EAT MORE PLANTS!

A graduate of Stanford University and Cornell Law School, Rich is a 45-year old, world-renowned vegan ultra-endurance athlete, bestselling author, motivational speaker, wellness advocate, husband, father of four and an inspiration to people worldwide as a transformative example of courageous and healthy living.

In his book "FINDING ULTRA: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming one of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself" (Crown / Archetype), Rich chronicles his incredible-but-true account of achieving one of the most awe-inspiring midlife physical transformations ever, morphing in a matter of mere months from middle aged couch potato to elite ultra-endurance triathlete, fueled on nothing but plants. A feat CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta calls, ''inspiration embodied.''

A member of Stanford's legendary swimming program in the late 1980's, Rich hung up his suit after college and never looked back. After recovering from a protracted battle with alcoholism, Rich succumbed to the sedentary throes of overweight middle age. But at age 40, he made a decision to once again overhaul his life, adopting a plant-based diet and reinventing himself as an ultra-distance endurance athlete. Just a few years later, Rich clocked top finishes at the Ultraman World Championships, a double ironman-distance triathlon widely considered one of the most grueling endurance events on the planet, then cemented his place in the pantheon of endurance greats when he was the first of two people to complete EPIC5 -- 5 Ironmans on 5 Hawaiian Islands in under a week.

Rich's plant-fueled feats of boundary-pushing athleticism have been featured numerous times on CNN and in the pages of the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, Stanford Magazine, Men's Health Living, VegNews, Triathlete, Outside, and 3/GO Magazine. In 2009, Men's Fitness Magazine profiled Rich as one of the "25 Fittest Men in the World" and both PETA and VegNews have repeatedly named Rich among their annual lists of the "Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrities."

Rich currently lives in Malibu with his wife, four children and two dogs. When he isn't writing, practicing law or spending time with his family, you can find him lost on the remote trails of the Santa Monica Mountains.