#315: Tyler Dodge - From Anxiety and ED to Long-Lasting Vitality
Men—what if the answer to ED, anxiety, and weight gain isn’t in a pill bottle, but on your plate?
Tyler’s successful “before and after” journey continues
In this powerful episode, Rip sits down with Tyler Dodge, a 38-year-old who turned his health—and his life—around by confronting issues most men rarely talk about: erectile dysfunction, anxiety, and weight gain.
After years of relying on fast food and living a sedentary lifestyle, Tyler hit a breaking point when ED symptoms appeared and his panic attacks became unmanageable. Instead of reaching for another prescription, he reached for plants—and everything changed.
Since embracing a 100% whole food, plant-based lifestyle with no oils, Tyler has shed 50 pounds, drastically lowered his blood pressure and cholesterol, reduced anxiety attacks, and rediscovered confidence in every area of life.
You’ll hear:
How a whole food, plant-based diet reversed Tyler’s erectile dysfunction and anxiety
The surprising mental health benefits of journaling, routine, and exercise
Practical tips for transitioning from convenience foods to whole foods
His favorite sites and books for ongoing education and information
Why it’s time for men to break the silence around health struggles
Tyler’s proof that food can be the most powerful form of medicine
Tyler’s story is raw, honest, and a reminder that “real men eat plants.”
Episode Resources:
Register for our 2025 Virtual Plant-Stock
Register for our 2025 Plantstrong Retreat in Black Mountain, NC - Nov 9-14, 2025
Tyler Mentions:
NutritionFacts.org with Michael Greger M.D.
Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
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!
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Full Episode Transcription via AI Transcription Service
[0:00] I'm Rip Esselstyn, and you're listening to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast.
Introduction to Tyler's Journey
[0:05] ED, better known as erectile dysfunction, crippling anxiety, low energy, high blood pressure. Most guys, we don't want to talk about this kind of stuff, but that's exactly why we have to. Today, I'm sitting down with Tyler Dodge, who at the tender age of just 38 years old, was stuck in a downward spiral and decided to fight back with strong food. And the results? Well, I'll have them right after this word from PLANTSTRONG.
[0:42] Several months ago, I saw a post on our PLANTSTRONG community Facebook group from my guest today, Tyler Dodge. And in his vulnerable post, he mentioned that he was struggling both physically and mentally, he was 50 pounds overweight, battling anxiety, and was facing erectile dysfunction. But instead of masking the symptoms and taking even more medication, which may or may not make things worse, he took ownership of his health. Today, Tyler shares the deeply personal story of how adopting a whole food plant-based lifestyle to help with his ED, has actually been a major catalyst to reclaim his body, ease his anxiety, and revitalize his confidence. It's a true testament to the powerful ripple effect that happens when you fuel your body with plants, move your body with purpose, and tune into your why. Please welcome to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast, Tyler Dodge.
The Challenge of Erectile Dysfunction
[1:53] Tyler Dodge, welcome to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast. How are you today? Hi, Rip. Thanks for having me. I am great. It's a sunny 78-degree day in Delaware County, Pennsylvania and ready for the podcast. Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Where is that in relation to a major city that maybe we know of? It's directly west of Philadelphia, the lower southeast corner of Pennsylvania. Okay. Is that where you grew up? Yes. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, I really appreciate you...
[2:37] Coming on the PLANTSTRONG podcast. I think we're going to talk about a subject that is, it's a tough subject for, particularly for men, because it really only happens to men. And that is kind of, you know, erectile dysfunction and some of the things around ED. And, you know, you were, I think, very, very courageous to reach out on the Facebook group and share a little bit about what had been going on around erectile dysfunction. And I'd love to revisit that. First, how old are you, Tyler? I'm 38.
[3:21] 38. So 38 to me is pretty darn young. And when did you first start noticing signs that maybe something was not quite right with your erections? Uh i was eating a lot of fast food i got into a real deep depression about my anxiety i've had anxiety attacks on and off for like 11 years now and i was running out of ideas for ways to make it better and i just said i'm gonna eat mcdonald's i'm gonna eat burger king i'm gonna eat wendy's.
[4:02] You know to heck with a good diet and that's when the ed started and if i can say so i had actually seen forks over knives which is how i knew your name and found PLANTSTRONG and all that i had seen it shortly after it had come out but i had always assumed uh i could cheat a little i could have meat and dairy and eggs here and there and it wouldn't be that big of a deal um but when the erectile dysfunction started i had remembered from forks over knives i think his name is uh terry cruz he said you know ed is the canary in the coal mine for heart disease so when that started i thought something's gotta give i can't keep showing up at mcdonald's and getting a Big Mac and fries and a Coke. Like I really got to get healthy now because I didn't want to have a heart attack at like 39 or 40, you know? Yeah.
