 Hawaii. I'm Wendy Lo and I'm your new friend as we journey to ask why forks over knives. We are coming to you live from downtown Honolulu from the studios of Think Tech Hawaii. Today our topic of discussion will be on how what we eat makes all the difference in the world in our health and the health of our planet. And what I would like you to take away from today's discussion is the idea that the bottom line there is no deprivation no sacrifice and nothing but advantages including saving your health medical costs and how your taste changes once you've been introduced to really healthy foods. Today we are very honored to welcome Dr Ruth Hydrick a vegan for 38 years a runner for 50 years and an Ironman triathlete. She's the author of five books including a race for life. She's a chef for her book a recipe book of course and senior living life long running and 10 steps to sexual fitness. Wow welcome aboard Ruth Hydrick. Thank you Wendy it's so good to be here. Yeah and and you know let me just explain to our guest you know I was very blessed because I did a talk at a vegan uh a gardening club and I met this one gentleman and then he called and he says hey Wendy I want to bring a friend over and when the doorbell rang and I opened the door I'm like you look so familiar I know you where do I know you from and she goes I remember like oh yeah your roof you're the lady from Forks Over Knives I was like blown away that you were at my door Ruth I was so honored and unlike others I don't know how many of them are like me but I speak on you I speak on your documentary that you were represented in I do it weekly and I call the documentary the greatest love story of all and that's how I share it with everyone I call it the greatest love story because when I find local couples or you know families I said what you do is if you're going to help and work with me and you want help towards your journey on and goodness take two hours of your day early in the day not late at night when you're tired sit down on the sofa get the whole family together hold hands and watch this together as a family unit and I encourage everyone if anyone knows me they can attest and confirm this because I truly believe that it is the greatest love story because as husbands and wives their lovers their best friends their partners for lives they're not nurses and doctors for each other they should go through their life growing old in health and not in sickness and Forks Over Knives the documentary is exactly that so before we jump into that Ruth I just want you to tell me what was I know you were diagnosed with cancer and that's why you were probably on that video and sharing your journey but what was it like before being diagnosed with cancer actually life was pretty good before I was in graduate school at the University of Hawaii working on my PhD I was doing some part-time modeling and some acting I was actually able to get cast in one of three different episodes of Hawaii 5-0 that was me at age 33 with James MacArthur in front of the Kahala Hilton hotel where my best scene was was seen where I was blown up in a teabird exploding and you know how we set that up anyway so life was was pretty good then I was also into running at that point at age 47 later I had been a runner for 14 years and so and I was doing pretty good as as a runner we have should have a picture of me there well yeah that was your life as a runner as a runner yeah and I thought you know lean fit healthy that I was going to live as as long or longer than my grandparents who lived to their 90s I thought man I've got this all figured out and so you might imagine the shock that I went through when I felt a big lump in my breast and it I know I wasn't there the last time I checked you know however long ago that was and I immediately got into the doctor and he felt it and he said why did you wait so long to come in and I said I just had a negative mammogram I anyway they did a biopsy and the results are on this graph that's about this next slide let me see that that's like no yep that's like a death warrant for you I'm sure it was over five centimeters and we don't normally think in centimeters but that's over five inches in diameter that's that's pretty big that's pretty big yeah yeah yeah so it was really scary and after the diagnosis they did the scans tests and it had spread to my bones my liver one lung and I was thinking I all this from one day to the next when life is so good so great all of a sudden healthiest you know and running doing everything yeah I didn't smoke I didn't drink and I was the healthiest person I knew in terms of lifestyle and and now all of a sudden stage for breast cancer oh my gosh so did they just say hey Ruth you know there's not a whole lot left for us to do with you right now chemo chemo and radiation is what and what they wanted to do but right at that point I happened to I had medical leave and I was looking at a local newspaper and I saw this three line ad said wanted women with breast cancer to participate in diet research and I thought that's me I just been diagnosed so I ran to the phone it was a 262 telephone number kailua then you knew was kailua yeah there's no cells and a man picks up the phone this is dr mcdougal and a lot of people here are we living in the health industry yeah dr mcdougal and he said get your medical records I want to talk to you so I spent two hours