Can you be plant-based and an elite athlete? Matt Frazier says absolutely yes.
Matt, a vegan ultra marathoner, author, and entrepreneur is a plant-based diet advocate, but he also knows it’s not for everyone. Founder of No Meat Athlete, Matt is all about providing the tools for thriving on a plant-based diet and how athletes can be at their very best with this type of nutrition.
Matt is known for his No Meat Athlete Radio podcast and his books, which have sold over 125,000 copies in five languages. His work has also been featured in books by Rich Roll’s Finding Ultra, Brendan Brazier’s Thrive Foods, and Seth Godin’s What to Do When It’s Your Turn. In addition, Sports Illustrated called The No Meat Athlete Cookbook one of the best Health & Wellness books.
Now he’s back with a new book The Plant Based Athlete, written in collaboration with Robert Cheeke. This book guides those interested in making the important shift to a plant-based diet in how to do so with the best, most transformative results.
In this week’s episode, I catch up with Matt on the creation of the No Meat Athlete, a deep dive into what you need to know about protein and carbs and how not to worry about what people think.
And check out my conversation about The Plant-Based Athlete with Robert Cheeke.
“I didn’t really, in The Plant Based Athlete, book set out to convince anyone that a plant-based diet should be the diet of choice for sports, as far as sports-based performance goes. It appears to me based on all the athletes we talk about, that at the very least, plant-based diet was a viable alternative to any other diet even for elite performance in sports. There are a lot of athletes, yourself included, who are showing that you can be the best in the world at what you do with this kind of diet. That then, to me, means that it’s worthy of consideration, perhaps this diet isn’t just as good as the others, perhaps it’s better.”
Matt Frazier
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Key Takeaways
- How Matt Frazier created No Meat Athlete
- How to get contemplation into motion
- How to not worry about what people think
- Differences between sedentary vs. athlete for a plant-based diet
- Talking carbs and weight loss
- Why plant-based diets are good for performance
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Links
- Check out Matt Frazier and Robert Cheeke’s new book The Plant-Based Athlete
- Liked this episode? Listen to other episodes about plant-based nutrition
- Check out my Plant Powered Academy Digital Cookbook
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Full Transcript
Sonya Looney: Matt started dabbling in vegetarianism in 2009 and went on to become a vegan ultra marathoner. He’s ran one hundred mile running races. He’s an author, he’s an entrepreneur and a plant based diet advocate. You may have heard of No Meat Athlete, and he is the founder of No Meat Athlete, which is a community online that provides the tools for thriving on a plant based diet and how athletes can be at their very best with this type of nutrition. They also have in person communities spread out around the world.
And No Meat Athlete was a resource that I used whenever I was changing my diet, and I still refer to it now. There’s a lot of free resources on their very end up tools. So whenever people ask me how do I change my diet, that is one of the first places I send them. And he’s gone on to found and co-found multiple companies, including 80-20 plants, which is like having a plant based dietitian in your pocket that coaches people one on one to change their diets.
And he also has founded his supplement company Complement. And those two companies and the No Meat Athlete empire will be talked about at a later episode with the CEO of No Meat Athlete, Matt Tullman. Not to be confused with Matt Frazier. Matt is known for his No Meet Athlete radio podcast, which you should definitely check out, and his books, which have sold over 125,000 copies in five languages. His work has also been featured in books like Rich Roll’s Finding Ultra, Brendan Brazier’s Thrive Foods, and Seth Godin’s What to Do When It’s Your Turn.
In addition, Sports Illustrated called the No Meet Athlete Cookbook one of the best health and wellness books. Those are a lot of impressive accolades and they are well earned, as I have actually read all of those books and seen his work throughout. And now he’s back with a new book, The Plant Based Athlete, written in collaboration with Robert Cheeke. You might have heard Robert on the podcast last month where I invited him to talk about writing this book with Matt and his journey with this book.
He is a vegan bodybuilder, but this book guides those interested in making the important shift to a plant based diet and how to do so with the best, most transformative results and a lot of research and information backed by experts in the field. The book also goes into a day in the life of many different types of world class athletes, including how they made these changes, what these changes are doing in their lives, what a food plan would look like for the day and also recipes.
I’m hugely honored to be featured in this book alongside some of these other athletes. It still doesn’t even feel real that they would include me in this book. And I’m so honored and humbled for the opportunity. So make sure you check out the book, The Plant Based Athlete, if you are interested in adding in maybe a few plant based meals or just adding in some plant based nutrition. And also if you’re just curious about how other people are doing it.
And this week’s episode, I catch up with Matt on the creation of No Meat Athlete, a deep dive into what you need to know about protein, carbs, macros and how not to worry so much about what people think. This podcast episode is not just about plant based nutrition, because we’ve done that many, many times over on the podcast. I really wanted to get into who is behind No Meat Athlete, what makes Matt tick, what challenges he’s faced along the way with success and metrics and just about what other people think as a public figure.
So I think you’ll get a lot out of this episode and you might just want to try a plant based diet for a day or a meal. And if you want to join my community, hop on over to Plant Powered Academy on Facebook to join our group. We have over 2000 members and it’s just a community of collaboration where people can help each other out, trading information, asking questions. And people have even ask questions like how do I plan for a bike packing trip and eat plant based or how do I feed plant based on my kids?
So there’s a variety of information over there. And if you’re looking for a super easy, simple cookbook, I have my own digital cookbook called Plant Powered Academy that you can get at MoxyandGrit.com. The recipes are designed for athletes and the recipes are also designed to take very little time cooking. And I don’t know about you, but I have a one year old and even before that I didn’t even have much time to cook. So I tried to make things as simple and easy and delicious as possible.
And people love most of the recipes in that book. So go to moxyandgrit.com and check out the Power Academy Digital Cookbook. Key takeaways you’re going to get from today are how Matt created No Meat Athlete and the importance of trying things, of checking out opportunities, of lifting up rocks and seeing what are their key takeaways you’re going to get today. There are things like how Matt created No Meat Athlete and how important it is to explore your curiosity, how to get contemplation into motion, because many of us have ideas in our heads, but we never actually act on them. How to not worry so much about what other people think, which is really challenging the differences in nutritional needs between a sedentary person versus an athlete on a plant based diet. We talked about carbs and weight loss and why plant based diet are good for performance. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. And before we get into it, I just want to say thank you to our podcast sponsor.
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And I know a lot of my Colorado pals are listening. They have a pop up store in Denver right now, so make sure that you check that out. That way you can taste some of these delicious options. All right. So let’s get into today’s episode with Matt Fraizer.