[5:05] So the physician that you're referencing from Forks Over Knives was Dr. Terry Mason. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, no, no, no, not at all. And yeah, what a great little section he had in Forks Over Knives.
[5:23] And tell me this. So you, you, you remembered that, that that was kind of the canary in the coal mine for, for heart disease. And you said you've been suffering from, uh, some anxiety for about 11 years. Is that correct? Yeah. About 11 years. I just would love to know a little bit more about that. So when, when did the anxiety pop up and are you able to understand like how and why um i was drinking a lot of coffee with caffeine so that didn't help for sure but i was also working a very stressful office job and i don't mean to talk trash about any one person and obviously i'm not going to name names but i had the middle manager from hell nothing i did was good enough yeah you know and i was i was a lot younger i was like 27 so i was coming home And my
Struggles with Anxiety
[6:21] mom would always say, oh, I'm so proud of you for holding this job. And I would show up to work and get yelled at day in, day out. And I did that for a year and a half. And I got to the point where I had my first anxiety attack on the job.
[6:37] And I had no idea what it was at the time. And it took a long time before a doctor recognized it as a panic or anxiety attack. But I never really stopped having them except for a brief period when I went to a really specialized kind of therapy called cognitive behavior therapy. I stopped having attacks for maybe like a year and a half, which was great. But they came back. And I've read all kinds of books on anxiety and depression. I've belonged to anxiety and depression message boards, that sort of thing. And I never really found an answer for how to get better. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And... So it's been 11 years that you've been dealing with the anxiety.
[7:25] And have you been on some meds to help that? Yes, I've been on an SSRI, Zoloft, fairly high dose of Zoloft. And I've also intermittently been on Klonopin, which is a benzodiazepine. But I haven't always been on Klonopin. And I was on it right before I changed my diet to be whole food plant-based. And I was able to taper after that, which we can get into. But those benzodiazepines are actually really dangerous. Like if you combine them with Benadryl, for example, which is another, it's an over-the-counter medication. And it's technically an antihistamine, but you can use it to treat anxiety. If you combine a benzo with benadryl you can actually stop breathing and that can result in like your death if you if you do too much of both medications and also if you taper off a benzodiazepam too quickly you can start having seizures so they are very dangerous so to get off the Benzos was a real blessing. Uh.
[8:46] Yeah, well, that sounds like a whole nother conversation, the anxiety and all that. But it sounds like you're doing a good job managing at this point. True? Yeah.
Transitioning to a Plant-Based Diet
[9:01] So I changed my diet. I don't know how much we want to jump ahead here. But ever since I really, really, really committed to whole food, plant-based, no meat, no dairy, no eggs. And after listening to your podcast, which I found because I remembered you from the movie again, I cut out oil. Ever since going whole food plant-based, no oil, I've seen a massive improvement in my anxiety. That's great. And how long has that been? Uh i probably developed ed which got me to change my diet about 11 or 12 months ago and i made the switch to whole food plant-based um about 10 months ago i got all these vegan cookbooks from my local library and all these recipes i started making that cook with oil which i started to eat and i began to lose weight but then it wasn't long after 10 months ago that i found your podcast and i started listening every week and i realized i cannot like if i'm trying to fight heart disease here i really can't have the oil so right right right um.
[10:26] And are you living with your, with your parents? You live in alone. What's your, what's your status? I'm just wondering as far as like, you know, bringing home the food and then cooking. If, if that's something you're doing as a family or by yourself. I live alone. I have a one bedroom apartment and I've been living at this particular apartment for like three and a half, maybe even close to four years now. But before that, I was living in a couple of housing programs. Ever since the anxiety started, it's been hard for me to go back to full-time work. So now I work part-time at a restaurant that does serve meat and dairy and eggs, I'm afraid to say. But there are some healthy things on the menu, too. Salads, fruits. So now I work part-time. And because I'm low-income, this is public housing. But it's worked out really well. I've never really felt like there's any housing insecurity here. Wonderful. And how has it been for you making, I mean, you said I think it's been about 10 to 11 months now where you started making these whole food plant-based meals, utilizing some of these cookbooks. How have you enjoyed or not enjoyed the cooking?
