Ruth Heidrich, Ph D, is inspirational! And she has a fascinating personal story. In the interviews below, she is almost 80 years old. I loved her style and her presence in her talks below.

Way back, in 1982, Ruth Heidrich was 47 years old when she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. At that point, she was a military logistician. Her ominous diagnosis caught her by surprise. She'd been a runner for 14 years, had run 3 marathons and ate what she believed was a very healthy diet — lots of chicken, fish and low-fat dairy.

Within a few days of her diagnosis, she incidentally came across a 2-line advertisement by Dr John McDougall seeking breast cancer patients to participate in a clinical study. She immediately talked to Dr McDougall and switched her diet overnight! She did not go for chemotherapy or radiation. Why? She explains her rationale at offset 16:51 of this video; she had stage 4 breast cancer; Dr McDougall asked her to find out (by asking her oncologist), "is there any evidence that chemo & radiation improves life expectancy (or quality of life) for those in her situation?"

A key factor that helped Ruth get convinced was the mountain of data that Dr McDougall presented from research papers. When Ruth decided to follow Dr McDougall's diet, her oncologist and her husband thought she had gone crazy [this is 1982 when 'whole food plant-based' or even 'veganism' were not well known]. But Ruth persisted. She not only overcame cancer but trained to become a triathlete! She decided to train for the Ironman Triathlon. She added swimming and biking to her daily runs.

By age 83, Ruth Heidrich had won over 900 trophies (that's not a typo; it's nine hundred), 6 Ironman finishes, 8 gold medals in U.S. Senior Olympics, and 67 marathons including Boston, New York, & Moscow. She's amazing! I enjoyed hearing her talks.

Raw vegan: I'm particularly inspired by Ruth's raw vegan meal plans because they closely resemble my own philosophy for preparing healthy food plates. Hopefully, some day, I'll transition to raw WFPB.

Personal story at McDougall: Ruth Heidrich: Defeats Cancer and Osteoporosis, Breast Cancer.

Website: Ruth Heidrich

FaceBook page: Ruth Heidrich, Ph D

Books:

• Lifelong Running (188 pages, 2013) by Ruth Heidrich, with Martin Rowe
• A Race For Life (192 pages, 2005) by Ruth Heidrich
• Senior Fitness (240 pages, 2005) by Ruth Heidrich