#239: RAK Your Life with Dr. Rak Jotwani
Dr. Rak Jotwani wants to help you RAK Your Life
Today, I’m excited for you to meet Dr. Rak Jotwani - aka Dr. RAK - a lifestyle medicine physician who has the all-too familiar story…working long stressful hours in the hospital, eating the standard American diet, and managing crippling depression. It got to the point where he couldn’t be present for his own wife and kids because he just felt so tired and overwhelmed.
Dr. Rak shares his experiences with burnout in the medical field and the profound impact of meditation and a plant-based diet on his well-being. He now emphasizes the importance of whole food, plant-based nutrition and conscious living through his virtual lifestyle medicine practice, RAK Your Life.
Dr. Rak highlights the pillars of his practice - roots, awareness, and kindness - focusing on finding your personal “north star,” becoming more compassionate, and making kind decisions that are both good for us and make us feel good.
Instead of seeing change as a punishment, he sees it as an opportunity for improvement and THAT’s the medicine he practices daily now – helping others establish belief that they can make a change, that, yes, they can RAK their own lives.
From depressed and burned out, to a vibrant life!
Episode Highlights
0:03:38 The Name Game: Unveiling the Origin of "Dr. Rak"
0:07:41 Deciding on Medicine: A Path of Passion and Purpose
0:18:06 Dr. Rake’s Wake-Up Call: Recognizing the Need for Change
0:23:26 A Moment of Truth: Confronting Burnout and Depression
0:29:59 The Shift Begins: Embracing Meditation and Wellness
0:31:12 A Plant-Based Challenge: Transforming His Health and Lifestyle
0:43:49 Shifting His Focus to a Virtual Practice
0:45:55 From Needless Suffering to Compassionate Living
0:55:51 Prove to Yourself that You’re the Person Who Can Make Change
0:59:30 Find a Way to Be Kind
1:03:32 Practicing Medicine that is Good for the Soul
Dr. Rak Jotwani leads his own virtual Lifestyle Medicine practice, RAK Your Life.
About Dr. Rak Jotwani
Dr. Rakesh Jotwani, aka Dr. Rak (“rock”), became passionate about helping others make lifestyle changes after his own health dramatically improved through lifestyle modifications. Rak completed his undergraduate degree in neuroscience at Duke University, his medical degree from the University of Chicago, and his internal medicine residency training at the University of California in San Francisco. He is dual board-certified in Internal Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine. With over a decade of experience in direct patient care, first as a hospital physician and then as a primary care physician, Dr. Rak previously served as the Director of Lifestyle Medicine for Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco.
Now, he leads his virtual Lifestyle Medicine practice, RAK Your Life, offering medical consultation and health coaching. He also holds the position of Director for Lifestyle Medicine at PlateUp Health, a digital platform designed to assist health coaches and clinicians in improving patient health outcomes.
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Full AI Transcription via AI Transcription Service
I'm Rip Esselstyn, and you're listening to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast.
Hey, PLANTSTRONG champions, are you ready to rock?
My guest today is going to rock your life.
[0:14] I meet and I speak with Dr. Rak Jotwani, an awesome plant-based lifestyle medicine physician, right after this message from PLANTSTRONG.
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[0:27]I'm confident that one of your favorite types of episodes to listen to are those transformational episodes when people look through the lens and see that proverbial truth about all the benefits of a whole food plant-based lifestyle and it's even more encouraging when that person just happens to be a practicing physician.
Today, I'm excited to have you meet Dr. Rak Jotwani aka Dr.
Rak, a lifestyle medicine physician who has the all too familiar story.
[1:06]Working long, stressful hours, eating the standard American diet.
You know the drill. It got to the point where he couldn't or didn't want to be present for his own wife and children because he just felt so tired and overwhelmed.
Lo and behold, a guest speaker on workplace happiness changed everything for him.
Instead of seeing change as a punishment, he saw it as an opportunity for improvement.
And that's the medicine that he practices daily now, helping others establish belief that they can make a change, that they can Rak their own lives.
[1:51]Let's hear how he does it.
Here you go, Dr. Rak Jotwani.
So the first thing I want to know is, how did you get such an insanely cool name? I mean, The Rak.
I mean, all of us want to be The Rock. When did The Rock get The Rock's name?
Because I've been Rak since like 1982.
[2:13]Oh, yeah. Well, I think Dwayne Johnson wasn't The Rock until probably the 2000s, if not later.
Sure. So I got to give full credit to my brother, who my name is Rakesh, which is a cool name.
Actually, it means Rak means night and ash comes from Lord.
So it's a lord of the night, but actually translates to full moon.
So that's a cool name. But from a very young age, my brother started calling me Rak.
I don't know because he didn't want to say my full name or and then my My cousin started calling me Rak.
And then, you know, I didn't even introduce myself as that, but I would go on to, you know, high school, college.
I would make new friends, and then somebody would, somebody would figure out, oh, your name is Rak. Rakesh is short for Rak.
And they'd start calling me it. And it honestly wasn't until a few years ago when I started practicing lifestyle medicine.
And I, instead of, yeah, instead of going by my traditional name, which was always Dr.
Everyone would say Dr. Jotwani, right? Because that's just how they pronounce it. And I got kind of tired of correcting all the time. So, yeah, that's my name.
[3:38]I started going by Dr. Rak and I started embracing my name.
Like you're like, why do all the most important people and the closest people in your life call you that?
[3:52]And what is. Yeah. And that's that's where it comes from.
[3:56]Yeah. Right. Right on. So when and what age did you decide that you had a an interest in medicine?
Yeah, it's a really interesting question, because I think about about that a lot.
First, I'll say like Indian parents first.
I think this is true of just any immigrant parents.
Like it's this sort of coveted dream.
Will one of my children become a doctor right my parents aren't doctors but, um I remember hearing that like from my mom especially at a young age I didn't know you know what what that entailed or what that meant um I went through a period I remember then in like high school before again I was just like applying for colleges where I was like Like, I was very, of course, I was a teenager.
So I was like, I'm definitely not becoming a doctor. I told my parents that.
I told my mom that. I was like, don't get your hopes up. That's not what I'm doing.
[5:02]And then I went to college. I went to Duke. So I, and I very much like wanted to leave home.
I was one of those people. Were you a good student?
I, well, I wanted to be.
Yeah, I tried to be. But, you know, college is this whole interesting world where you have like complete control over your time for the first time.
Like, I just think it's so fascinating that you go from this like super regimented high school schedule, like where every minute is sort of calculated.
And then even after school, and then you go to like, you have this class twice a week at, you know, 830.
And like, it was just so, I had a hard time, I think, adjusting to that.
But I got, I got, I got, I got on.
You must have done well in high school in order to get into Duke, because Duke is no, it's not a school.