with him walked out of vegan overnight changed my diet and I'm thinking you know it wasn't any of this resistance or how can I give up anything he convinced me that this was going to save my life and that I would not need any chemotherapy and radiation because of the long-term damage that it does and it doesn't cure the problem it doesn't get to what caused the problem which is the sad diet a lot of people know that that stands for standard american diet and so it just meant getting rid of all the animal products especially dairy because all the hormones in dairy that make calves grow 600 pounds in six months does that to humans too I mean you walk around the street and you see lots of evidence of that right so it was actually it was easy for me I just I looked at any anybody eating a piece of steak and I thought you know that used to be a live living sentient creature how can people do that to animals then see how I'd shifted my perspective it just changed everything of course now with climate change we know we could spend hours just talking about that but and Ruth back then you know you were in a class of yourself to make that decision and it wasn't readily available all the options that we have today but how amazing of you to get such profound information and put it into use and not just saying nah it can't be but within as you mentioned the for the two next two hours you looked and you studied and then that day you became a vegan yep yep wow that is yeah I wish more people were as brilliant as you and more people would not suffer you know I had that medical gun to my head and he said if you want to save your life change your diet and that just kept going through my head I'm changing my diet I'm saving my life but many people have that medical gun on their head and they still go back to their old ways of life but you know the oncologist said you know you might have only three months maybe three years we just don't know how much longer so I'm thinking if I'm going to die there's something I really you must have a bucket list bucket list and now you revert to your bucket list what am I going to do if I if I don't meet the next three months what was on that bucket list for you Ruth it was running the Great Wall of China in fact I almost wore that t-shirt because it says I ran the Great Wall wow it's my second favorite there you are look at you yeah trim fit and beautiful yeah why it was such a that exhilarating a peak experience I remember it like it was yesterday running along the wall a little little elderly Japanese Chinese man started running along with me I don't know what he was speaking I had to be Chinese and he's jabbering along laughing and I'm laughing I'm saying I can't believe it here I am 47 years old just been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer and I'm running on the Great Wall of China who would have ever believed all this could happen wow and I'm fit and healthy still running and of course at this point I had never heard of anything called the Iron Man triathlon oh wow so now let me ask you when you were diagnosed it was like about how long three weeks a month later that you decided to go to China and three weeks yeah three weeks okay so at that point you already started veganism oh yeah then that day that day so now you've been a vegan for three three weeks yeah yeah okay yeah and then you decide to go on this trip now when you went to China was it difficult finding food to eat there oh yeah it was yeah it was challenging uh because all the rice was white they said oh brown rice is for prisoners and peasants no uh so you know I ate the white rice Dr. McDougall said if that's all you can get that that's good enough a lot of Chinese lived hundreds of years on white rice so I ate a lot of rice and I asked for all kinds of veggies the Chinese range of vegetables bok choy wan bok choy sum so I just said make me in restaurants just make me a big plate of Chinese vegetables and rice right and it was delicious right really I would have thought that it would have been great um easier access in Asia because uh yes they do stir fry with a lot of meats to enhance the flavor yeah but it's cut up and a little bit but you can always ask them no meat and just garlic or just veggie stir fry yeah and they can do that and you got the fresh veggies coming out you know just slightly al dente as we call it with rice and I think that would be perfect for your diet and water for beverage everybody else in in the tour group was drinking sodas and wine and beer and I'm drinking just plain water and that's it's fine that's perfect beverage that's exciting that's exciting let's move on so now you're now you're excited you're a runner and so now you hear this thing called triathlon yeah well again I hadn't gone back to work yet so that's when I had time to watch tv and so at this point I've gone through the newspaper I thought this is how I found Dr. McDougal and the diet I wonder what else I'm missing and so I was watching tv and just spinning through the dial and came across the abc wide world of sports and here was a runner and I thought oh wow and it turned out I had started in the program two-thirds of the way through okay and at that point I'm going to stop you two-thirds away into your new discovery we're going to take a short one minute break and when we come back we'll find out what you did to change everything more around