Matt, welcome to the podcast.
Matt Frazier: Thank you, Sonya. This is really exciting to be here.
Sonya Looney: You’ve gotten to talk to so many different podcast hosts over the last couple of weeks. What’s been the most interesting question someone’s asked you?
Matt Frazier: Oh, that’s a good one. Oh, you kind of stumped me. Let’s see. I guess I’m actually drawing a blank. It’s been so much. Not to not to put down the. Because it’s been very standard book related questions. I’d say the most interesting one isn’t anything wacky or anything like that. But the one that is the most, I think just kind of is a cool question. And answer is what was the most surprising thing to come out of all the research we did with the book and the athletes that we interviewed, including yourself, which we’re extremely grateful for.
And I only like the question because the answer to me is interesting, and it’s that what I learned from this was that there are so many different ways to make a plant based diet work, even for athletes at the very highest levels. I think we are all kind of isolated. I think most of us grew up with the sense that if you were going to go out on a limb and eat a vegetarian or vegan diet, then you had to be extremely careful.
You had to do a well planned, plant based diet, which some nutrition institutions will now acknowledge that a well planned plant based diet can meet all your needs. What this taught me that all these athletes, there are some common themes for sure, like eating plant based and whole foods for the most part. But people do it entirely different. Some just eat based on hunger. Some have really meticulous regimens and try to hit exact macro numbers. Some eat only completely whole foods, no oil, no sugar, no anything. Others eat plenty of beyond meat and sports sugar supplements and things like that. So I think it was interesting for me because it was it really just like I didn’t expect myself to gain any more confidence in the plant based diet. I was pretty happy with my results and and had become convinced that this works. But somehow just seeing this, it took it made me realize that you don’t have you don’t have to be careful. If you eat whole foods and you eat a decent variety of them, every single thing you’re putting in your body, every ingredient going into the machine, is great and complete on its own.
I mean, obviously, variety is important, but there’s just so much there in all of these foods that there are lots and lots of ways to make it work. I think where you need to be careful if you’re not eating a plant based diet and you’re eating a whole bunch of standard American junk foods, that’s when you need to, well, plan, make sure that you’re getting all the stuff you need.
Sonya Looney: I think a lot of times people strive for perfection, especially when they change their diet or they’re going against the grain because everybody else is staring at you saying, well, you look like you might not have gotten enough protein or maybe you’re deficient in omega 3s or whatever. So everybody’s waiting for you to make a mistake or waiting for you to not be perfect. So I love that you said that there is no wrong way. You just do it. And there’s been tons of other athletes who have done so many different approaches. So you have to find what works for you.
Matt Frazier: Yeah, I think that’s right. I guess that should qualify. You mentioned omega 3s and everything. You know, like I’m not trying to say that you don’t need to supplement because I think that’s part of the reason why people think it has to be well planned, like there is a need for certain nutrients, especially B-12. And then the omega 3s are definitely worthy of consideration there. Even some minerals that are worth thinking about. But you can get that like my company makes a supplement that just kind of provides those. It’s not a big challenge that prevent anyone from going plant. So I guess I would qualify it with that. But yeah, it’s so much worse for you and people at the top in sports. Like, it’s clear that there is a lot of very personal and idiosyncratic and things that people like that just they have found works for them for performance, whether mental or physical. So, yeah, lots and lots of ways to work. You got to find find one that works for you.
Sonya Looney: So what’s working for you right now?
Matt Frazier: That’s a good question. So I’m kind of in the middle of a fitness comeback, I guess you would call it. I ran a bunch of 50 mile an 100 mile race or one 100 mile race after several 50s, back in 2013. And then after that, I kind of like lost a whole lot of my motivation for running. I qualified for Boston, which was a big goal of mine. And then I had gotten to the Ultras and did one 100, which was my other big impossible goal for me, I thought.
And after that I was not expecting to like completely just lose motivation for running. I had no more goal and I wanted to do so. A few years where I was just like, you know, doing different things, playing soccer, doing martial arts, trying different things, but never really found something that felt like this is really sticking. So then in the quarantine that was really out of shape up until December when I got into kettlebell training and I’ve just loved it since then.
It’s been awesome and really different to kind of be like a strength athlete. But I guess I would in the broad definition that I tend to use athlete because everyone comes to me. It’s like, well, I’m not an athlete, but you are. I mean, if you’re working out a couple times a week, to me that’s that’s way more athletic than a whole lot of people. So so I’ve been doing that.
And I had put on some body fat during that time when I was just not doing that much except for making fresh pasta and all that stuff, like with a lot of us did during that period. And so I’ve been trying to lose fat since that, which is weird for me because I was always someone who had trouble keeping weight on and I would be always trying to get more and more calories. But recently I’ve been thinking like lets loose with fat, gain some muscle, look a little better.
All that I’ve been doing this thing called the Warrior Diet, or at least a plant based adaptation of it. It sounds from the name like it would be like some paleo meat heavy thing, but it’s really not that at all. It’s just based on the idea and it’s really just a theory. It’s not a big, like, empirically studied diet. It’s just someone’s theory that like a way that a lot of warriors in the past would eat would be very small, eat the gathered foods during the day, the fruits, the vegetables, little things, and then have the kind of feasting one big meal at of the end of the day.
So I’ve been drinking like vegetable juice or a lot of them and fasting and not really eating till noon each day usually. And then it starts with vegetable juice then some fruits, maybe by afternoon, some nuts or something like that, but very, very low calories in the day compared to what I used to eat. And then in the evening one big meal and sometimes two big meals, because it’s just hard to get a really huge meal because these foods are so calorically not dense. It’s hard to take in a whole lot of calories before you fill up, which is cool in many ways, a good thing if you’re trying to lose weight. But I’m finding like I usually get a little bit more calories than I can get in one meal. So I end up eating too kind of late, late lunch or dinner time. And it’s working for me because it’s new and exciting and it’s fun. And it’s just like I said, it’s kind of a story, but like it’s fun to buy into this warrior idea.
I feel like I’m eating in a way that’s really burning and it is burning fat really fast. So I don’t want to say it’s working, its my long term, but right now it’s exactly what I need. I’m loving it and it’s fine. My energy is great and I can see the results.
Sonya Looney: That sounds like curiosity is something that’s really important to you because maybe you lost your curiosity once you were able to go after and run that big 100-mile race, you did it and then you’re like, I know I can do it now and then. Same with trying kettle bells and trying out your warrior diet, which people should definitely sign up for your email newsletter and your podcast. That’s why I asked this question, because I follow all those things closely and it’s really interesting.