My mom will be the first person to, if you come visit her, she'll take you to my high school and show you my picture because I'm one of the valedictorians of high school.
[6:09]So I tell you, Rip, I wasn't a athletic child.
I wasn't very coordinated.
That's what I would say. I was also very shy. Okay.
[6:22]And I was very curious and inquisitive and I like to read.
And I remember at a very young age, also just the positive reinforced.
I wasn't getting positive reinforced because I, you know, my mom and dad would, they put me on T-ball, they put me in soccer, they put me in gymnastics.
I remember doing all these things and just feeling so like uncomfortable.
Like I couldn't, I couldn't, I don't know.
I couldn't, I couldn't connect with people. And I also felt very uncomfortable, like doing those activities.
But then when I came to school, like I would do well on tests and then I would see the like get praise from that.
And I feel like it fueled that it reinforced that.
So I got I got good at school.
And then when I was older, I got into like, you know, Scholastic Bowl and math team.
And so I was dude, I was like Star Trek.
You know, I'm a huge Star Trek fan. And I would yeah, no, I would I would I would read books about in high school.
I would read books about like theoretical physics. And so I super nerdy and like I totally embrace that. Yeah.
Yeah. Now tell me this.
[7:41]So you're at Duke. At what point or what year at Duke did you decide you were going to go pre-med or was that like fine? So I came in and I said, OK, well, let me keep that option open.
[7:54]I took a bunch of different classes and different humanities and different sciences.
And I ended up being a neuroscience major, which is super fascinating to me now because I think about and talk about and read about behavior change all the time.
Back then, that was interesting to me. There were so many things about it that were interesting to me. and...
Then I went through like sort of thinking, okay, what do I want to do?
And I thought maybe I want to be a researcher. I was like, I really enjoy this. I did, I did like study.
This was really cool. Oh, this is in college. You get to do such cool things.
Like I studied the effect of ecstasy on rats, on anxiety in rats.
I would inject rats with ecstasy, like pure MDMA, which was super like you had to document it in five places.
[8:48]It was in a safe and um and then i would put them in a maze and see and the ones who got the ecstasy were like totally cool going into new spaces they didn't and so that actually got published that research got published um but i also realized like i was going into the lab every day i was checking on these rats like you couldn't really leave town um there's certainly a monotony to research my wife is a researcher uh she's a nephrologist and she's she does kidney research and she um she enjoys that iterative process of like writing grants and then writing papers and i realized very quickly that i didn't enjoy that and you asked the question why medicine but before you before you do that i you said something that that i need to follow up on before you go to why medicine and you mentioned ecstasy and how these rats that were injected with the ecstasy ecstasy had no problems going into these rooms that the other dark parts of the maze that other rats were sort of anxious to yeah and the reason i'm asking is i've never done ecstasy i don't know if you've done ecstasy but i have friends that have done ecstasy and i think they called it like the friendship drug it's like all of a sudden everybody becomes your best friend So obviously those portals in your mind get opened up and you're much more, obviously.
[10:16]It seems a little carefree and curious about.
[10:20]Well, we were, yeah, no. So we were studying like what are the effects of just getting the drug, maybe even one dose or a couple doses on anxiety.
And what's interesting is those effects sort of persist, right?
It decreases anxiety. And we're seeing that now in the human in human studies and humans.
Right. And there's some great work being done in Hopkins. And this is the moment where we're seeing not just potentially MDMA, but also the psychedelics that are going to, I think, be part of.
[10:58]Um, mental health treatment going forward because the data is just so good and they work in a completely different mechanism.
The way they work is so fascinating to me. We could, we could, we could do a whole show on that, like how people have this ego death and the people who really benefit the most, like in the depression studies is the ones where like, they will just.
[11:21]They will basically say they had this kind of holy moment where they realize that they are part of this universal consciousness or.
[11:27]They'll describe it in some way and then suddenly.
[11:32]Like their depression is better and not just better like for a few weeks it's better for months and months after that experience it's anyway so wait wait and so so i can try and grasp this a little bit so their depression goes away because all of a sudden they realize they're part of something bigger and a little bit of an ego death or or no yeah that's probably i think what's going on because when you look at who has the most benefit from the the experience in the studies it's the ones that report this that they had this kind of they describe it as you know in different ways but like this holy moment where they're and i there's i haven't done these substances to experience this myself but you know that is the um that is the power and potential of these substances now i do something else i i'm a very fond of meditation and you can experience these states through meditation it doesn't happen so quickly uh right like you can take a high dose of right i don't know how we got on this topic right but but meditation is another way in which you can sort of experience that loss of sense of ego and self and the connection with sort of universal.
[12:58]Energy being consciousness whatever yeah how often how often do you meditate and for how long have you been meditating so meditation is something i started in 2016 can i tell you a story of why i started meditating yes okay so i was now i'm raised hindu and meditation is certainly part of the religion although i didn't really we practiced like i went to temple and my parents and stuff took but i didn't really practice the spiritual aspects of the religion um until i was I started to more so in college and then when I was.
[13:44]In medical school and residency, like, I think I lost sight of a lot of that stuff.
And I lost sight of a lot of things, right?
So one thing that, you know, for your listeners to know about me is, I was, I was very unhealthy.
Like I was, I, you know, I was, I was studying and training to be a doctor, but I was like basically consuming and eating and living the way that I was ultimately going to become, you know, one of my patients.
And the, you know, this, I think a lot of people listening know this, like doctors don't get training on nutrition.
We don't get training on like how food causes disease.
And so I unbeknownst to me, right.
I was just sort of like like living hedonic, you know, pleasure trap.
Like I was basically dealing with stress. I was dealing with the stress of learning how to become a physician.
And then being a young physician, I would reward myself with, I live in, now I live in Northern California, south of San Francisco.
And there's a Krispy Kreme donuts right next to an In-N-Out.
Never heard of Christy B. Craig.
[15:09]The burger in and next to an In-N-Out burger place. They're right next to each other. They share a parking lot.
Beautiful. I would finish like, you know, eight. We do these 36 hour calls.
We're in the hospital. We're basically up from, you know, for 36 hours straight.
And and then on the way I would drive to like after not having slept for a day and a half, I would drive.
[15:33]That's how I rewarded myself. So this is the person I was. And then I started working right after training and I went and worked in the hospital.
I was a hospitalist where I was taking care of people, basically come in with, which is kind of what I did.
Internal medicine residency at University of California, San Francisco.
Go. And you're basically trained to be a hospital doctor.
Much of what you do in that residency over three years is take care of people in the hospital.
And so I was like, well, I don't know what I want to do.
I knew, you know, we just we maybe we can come back to it. But I knew I wanted to go into medicine because I wanted to help people. And I really enjoyed science.