[11:51] I enjoy cooking. I don't really cook more than twice a week. I've got to be honest. My parents live about 40 minutes away from here. So generally, I visit them once a week. And when I visit them, I like to experiment with a new whole food plant-based recipe every single time. And they seem to enjoy the food I cook, even though they themselves are not whole food plant based. And I also try to cook for myself at least once a week at my apartment.
Cooking and Meal Prep
[12:28] Got it. And so what would you say are some of your mainstay meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Breakfast, I always have oatmeal. And I'm a big fan of Michael Greger and nutritionfacts.org. And he does a bit where he says, you know, a tablespoon of cocoa powder every day can have health benefits. Like after six months, it shows a reduction in wrinkles, that sort of thing. So I put a tablespoon of cocoa powder in my oatmeal, and I have a big bowl of oatmeal every single morning. I also have smoothies. I know you don't particularly recommend smoothies. There's an importance to chewing your food. But what I want to say is that when I was eating all that fast food, like McDonald's all the time, and I realized I needed to change my diet, I started to make smoothies. And it kind of acclimated my taste buds to plant-based food. Like I could tolerate an apple in a smoothie, but I couldn't tolerate an apple.
[13:41] So I've been making smoothies ever since. And it hasn't resulted in weight gain or anything like that. Yeah, yeah. Totally, totally get that. I just want to know a little bit more about that oatmeal that you do. So is it steel cut oats? Is it oat groats? Is it old-fashioned oats? And is it just the tablespoon of cocoa that you put in there and then stir it up? Any fruit or just that? Just a tablespoon of cocoa powder. And I don't even use like a plant-based milk in my oatmeal. I use hot water. I used to eat oatmeal as a kid with hot water. And I've stuck to it. But yeah, it's a big bowl of old-fashioned oats. I bought steel-cut oats for a while, but they're a little bit more expensive. So I buy the old fashioned. Right, right. And what about lunch? What's a typical lunch look like for you? So I've got to be honest. I'm a bit of a grazer. Now, if I cooked a meal to have at my apartment, I'll have that meal for lunch. And then again, I'm a big fan of Michael Greger. And he says, you know, eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.
[14:56] So um i have a very light dinner i just kind of graze for dinner but if i happen to cook for myself at some point during the week i'll have like a black bean burger for lunch or i have a recipe right here for mango and black bean tacos i have a tunisian stew that comes from the back of the starch solution that has worked out really well for me so i i try to eat something for lunch, but I do graze a lot, too.
[15:29] Right on.
The Impact of ED on Daily Life
[15:30] Now, let's get back, if you don't mind, to the erectile dysfunction. So you're 38 right now. And so how old were you when you started noticing that your erections weren't quite erect? 37. Okay. And I'm just wondering for those males that are listening and women that are interested in their men, Um.
[16:03] Was it just because like, how did you notice it? Was it a nighttime erections? Was it daytime erections? For a long time, I continued to have erections throughout the middle of the night. And when I woke up in the morning, so that was okay. But it got to the point during the middle of the day where I just wasn't getting any erections. And, you know, gosh, I don't know what the medical term for this is, but, you know, when we were kids, if you got an erection for no reason, we would call it a no reason B word. So there's that. I'd get those all the time before I developed erectile dysfunction, and I just stopped getting those.
[16:48] So I knew something was wrong. Yeah. Yeah. And so when you. Made that discovery, right? That you were starting to suffer from ED. Did you decide to do anything about it? Like, did you want to go see a doctor or did you start doing some research? What happened? Yes. I saw my primary care physician. I got my cholesterol checked, but I also, So it was a lot of binge-watching nutritionfacts.org videos, and I learned all about what's good for erectile dysfunction. According to Michael Greger, pistachios are good, but I actually, in the long term, ended up cutting out walnuts and seeds.
[17:40] Because it took a long time, but I read Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by your dad, and that motivated me to not eat nuts and seeds and also double down on my commitment to no oil. But it was a big crash course on nutritionfacts.org videos, and they're easy to watch. They're generally like 7 to 10 minutes, and they're packed with information. So that was when I really started to change my diet.
Nutritional Education and Changes
[18:14] Yeah. Those videos are definitely very educational and informative and entertaining.
[18:22] You know, so it's interesting. You mentioned Forks Over Knives earlier, and so I'm going to reference that again because in Forks Over Knives, you know, My father talks about how several of his initial 24 patients, most of them were men, and most of them had erectile dysfunction. And one of the interesting things that happened with these, what were called the walking dead heart patients... That had erectile dysfunction is almost by and large, all of them started to regain their erections again. And if you remember Anthony Yen in Forks Over Knives talked about how he was able to raise the flag again. That was his term for it. And I think that.
