy I thought you were going to talk about.

[56:56] But, yeah, Harvey was on the podcast, and he's just phenomenal. He runs every day to school, runs every day school and back. I mean, he's just kind of an unbreakable kind of guy. And he can take in, you know, mounds of food and, you know, go run hard. You know, he is a well-oiled machine. For people that don't know who Harvey is, he's been on the Plant Strong podcast as well. But he does all these ultra-distance races, these backyard races where you basically do like a four-mile loop. and you go until there's one person standing and he's gone for, I think, I want to say like 400 miles. Yeah. Like I think it could be four 60 or something. It was, it's incredible distance. Yeah. It's something ridiculous. And I just don't, I can't fathom how after doing what he's been doing for years and years and years, he, he somehow hasn't crumbled, but he just seems to.

[57:53] He does. He does strength training. He does, you know, some rehab, you know, massage. He takes, you know, it's just not all running. Yeah. And I think he's really good at not pushing the pace all the time. You know, so I think he's, you know, pretty balanced in it, how it goes about things. And he can take in a tremendous amount of calories. I mean, you do have to fuel. Yeah. And I think he's very good with his nutrition. Yeah. And he's plant-based. Yeah, he's plant-based. That's where it's at. Yeah. I mean, he's plant-based and that's a lot of his running is to kind of promote that. There are a lot of, I would say, a fair number of plant-based ultra runners.

[58:37] Do you offer any kind of telehealth medicine with your practice? Yes, we have three levels of online education or medicine. There is one that I will do telehealth a full membership. And then my daughter is our registered dietitian. And so when people get a monthly call from her as well, so we have a website. People can have access just to the website. They can have access just to Addy the Dietitian. they can have a coaching session with both of us, and then they can have a full membership. So we have people all over the country that, you know, are looking for somebody to listen to them and looking for somebody that's not going to have them, you know, do invasive procedures or somebody just to go over with what they have and help them make a decision. Because I, you know.

[59:36] At the end of the day, it's my job to educate people to the best of my ability. And then I tell them, you make the decision, and I'll support you in whatever you do. But I'm going to give you my honest opinion about what I think are the options and what I think could be the best thing. But I don't turn anybody away. It's like, well, I can't come to you because I'm not 100% plant-based. And it's like, no, we meet people where they are. I wasn't 100% plant-based. We've all had to evolve.

[1:00:02] And um you know so um but you know again it comes down to having somebody to talk to them yeah take time and listen and your your daughter addy she's the one that has dibs on the strength training uh coach right yeah she has dibs on the strength training coach and she does she does some programming too as far as she exercised fizz background so you know we get basic programs You know, people, we try to incorporate with our members to do strength training. And we have a wellness challenge every month with our members. So we have, you know, 30 days of do this today or add this on, do this, walking challenges, maybe running challenges, maybe squat challenge. So we try to incorporate all of that into the practice members to try to get people to have more of a community so that they can join in. And I think that's one of the big things. People think that they're the only one that's struggling. And they're not. Everybody struggles. You know, and I think you have to realize that everybody struggles and it's better to learn from each other. And, you know, we just go with what we got and work our way out. Yeah. What what is the name of your medical practice?

[1:01:15] Jamila J. Dulaney, M.D. Got it. Got it. Wonderful. And what's the best way for people if they want to know more about your practice? Dr Dulaney.com, D-O-C-T-O-R-D-U-L-A-N-E-Y.com. And then you can email Jami at Dr. Dulaney as well. Yeah. And you're offering some kind of membership-based medicine, if you will. Is that correct? Yeah, we do a member. So what would typically happen if you call me up and say, hey, I'm having some angina. I want to explore this plant-based thing. And so I talk to people for free. We do a little, this is what you want. This is what we have to offer. And then we try to get people to give us, if they want to be a full member, at least a six-month commitment. Because we get their medical records. We go through everything. We call them. They get my phone number. They can call me whenever they want. You know they can and so we to really find out whether you're going to be able to do this plant-based thing takes a minute.

