Barbell Shrugged - Julie Foucher Interview - Reigning Supreme w/ CTP

Episode Date: February 6, 2015

Yo, what's up everybody? This is CTP. If you don't recognize this voice, that's because usually I'm holding the camera on barbell shrugged. I don't do a lot of the talking. Yesterday I did something a little special, a little something different. I got on a Google Hangout with Julie Foucher. I asked her what she's been up to, asked her a lot of cool questions that I think you're going to get a lot of value out of. So definitely check this out. If you don't know who she is, she's a multi-year CrossFit Games athlete. She's in med school. She's an all-around epic person. So I definitely wanted to see what she was up to and kind of see what makes her tick. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue doing these, but hopefully

you like it. Let me know if you do. And without any further ado, here's Reigning Supreme with me, CTP. All right, what's up, everybody? CTP here. We're doing something a little different, something special this week. I got, and if you don't recognize me, that's because usually I'm behind the camera on Barbell Shrugged, so you don't normally get to see this pretty face and this awesome neck beard. But I've got my special guest today, Julie Foucher. Today, or this past week on Barbell Strug, we interviewed New York Times bestselling author Tim Ferriss. If you don't know him, check him out.

We've got the episode plus another episode of Barbell Business coming up tomorrow. But Julie's also a big fan of Tim as well. So we had been talking about her writing a post for The Daily and instead I thought it'd be cool for Tim Ferriss Week, kind of on The Daily, it'd be cool to have Julie answer the questions that Tim asked each

of his guests on his podcast. That is The Tim Ferriss Show. He has a list of questions he always asks them towards the end. A little rapid fire session. I thought it'd be cool to bring Julie He has a list of questions. He always asks them towards the end. A little rapid-fire session. I thought it would be cool to bring Julie on and ask her those questions. So without any further ado, Mrs. Fouché, are you ready? I'm ready. All right, cool. So who comes to mind when you hear the word successful?

So that's a hard one because I don't think of one person in particular. But for me, I think of people who are able to, you know, have success in the sense that you might think about it and be able to do something to change the world or help people, but who also have really good balance in their life. So people who can have a family are able to pursue other interests that they have too. So I think of professors that I have in school who are able to do that really well, just other people that I know that are able to balance multiple interests. That to me is the most important

thing for success. Yeah, and how do you feel you handle that? Are you pretty good on that side of things? I'm not the best. So it's always a work in progress. That's funny you say that because I feel like if I'm to be completely transparent, I feel like this show is almost, the show and the business side of things has almost taken over my life recently.

Or I should rather say I've let it take over my life. And I'm actually in the process of right now really trying to improve some of the relationships with family, friends, that I've just kind of, not on purpose, but kind of accidentally, you know, kind of let go by the wayside. So that's kind of cool that you say that. I'm with you on that. So easy to get caught up in one thing. It is. It's exciting, but in the end it catches up to you.

Right, yeah, I didn't want it to get any worse because especially with my family and my closest friends, you know, if it gets any more out of control, that's not going to be good. So, all right, well, next question. I like this one a lot because we're big on self-education and always, you know, Zach Evanesh, our friend, always says always be a white belt, always be learning. So what is the book or books you've most often gifted to other people?

I have to say a book called The Language of God. It's by Francis Collins. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's basically, so Francis Collins is a scientist. He right now, he's the director of the National Institutes of Health and he kind of set out to prove using science that God doesn't exist and ended up coming to the opposite conclusion.

And so that was a book I read in college that had a big impact on me, and I have re-gifted it to a lot of different friends who are kind of going through the same question. Right. And that's interesting you say that. I remember reading Neil deGrasse Tyson's, one of his books. Are you familiar with him? No. He did the remaking or the new edition of the show Cosmos. Okay. He's the director of the Hayden Planetarium. Anyway, really smart dude, astrophysicist, and one of the things he says that kind of on that topic is he says most of the world's, and I'm going to butcher this somehow, but he says most of the world's scientists, top scientists, don't believe in God. He said, but that's not, to me, that's not the cool, interesting fact.