Matt Frazier: Yeah, you’re absolutely right about that. The curiosity and I’ve only recently kind of realized this as I’ve gotten maybe five years ago, once I got to 35 years old, I started to realize that I’m just a huge variety seeker. I just need to change things up, which is in some ways is a neat thing. I get involved in a lot of things. I learn about a lot of things. It’s also a hindrance in that I have so much trouble staying with one thing for any very long period of time, enough to achieve any sort of mastery in it running.
Kind of an exception, but not now. I saw what the result was like. I burned out for a long, long time. So yeah, I really have this need to keep things fragile, like traveling, moving, which is endlessly frustrating, I think to my wife that I definitely want to like, move to a new place. And as soon as we get comfortable somewhere and I think that’s what it takes for me. And as I said, I’ve learned that as I’ve gotten older.
But I think it’s really key for anyone listening. Like, you just got to find the stuff that works for you, like you said, with diet, like it’s the same with fitness and motivation. Everybody wants to know how you stay motivated and there’s really no way to stay motivated. It’s trying a hundred different things until you find something that you start to dial it in and say, wow this exact combination of elements gets me really fired up. And I think you have to learn that about yourself by just being mindful, paying attention and all that stuff.
Sonya Looney: Mindful, paying attention and being introspective. But I want to take it back to the beginning, because some people might just be coming across No Meat Athlete for the first time, and it’s evolved and changed so much over the years. But like, how did it get started?
Matt Frazier: Yeah, that’s a great question. It has evolved a whole lot. It was 2009. And when I was as I mentioned, I was trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon. I’ve gotten into fitness like six years earlier than that and then run a marathon almost right away with some friends of mine in college. We just crazily said, let’s go run a marathon now that we’re like lifting weights and we’re strong, like, let’s lose some fat.
And we did it even more stupidly. We wrote down on our entry form that our projected finish time was the Boston Marathon qualifying time, three hours and ten minutes. Well, we can keep that mind right now for one mile. So surely after half of your training, got to do it for the whole marathon. So we missed that goal by 100 minutes and I didn’t really expect it to happen, but I that lit a fire in me that said, well, if I could actually do that, what would that actually take to achieve that goal? What kind of shape would have to be in and mentally and physically? What just what kind of person would I have to be to do that? And I got so inspired by that idea, it became is this thing that seemed impossible to me, like that’s a whole different level of fitness, just different level of person. That impossibility that curiosity got me really excited. So I went like five years improving, got better and better.
Then I got within 10 minutes of that time and sort of started to plateau. And that’s when I just got this ethical urge, just like books and things I was reading to become vegetarian, not a vegan, I didn’t really know what that was, but I wanted to be vegetarian. And so I started looking around for information on the Internet. This was 2009 and I just couldn’t really find very much that was at all useful to me as far as like giving me reassurance that I could make this work or tips for how to do it. Anything that I could find was very kind of pushy and preachy or not very scientific at all. And so I said, well, this will be a cool experiment. I’m just going to do it and I’m going to start writing about it. And I thought of this name No Meat Athlete, that’s it. And I started just like training journal, nutrition journal kind of stuff on there, putting recipes up. And then the great thing is that it worked. It worked really well for sports, which I was not expecting at all. That was not the reason I did it. And I ended up taking the final 10 minutes off my marathon time, just like six months after that. So now a lot of people were kind of following my story and all that and that obviously kind of gave it to boost it needed to take off. So, yeah. And then really only like a year after that, it became my full time job.
I quit grad school just to do No Meat Athlete full time and got some book deals, got a lot of speaking engagements, started a supplement company, as I said, it’s just crazy. Twelve years has just blown by. But I think we have something like a thousand articles now. 365 podcast episodes, a bunch of nobody actually groups around the country, actually around the world that meet up and go for runs and then go somewhere.
So it’s really just it’s kind of grown in this community movement, whatever you want to call it. That was totally unexpected. But I’m very grateful that it has all worked out like that.
Sonya Looney: It’s really inspiring to hear how that’s grown over time and also just the sense of agency that you have and that sense of courage of, well, I’m I’m curious, I’m going to do this, but I’m actually going to do it, I’m not just going to wonder about it. And I think for a lot of people, they think things like, oh, I’d love to run a marathon or I’d love to ride my bike 100 miles, or I’d love to try a plant based diet. But they don’t feel comfortable actually turning their thought into an action and moving down the path. So you’ve done this many times, like what advice do you have for people who want to make changes but can’t get there their contemplation into motion?
Matt Frazier: So that’s a really great question, and I love that you are so into this stuff in your story, in our book. Exactly. Just how much of what you do is really about mental toughness and just kind of having the right beliefs in your head instead of the wrong kind of talk. And I think that’s what this really comes down to. I get a lot of people who, like, reach out on Twitter or Facebook or whatever and say like, hey, I’m really interested in this plant based diet, but I’m just kind of worried about losing weight or like I’m worried about this or this other thing. And none of these are like fatal things. But I think people are really concerned about that that if they were to try this and it wouldn’t work, like, I guess for me, if that happens, it’s like, OK, well, then didn’t work. And then I’ll just adjust it or I’ll go do the opposite thing and see if that one works. But I think people don’t want to do that. I think there’s a lot… maybe has to do with the social media world that I’m not that much a part of anymore. And No Meat Athlete is on there. And I’m on there a little bit nowadays, but just I don’t really get involved in it the way a lot of people do. I think there’s this big thing about looking good and saving face and not failing. So it’s corny as it sounds, I think it comes down to like redefining failure with… what means failure to you, trying a bunch of stuff and having one out of a hundred things work really well and stick and become like one of your big life’s purpose things that you do those 99 times. I guess it didn’t it didn’t work. But that doesn’t mean that the whole process was a failure. That’s what it takes to make it successful. So I think self experimentation, experimenting in general, exploring things in general, I just think that’s such a great way to live and just a really great mindset. You’re not too attached to any one thing, unless, of course, it’s a really strong belief of yours and then you should be attached to it.