[19:14] Physiologically, it's important for the listener to understand that the innermost lining of every vessel in our bodies, and our bodies have close to 65,000 miles of vessels, but that innermost lining is called the endothelium. And it's this one cell layer thick endothelial lining of cells. And the part of the body, the male body that has more endothelial cells per inch than any other is the male penis. And so it's no surprise to me that, so for example, you, after, you know, loading your body with the Wendy's and the McDonald's and all this other fast food garbage, you.
[20:06] Basically almost rendered those endothelial cells useless to produce any kind of nitric oxide, which we know is the most powerful dilator of the vessels. And then so when you transition to whole food plant-based, and then you also eliminated the oils, those endothelial cells started to be able to fire again
Changes in Health and Weight
[20:31] and produce that nitric oxide. And I'd love to know, so how long was it that you were, you know, eating whole food plant-based before you started to notice a change in your ability to basically, you know, have that dragon roar again? Uh so i have continued to have erections throughout the middle of the night and in the morning i never really lost that ability so i'm grateful for that um but the reason i made that post on your facebook group why i was so encouraged by what i was seeing was i had my first midday erection in more than six months.
[21:24] And that was after a lot of exercise, just in my own personal experience, I've noticed that exercise makes a really big difference. If you get a lot of exercise, you're going to have better rectal functioning. But I had my first midday erection and, you know, it wasn't like I was a teenager again. This was happening all the time, but um, I got one. And so I made that post. I was, I was very excited and I got a lot of encouragement from the people who post on your message board on Facebook. Um, and ever since that happened, it's been slowly getting better again. You know, it's not like I'm a, I'm a.
[22:10] Generally dependent. Like I like to take a three mile walk and if I skip it, I might not get an erection that day. But if I stick with the exercise, stick with the diet, it's been getting better. And so when you started going down this path, how much did you weigh and what is your weight at today? Yeah. Uh, at my worst, when I was going to fast food restaurants every single day, I was 225 pounds, and now I am 175 pounds. So that is a loss of 50 pounds. Wow. I feel wonderful. I really, like, this is probably the least I've weighed in my history of being six feet tall. And, like, I grew to be six feet when I was in high school, but I was always a little on the heavy side. I would eat, like, pizza for lunch and stuff like that. So this is the least I've ever weighed at my full adult height.
[23:14] Well, six feet and 175, that sounds like a really healthy weight. It kind of puts you in the lean and mean category. Good for you. Yeah, I think overweight at my height is over 184 pounds. So I was looking to cross that threshold, and I did. Yeah.
Improvements in Health Markers
[23:37] Stupendous. Way to be, way to be, Tyler. What else has happened with your other health markers over the last, you know, year?
[23:50] Oh, I had angina when I was eating fast food. And even when I was cooking with oil 10 months ago, that basically went away overnight. Just kind of came to a sudden abrupt stop. And I really haven't had any angina since then. So that's good. And also, I don't know if we want to get into this now, but I've seen a really massive improvement in my anxiety. And I had not read a single book, a single article online about a healthier diet being good for anxiety. It's just something that happened to happen over the course of my changing my diet. And what do you think it is about this diet and lifestyle that helped to mitigate your anxiety levels? I'm honestly not sure what it was. I think, you know, fat, anxious, and depressed, all those things go hand in hand. and not being so fat anymore made a big difference.
[25:13] But I also... Like, I've been journaling on and off for 10 years or so. And I listened to the podcast you did with Kiki Nelson, where she said, you know, if you suffer from anxiety, you got to journal, you got to write your gratitudes. You got to say your wins for the day if you had an anxiety win. So I do that. And then, you know, we live in the future. So what I do now is once I have like two or three journal entries from daily journaling, I do journaling on the computer. Once I have that many journal entries saved up, I share them with ChatGPT and I say, OK, ChatGPT, please make some suggestions, especially regarding improving my anxiety. And it's come up with some really good results. Can you give me an example of one of the results from ChatGPT?
[26:11] So just basic stuff like less screen time. I used to spend a lot of time on the computer when I wasn't at work or something like that. And now I'll read a book instead, instead of reading articles online or something. I don't stare at my phone all day on a related note. I don't bring my smartphone into work at the restaurant where I work. Um, also exercise is really good for anxiety. Uh, like I said, I take a three mile walk. I try to take that every single day. Uh, it's, it's talked about the importance of daily routines, like not, uh, changing up what you do in a day too much. So, yeah, I think those are all powerful things you just mentioned there. I love it. Routines, less screen time, right? Less phone time, reading, actually reading from a book, right? As opposed to off a screen.