all right so we'll be right back Aloha I'm Daelyn Yanagida one of our hosts of our business in Hawaii talk show on the ThinkTech Hawaii the theme of business in Hawaii is to share with you stories of local businesses by local people and our guests share with us their journey to building a successful business right here at home we are streamed live on ThinkTech weekly at 2 p.m on Thursdays thank you so much for watching our show I am Daelyn Yanagida and we'll look forward to seeing you then Aloha and welcome back all of you there and today we have uh with me Ruth Hydrick who is a I want to call her a celebrity in her own right especially in my heart and mind and to many others on the health journey but before we when we got started here on the show we found out that she was a three-time guest on Hawaii 5.0 with Bookum Dano and she had a life that was just full of running and great I mean if you look at her she was beautiful young and healthy and then all of a sudden she got that diagnosis of the stage 4 cancer and then she didn't know what to do she found a little ad in the paper a three-liner and it says for breast cancer patients please call and we want to make and put you on a study and it was by her blessings Dr. McDougal and again another forefront runner for the health journey and starting here in Hawaii in Kailua so she was very very blessed to find him and being directed in the right direction and after two hours meeting with him she became a vegan she changed her lifestyle because of what he shared with her as with all the research and made a drastic change in her life that was 38 years ago 38 years ago so she was diagnosed at 47 years old and then 38 years later she's thriving and well and just beautiful and so I was so excited to make her acquaintance and I just want to honor her her journey and I want to encourage others that she could be as wise to see that seek this information and find it and implement in her life look at the quality of life that she has now at 85 years old when they said go home and tell your kids and go do your bucket list items because there's not a lot of time for you but she got the right information from Dr. McDougal she acted on it so as I always say success is not being success is not just being at the right place at the right time which she was success is being at the right place at the right time and taking action as she did and thus here she is at 85 years old thriving swimming running walking breathing healthily and so that's what we want for all of you but she's here to share her journey with us so before we went on break she was going to share with us the little journey of her start to running okay take away Ruth triathlons triathlon yeah oh craziness iron man triathlon yeah I was watching television and saw the it was the third ever iron man triathlon and this was it was actually in Honolulu where it all started but by the time I got into it well actually I watched the the running part and realized this was like the Honolulu marathon well I'd run the Honolulu marathon a bunch of times and I thought I know how to swim I learned how to swim at age two or three in Lanikai where we lived right on the beach and I thought anybody can ride a bicycle I had an old rusty bike in the garage and I thought you know I'm going to try doing the iron man triathlon and then I found out by contacting them Valerie silk was the director at the time no woman as old as I this was a sport for young people and no one as old as I had ever done it before at that time and no cancer obviously had ever done it and no vegan had ever done it and I thought what an opportunity that's right in front of me all I have to do is add to my running which I was still doing every day and even while I was in the hospital the nurses thought I was crazy because I brought my running close with me even after the surgery I got back right back into running so it was my savior in terms of the stress the anxiety allowed me to sleep at night so I added biking and swimming to my routine and found out there were a few others on Oahu and Honolulu that were doing this so I worked out with them and this was 1982 and then 1983 you had to qualify you know you can't just sign up and say I'll do it and to qualify so in 83 there was a half iron man that was the windward triathlon in Kailua and so I entered that got a first place and that qualified me for the iron man for 1984 so that just kept up my training and across the finish line of that iron man triathlon which I have a picture of yeah right there oh my gosh this was let's see what we started seven in the morning right and you have to finish in 17 hours well this was my first one was a little over 14 hours okay so that's a long time so that was nine o'clock at night when I crossed the finish line the main thing is you crossed oh and and so and just I wasn't wiped out I wasn't tired sick of Olympian yeah yeah recovery right and so I'm telling all these other people vegan what what's that what do you mean you you got where are you from you gotta eat another planet you have to you need meat for the protein and I said do I look protein deficient you go girl and so now that wasn't enough and so you got word that there are iron man throughout the world and no actually I didn't know what you didn't know yet because I'd gotten a trophy continental airlines contacted me and and they said we'd like to sponsor