And I really enjoyed how, you know, there was a it wasn't just the science of diagnosing people and figuring out what's going wrong.
But it was what always drew me from the very beginning was the challenge in making a connection with someone and oftentimes having to do that very quickly.
[16:34]Because and then I would experience this in the hospital all the time.
People are coming in with a lot of stress and anxiety, a really big, big, serious thing when someone has to get admitted to the hospital in their life, in their family's lives. And so then suddenly, who's this guy, right?
They have to trust me, I have to get to know them very quickly and form this relationship.
And there was this, I don't know, this, this, like, humility that you need when you go into those relationships.
And, and I that I really gravitated with. So when I was in college, I found many opportunities to go volunteer in the hospital with the chaplain, with the cancer center with.
And so just sitting and talking, because I remember having an advisor in college and she said, really, you have to.
You have to enjoy being with people who are sick.
[17:33]That's how she said it. You have to enjoy that. Not that you have to tolerate it.
It's not just that you have to like, you know, be okay with it.
That if this is your life's work, then these are the people.
And I think back to myself, like just growing up and I was very shy.
I didn't have a lot of friends.
I'll be honest. I was like a chubby kid. I got picked on.
But all those things made me very sensitive and empathetic.
[18:07]And that sensitivity and empathy that I started bringing that and all the connections and relationships I would have with patients.
And well it sounded like all like your um your upbringing and who you are sculpted you to be the kind of a great person to meet these uh these sick people and connect with them i would imagine though that dealing with sick people for years and years and years probably got a little exhausting, well and i was becoming a sick person you know i was basically like eating my way i didn't exercise exercise.
I went through periods where I would like try to clean things up before I got married.
[18:51]I there's three, four months where I was like, okay, I'm gonna just I didn't eat actually much healthier, but I think I just ate less food.
And then, and then I would force myself to go running every day.
And I didn't enjoy running.
I know it would make my knees would hurt. And but I just just said you know I want to look good in the pictures and then I um you know the very next day I ordered like you know barbecue to our apartment and my wife answered the door I was in the shower I lost 30 pounds in three months for my wedding and she said are you having like your groomsman over or something because I had ordered like you know this this feast and and I was like that's for For me, right, I've been so deprived.
I said good, but that's how I felt. I felt so deprived over those three months.
And I felt like I was like torturing myself. And so...
You know, that was in residency. And then within months I had regained that weight and sort of was an afterthought.
I would just look back and be like, oh, I looked good in those pictures.
[20:03]So we kind of got off the tracks a little bit because you were, you were talking about meditation and then somehow.
Oh yeah. You asked me how long do I meditate? And that's, well, I got on track because I answered your original question.
Why did I go into medicine? Yes, you did. Right. And so let me go back to meditation.
[20:20]Meditation comes back into play because I was working in the hospital.
I was not taking care of myself.
A lot of stress. So as much as I enjoy these like relationships and the dynamics of working in the hospital, working in the hospital is super stressful.
It is one of the, I can't, I mean, I haven't done so many things in my life, but like the environment that you're in, you know, because you would walk in in the morning and very within minutes, even before I got to the hospital, I might be getting paged that someone's unstable.
[20:51]And so you can't even think about anything else. You got to go run to that bedside and you got nine, 10, 11, 12 other patients you're taking care of who haven't even thought about yet.
You haven't gone and opened the computer and looked at their labs and there could be other fires you have to put out. And that's what you were doing all morning, I felt like.
And then the midday afternoon, you were trying to kind of get caught up and write notes and meet with families.
And and and i did that for 11 years 12 years and within a few years i think i was already burnt out and you know we talk about and you should talk about burnout in physicians and health care workers it's it's such a big big thing i it burnout or as there's there's a psychologist and researcher wendy dean who has labeled it as moral injury in in health care really like we we know you know so many of us if you go to rip if you go to a room of doctors.
[21:51]And or anyone in health most people in health care and you ask them like did you feel called to serve.
[21:59]Almost everyone will raise their hand without thinking like there is something that ties us and binds us in that way.
And now we're in a situation I'm getting a little off the track, but we're in a situation where people just can't do the thing that they know they should be doing.
That's right for patients or they've been trained in a system that actually isn't doing the right thing for people.
And that's what they've been told they have to do. So anyway, that's an aside.
But I was burnt out. physically, emotionally, mentally exhausted.
And my wonderful wife and I had, at that point, two kids.
And she, around that time, my youngest son was nine months old, and she told me she was pregnant.
And literally, I thought, like, how, you know, I was so overwhelmed.
I felt so overwhelmed every day.
I felt in the morning and I would go to work and I would have this big, like heavy weight and anxiety, like what's going to happen in the hospital.
And then I would leave work and I would come home and then I would just like kind of complain about all the things that happened in the day.
And this nurse said this, this happened.
I can't believe my wife. One time she said she said you know we're usually in a good mood and then you come home.
[23:26]And and i said i don't have a choice rip i was like wow at home at work i have to be collegial, that's what i thought that's what i thought that's what i thought i don't have a choice and and then in that moment she said she said you know how is it fair that the people you say you love the most get the worst version of you.
[23:56]Yeah, it probably hits you pretty hard, huh?
Right. Even when I say it now, like, I don't even know what to say. And she knows.
My wife loves me so much, and I love her so much.
And she knows I have a history of depression, and that's something I've also struggled with for years.
I self-diagnosed myself in medical school, like, during my psychiatry rotation.
I was like, oh, I have that. I have that. You got to do some of the ecstasy, man. I have that.
[24:27]No ecstasy or meditation right so yeah so that's where i'm getting at so she said that to me i didn't know what to do but i also knew um that was not the person i wanted to be i it was like a moment where i was sort of like this is so sad to me like i have everything i've ever wanted in in my life.
I have these beautiful children, wonderful family, wonderful career.
And why are you? Yeah. Why are you just Mr. Grumpy?
Like all the time when you come home and, and so brain starts looking, you know, universe hears and brain starts looking.
And there was this work wellness session.
And I never went to these workplace wellness things in the past.
I used used to say like why would i go to that i spend enough time at work that seems but i went to it it was it was called evidence-based workplace happiness because for doctors you have to put in the evidence base they won't come and i and and it was all the things you could do to be happier on a regular basis and and and so they one of the small thing they had us do rip was they said pull Pull out your phone and send a text message to somebody you work with, telling them why you appreciate them.
[25:50]And it was this colleague of mine, Ray, and he's 20 years older than me and recently retired, actually.
And I got to tell him that I appreciated his advice and having him as a friend and sharing office with him.
And then they said, put your phone away. And then they asked, how do you feel?
