When you think of Joe Rogan, “fasting” is probably not the first thing that springs to mind.
You might know him as a comedian. More likely, you know him as the voice of the UFC. You might even know him from the movies — Zookeeper and Here Comes the Boom in 2011 and 2012, respectively. And if you know him from his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, you may associate him more with politics and culture than with diet and health.
But Rogan is among a growing number of celebrities, including Hugh Jackman, Jimmy Kimmel, and Halle Berry, who’ve revealed that intermittent fasting is an important part of their lives.
Who Is Joe Rogan (and Why Should You Care What He Thinks)?
While celebrity endorsements often leave something to be desired, when it comes to intermittent fasting, Joe Rogan has the street cred to make his opinion relevant. Not only is he in better shape than most men half his age (let’s face it — the guy is shredded), he’s also a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu and a former kickboxing champion. He’s also a bit of a lay expert on fitness and sport nutrition, thanks to his time with the UFC and the many, many in-depth podcast conversations with experts such as Dr.s Peter Attia and Rhonda Patrick.
In other words, Joe Rogan’s fasting endorsement isn’t based on hype but on a combination of personal experience, expert opinions, empirical observation and science.
Why Joe Rogan Supports Intermittent Fasting
Joe Rogan has many reasons for being a firm supporter of intermittent fasting. One of the biggest is that he’s seen the results for himself. In one episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, he talks about the changes he experienced himself after adopting a fasting routine, from an end to the post-lunch slump to added muscle and more energy overall.
He talks in-depth about some of the more scientifically proven benefits of intermittent fasting, such as its ability to reduce inflammation and its positive effect on metabolically-related health issues such as diabetes and heart disease. He, like many medical experts, also believes that as a society we simply eat far too much and that intermittent fasting is one way to combat that tendency.
And as an athlete, one of the most attractive aspects of IF for Rogan is its ability to “supercharge” the body’s fat-burning apparatus and build lean muscle.
Joe Rogan’s Nutrition
While his diet, within his eating window, is pretty flexible, Rogan’s menu does have a lot in common with keto, primal and paleo eating. Though he isn’t a proponent of any particular “diet,” when he’s not fasting, Rogan does tend to eat like a caveman — in a good way.
“The diet is pretty strict in terms of no bread, very few carbs, no sugar, no bullshit,” he says. He unapologetically tells interviewers and guests that he eats a lot of meat — much of it wild game that he hunted himself — and even more vegetables. He doesn’t follow a strictly paleo or keto diet, but he believes that simple carbs (such as bread and pasta) should be eaten very sparingly, if at all, and are some of the most detrimental foods we can eat.
This is a topic he’s passionate about, and one to which he comes back to again and again, highlighting the links between refined carbs and obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and other diseases with a metabolic component. He may not eat keto, but he does believe that low-carb is the only sane way to eat if you want to stay healthy.
He’s also a firm believer in supplements — so much so that he co-founded the supplement company Onnit. He takes a multivitamin, probiotics and vitamins B12 and D. He says, and does “everything that I can to put my body and my brain in a good place, so I’m keeping my engine smooth. I’m changing my oil, I’m changing my spark plugs and I’m making sure that it’s operating.”
Joe Rogan’s Intermittent Fasting Plan
Like many others who’ve adopted intermittent fasting as a way of life, he follows a 16:8 plan. In practice, he fasts for 16 hours (including the time he spends sleeping), then does all of his eating during a single eight-hour window.
Joe Rogan usually skips the traditional morning breakfast and instead extends the fasting hours (breakfast literally means “to break your [night-time] fast”) into the early afternoon — a schedule many new intermittent fasters find easiest to adopt.
Joe Rogan’s Workouts
Given his age and the (incredible) shape he’s in, you might expect Rogan to follow a brutal workout regime. The reality, however, is much different.
Rogan is a fan of Pavel Tsatsouline, the man who introduced the kettlebell to the West. “I follow the Pavel Tsatsouline protocol,” he says, “where say if I can do 10 reps of something, I never do 10. I do five.” The idea, he says, is not to work out till you drop (and then have to spend a day recovering) but to work out less strenuously and more often. In other words, instead of working out to the point of failure 3 times per week, work out half as hard but more often.
How, he asks rhetorically, do animals and farmers get strong?
“How do animals and people and farmers get strong? Farmers don’t get ridiculously strong from going to failure every day. They get ridiculously strong from consistently taxing their bodies, moving bales of hay and picking up heavy things. You do that consistently and you get stronger and stronger so that’s mostly what I do.”
Whatever he’s doing — eating right, fasting, his workout regimen, or a combination of all three — it’s working. Feeling inspired by Joe Rogan’s example? Try intermittent fasting with our quiz – there, you’ll find meal, hydration, and fasting trackers; tons of useful content; and personalized health insights.
Author's bio
Linda is an experienced health and wellness writer, a proponent of intermittent fasting. For several years, Linda focused her writer on diabetes and nutrition, and she joined the Simple team to contribute to spreading knowledge about healthy eating habits.