But yeah, I don’t know. I think it just comes down to like not worrying what people think about stuff so much and partly maybe that that means like doing a little bit less social media perhaps, or like you don’t have to go announce every new thing that you’re doing to everybody and have people around like these public commitments and stuff. And I get that there’s some some power behind that. But it’s also potentially a downside to that. I saw a study from a long time ago about when people make these big public commitments on social media or actually back then it was just public commitments. It doesn’t always work because people get some sense of satisfaction for that. Like when everybody starts congratulating you about this weight loss, you’re going to do it. And now you’ve committed that in some way, fulfills or eliminate some of the frustration that got you to the point of saying I need to make a change because suddenly you’re feeling all this reward and love and all this stuff. And, you know, so I mean, certainly there are some ways to do it, some ways to create accountability, have a single person who’s keeping you accountable, you know, very systematic ways to do it. But I think the big like I’m going to make a big public show of this every single change I do – I don’t think that’s really the healthiest way to go about making changes. I think it just it just breeds too much, kind of like, well, what will what will the crowd.
Similarly, I really try hard not to like, read other criticisms, people I used to. And I think like we do this, I usually like read one star reviews on Amazon. If I was bored at work and they go and look at a book and then I’d like take joy in watching people like tear apart a book or an author or whatever just because it was entertaining. This is getting off topic, but I read this guy and stoic thinker and he wrote very ahead of his time in the way he thought, but he talked about how when people would go watch like the gladiators or just watch when the prisoners were like would fight to the death for entertainment. And he saw this as a very wrong thing to see entertainment in that. So like this modern social media stuff and we watch people bashing each other and fighting, that’s obviously not the same. But I think the more you sort of become conscious of this and maybe even delight in seeing people get cut down to size or whatever, I think that sort of starts to build up that fear in you even if you don’t realize it. That’s like, well, what are they going to say to me? What if I fail. So I just kind of stay away from that stuff, being really careful with the stuff that you let enter your brain, stand guard at the door of your mind, they say, I think that’s really important and it’s going to take a while for that sort of thing to have an impact. But I think if you spent a month or a year with that top of mind, I think it would change the way you are willing to take actions after that.
Sonya Looney: Like paying attention to you, talked about mindfulness and paying attention a little while ago and paying attention to your relationship with how you judge others. If you’re taking pleasure in the pain of others that could create barriers for you so that you can never fully express your curiosities and that paralyzing fear of failure will stop you from even trying. And you said that you have to do these things for the right reasons, like if you’re doing something, a change of some kind, because you want other people to pat you on the back or because, you know, you’re just trying to get attention like that could be a bad a bad relationship, but it can be motivating, like you said as well, to put stuff out online because that breeds accountability.
But, yeah, like when I changed my diet, actually, I didn’t tell anybody for like four years that I was eating plant based because I wanted to do it for me. And again, you’ve backed away a little bit from being as much of a public figure on social media and these types of things. But like, yeah, having the right relationship with that is tough. And, you know, you have this book that, at the time of recording it’s not out, but it’ll be out next week like this book is is really high, I think is number one right now on Amazon.
Is that correct?
Matt Frazier: I think so last time I checked, it was number one in its category, plant based diets, I’m not sure if it is right now, just names on things move around fast, but, yeah, it’s near there. It’ll be there. Tomorrow is not now.
Sonya Looney: Yes. How are you managing? Because you talked about reading one star reviews or not paying as much attention to what people think, but with the ranking of books and you’re an author like how do you maintain that relationship and keep that healthy?
Matt Frazier: So first of all, I’d never, ever read any reviews. I just don’t like I will glance at them every now and then. I’ll check the Amazon reviews in like to get a… because I don’t want to I don’t want to have my head buried in sand, but I will check and just confirm that people are liking the book or not based on the star rating, like the average rating. But I know that I cannot read the actual words someone writes because, as has been shown over and over and I’m not the first to say this, you can have a 99 great reviews and one bad one. And you will only remember that bad one, same as social media. You can have all these likes and people loving your stuff. But one person says something that gets under your skin and it will ruin your day or your week and it might ruin your career. Like I really think that reading that stuff in the early days affected the way, like negative comments on blogs made me start writing blog posts after that, basically writing for the negative commenters to get in front of anything they might possibly want to criticize. And that’s that’s not how you create interesting, good content. That’s how you make really bland stuff that no one can feel anything about. So I don’t read reviews at all. I do wonder if I had someone filter out the bad and only give me the good. Would that be a valuable use of time? Would it be good to get lots of that encouragement or is that going to create problems? I’ve never, never done this, but I do want to do only read the good ones and what that would do.
But I just don’t read any of them. It’s kind of just like I don’t know, I don’t like listening to myself. Like, a lot of people, I don’t like watching videos myself. It just feels weird getting too much inside your head. And I have to do the same thing if I read anything about my stuff. So even like it’s weird, like if I get in a magazine article or something, even if it’s not mostly about me, I don’t like to read it. I don’t know what the feeling is, but I just get it really quickly and it’s like, see it and then I don’t know. So yeah, I guess I just sort of stay away from that stuff and that really helps. As far as the Amazon rankings, that’s kind of easy because they don’t really focus on the worst selling books. So if they had a list of those, it would be hard to see those with this. You can only see if it’s good. And if it’s not that good, it’s fine. You’re not in the best seller list, but you can know it’s still a good book. Yeah. So that part’s not too hard. But certainly there’s going to be criticism of things like that. And I think a lot of it has just come from experience. Just this is the third time around writing a book. And I’ve kind of gotten to realize that, like, the good stuff doesn’t really matter that much. It doesn’t matter that much that neither one really makes that big of a difference other than today or tomorrow. Soon enough, it won’t really matter much. So ultimately, you just got to accept that that is good. I try to make things that I think will get a reaction out of people, which is definitely counter to my nature and I think a lot of people’s nature is you want to do things that will blend in, that will please people and no one really like but don’t really hate.
I try really hard to make sure that I don’t get sucked into that. And I try to make sure I do have things that will that will get a reaction from people that’s kind of about it.
Sonya Looney: I think now there’s so much wisdom and all those things you just said and certainly everybody listening goes through worrying about what other people think or if you’re a creator especially like making sure that you’re creating or writing or doing whatever it is because you want to do it, not to do it to please other people. And that can be so challenging. Thank you for sharing that wisdom, because it’s something that I have to remind myself of all the time as well.
Matt Frazier: Yeah. I’ve by no means mastered the stuff. This is this is what I picked up, like what makes me want to keep doing it. But yeah, it is an ever evolving challenge for me to be able to keep putting out content.
Sonya Looney: So before we get into the Plant Based Athlete book, I want to ask you about the No Meat Athlete cookbook. I have that cookbook, I think it’s a fantastic cookbook. Was that your first cookbook?