And it seems like a small thing but it's not like i in that moment it was like the light bulb for me i was like oh i feel better whoa i did that i think i told him i was like whoa that's cool, so now i was like what else can i do and they talked about mindfulness meditation, and this was in 2015 i believe so a headspace app had come out and they um and they recommended ended that and I was like okay what do I have to lose so that's what I started doing and so I literally I would pull over the side of the road near our house and just for 10 minutes I would hit the play on the thing.
[26:50]And it was very uncomfortable for me, you know, for your listeners who haven't done any meditation or started their practice.
And Rip, do you have a meditation practice before I tell you? I don't. OK.
Have you ever tried or? I haven't. I haven't. To me, up to this point, my kind of meditation has always been movement. It's kind of that. Sure.
[27:13]Right. So I'll go out on a bike ride or let's say a run or I, you know, swim. Swim and it's kind of meditation and movement, but not sitting still.
Yeah, totally. A hundred percent. Right. I don't think for Vipassana meditation or mindfulness meditation, like I don't think you necessarily have to be sitting.
In fact, Andy Puttycomb, who's the guy who started Headspace and does a lot of the meditations, he did this collaboration with Nike.
So on the Nike app, there's a Nike running app. um they have these mindful runs and where he just narrates with this guy coach bennett who's their global head running coach and they're these wonderful they're free this app is free and it's an advertisement for 90 so it's free um there's these wonderful runs where they ask you to like one of them is breaking through barriers where you're sort of contemplating and they They always take gaps in the run where they're like, just focus on the footstep, you know, the strike of your foot on the ground.
And I think the idea here is that, you know, sitting and focusing on your breath is like focusing on this object of attention.
[28:28]And then you start to notice I'm having a thought and how am I reacting to that thought or whatever?
But then you come back to the breath and you can do the same thing if you're swimming or if you're running. I think actually the repetitive nature of emotion is what helps get you into that, into that state.
[28:47]Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And, and running, swimming and biking are very repetitive. That's it.
That's it. Right. And I'm, and to your point, and I've been doing these things for, you know, 40, 50 years, but I'm always thinking about my form, my technique.
It's a way to lose myself in my motion and then kind of allow everything else to kind of melt away.
Way so it's very um refreshing it's a little rebirth of sorts after each workout for me oh yeah absolutely right and so that's i've you're not the first i mean many people experience it that way now you you you don't have to even call it anything the whole point is you're getting a moment of stillness where you're getting out of your head and you're it's almost like you're training your attention on something else.
[29:41]And then you can use that skill of training your attention in other scenarios too.
I don't know if you've noticed that, that you can kind of carry over, like if you're doing work or if you're in a conversation with someone, you can like notice if you're getting distracted and come back to it. Yeah, absolutely.
[29:59]Let's get back to, to you and that kind of that wake-up call yeah you got from your wife in your mid-30s you had mid-30s your children right third on the way right and she basically yeah she lets you have me out for being like yeah yeah this yeah and so what did you do what did you decide to do about it.
[30:22]That's it. I started meditating 10 minutes a day. And within a few weeks, she said to me, there's something different about you.
And I could feel it too. It wasn't even I would spend 10 minutes.
And I would just take slow, deep breaths.
I'll let go some of the tension, but I wasn't coming into the house like complaining about stuff anymore. I was playing with my kids.
Like that's the small change I made.
This is a very small change. small but big yeah but it led to like this big shift i think it what it was was i was changing and now i don't you know i have to look back and realize this i was changing my own energy within me and that was like reverberating within the home but then my whole everything changed like at work i was like oh this wellness committee did this for me like let me get involved in that And so I got I got super involved in the wellness.
[31:13]I started like, you know, programming events and bringing speakers.
And and that's when one of the events they were sponsoring was this plant-based challenge.
And it was a three week, you know, they said everyone in the hospital and medical center we want.
And there's this doctor from and I used to work at Kaiser.
Kaiser and so he's a guy he's at Kaiser and you know him if you heard his name Rajiv Mosquito.
[31:42]Okay okay anyway he's a he's a plant-based doc so he came he was in Sacramento but I was in San Francisco he was going medical center medical center medical center just to tell his story a story was one when he was 40 he was dropping his young kids off at school and he started having chest pain, And he went to the hospital and they cathed him and he had blockages and he got stented.
And then nobody talked to him about how he should be eating or what he should be doing.
He went on the American Heart Association diet, which I don't know if you know, it's like more fruits and veggies, but it's also like lean meat as a, you know, and olive oil and those types of things.
And six months later, he was at the gym and started having more chest pain, went back to the hospital, stent set closed up and he had new disease.
And he was just like what you know like so he did his own deep dive this was when he was 41 he did his own deep dive in the literature stuff no one had taught him then he was like whoa why didn't anyone talk to me about a whole food plant-based diet it can reverse your heart disease like why wasn't that the first thing that they told me about and then he did that he and his whole family like that day forward switched and um what year what year is this roughly do you have any this This was 2016, 2015, 2015.
I mean, when he was 41 and he discovered this. Oh, that was 2005.
2005. Yeah. 2006.
[33:12]Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Dean Ornish's work had been out there. Nathaniel Pritikin.
Right. My father's work had been on. Oh, everybody's. It's just that nobody had taught us that in medical school.
Yeah. like nobody it's almost anyway right i had the same reaction when i was sitting there at his talk i was like wait a second like why haven't i learned any of this and like.
[33:38]I mean, it took me a minute, you know, more than a minute. It took me some time to make that change.
Like I was coming from standard American diet head on. Right.
And I had all the food addictions.
So that three week challenge did not go well for me. I signed up for it.
And like within a couple of days, I was like, I'm out.
I can't do this. Right. But right.
Like, let's be honest. honest, but it definitely planted a seed.
I had already kind of built up the belief that I was capable of making change in my life now and that I had more control than I realized because that small meditation practice suddenly changed my relationships at home, at work. And so I was like, what else can I do?
And so I really took a step back and I was like, how do I do this?
How do I i do this in a way not like my wedding i don't want to restrict and punish myself right that's when i discovered you but honestly i pulled out my old copy of this yeah from my shelf and i discovered all the people in the plant Chef AJ and all the people in the plant-based world who were like this can taste amazing and be a beautiful wonderful enjoyable lifestyle and i got that message early on i'm so glad because and now that's the message i i just evangelized because.
[35:07]Because that is the the ticket once you and i didn't know how i was going to get there so i started doing just plant-based mondays and i did that for a year but on mondays i would make your recipes or chef ages or and i would say okay wow i can make chili i can make lasagna i can make, I can make tortilla casserole.
I can make desserts.
I can make, and I had to prove to myself that I wasn't, because I literally thought, I'm not going to enjoy food anymore.
[35:41]That was my fear. That was my fear. But that was an unfounded fear, and then I had to build up the confidence and the skills.
And then that challenge came up a year later for three weeks.