He said, I think the percentage was like 95% don't believe in God. He said, but to me, the interesting fact is that there are 5% who do. Right. So out of, you know, so, and I'm kind of butchering that. You could go look up Neil on that quote, and I'm sure it'll pop up. But I always thought that was really cool that someone as smart as Neil was able to see that and find that very interesting and compelling. So any other books before I skip over that one?

Oh, I don't know. I've gifted a lot of paleo books to people too, just for people who are interested in learning about paleo or changing their diet. It's usually a good way to educate. Yeah. Kind of a bonus question. I'll go ahead and skip to that that I had.

That kind of goes on that note, wanting to educate people about nutrition. I'm sure being, I didn't even really introduce, I'm sure most of our audience knows who the heck you are. You're multi-times CrossFit Games athlete. You came in third this past year in 2014. And you will be competing again this year? Yep.

This will be my last year. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Are you sure about that? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Okay, I'll ask you why here in a minute, so we'll hold on to that. But back on to learning nutrition and exercise, I'm sure you more than anybody gets asked all the time because as well, you're also in med school or did you finish med school now? Nope, I'm still in school. That's why this is my last year.

Okay, right on. So you're in med school, you're CrossFit Games, awesome, epic person, extreme, and you kind of got your nutrition handled so you know you're pretty much for lack of a better word or I don't know that's probably not the best way to say it but you're you're an expert to most people in this world you are probably an expert when it comes to those things so whether you consider yourself or not and I feel like you know we get to hang out with the some of the top people in all of strength and conditioning. And a common thing that we talk about or that I hear brought up is it's easy for someone

who is an expert to want to overwhelm someone who's brand new into either their fitness journey or their nutrition journey or both. You have all the information and you almost want to, even if you don't mean to, you want to kind of impress them and you tend to try to tell them everything at once because you know so much. And have you seen this? Am I making any sense? Have you seen this in action before?

Yeah, absolutely. It can be really overwhelming, especially for people who haven't been exposed before. So I definitely want to start. Yeah, so my question is, as someone who knows so much, who could tell someone new anything, what is kind of the one, and this kind of ties into our episode with Tim too, what is the one thing that you tell them that kind of sets off the chain reaction so that you're not overwhelming them with, hey, you need to do this and you need to do this? What's kind of that first domino in the chain, so to speak, that you can give them to knock over

that in turn helps knock over all the other dominoes? Yeah, I think it's really person-dependent. So it all has to do with most of the things have to do with people changing some behavior and I think everyone is going to have something that's going to be easier for them or something that's going to be more realistic for them to start

with so I think it really depends on the person and where they want to start and then just helping them start with that one thing and then they want to start and then just helping them start with that one thing and then they're branching out I think

like thinking like nutrition wise I think the best advice you can give people is just to eat real food like for people who are not already doing that just eat food that doesn't come from a package that's the simplest thing the easiest way for people to discern. It's not complicated.

You don't have to look at food labels because the food shouldn't have a label if it's real food. So that's the easy thing to start with. Yeah, I like that. I like that approach too, especially when you're first starting off because I know even when you get into paleo, you could recommend the paleo diet to someone. And I guess at this point, the paleo diet to someone. I guess at this point, the paleo diet means different things to different people. I always hate when I meet someone who's brand new on it and they're really getting caught up in the minutia of the paleo

diet, really focusing on, oh man, I got some beans or some legumes. I'm like, oh man, I got some beans or some legumes, and I'm like, hey man, you're eating real food now. You're doing good. So I'm with you on that. All right, moving along. What is your favorite documentary and why? Actually going along the same theme, it's a recent. It just came out last year.