Matt Frazier: I had put up about 50 or so recipes in my first book. And it’s funny, those were like, those are the recipes that I made when I was first getting into it at the first. I think I wrote the book after about three years of being vegetarian, after one of being vegan, and they were just like a lot of those recipes were things that I had been because I’d kind of been into cooking before that, before I went vegetarian. It was sort of like my my big hobby. I think if I hadn’t done No Meat Athlete, I would have done some sort of cooking thing. And ultimately I kind of did. But it wasn’t the way I expected. And so the first recipes were the ones that were. I still more often eat those every day. It just I don’t know. It’s like pasta dishes that have beans in them. They’re not quite as, I guess, clean. When you think about trendy health, do you think of lots of colors and greens and things that sound fun and good like that? First, they’re very bare bones and basic, but it tends to be more practical and kind of the stuff that more likely my kids will eat, that I can make faster, that’s cheaper. So those were the recipes that I really made. The cookbook was much more designed to be something that made this really interesting for people, people who had plenty of recipes like that. And I expect that everybody has their standbys in the big vegan bowl of sadness when we mix up mushy beans and grain and whatever the green, green and being formula, which I actually do like a lot. But everybody has those. And we wanted to make stuff that made vegan food for athletes seem more than just salads or like grains, beans. So I worked with a chef, Stephanie Romine on that one. And she created a bunch of really great, colorful, fun, interesting recipes.
Some of those I contributed, but by far that was mostly her work. And I was involved with, like, testing, feedback, vision. But but many of those were her recipes. I don’t want to take credit for those things.
Sonya Looney: Now, the testing and feedback part of creating recipes is a long process.
Matt Frazier: Yeah, absolutely it is. It’s long. And I think it’s also, at least for me, like it was important because I really do think a lot about the tone of everything we put out and who it’s for. And I always want the stuff to be accessible and welcoming. And if a person who wasn’t yet vegan saw this recipe, would they be interested in making it, shopping for these ingredients and then eating it? And if the answer is no, if it’s like just kind of, you know, vegan veggie nerds, then it’s not really a No Meat Athlete thing.
And I’m fine with that stuff. I love that stuff now and that. But that’s just not who we are making content for. I want to make kind of that will maybe be gateway vegetable content, gateway meals for people. So I try really hard to make sure things are like family friendly and accessible and cheap and you can find the ingredients and all that stuff.
Sonya Looney: And you give away so much on the No Meat Athlete website. Like it’s just there’s so much free information out there.
Matt Frazier: Thanks. Yeah. I mean that’s that’s important. It’s certainly it’s part of the strategy. Right. I don’t want people to think it’s like I’m just really a great person. I just give away everything we can. But I do think that these days, especially like that’s the way that you you make a successful business where you can sell things is you give away tons and tons of stuff, way more than you used to have to, I think. And that’s how you get people to trust you and believe it is not it’s not a trick. It’s not fake. It’s real. You give away some of your very, very best stuff and as much as you possibly can. And you’ll find people who really like it and just always want more than that. So, yeah, it feels good to do that. And that’s certainly probably the most important impact it has had is our free content much more than you paid training programs and things like that. So, yeah, I appreciate that. It’s good to hear, because it’s it’s rewarding.
Sonya Looney: You’ve given us some really great life advice about how to not worry as much about what people think and how to turn your curiosities into action, and now we’ve gotten business advice from you, which is to give away a lot so that you can build trust. This is awesome. So now moving down the Matt Frazier handbook of how to be awesome. Let’s talk about the book. A big question people ask me is how do I change my diet and what is the difference between a like a “regular vegan or plant based diet” compared to like an athlete diet? So like, what are the main differences between a “regular plant based diet” for a more sedentary individual versus an athlete?
Matt Frazier: Yes, that’s a great question. It’s really interesting because, like I said, there were so many different approaches to a plant based diet for athletes. So there’s not like one plant based athlete diet where we can say this is this is how you do it for an athlete. I would say in general, of course, the athletes need more calories and can afford to eat more calories. So it depends like a regular plant based diet, if you’re doing it, let’s say you’re a middle aged person, you’re doing it for maybe some weight loss, maybe some longevity, disease prevention, maybe even reversal. Those people should be eating mostly whole foods, plant based foods, not a lot of added oil. I think that’s great to add. Some people will even say to avoid nuts for heart disease and weight loss. I’m not sure I agree with that. I think nuts are a really, really great food. But if you were if you were trying to lose weight, you wouldn’t want to eat lots and lots of peanut butter sandwiches, it just wouldn’t be the best plant based food you could choose. You could choose foods that are way less calorically dense than that. But an athlete can get away with that if they want to eat, even if it’s not for whatever reason, for their body, their sport, not the most supportive thing. They’re burning so many calories that they can kind of eat any of these whole plant based foods and they can even eat some some extra olive oil here and there and beyond burgers here and there. Like it’s fine. Your body’s not really going to notice as far as, like, the accumulation of fats because you’re burning so much and you’re working so hard. And I’m speaking about fairly active people, not just like jog three times a week. People who do this as one of their passions, their sport ,so they can afford to eat more calries and in many cases they need more calories. That’s another thing. So I’d say like for me personally, if I’m in any sort of period where I’m training hard or want to put on weight, if I’m just trying to put on muscle for some reason, like I said, I’m someone who doesn’t hold on to weight very easily. So, like, I will have to eat way more frequently with a plant based diet if I’m in an active period, then I would with an omnivorous diet, because you just can’t get as many calories in a given meal. Plants will you up with fewer calories than animal based foods will. And so you’ll think you’re done eating, but you won’t have eaten as many calories. And so the flip side of that is you actually digest plant foods very fast because they’re not dense. You get lots of nutrients, but not a lot of calories, which is generally a good thing. So for me, the key is like eat more frequently. If I’m in a period where I’m really trying to build muscle or just support ultramarathon training or something. So I will actually eat like five meals a day, six meals a day. Usually it’s more like meals and then some bigger snacks in the middle just because I get hungry again. So, you know, that’s really that’s almost all it comes down to.
The athletes, at least in the book, from what we can learn, they focus a lot on anti-inflammatory foods and they have recovery routines as well. But it’s really about reducing inflammation, preventing inflammation and recovering fast. So I think the athletes will tend to be more mindful about making sure they choose bright, colorful salads, in addition to making sure they get some foods immediately post workout, eat a big meal after the workout.
So there are some, I guess, more exotic food choices for some of the athletes than a typical plant based person might need, but it doesn’t mean super exotic. I mean, like tart cherries, ginger, turmeric. These are very strange foods to a lot of people. But they’re even to someone who’s eating a plant based diet, they’re not really that strange anymore when we see pictures of them on Instagram and things like that that we can eat. So it’s kind of thing like athletes don’t have to eat that much different than a typical plant based diet.