[1:02:23] And so we think six months is a good try, you know, is this for you? It either is and you fly and you stay on. If you don't, fine, go on. You know, we have people that come and go, you know, they say, oh, I got it down, but they didn't come back, you know, and that's okay too, you know, but we like to try to get people to commit a little bit or at least our full membership. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that sounds like a really nice model that you have there. What's the uh next on the schedule for the next race silver rush 50 in july is the is the next official race in colorado and how's how are you going to fare at that altitude from florida well you know people say the humidity is a little bit like altitude um but you know not really we do some we go to do some trail racing you know trails locally but um i will go out in june and do a kind of practice run spend a weekend running the trails out there and then i just crank the old treadmill up to 15 and you know go on it yeah pull a tire you know we have 100 degrees and high humidity here today so you know it's pull a tire i love pulling a tire god my mom loves pulling tires oh i see her pulling a tire yeah pull a tire oh pull a tire lifting heavy things you know, and then it comes down to, you know.

[1:03:50] Just being active and hoping for the best. You know, I'm not, you know, unfortunately, like my patient asked, I'm not going there to win. I'm going there to finish. Yeah. And have a good time and enjoy it. You know, I think it's a beautiful, beautiful scenery out there.

[1:04:07] We just, you know, fell in love with it the first time we went out to do the marathon there. And uh you know who knew that you know when they uh signed up for the marathon it's like it's just 13 miles out 13 miles back how bad could it be except for that you go from 10 000 to 13 i think 13 3 or something like that for the marathon and um yeah it was it felt like we were doing a 5k you know because you know your heart rate there when as soon as you get out of the car it's like whoa um so it's like oh this is going to be a lot slower than a.

Upcoming Races and Goals

[1:04:40] Yeah. Ah, well, I wish you all the best at that race. And then when would you be doing the Leadville 100? So the 50 milers in July and the, in the hundreds in August. So the 50 is a warmup to the hundred. There's a, there's a four week turnaround. Yeah. I'm a little, I'm a little scared slash terrified. Yes. Terrified is really the word.

[1:05:06] Well, you know what? But it's nice to feel alive and terrified every once in a while, especially when it's this kind of a goal that you've put in front of yourself. I congratulate you. Way to be. Thank you. You know, I'll be 63 when I tow the line for the Leadville 100. And if you look in the results column, there's not a lot of those in the women results. But, you know, I'm writing my own story. I started late. So I'm hoping I got a long, long, a long time before I peak. So, wow. So if you had your, if you had your druthers, how long would you continue to do these run, these, you know, ultra distance runs? You know, I have such a good time. I can't see stopping as long as I can. Well, I, you know, well, I always be able to, you know, try to train for a hundred. I don't know, but it's just nice to be out, out there. Um i actually have a um you know people that are in their 70s and 80s that i've um ran marathons with that are in the practice um that trained for the first marathon so you know the idea is just keep going i have an 89 year old member of the practice that can still pull off um she's 89 yeah she's 89 she can still pull off a 16 and a half minute 5k.

[1:06:27] 16 and a half? Average pace. Average pace. 16 and a half minute miles for five. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah. Wow. Wow. That's something. It is. It is. You know, so they're setting the bar for me. So we'll just keep pushing it. Yeah. Well, this has been such an uplifting conversation. I love your spirit, your enthusiasm, all the great work you're doing with your medical practice. Being terrified every once in a while is, is good for all of us. And I can't wait to see the results of the 50 and the 100. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, last thing I'll say is when, um, I was getting ready to do an, my, I think may have been my first Ironman and I had your sister on the podcast and I said, give me a pointer for swimming. And she said, stay along. Yeah. Yeah. I did. And it worked. I would, I would, I would have told you just like get out to the left or the right and just don't be fighting with other human bodies in the water. It's just unnecessary energy. Florida, Florida Ironman was, um, basically being in a salmon. Well, you know, I mean, it was just a washing machine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We like to say it's elbows and assholes everywhere.

[1:07:50] Yeah for sure um well listen it's been wonderful on the way out can you give me a plant strong virtual plant strong fist bump absolutely there you go all right Jami go get them thank you so much for having me on absolutely to learn more about Dr. Dulaney's practice and her classes, you can visit her website at Dr. Dulaney, and that's spelled Dr. D-O-C-T-O-R-D-U-L-A-N-E-Y.com. And I'll put a link in the show notes to make it super easy for you. You can also listen to her plant-based wellness podcast wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[1:08:32] And I'll also drop a link in the show notes for that as well. Until next week, don't be afraid to challenge the status quo, continue to empower yourself with knowledge from experts who care, and always, always keep it Plant Strong.

[1:08:49] The Plant Strong podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, and Ami Mackey. If you like what you hear, do us a favor and share the show with your friends and loved ones. You can always leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And while you're there, make sure to hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode. As always, this and every episode is dedicated to my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr. And Ann Crile Esselstyn. Thanks so much for listening.