I said, I'm going to do it this time. I'm really going to do it this time. I feel ready.
And i got my labs checked and i had pre-diabetes and my ldl cholesterol was super high and i went to see my doctor my blood pressure was high my weight was such that i was now uh in the obesity range um and.
[36:18]OK, that I had and my third child had been born at that point.
So I had all these things and I was working in the hospital, Rip. Yeah. Oh, my God.
Every day I was taking care of people who had heart attacks, strokes, complications of diabetes. And there I was.
Yeah. So right on the way to join them. Right on the way.
But didn't because of this gift, because somebody said, I'm going to go.
And this was before we had zoom you know rajiv was driving from medical center to medical center medical center to tell his story and and then um in three weeks pre-diabetes reversed three weeks my ldl went down 40 points in three weeks i lost 10 pounds and i wasn't even trying to lose weight at that point i was like i want to do this because i want to be healthy and i want to be a good role model for my kids.
And then as we often see, like this weight loss is a side effect of that.
And, and I wasn't counting calories.
I was just, you know, it was just as beautiful. Like it almost seemed too good to be true. And I was like, I'm eating food. I enjoy.
Well, as you say, as you say, change can be an opportunity, not a punishment.
And it sounds like you, you had that epiphany, especially the second go around, right? With the three-week challenge.
[37:43]So you worked in the hospital at Kaiser Permanente for like 11, 12 years.
Then you became the director of lifestyle medicine at Kaiser in San Francisco.
How long did you do that for? so in 2017 i um wrote a letter to rajiv i'd never met him before and i was like you don't know me but two years ago you came and gave this talk and changed my life and um it's weird how things work because that same day um somebody at my medical center knew that i was very interested in this i I had that point, Rip, I had spent like maybe a year I would just at the bedside of my patients every day I would talk to them about plant-based eating.
How could I not? At this point, I was like, now it feels like malpractice.
If I don't sit and tell them about it, if somebody comes in with a heart attack, how can I not tell them about this? Like, they have to know about this.
Well, I can tell you how. There might be a policy of the hospital, like, I'm not going to name hospitals right now, but they encourage their physicians to not mention something like whole food plant-based because it's too preventative in nature.
[39:07]That was the message I found from the higher-ups to some of these physicians.
It's appalling. It's appalling. It's egregious. Totally. Totally.
[39:19]You know, American College of Lifestyle Medicine. So I got certified.
So Rajiv and I then connected.
[39:26]And the first thing he said to me, he said, you should get certified.
And I didn't even know that was a thing. It just started that year.
So it was too late for me to get certified that year. But I got certified the next year in lifestyle medicine.
Lifestyle medicine is the therapeutic use of lifestyle changes to prevent, but also to treat and powerfully, as you know, as many of you, all your listeners know, we can reverse most of the chronic disease we take care of.
And in doing that, there's actually a whole process. If somebody has chronic disease and you reverse it, you have to then monitor them.
You have to, when you're do prescribing medications, there's, there's a science and an art to it as well.
So anyway, and it's also like really centered and based in coaching and motivational interviewing and really i would say it's a paradigm shift in medicine because it's really centered around relationships um and what is what is the kind of will and interest of the patient and not necessarily the kind of paternalistic nature of anyway i'm getting no it's really it's really interesting no but you the key word there to me is relationship and what what do most most relationships between doctors and patients look like.
I mean, I don't think that they're very, I don't think they're very solid.
And if there even is a relationship.
[40:46]Well, here's the thing, because I think we'll go back to like, why did I go into medicine? Why do most people go into medicine?
It's like, they want, that's what they actually want.
Like people, I think when they're thinking about the relationship of what they're going to do, they have good relationship with my patients.
And, and I think in the past it was like that. Now we've gotten to a place, right, where primary care doctors, on average, they have more than 2,000, in many cases, 2,200, 2,500 patients in their panel.
If they're working full time, you can't have strong relationships with 2,500 people.
It's just not possible. And the visits are 10 minutes long. And, you know, there's an incentive to see more patients.
Prioritizing Relationships
[41:25]And so that's not...
[41:29]That's not a system that prioritizes relationships. Absolutely.
So how long were you the director of the Lifestyle Medicine?
So I started a program there at Kaiser in 2018.
I think that title was given to me in 2020 or 2021.
[41:46]And then I actually shifted from the hospital to the clinic.
[41:53]So I spent about a year in outpatient primary care. And I just really quickly realized it's funny. I was like missing the hospital.
There were so many things I realized I need to be out of the hospital because it was so downstream.
And I really at this point, like my mission, my passion in life is to to change the system and to help people, you know, from the beginning, realize that they're in control of their health and they can really make these profound changes.
But I, in doing that, I, I said, okay, I should be in the clinic.
[42:29]But the system, you know, very quickly, I had a panel of 1500 patients.
And I just, I couldn't, I was calling people, you know, in my breaks and on my commute home, because I was like, these, that's what I want.
I want to have these strong relationships with people and help them make these changes.
And um and i quickly realized i couldn't do that and it was around that time i met dr laurie marvis um who who who we've had on the the podcast that's right that's right before yeah yeah yeah and wonderful wonderful lifestyle medicine physician and just a pioneer in our field i mean she she had the foresight you know year a few years before the pandemic to start um a virtual practice is connecting people with telehealth doctors, right?
And when I met her, actually, I was on her podcast and she, at the end of the conversation, she said, are you looking for a job?
[43:29]I wasn't. I wasn't. And she said, well, I'm gonna be hiring in a few months.
And she was starting a new company.
And it was a lifestyle medicine telehealth that was going to be nation ultimately nationwide and accept insurance.
And and I knew like, going to that was a risk, obviously.
Shifting Focus to Virtual Practice
[43:50]But I also was like, wow, like, that's incredible.
Like, that's what I want to do all my time. I want to do this.
And that's what we were doing.
We were leading shared medical appointments with individuals with chronic disease.
And so we had basically disease reversal groups.
[44:09]And it was, I would say, I always would say, I would say this seems to be true because it was just incredible work. and unfortunately, the whole economy changed in the last couple of years, right?
And so that funding from the investors, they, I think, made the decision that they didn't want to maintain that.
So that venture closed and that was a few months ago.
That was in August. And a new opportunity has presented itself to you.
New opportunity. I asked myself, Rip, I was like, do I want to go...
What do I want to do, right? And I'll tell you, the other thing that happened in the last few months that really has sort of made me look at what's important in this life is that my wife got diagnosed with breast cancer.
[45:00]And so right the same week that my company was closing and that same week, my wife got that diagnosis.
Diagnosis and and i'll just tell you the really good news is it's now we know because she's she's finishing up her she has her last cycle of chemotherapy in a couple weeks it's stage 1a she had surgery she had all removed and the chemo is going to prevent it from coming back and she's doing really really well so great we're super super yeah we're super grateful and we've only only doubled down on plant-based eating and healthy lifestyle, you know?