And that’s a really neat thing that that I’ve learned over the years is really the very same mechanisms that prevent disease in the long term are the ones that help athletes perform well in the short term and that extend athletic careers perhaps by a few years in the medium term. It’s kind of the same thing. It’s really like the amount of nutrients that you can get in a relatively small number of calories, along with lots of anti-inflammatory compounds and antioxidants, they’re the reason it’s good for both of these different things.
Sonya Looney: So you said possibly needing to eat more than three meals a day. And I started smiling because my husband and I have been super busy working and still moving and doing all these things. And we’ve only had time to eat three meals a day. And we’re like, what is this three meals a day thing? We’re starving. We need to eat frequently. And as an athlete, if you’re trying to gain muscle or if you’re burning a lot of calories, needing to make sure that you’re eating enough calories. And I think that a lot of times people think that they’re not getting enough protein when they’re worried about that, they’re actually just not getting enough calories. And they think that fatigue is connected to the lack of protein.
Matt Frazier: Yeah, exactly. And I mean, protein is really is the body’,s of the three macronutrients that most people eat as nutrients, not counting alcohol. Protein is the third choice as far as energy goes into rebuilding itself. But it’s not the reason you’re tired. Now, if you had some serious deficiency, I’m sure tiredness might be one of the symptoms. But if you’re eating whole foods and you’re eating enough calories, it’s nearly impossible to be protein deficient. It just doesn’t happen in modern cultures.
So, yeah, we just don’t eat that much protein Like we’re talking about this last night on another podcast, Robert Knight. And we were wondering for so many years now, we’ve been telling people you just don’t need that much protein. No one really believes it, though. Like, it’s just not a satisfactory answer to anybody who says, well, where do you get your protein? It’s like when they say that they’re not looking for a lesson that will redefine how much protein they think they need. They’re just looking for the answer, where do you get this amount of protein that I think you need? And so I think the easier answer now is look at beyond burgers. They have the same amount of protein as regular burgers. So just see that and said that that’ll give you the protein. Not that’s what I think anyone should do as their go to nutrition choice. But I’m starting to think that that’s the better answer to where you get your protein.
It’s like, well, there are now vegan versions of all those all those animal foods that you think you’re getting your protein from. And they have the same amount of protein. So that’s where you get it. But the honest answer is it’s in everything. If you eat whole foods, not a ton of oil, not a ton of refined processed carbohydrates or sugars that won’t have any protein in them at all. Know if you’re eating regular food, they’re packaged very nicely with a nice amount of protein, usually 10 percent to 15 percent of calories.
That’s where most top athletes are trying to end up with their protein ratio. It’s really not hard. I mean, if you’re worried about it, focused on beans, nuts, seeds, certain whole grains, seitan, which is like a part of a grain, I guess it’s part of wheat. It’s the protein in wheat. Tempe, tofu, those are the big ones. But you don’t need to eat the soy products if you don’t want them. Don’t need to eat seitan if don’t want it.
It’s in so many things. And you can you can do protein powder if you want, but most people just don’t need it. But it’s there I mean, there’s just so many ways to get protein, if that’s your concern or that’s your hang up. It really shouldn’t be any more.
Sonya Looney: And I think people eating non plant based diets don’t track their protein. And then as soon as you’re eating a plant based diet, people are all of a sudden are concerned with tracking protein. So my question for people is like, well, how much protein do you think you need and how much are you currently getting? And a lot of times people don’t know. I was laughing because there are some McDonald’s ad I heard on the radio yesterday and it was like blah, blah, blah, x grams of protein. And that was it.
Matt Frazier: Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s an obsession. And I, I like to think that people are becoming more mindful and moving past that or maybe even when they’re getting to the point where people start to view protein as this evil thing, the way carbs and fat each got vilified. Not that I think protein is evil by any means. It’s like everything else. It’s just what it should be. But I guess maybe that’s what it needs to be able to have finally put protein on the same level as the other nutrients is for people to realize that it’s too much is really a bad thing and perhaps is the reason red meat is linked to different types of cancers. Very likely that is due to the fact that some meat and the protein in the meat specifically and the protein and dairy products, just animal protein in general, stimulates levels of production of IGF one insulin like growth factor one, which is a hormone that helps animals and babies and kids grow. But you’re just not supposed to have as much protein as you get older. And so that that growth, once it’s no use for your body, it contributes to the growth of tumors and things like that. So that story about protein I do think needs to be told. I’m not sure if it ever will or if it’s just too much to get or want to hear. But yeah, I really think people get too much protein and if they didn’t get so much, they’d be healthier.
Sonya Looney: And I’m just going down the macronutrients list here. Carbohydrates is another thing that people are afraid of, especially like when they’re trying to lose weight or “get cut.” So, like, what have you learned about carbohydrates in relationship to weight loss? Because I think a lot of people are concerned with weight loss, especially people listening to this podcast.
Matt Frazier: Yes, so, I mean, weight loss has never been my focus area, I’ve certainly learned a little bit about it here and there as needed, and I’m recently focusing on fat loss. A lot of people, when I’ve done book tours and things like that who come to me, like, really excited about having lost 50 or 70 pounds or whatever on the plant based diet and the people who have a lot of success doing it, by and large, they’re doing it with high carb, low fat, low protein plant based diets and 70 percent carbohydrate, perhaps 15 percent protein, 15 percent fat, something in that range.
