Ep. 368: The Fountain of Youth Is Movement: Rip Esselstyn on Fitness, Fun, and Community

But today we're talking about building fitness into your lifestyle through sport, community, and fun.

I think it is such an awesome topic as we broadly discuss fitness over 40, which I think you're, like, the poster child for fitness over 40.

I can only hope now that you're approaching, what, 73, 74 years old, that, uh-

Come on, man

... and you look great.

81.

You look great.

81, [laughs] exactly.

I mean, that's a joke for most people, but in your family, that's not actually, like, a joke.

I mean, when you look at your mom and dad, right? Caldwell and Anne are pushing 90, right? And like, yeah, I shared a picture, I shared a video of, of your mom with my mom and, you know, Anne was dragging a tire up a hill, you know, tied to her waist or something [laughs]She is amazing.

So in your family, those jokes, you pushing 70 or 80 years old is not, it's not really a joke, right? We all anticipate you'll be doing this at, at 100.

Yeah.

[clears throat] Well, you mentioned Ann, Ann and Essie.

Ann and Essie to me epitomize what we all can have if we're willing to live by a certain set of rules and guidelines, and it's super, super simple.

It's not complicated, really.

It's just about, you know, eating a whole food, plant-based lifestyle.

It is really understanding community and how to bring community into your life on a consistent basis.

And of course, it is consistently, consistently moving every day.

And you...

I, I can't even explain to you, I'll just, you know, shine a spotlight for a second on my mother, Ann, and how every day she goes to e-either a yoga class or a, um, [clears throat] some sort of a, a power, a power class where she's doing kettlebells and stuff like that.

She goes cross-country skiing.

She goes for an hour run.

Uh, in the summertime, she spends it at our, at our farm in New York, and so she runs around the fields there.

She swims in, in ponds.

She plays badminton.