And she always says, she's like, if I didn't eat this way, it probably would have been much worse.
And it probably would have spread to multiple places. And I believe it.
So anyway, that has made me sort of, what do I want to do in this world?
Like, how do I want to spend this time that I have?
[45:56]And plant-based eating and meditation and building this awareness, they have done phenomenal things for me. But now I've seen them for so many other people, how they change their life.
And really, I say it goes from needless suffering to compassionate living.
[46:13]And every day I ask myself, how can I help more people go from needless suffering to compassionate living? Because...
That then I it just fills me up and it fills this world up and it creates a ripple effect.
And so through the mentorship, really, Dr. Laurie has we call it we all go by Dr. I go by Dr. Rak, Laurie.
[46:35]Laurie has really mentored me. And so she has her own virtual practice and she gave me right away. She was like, here's the steps.
Here's what you do. You got to do this, this, this, this, this, this. So I was able to to do that. I started my own virtual practice.
And um i think the really cool thing and i realized i love running groups and i love creating community and so my practice is called Rak your life which is Rak r-a-k you can find me at r-a-k i'll put it up on the screen for everybody Rak your life.com and um it's that it's um it's we have tribes we have Rak your life tribes those are those are coaching groups Um, you know, the unique proposition is, um, you're not just coaching groups are also, um, community support, but also being led by me, um, right now.
And I'm working, I'm going to be working with some really great, um, health coaches through well coaches.
So well coaches is this amazing health and wellbeing, um, coaching company started by Margaret Moore.
[47:47]And, um, they are really aligned with the principles of lifestyle medicine, whole food, plant-based eating.
[47:55]Um, I also see patients individually one-on-one. I can be your doctor.
I can be your virtual lifestyle doctor.
Um, there's different membership levels. They're all explained on my website.
Um, yeah. And then I also have a weekly newsletter rip, um, which is called Rak on.
Rak on. Rak on. Right. Right. And Rak is my name, but it's also become like this sort of abbreviation for how I think about change.
And it's the three letters R.A.K., which stands for roots, awareness and kindness.
Those are your three core practices, right?
Those are my three core practices. And those are the three things I anytime I meet with someone and when I work with patients individually and groups, we think about and talk about all those three aspects.
And my weekly newsletter, I send out something that kind of hits all of those.
So roots are your kind of deeper purpose.
I like to think of them as your, the roots in the ground that support you, but they're your bigger, why your aspirations, like, why are you doing what you're doing?
I think, um, so I watched some of your videos and I think you referred to it as kind of the lighthouse in your life. Yeah.
[49:08]That's right. Your North star, right? Good. What is your North star?
And, you know, like for you, Rip, like what's your North Star?
[49:16]Well, I just love showing up every day, being the best version of myself.
And I know when I do all these little things correctly, I am the best version.
I'm the best husband. I'm the best father I can be. I'm the best person that I can be to continue to spread this.
This uh this message of light right and love and compassion and uh and healthful living that's right to as far and wide as i possibly can and this is the reason why in 2009 after i wrote my first book and i was approached by john mackie the ceo of whole foods uh he basically challenged me to take helping people and saving lives to a whole nother level by retiring from firefighting and coming on board and using the whole food market bully pulpit to do that.
And so I did that for 10 years and, you know, uh, kind of got my speaking chops and confidence in, in, in that realm started throwing the immersions, the virtual events.
And now, you know, I'm doing everything I can to get the message out, the podcast.
[50:25]I hear, I mean, you are affecting millions and millions of people okay and it all started because from a very beginning you said like i wanted right i heard it i said if i take care of myself i'm a better right husband.
[50:44]Friend call it whatever it is i'm better all those things and my goal is to spread this message to as many people as possible so you center that centers you that's that's your roots you have very strong roots i would imagine you have very strong roots because i look at all the the fruit that has born from the tree that you've grown that's right yeah so okay and then a is awareness awareness is like the trunk of the tree it is the i say you know it's it's the foundation that we because so so many of us, and I know from my past, I was reacting.
I was reacting in life and I was using my emotions and my temper and my body and my language and my food and my devices and everything to react and to move from reaction to response and to create that space and to cultivate that And you can do it with a rhythmic run and a swim and a bike ride and sitting with meditation.
And you can do it in many different ways.
[51:54]And but you can layer that into your life and then suddenly it becomes really your breath becomes I teach breath work to my patients and I teach the power of breath.
And you asked me, what's my meditation practice? Now it's about 30 minutes in the morning and I do a little bit of sitting with my breath and also some intentional breath work, some alternate nostril breathing and different things like that.
[52:24]And I do cold plunge. Anyway, I love it. I did one before we got on today.
And it just, you know, what kind of a setup do you have there at the house?
I have a freezer, like a chest freezer.
And then I got a friend who the carpenter he built like basically a wood encasing for it.
And then we have a box off to the side. So I have an ozone filter and a gauge, a temperature sensor, which is also set up to the timer.
So it sets that you can set the temperature.
And then, and there's all these guides on, we found one on, you know, these YouTube videos. Like you can find, you can learn how to do it.
So what, what do you like the temperature at? 45 degrees.
45. Oh yeah. I mean, I've been going down. So I was just telling one of my patients started doing cold plunge too on my recommendation and he loves it.
And he's at, I think, 48 or 50 degrees, but I told him that's it.
It should be at a point where it feels, it shouldn't feel so noxious, but it should feel very uncomfortable when you get in.
And that's a different point for different people. So, you know, when I first started using it a year ago or a year and a half ago, I think it was set at 50.
[53:42]Wow well i can tell you uh 60 feels really cold to me okay it's a different experience some point i don't know when rip we should be somewhere i'll walk you through a ice bath a cold plunge and it's an unreal experience because when you let go of the the cold like it actually becomes this very energizing experience oh my gosh yeah wow well i want you to know the coldest So when I was doing my triathlons, the coldest that I ever had to swim was.
[54:17]Well, they actually shortened it from a mile to a quarter mile.
[54:19]It was 48 degrees, the water temperature.
Of course, I was wearing a wetsuit and a bathing cap.
But still, it was very dangerous.
It was in Lake Michigan, and there was a full inversion of the water on the top and the water on the bottom.
The day before, it was like 78 degrees. degrees.
And, uh, so the coast guard service was out there basically saying, you know, this is dangerous.
If you don't want to, you know, do the race, it was the national championship anyway.
[54:51]Oh, I did it. It was miserable. It was absolutely awful.