So, like, so much comes down to the choice of carbohydrates. If you eat white flour all the time, if you eat sugar and then you’re calling that carbohydrate just on a level field with potatoes or fruit, then yeah, like a diet like that, it’s high in that kind of carbohydrate, that stuff goes very easily converted into fat and it’s just not going to be helpful. And not to mention a caloric dense that’s probably a bigger factor is that when you eat the processed versions of carbohydrates suddenly what was a non calorically dense foods, meaning again, those you have provides a lot of volume in your stomach without a lot of calories, that becomes a calorie dense when you remove the fiber and you move everything basically, except for that sugary usually carbohydrate. So, yeah, if that’s what you mean by carbohydrate and that’s what you mean by sugar, then yes, it’s bad. But if if you mean when people will just like equate fruit with sugar and think therefore fruit is bad and that’s such a mistake. Sam as like potato. People just assume potatoes are bad because they’re white, which is crazy. I mean, it’s from the earth, it’s a whole food. And so Dr. Gregor has a really great example he mentions with a study about people who drink sugar water to people who were given sugar water, equal amounts. And then one of the groups was given with the sugar water, just whole blackberries. And so the blackberry group and the drinking, the sugar water, they’re actually getting more total sugar than the sugar water people because they have the additional sugar in the blackberries, but they have the lower blood sugar spikes because the other parts of the blackberry help to blood sugar, not just not just the sugar that’s in the BlackBerry, but the sugar that’s in the sugar water. The blackberry is helping to blunt that blood sugar spike. The global burden of disease study in the early 2000s came out looking like, why is our culture so sick, our society so sick? What is the problem? And the leading lifestyle factor they found that looking at tons and tons of studies was that we don’t eat enough fruit. That was the problem. And it’s just such the opposite of so much of the rhetoric on the Internet. That is that is anti fruit, saying fruit is sugar. And so we shouldn’t have it. So, yeah, I mean, like I said, if you look at planting’s weight loss diets, the ones that are successful by and large are the ones that are high carb, low fat. If you have lots of carbs and lots of fat, which I think a lot of people do, that typically does not result in weight loss. It seems like one path or the other. You can you ca lose weight with a high fat, low carb diet or a high carb, low fat diet.
Perhaps where people mess up, I think is they’ll try to do high carb, low fat, but they won’t actually eat low fat. They’ll still have too many indulgences, too much olive oil or whatever, and they’ll eat more fat than they realize. Or they’ll make carbohydrate choices that aren’t a whole complex carbohydrates. They’ll end up choosing refined, simple carbohydrates. So I think a lot of it really is just sort of a confusion around what we’re talking about when we talk about healthy carbohydrates rather than there being a problem with carbohydrate.
Because if you’re an athlete, carbohydrates, the body’s preferred fuel source, it’s the most easily converted into energy for the brain of the body. And that is the one that requires the least resources to convert an energy. So it’s what you should be eating .
Sonya Looney: Thanks for pointing that out, that not all carbohydrates are created equal and the more processed they get, those are the carbs that you might need to cut back on if you’re trying to lose a little bit of weight.
Matt Frazier: Yeah, and I don’t want you to be confused like they have their place for athletes. Like if you’re on a twenty four hour and I don’t know exactly what strategy is on a 24 hour mountain bike ride, but if it’s at all like a marathon strategy, like there is a place for sugar, refined carbohydrate. Now it’s really great if you can get it in on sort of a whole foods way, like dates or something like that. But for that kind of event, they are going to have too much fiber or for some people, and it will accumulate and become an issue. And you want really, if it was specifically designed just for this, it’s not meant to be eaten every day. It’s just for this kind of thing. It’s like there is a place for athletes sometimes around workouts to eat carbohydrates that are not whole. But by and large, we’re talking about just whole good food sources of carbohydrates.
Sonya Looney: Yeah. And for people interested in how to optimize carbohydrate intake around performance, like you can listen to any sports nutrition or I have a sports nutrition podcast that I’ve recorded that I’ll link to, but it just talks about how you should plan that if you’re getting closer to especially an endurance event. So one question I haven’t asked it I realized that I should have asked in the beginning is why are plant based diet is helpful for performance?
Matt Frazier: That’s a great question. I’ve kind of alluded to it a little bit with the information issue, but before I want to clarify that, I just want to explain. I didn’t really, in The Plant Based Athlete, set out with convincing anyone that a plant based diet should be the diet of choice for sports as far as sports performance goes. I hope that’s the case. And it appears to me, based on all the evidence that we talk about, that at the very least plant based diet is a viable alternative to any other diet, even for elite performance in sports.
There are a lot of athletes, yourself included, who are showing that you can be the best in the world with this type of diet at what you do. And that, to me at least means it’s worthy of consideration, as perhaps this diet is not just as good as the others. Perhaps it’s actually better. And I don’t know if it’s better for short term performance in sport. There are a whole lot of endurance athletes who seem to think it is. We’re starting to see, but I saw a lot in this book, srength athletes, power lifters, strong men, strong women, boxers, people who don’t necessarily want a small light frame like endurance athletes tend to want. And they’re making they’re choosing a plant based diet ecause of what it does. And they’re the best in the world of their sports and they eat a plant based diet. So to me, the evidence is starting to pile up. There are a lot of scientific studies showing that a plant based diet is definitely not a detriment, is at least as good as an omnivorous diet.
You’re talking about protein, the effects of plant based protein versus animal protein on short term performance seems to be no different. And there are other studies showing that a plant based diet is basically on par with the other. Where I think the huge benefit is, is with the longer term impact and effects. I think some of the most powerful stories that we’re seeing are the athletes who their career as a pro is starting to go downhill. Then they turn to a plant based diet and it really rejuvenates, revitalizes their career. They start performing again at a really high level. And so I think the athletes who begin their careers this way and that way the whole time are going to have longer, better, because just because they’re longer careers, the people who don’t do that. So I think that’s where one of the huge potential advantages, people who will be able to stay at the top of their game longer because they eat a plant based diet. Tom Brady, good example, he doesn’t eat a vegan diet or eats a whole lot of parts in his diet. And he’s very famously setting records and winning Super Bowls at an advanced age as far football players go. So I sense that that’s probably where maybe there will be studies we’ll start to see like actual statistics of how many people choose, versus how many are playing, how many years. And we can actually do real science and say this is clear that this is a better choice for longevity of career.
I think we’ll see that before we see the majority of athletes eating plant based diets that once they are if they are, then we can say, yes, this is better for short term performance. But until then, until it’s the diet of choice, we just we just can’t we can say it is very viable alternative. And the other really great thing is if you’re trying to achieve high levels of performance in a sport, typically that comes at a trade off the way you need to eat, the way you deliver and train it comes at a trade off with longevity. So, like, if you want to be a really great ultra marathoner, the choices you’re making are probably not the ones you’re making if you want to live to 120 years old. You’re forcing your body to metabolize a lot more calories like you needed to take in a lot more so that you can expend a lot more and that wears out your body, not to mention what the actual wearing out of the body is, you just use it that much. So there’s a trade off between performance and longevity. The plant based foods, though, to me, they minimize the detrimental impact. When we talk about it’s so easy to get these nutrients and so few calories, you’ve got the anti inflammation stuff happening, you’ve got the antioxidants happening. I think this is just and I think that is going to result in much less of which we’re seeing the plant based diet in the science is being shown to be really, really great for longevity.