you that they have an iron man in New Zealand and we'd like to send you there to do the iron man there oh my gosh and here all these other athletes would have died to get an offer like that sponsored by continental any any sponsor and so they sure enough sent me there and I while I was there they there's one newspaper in all of New Zealand's in New Zealand Herald and on the front page the next morning there's this picture almost the full front page of me and a Ruth a woman of iron with this two inch headline across the top oh my gosh so I came back to Hawaii went to the continental airlines office laid that on his desk Dennis looks at that and he says don't they have an iron man in Japan oh that's how you went to Japan yeah I'm thinking I just did Kona in October I just did New Zealand in March and Japan at least I'm figuring it out is August my vegan diet I'm just gonna keep right on and sure enough so here you are your finish line of my next there but what was unique about this one this was coming down the final 100 yards of the finish line and the people as you can see them all clapping and cheering and I was really so excited in fact I was in tears their tears storming down as I was so excited and happy and because continental it sponsored me they arranged for the publicity just like I got in New Zealand and so all these reporters and photographers came all around me and all and I was so you know I got a first place there it's the oldest female one of the few females at that time and these were all young men and every one of them would light up a cigarette you know this is Japan and they all smoke they had no idea it was unhealthy and I couldn't believe it and so the reporters started asking me questions and I'm fanning the air I can we get away from this smoke they looked at me you know yeah what's the matter so and so when I got back I went to Dr. McDougal and I told him of this experience and he said it's they don't get lung cancer because the diet is that powerful and I thought that's incredible these men at that time they all smoked but they were all on a diet of just like in China rice and veggies primarily even for breakfast they don't have bacon and eggs for breakfast they have miso and rice and it's the diet yeah it's the diet totally so the next slide shows a room full of trophies over a thousand trophies from races from 100 meter dashes to ultra marathons all thanks to your diet really Ruth absolutely yeah and every one of those has some really great memories I mean it's it's been the most amazing life that I was so that I fell into and as you said took advantage of it I acted on it and then I thought you know on my bucket list I'm too old to do the Olympics I could have been an Olympic triathlete but they didn't have them then at that time but I found out that there was a senior olympics wow oh my gosh but there was none in Hawaii okay I had to go to Arizona for the nationals and so I've got all the information and flew there found out I was the only one from Hawaii the only senior from Hawaii yeah to do the other countries have more seniors yeah yeah at that year this was 1992 and it was pretty pretty new yeah wow what a great honor that you were the torch weren't you the torch area yeah yeah this was for our senior olympics yeah carrying the torch so wow and how many gold medals did you win at the senior olympics eight you won eight yeah one for the triathlon and I did three others that were like a 10k race and a 5k and a 15 meter wow girl you got so many medals and accolades to your name and yeah it's amazing you know we're just as I said I didn't know all of that behind you all the great amounts of accomplishments but I know the the brilliance that you had when you met Dr. McDougal carried you through this great life that you had yeah and you know with that movie the documentary forks over knives to have two people from Hawaii represented in that documentary is amazing yeah you know we're going to come to an end to this show but I know I would love for our audience to be able to find out where they can get more information from you please do I spend a lot of time on email because on my website it has some information on there that's yeah that wasn't my idea the living legend I can't remember who came up with it anyway and then I've written a bunch of books let's see go down a little further oh yeah there's forks over knives that that was running in Canada oh my editor was started running as a result of editing a race for life and he said you know I figured out you've been running for almost 50 years we need to write a book on life on running thanks to those good old fruits and vegetables right and then people started emailing me with questions and so on my website there's a button for Ask Dr Ruth and so yeah go down further down to the bottom further down down down down down down all your books oh it's not it's on the the first well when they go to your website they'll be able to find it there yeah so we're just so grateful um Ruth Dr Ruth that you joined us today to just give us some encouragement and some hope that there's a future even behind a diagnosis and that's why forks over knives and that's why it's so critical the greatest love story of all so I want to just say mahalo to you Ruth for taking the time to be with us today and to get your message and your heart out to all of us here mahalo Ruth it's my pleasure