It was awful, but I've never loved cold water, but you know, listen, we've, we've got a pool and in the winter time it gets down into to the 50s and maybe even the high 40s and i'll get it up to my neck and it's very invigorating right yeah that's right you get out it's like whoa yeah wow yeah and i'll try and stand there for five minutes but yeah it's that's it yeah yeah so i've well it's one of those things anyway i do a lot of these practices intentionally too because they help with depression so yeah you know Your dopamine levels go up after an ice bath, and they stay sustained for several hours.
And unlike sugar and screens and drugs that increase your dopamine, but then there's this equal and opposite backswing where you feel worse, that doesn't happen with exercise and cold exposure.
[55:52]Yeah, all good things to think about. So we're still on awareness, right?
Awareness. Okay, and then, so that awareness piece, and then kindness is the last one.
[56:04]And kindness is, you know, you look at the logo of my company, and it's a fist bump.
It's actually a Rocky Mountain fist bump. Right behind you, right behind your head there. That's it, yeah, yeah.
That one's not Rocky Mountain, but not yet. But it's a fist bump, because why do we give people bumps, Rip? Why do you give people bumps?
Well, I know I give people bumps because I want to connect with them.
I know you and I love, I was thinking about this. I was like, you and your show often where, yes, I do that too. We do that too.
I do the virtual, virtual PLANTSTRONG fist bump. That's right.
Yeah. You give, because you want to connect because you want to show them support because you want to, you just show them love.
And so. You know, what's funny is that I.
[56:51]You know that the fist bump really did not exist in our culture that much before 2005.
[56:59]It just wasn't a thing. And now everywhere you go, everybody's fist bumping, right? I think a lot of it had to do with maybe COVID.
COVID, I think. Right? And people aren't shaking hands and they're doing more of those. Even more, yeah. Yeah.
But anyway, I'm amazed at how ubiquitous the fist bump is these days between people.
Yeah. So, so kindness is that, is a reminder that we, you know, we show kindness to others and to ourselves.
So I'm very big on self-compassion. You fist bump yourself.
I do. Actually, you know, BJ Fogg, who's this behavior change specialist at Stanford, he has this, his tiny habits, but he says you should show yourself shine.
Divine like when you do something when you make a good choice we make a choice that's an alignment with the type of person that you want to be you should like reward in the moment so when i read his book i said my shine is gonna be that i show myself all right and then kindness is also the last thing is how we make change and i you know unlike the changes i made for my wedding like now Now I realize like change happens and sustains when it feels good.
It should feel good. You should be. So I talk about kind changes.
There are changes that are good for you, but they also feel good and they move you in the direction of your goals.
[58:23]And you make a lot of small changes and you prove to yourself that I'm the person that, you know, can make change.
I'm the person that can do this. And then big changes happen.
I remind myself and everyone like it's not that you don't do big things or hard things.
You do those things, but you do them because you're ready and it feels good.
Right. Not because somebody is telling you you're telling yourself like if you don't do this, you're a bad person.
And yeah, yeah. I like those three core practices. That's really nice.
Roots, awareness and kindness. And if you want to get a little burst of roots, awareness and kindness every week, that's what I do.
I give you a question to ponder a little awareness activity and then what I call a kindness opportunity, a way to be kind. Great.
The week ahead. Every Monday I send it out. It's called Rak On.
You can subscribe on my website. So if people are interested in learning more about what you're doing with your virtual lifestyle medical practice, they can go to rockyourlife.com and see everything you have to offer. Tell me this.
[59:30]Is your brother on board with this and your parents? What do they think about what you're doing?
Yeah, it's interesting to ask about my parents. I just had this conversation with my dad recently because, um, you know, before I went to medical school, I told, I, I, i they were so excited that i wanted to become a doctor and then i said you know what i need a little bit of time like i told them i want a little bit of time i still want to be a doctor but i wanted to do uh americorps i wanted i ended up doing americorps i did a volunteer program.
[1:00:06]In chicago for a year and they were up but in that and that's a wonderful thing but at the time i remember they were just like so upset right like we didn't even like they didn't even they didn't anyone like want to talk to me like they were like tell me tell me because i'm not i'm not quite sure i i what exactly i know teach for america what's americor americor well americor this was actually was called the vista program it's still.
[1:00:31]In existence but it got wrapped under americor americor are basically their programs um where you work generally for a not-for-profit um and you're paid but you're paid through the americor programs a federal government program the vista a program started under president johnson it's volunteers in service to america it actually started as a a program to with the goal to end poverty and i was working in a healthcare uh not not for profit they were trying to get basically expanded health coverage for for folks in chicago and in the state of illinois um and then work with people who didn't have like i was i would work with a lot of uninsured people helping them get access to to services that were available in the city right um so your parents on board or not so for this time you know i i had a really strong like heart i mean even when i was telling them i was leaving kaiser and you know i'm director of lifestyle mess i was the assistant chief of my hospital department and and and those I was doing those things out of service, but...
[1:01:43]That didn't matter to me as much as I was worried it would matter to them.
But this is when, you know, your parents surprise you like they've been sort of watching me the last however many years.
And they're like, we see that this is what you what you are being called to do.
And it makes you very happy and you're helping people.
And so they've been very supportive, like in a way that I was not expecting.
And no, my brother's been super supportive as well. um my this is also really just my lifestyle changes and this happens for everyone and this is why i love doing this work is because when somebody changes when i changed it had a ripple effect on my family and my parents and my in-laws and and i see this now every time i work with someone and they start making their own changes and they feel so good and then you know it's it's also what they say in like the 12-step program it's like attraction not promotion like people you know people people start resonating differently and they're like people start asking you like what are you doing different i'm like i'm just eating only plants and you you trust me you you gotta do it yeah well i i i love all that also the fact that you're now practicing i think what.
[1:03:04]Is the most powerful form of medicine that gets you the results that, you know, you're looking for.
And obviously that the patient's looking for, that's something that I would hope would also, you know, resonate with your, with your parents and whether a lot of the fact that you're much happier, um, performing this kind of medicine and it feeds your soul.
Yeah. It feeds your soul. That's it.
That's it. And it's, what's good for, it's not just what's good for my soul.
[1:03:33]It's what's good for my fellow human beings.
It's what's good for the planet. It's what's good for the greater good.
Who does the cooking in the house? You or your wife? We got a rotation.
[1:03:48]I love to cook, though. I would cook every day, but just the challenges.
I mean, we're pretty simple during the week.
Oftentimes, we do what we call component meals. I will boil some mini potatoes, steam some broccoli, have some, you know, whole wheat pasta and pesto and some tofu.
Like I make those four components and then everyone just take and there's fruit and that's everyone feels as you know, like you can season it up a little bit if you want or or not.
My kids actually like a lot of times food with no with no seasoning.
And I know the kid, the kids are what are the ages of your kids?
