A man who said he was on “the window diet” because of how often he ate fast food has described how he transformed himself into one of the world’s fittest men — all after the age of 40.
Rich Roll said shortly before he turned 40 he was 50 lbs (that’s about 3.5 stone or 22kg) overweight and lived a lifestyle that was “quite sedentary”, a far cry from his days as a younger man when he’d competed as a swimmer at a fairly high level in university. He said there was one moment that made him change his lifestyle for good.
“I hadn’t taken care of myself in quite some time,” Rich, who is now 58, told the Zoe Science and Nutrition podcast. “And I had an incident, walking up the staircase to my bedroom, where I had to take a break halfway up. I was literally winded by the exertion of just, you know, walking up a simple flight of stairs and I had some tightness in my chest and it was a scary moment.
“Everything kind of snapped into focus as a result of that experience. I realised that not only did I need to make some pretty significant changes in how I was living, I actually wanted to. I was blessed with a level of willingness to actually take action on that.”
Rich said he recognised this experience as another “bottoming out” (or rock bottom) moment, which he said he had previously gone through with an alcohol addiction. He said he immediately realised it was a “sliding doors” moment where he had to take decisive action.
He said: “If you don’t act upon it with some level of urgency, whatever willingness you’re experiencing tends to fade pretty quickly. I thought ‘I kind of need detox for my lifestyle, I need to kind of recreate that treatment center kind of experience but for food and lifestyle habits’. And so that set in motion a series of experiments with food and diet and fitness that kind of catalysed this journey that I’ve been on that took me from there to here.”
Rich Rolls’ previous diet before this incident
Rich described his previous diet as “the window diet”, saying: “The window diet is when you drive up to a fine dining establishment, you roll the window down and they hand you food into your car. That was the diet that I was on. So a lot of fast food, a lot of late-night takeout, in the law firm in which I was working as a lawyer. Pizza Hut, Domino’s, McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, cheeseburgers, fries, you name it, I tried them all. A lot of greasy food.”
Rich’s new diet
Rich says he now eats plant foods “as close to their natural state as possible”. He says he focuses on as much home-cooked food as possible, limits his exposure to processed foods, tries to reduce his oil intake and tries to eat as many varieties of plant foods as possible. He eats “a lot of legumes, a lot of beans, a lot of quinoa” and says he makes sure he gets “a lot of variety on the plate”.
It is becoming more widely recognised by scientists that a wide variety of plants is a key part of a healthy diet and lifestyle, in which you should also limit your exposure to ultra-processed foods (UPFs) as much as possible.
The impact of diet change
Rich said the impact of his diet change was “pretty rapid”. He said: “Within 7 to 10 days, I did feel this resurgence, the spike in my energy levels. But at the same time, kind of hand in hand with that, there was a hopefulness that I was starting to experience.
“I was used to eating a midday meal and being so tired, feeling like I had to take a nap and just kind of being checked out of my life. And so to suddenly be able to eat without that food coma that I was so acclimatised [to] almost gave me more hours in the day.
“My sleep improved. And when your sleep improves, your stress levels go down, you’re able to kind of navigate tricky conflict-oriented situations a little more gracefully. And of course, your cognition and problem solving is better. So there was really no area of my life that was untouched. And that gave me the enthusiasm to just say ‘Oh, this doesn’t need to be an experiment, how can I make this sustainable so that I can continue to learn about how to do this properly and make it work for my life because I want to feel this way all the time?'”
He says the change in his food drove a desire to exercise and just two years after switching his diet, Rich began finishing in leading positions at Ultraman World Championships (a three-day, 320-mile race that is essentially double the length of an Ironman triathlon). He is now a vegan ultra-endurance athlete and full-time wellness and plant-based nutrition advocate, as well as being a public speaker and father of four.