[27:17] Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Um, and then, um, yeah, just the fact that you're, you know, you're, you're 175, you thought probably feel a lot better in your body now.
Family and Community Support
[27:32] Um, that's all really fantastic stuff, Tyler. Um, what about what's happened with like your cholesterol, your blood pressure, things of that nature you know my blood pressure has gotten a lot better um i would say at its best my blood pressure will be like 112 over 72 that was a recent reading so so my blood pressure has gotten a lot better and i literally just got my blood work back my lipid profile back yesterday from the PCP office, and my total cholesterol, and I was in shock, is 102.
[28:18] 102 for your total. So do you happen to know what your LDL and HDL are? Yes, my HDL is just 38, but my LDL is 49. 49. Wow. And then do you also know your triglycerides? They might have been a little elevated because I had a little cranberry powder in the morning that I shouldn't have had. I should have been fasting, but they were 71. 71.
[28:51] Those numbers are stupendous. And for everyone that's wondering how you get to your total cholesterol, you take your, LDL, which was 49, your HDL, which was 38, and then one-fifth of your triglycerides. Oh. And that will get you to 102. And a 38, just in case people are like, oh my God, that 38 seems rather low. Not when you have a total cholesterol of 102. And when you have a total of 102, you don't have to play that whole ratio game between HDL and LDL. And as I have loved saying... When it comes down that low, Tyler, you get to fire a lot of those HDL mopper uppers. And now the ones you're left with are bigger, more efficient mopper uppers. So you got 38 amazing mopper uppers of cholesterol. So congratulations on that. And you're 49 for your LDL, your lethal? I started taking a statin, so that might have helped. Yeah, okay. It's something your dad recommends in his book. And in the movie, a low-dose statin, I take Lipitor, 10 milligrams. 10 milligrams. Okay. Well, that helps explain, too, then why you're 102.
[30:13] But those are really, really good numbers, way to be. And then your blood pressure, you said like 112 over 72, I think you said. And was your physician, your primary care physician, considering putting you on a blood pressure med? Yes. At my absolute worst, I had just gone in for my annual physical, and she said, I'm thinking of putting you on a blood pressure med. I want to get another reading.
[30:46] And that's when I started drinking smoothies, I guess. I didn't want to go on a blood pressure med. I knew that for sure. But I was able to bring it down in the short term. And I forgot the timing of everything when the ED started relative to when my doctor said, I want to put you on a blood pressure med. I want to get another reading. But I. Over the course of the whole food plant-based journey, it's come way down from like over 140 systolic to 112 now. Yeah. Does heart disease run in your family?
[31:27] Not as much as cancer i never met my dad's dad he died of throat cancer and i never met my mom's mom she died of lung cancer as a non-smoker uh i guess i mean my my dad's mom lived to be 91 but she had she must have had a heart attack at that age i think that's what it was yeah do you have brothers and sisters i have one older sister yes got it and i would imagine that your your parents and your sister if you're close are just thrilled with what's happened to you over the last year.
[32:17] They are i don't know my mom hasn't really been a cheerleader and neither has my sister, i've been my own cheerleader largely um but i really really crash coursed those nutrition facts.org videos and i have a bookshelf with how not to die how not to diet the sturge solution in Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, and I read all those books, and I just realized I cannot make exceptions. I cannot eat meat, dairy, and eggs. I'm kind of the only one celebrating the fact that I lost 50 pounds, but I'll take it, you know?
[32:59] Well, I'm sorry you're not getting the support from your family. What about family or friends or the restaurant that you work? Have They noticed anybody going, wow, Tyler, what's going on? My neighbors in the building have noticed how much weight I lost. One in particular kept commenting, like every 10 pounds, she would say, you look a lot better. Have you lost weight? You know, so that's definitely kept me motivated. Yeah, yeah, good. Well, you know, I think that's an important message for everybody that's listening. And that is, you know, it's important that we are our own cheerleader because ultimately it's on each and every one of us on our shoulders. What do we ultimately want to do with our health?
Celebrating Personal Achievements
[33:52] And, you know, it's up to each and every one of us. So, man, way to be, Tyler. I'm super impressed. What are you drinking during the day? What are you doing to stay hydrated? So I drink a lot of green tea. I have a big, big pitcher, plastic pitcher, and I put 10 green tea tea bags in it. And I will drink that entire pitcher. And once that's empty, I'll drink water after that.