So it seems like a natural conclusion would be that therefore, if we eat a plant based diet for our sport, we’ll be limiting the downside of really intense performance focus. That one, I don’t know. But but it’s clearly too great for longevity. So that’s why I think it’s also another that even if it only performs the same as the other diets, it might be the best choice as far as other factors like how long you live and how long you live healthily.
So to answer your question, that was a very long preamble. But I think the reason that they work well in the athletes they work really well for I think it has to do with with how fast you can recover. Brendan Fraser is a great example of this is the triathlete. He was one of the first ones to be to be writing and talking about eating vegan diet for performance. And he said when he was in high school, I think he had the sense that he could be a pro athlete triathlete.
Then he started like kind of carefully trying different diets. And he found that by eating what became his thrive diet, which was very high and fresh from vegetables and plant based diet, that that’s the one to let him recover fastest and therefore getting the most workouts. And if you can get in more workouts than the competition is going to adapt faster. The key is you need to be going to do it without coming back slightly worse than you were before because you haven’t fully recovered, because if you do that, you’re not going to progress and you’re going to get injured and all these things. So it seems like it’s recovery, so why is the recovery there and it’s an anti-inflammation story again, so many foods that we eat are anti inflammatory, so many animal products are pro inflammatory. So it’s not like you even have to make all the exotic choices I mentioned earlier, the ginger, the turmeric, the tartscherries, nuts, seeds, leafy greens, a lot of stuff is anti-inflammatory.
So like, if you just eat regular whole food plant based meals, so much of that stuff, it’s going to be contributing to your recovery even if you’re not really trying to make it do that. So my sense is that that’s why it’s the best use, intensity, caloric density and anything I’ve mentioned 20 times by now. That’s also just, I think, a big reason. If you can get the nutrients your body needs to recover without having to do the work to digest and metabolize all those calories, it makes sense to me that that would that that would be one that a diet that works well for sports.
Sonya Looney: That was a very balanced approach to talking about plant based diets for athletes and, you know, some people are very evangelical about this and probably because of their own experiences. But now I think that that’s going to resonate with a lot of people that you said that, yeah, this at least stands up to what all the other ones are doing for performance, if not better. We just don’t have enough information at a big enough sample size, however, for longevity and feeling good when you’re 90 and not feeling really bad when you’re 90, eating a plant based diet is going to be awesome for that.
Matt Frazier: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I try not to be too evangelical, even if I am very excited about it. I just find that going to turn people off makes people put up their guard. So yeah, I’ve never really been able to prove that this diet is the best one. I just, I just want people to know that it’s viable. And if you’re interested in it, there are so many tools that people like you and people like me have made available. So, yeah, like we talked about earlier, you give it a try. If it’s something that’s interesting to you, you don’t need to overthink it. You know, you just try it. It doesn’t work out then adjust it or go back and try something else.
Sonya Looney: Well, Matt, thanks so much for leading by example from the very beginning and continuing to use your curiosity to grow and evolve and help other people on their journeys along the way. I’m so honored to be a part of this book. And also I’ve been a long time fan of No Meat Athlete back when I changed my diet in 2012, 2013. They’re making some shifts and there wasn’t a ton of information out there at the time. And your information and Brendan Braziers information was kind of what I turned to. So thank you for that.
Matt Frazier: Oh, that’s awesome. I mean, I don’t want to let this opportunity to go by. Your story is really, really cool, too. And I was actually reading it today, just to be clear about myself. And I said earlier that I hadn’t been excited about running, but I was reading a story about the mindset and about how, you know, there will be times where you just had to suck it up and go through the mud and that one where you said you thought you were just walking, hiking eight hours just to finish the race knowing you wouldn’t even finish, but you had to get to the spot where you could stop. Something about that, it made me remember what it felt like to be running the only hundred miles that I did. And I mean, very painful memories. But like very, very fond memories of like that’s what that’s what that day was about. And that’s what was so great about that experience. So like this literally reading your story was like the first thing in a long time that has that made me think like maybe I could do another race. So thank you for what you’re doing. I mean, we like you who are who are doing what you were doing on the plant based diet and sharing.
Sonya Looney: Yeah. And you just said, like, the challenges are the things that mean the most and the things that really get you going. And I think with the pandemic and people’s events being taken away, it’s not like I mean, yeah, it’s the the social aspect and having like a goal to train for. But really it’s like when you’re trying to put it all out there on the day, like there’s something special about that day. There’s something special about that that’s hard to do in practice. And you can go places on that day that you wouldn’t go other days. And those places that you go are what make your life have more meaning and not always have to be doing really hard things. But that definitely adds some depth to what you can feel and what you think about yourself. So, yeah.
Matt Frazier: Yeah, absolutely. Could not have said it better myself.
Sonya Looney: Well, where can people get the book and work and people follow all things nomine athlete.
Matt Frazier: So the book will be available just about anywhere in the US and Canada, certainly any big bookstore, hopefully most independent bookstores, obviously online, wherever you want, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, all that stuff, or independent online sites. Of course, if you go to NoMeatAthlete.com, there is a book page that has a bunch of different testimonials from all these different leaders in the movement. A little bit more detail about what’s inside the book, along with some bonuses that Robert and I put together, some meal plans and the special private Q&A, just people who who get the book before June 19th is the deadline for that.
So you go there, you’ll get instructions for, like, how to fold your receipt onto us so that we can make sure you get all those good bonuses. So that would be the best place to go. But like I said, anywhere books are sold. And then, all my stuff is at NoMeatAthlete.com I think that we’re on Instagram and show me that they underscore official and I mentioned my supplement company that that’s called Complement. It’s at lovecomplement.com. And it’s sort of a mindful approach to supplementing without overdoing it.
Sonya Looney: I interviewed Matt Tullman. They’ll be coming out probably in about a month after you hear this podcast if you want to learn more about that. And also this podcast is coming up on the 17th. So Matt said the 19th is the deadline for the freebies and I personally I bought a copy of the book and I submitted to get the free all the free stuff. And I was amazed, like there was so many free things that you get with the book. And I just kept hitting download, download, download like this is amazing. So make sure that you like if you’re listening to this before the 19th, make sure that you get the book and submit that receipt. Otherwise you’re definitely gonna be missing out.
Matt Frazier: Oh, thanks. I appreciate it.
Sonya Looney: I hope you enjoyed that episode. Don’t forget to smash that subscribe button on your phone so you don’t miss feature episodes just like these with amazing guests who take time out of their day to help us be better every day. And with that, I’m with you on this journey of personal growth, adventure and our mission to be better every day. See you next week.