The Health Diaries

Why RXBAR CEO Peter Rahal Loves a Personality Quiz

‘It gives you a great sense of self-awareness, but it’s intense.’

There are many ways to live a healthy life. The Health Diaries is a weekly series about the habits that keep notable people living well.

Who thought a protein bar could ever create so much buzz? Peter Rahal, 32, the founder of RXBAR, certainly did. “I always wanted to build something meaningful,” says Rahal. “A bar saves you time and gives you nutrition. Why did they have to be so complicated?”

To build a better bar, Rahal and a co-founder started their company in Rahal’s parents’ basement in 2013 and began selling them to CrossFit gyms. The simple bars (one label reads, “3 egg whites, 6 almonds, 4 cashews, 2 dates, no BS”) have since become the go-to for gym junkies and people avoiding sugar, dairy, soy, and gluten.

Just a few years after launching, RXBAR was bought by food giant Kellogg Company for $600 million, and Rahal has remained the CEO. He spoke with Medium about his nutrition journey and love for personality quizzes:

I wake up between 6:30–7:30 a.m. on average. I only use an alarm clock if I have an appointment I can’t miss at 8 a.m.

After that, I shower and clean up, and then I will drink a glass of water and throw on clothes and hope I look okay. Then I’ll be out the door. I would say a typical workday is in the office 8 a.m. to anywhere between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.

My interest in nutrition came with time. I didn’t really understand that what you ate had a direct impact on how you feel and look. In my early twenties, I got into the science of nutrition, and I really connected the dots.

I usually eat an RXBAR for breakfast. I find myself coming back to coconut chocolate on a consistent basis. It’s our first flavor. For the first two flavors, we wanted something of a chocolate origin and something of a fruit origin. For example, our first two flavors were coconut chocolate and blueberry. The idea was that there are two types of customers out there: ones that like fruit and ones that like chocolate. It’s similar to ice cream. People like strawberry flavors or they want chocolate and peanut…