[34:27] That's what I drink. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that sounds good, and it sounds like you're staying nicely hydrated with all that. Is there any particular book that you're tackling right now as far as, you know, in the whole food plant-based arena? I'm reading a fiction book right now.
[34:49] Murakami, I forget his first name. I've read some of his other books. He's a very talented, smart writer. But I'm not really reading any whole food plant-based diet books. I think after I read Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, I said to myself, I have all the tools I need. Nothing with a face or a mother or something. No meat, no dairy, no eggs, no oil, no exceptions, and even no nuts and no seeds. Yeah. So you decided, even though one of your heroes, Dr. Michael Greger, was like, pistachios are good for ED, you decided to cut those out based upon maybe some of the information you read in Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. Yes, and also I had gotten my cholesterol checked prior to cutting out nuts and seeds, and it was 168, which is better than a lot of Americans.
[35:52] But it was not below 150, which is the point at which, according to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, you become heart attack proof. Um so i i made two key decisions after i got that cholesterol rating i would not have any more nuts and seeds and i would start a low dose statin right and your primary care physician that you're seeing what do they think about this dietary plan that you're following so i've actually seen two pcps uh the parent company that ran the pcp office i was originally going to went bankrupt so they don't exist anymore but the doctor i was seeing there said like oh you know you need some cholesterol and actually michael greger has a video where he says can cholesterol get too low and to summarize the video the answer is like no it really can't um so i'm seeing a different doctor now and she's all in favor of my trying to lower my cholesterol and i got a call from the office saying your cholesterol is 102 i was just blown away so yeah well kudos to you it sounds like you're following the plan uh a hundred percent and you know the results i think speak for themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[37:22] Well, I think that this was super courageous of you to reach out on the Facebook chat and let people know kind of what you were going through with the erectile dysfunction. And then coming back a couple months later and letting us know that, you know, basically it was starting to resolve itself. It wasn't a hundred percent resolved, but it was like, Hey, I'm starting to get erections again. And this is super exciting and it's working, right? It's working. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, anyway, I just want to, you know, appreciate you Tyler for, uh, being so open and, um, and wonderful and vulnerable.
[38:13] Because to me, that ultimately is a really great strength. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah.
Final Thoughts on Transformation
[38:20] Anything that you'd like to say to the PLANTSTRONG podcast listener before we say goodbye? It really is remarkable how much better my anxiety has gotten. And it's something I wasn't expecting. um so again i had not read a single book that said try to eat more fruits and vegetables if you want to get your anxiety under control uh but i went from at my absolute worst having an anxiety attack two or three times a week or maybe like every two or three days to um now it's like once every two or three weeks so that's a seven x improvement in anxiety symptoms and it's it's still getting better. Like there was a time when I couldn't have been on this podcast without having a massive anxiety attack and we'd have to cancel plans and, you know, it wouldn't have worked out. And now I can be here. Now I can do things like grocery shop and go to the post office and run errands and hold, I hold two jobs now. And there was a time when I couldn't do that with my anxiety. It was so awful. Um, and the diet has made the biggest difference of all. So I wasn't expecting it. Again, I haven't read a single book saying this is good for your anxiety, whole food, plant-based nutrition, but it's worked. Yeah.
[39:47] Well, it certainly has. And the fact that you've been able to kind of battle, I think, two big things that were going on in your life. One being the anxiety and two being the erectile dysfunction. And then of course, you know, being overweight and, you know, all the things that that carries with it, you have done remarkable, absolutely remarkable. And so let me extend on behalf of myself and the thousands and thousands of podcast listeners, how much we want to celebrate you, Tyler, and what you've been able to do. So keep at it. You're doing wonderful. And I'm so proud of you, my PLANTSTRONG brother. Thank you, Rick. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of get a virtual PLANTSTRONG fist bump on the way out. Boom. Way to beat, Tyler.
[40:53] This is a must listen, especially for the men in your life. And especially since Tyler talks so openly about the things that most guys don't even think about saying out loud, his results have been profound and the benefits continue to this day. Thank you again, Tyler, for your willingness to share something so personal. And thank you to all of you for listening and sharing these episodes. It just may be the message that your loved ones need to hear.
[41:25] And as I say in the documentary, Forks Over Knives, as I'm climbing the fire pole without my legs, real men eat plants. And today's episode is proof of that message. So until next week, be like Tyler and always, always keep it PLANTSTRONG. 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 Esselstyn. Thanks so much for listening.