Uh 12 9 and 8 oh those are great ages great ages great ages and and they probably, adore eating this way they love it you know i we actually don't require that they eat any certain way um except at home like they eat the food we make at home but when we go out or if we order They can order whatever they want.
And 95 times out of 100, they're ordering the tofu and black bean bowl.
And, and if they used to order, you know, chicken or something, I see them ordering that less and less.
Now, my daughter doesn't have dairy anymore. It's like dairy.
My boys basically don't have it anymore, either.
[1:05:15]And I love to see how they've sort of naturally.
[1:05:20]I think we got a dog a couple of years ago, too. And so that has and he's a wonderful, cherished part of our family.
So that has also changed the way they look at animals.
[1:05:34]Right. We don't want to eat animals. eat animals what um is there a restaurant or two or three that you guys typically go out to as a family when you want to go out uh yeah sure um what are our go-tos so we love vegetarian sushi and that's a good example like my kids if they go to sushi restaurant they'll only want vegetarian sushi they don't want to eat seafood or so we'll often do that or um um there's a mexican restaurant restaurant by our house i love mexican food i would say even more than indian food i love mexican food yeah if i could eat anything every day it'd be tacos and um so yeah we have our go to's like we have our go-to but you know i say increasingly rip i'll be honest i don't really like eating out that much most restaurants they use way too much oil or you know and you ask them like i i'll be on you know i say i had a restaurant call me a couple months ago because i wrote no oil in the doordash comments they called me and they said that's not possible and i said yes it is and, got into the disagreement and so there are a couple in i live in near san francisco so there are some actually whole food plant-based there's a restaurant called nourish which is completely Whole food plant based Which is rare So I love going to that place.
[1:07:04]But yeah I love eating Um.
[1:07:10]I say home food, but on Saturdays, I try to elevate it and make a little bit more fancier of a meal.
But I'm always super inspired by your family.
Like your family is like goals for me.
I'm like, that's what I want. My, you know, as time goes on, I want everyone coming over and bringing like wonderful plant based dishes.
And we're getting there.
[1:07:37]Yeah. You know, but I'm just this is relatively new for me. Right.
I started eating this way seven years ago.
You're laying down the bricks right now. You're laying the foundation.
Don't worry. Not too long, you'll be able to have those incredible Thanksgiving potlucks and Christmas feasts and all that stuff. Oh, we do that.
Yeah, I cook Thanksgiving. Now it's my tradition to cook a whole food plant-based.
Yeah um okay when was the last time uh you went to india.
[1:08:14]Ah good question so we my wife and i got married in 2009 and then i think we went in 2010 so that's and prior to that i usually had gone every four or five years for much of my life so since my kids my daughter was born in 2011 we haven't gone but we are going to take a trip with them i think, The pandemic came. We had talked about it before that.
And then now my wife with this diagnosis. So this year we sort of haven't taken any trips.
But yeah, I think next year we want to take a trip. Because I still have a lot of family there. My wife has family there.
And yeah, it was a big part of my childhood was going on these trips to India where we saw so many amazing things.
What's the hell what's the health of india like as far as the citizens um i hear i hear there's a lot of a lot of uh pre and type 2 diabetes there and is it mostly from the ghee is that correct.
[1:09:16]It's it's a it's ghee and sugar um ghee isn't a lot of things but oil too i mean they eat a lot lot of fried food like you go to india like the streets are just full of food stalls most of those things are fried fried in oil but then they're adding ghee clarified butter right to a lot of things and then they're adding sugar um to a lot of things there's sweets like indian sweets are just like you feel like your teeth are gonna fall out right sweet um but yeah so it's a thing but But also, I'm seeing more and more lifestyle doctors. There's Indian Society of Lifestyle Medicine.
There's lifestyle doctors in India. There are meal services in India now where they're doing whole food, plant-based meals.
Indian food actually translates beautifully well, as you know, into whole food, plant-based food.
[1:10:14]All those Indian spices. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, yes. I think hopefully we're on.
But I don't know. No, I mean, all the things we have going on here, too, like.
This disease is just getting worse. So we obviously have a lot of work to do, which is why I appreciate you giving me the time to come on here, because I think more and more of us in medicine need to be doing this and talking about this and practicing in this way. If we're really going to turn the tide.
[1:10:43]Yeah. Yeah. This is the way to move the needle for sure.
[1:10:48]Hey, this has been wonderful. It's been wonderful getting a little taste of you and your personality and what has driven you to doing what you're doing today.
I love that you're saying about, you know, needless suffering or, you know, compassionate living, right?
I mean, what do you want? and uh i love i love the name Rak and uh and what Rak stands for with your with your virtual, practice it's all super super cool thanks man so uh anything that you'd like to say as we head on out oh last thing i have a podcast sorry i don't know how i didn't mention that it's yeah it's the The Health Feast, thehealthfeast.com.
I can put that up there for everybody. I co-host that with a really good friend of mine now.
He's become a very good friend of mine. His name is Poe, to Poe2.
[1:11:49]And Poe is, I would say, like, everyone like he's somebody he has um he has a packed house of four kids he's a full-time uh he works full-time he works in corrections in state of california we actually met through um another doctor um he was on an immersion program he didn't know that it was going to be a plant-based immersion in abu dhabi that scott stole um coordinated it's going to be part of a reality show.
And when he came back, his program doctor there and I, we did residency together.
She contacted me. She's like, oh, I see you do lifestyle medicine now.
[1:12:34]She's in Abu Dhabi. And she said, I have this, I know this wonderful guy and he needs support.
And so I connected with him. And then very quickly we realized that many people would benefit from these conversations.
Conversations so we started yes almost a year ago now we started this podcast and it's part like exploration of his health journey and reflection on mine but it's a lot of now we have guests on who sort of and it's we started with the premise that good health should feel good it should feel like a feast it should feel indulgent that's why we call it a health feast because health so often gets framed as a punishment and it's not that you've taught me me that and i've learned that and now i i tell people that all the time right opportunity baby yeah yeah opportunity for greatness that's right um all right well dr Rak give me one of your greatest fist bumps yeah that's right boom boom boom love it all right we'll see you next time i'll see you next time thank you so much.
[1:13:46]I'm a fan of that acronym, Rak. R for building roots, purpose, and aspirations.
A for awareness, which allows us to see clearly what we do now and how we can best make change.
And K for kindness, both for yourself and all others.
To learn more about his programs and consultations, visit rakyourlife.com.
And that's r-a-k-yourlife.com.
That's one word. And I'll be sure to link to that in the show notes for y'all.
Thanks so much for listening to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast.
If you like what you hear, please hit the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss an episode and make sure you share it with people who you think may benefit from hearing.
Now, go rak on and always, always Always keep it PLANTSTRONG.
[1:14:47]The PLANTSTRONG 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 Anne Crile, assistant. Thanks so much.