It was Fed Up. It's also about food, about the food industry, and a lot about the messages that kids are getting these days and how we're having, you know, such problems with kids and obesity and just the environment that they're being brought up in. And I really liked it. I liked the way that it compared sugar and the food industry to the tobacco industry. I liked how it created...it gave people something actionable to do. They

put a lot of emphasis on sugar and just eliminating sugar from your diet. It is something that everyone can do. I like that about it too. So, I mean, obviously you're a med student and you're really into health and fitness. Like what drives you to be in med school? Like what's your passion in that realm and kind of what are you hoping to do after school? Yeah, so actually when I first applied to med school, I never thought I wanted to have anything to do with primary care.

I thought it would be too broad, and I just wanted to be a specialist who was really good at one thing and knew that particular part of the body or that particular set of diseases really well. But that was also around the same time that I started doing CrossFit. And CrossFit has totally opened my mind to, you know, nutrition, fitness, all these lifestyle factors and how big of a, you know, now as I'm in medical school, realizing how huge these things are in most of the diseases we're seeing today. So

really, I shifted and I do want to do primary care probably through family medicine and ultimately help to make people healthier through their lifestyle, through helping people realize what's the right thing to do for them and yeah yeah I mean I remember this would have been about a year and a half ago I texted you and asked you if you had seen our episode with Dr. Jeremy Draper

he opened a CrossFit gym in Jackson, Tennessee and he's since moved it to Memphis, Tennessee it's called WellFit and he merges like a doctor like a practice and a CrossFit gym. So literally, and if you go back, I think it's episode 33. Don't quote me on that, but just look up WellFit, Dr. Draper, Barbell Shrugged. It'll pop up. But yeah, I mean, is that something maybe you're interested down the line, like where you can literally walk from your doctor's office to the gym.

It's all one building. That's the goal. I think that we need to, like right now for so many people, the CrossFit gym is kind of their center of their social network. It's the place where they go to hang out, the people that they go, just to spend time with or to have fun. And I think that that type of environment is where we need to be creating health and our, you know, medicine needs to be right involved in that. We don't need to have a separate place where you go and sit in a sterile environment with someone and they check over your lab numbers. But I think it should be very fluid between all these things that we're doing with our lifestyle not just exercise but

nutrition and helping people have better sleep habits and decrease their stress and you know the social connections are really important too so I think all those things need to be linked together and that's one of the challenges that we have right now in medicine and why we're so focused on disease is because they are so separate. It's sort of this thing that your doctor isn't really involved in. They just talk to you about it. Right. Yeah, that would be super cool to see down the road more gyms kind of doing that model.

Obviously, I have no idea what goes into actually being able to do that, but it was super cool to walk through his gym, and again, that's somewhere. Have you seen the episodes we've done by chance, or are you familiar with Dr. Kirk Parsley, sleep doc, former Navy SEAL? No, I haven't. Yeah, he's been on twice now, and he really preaches getting better sleep, and it's easy to just say get better sleep. And I think at this point, a lot of people in the CrossFit community, paleo community know to try say get better sleep. And I think at this point a lot of people in the CrossFit community,

paleo community know to try to get better sleep, but it's one of those things that's easier pushed off. And he makes the case that it's probably the one thing above exercise and above nutrition that you could, you know, the easiest thing to really go fix for maximum benefit. So that brings me to this question on the fly. How did you manage, how are you managing med school with training for the games, with just all life? How's your sleep?

Right. So actually, my sleep is actually pretty good just because I do prioritize it. Tell us your sleep habits. Yeah, I've been really lucky. So The first year of med school, my sleep was not that great because I was a lot busier. School was busy, training was busy. It was a full day and I didn't have much time for sleep. That was in 2012. Then 2013, I actually took the year off from competing just because school was so demanding. And then last year for the 2014 games and then this upcoming year, I've been able to sort of spread out my schedule. I'm doing research.

My program, we all do a year of research, and I've sort of spread that out over two years. So it's given me a lot more flexibility to be able to get my training in and still get my work done and get enough sleep at night. So I'm enjoying it for a few more months while it lasts. Yeah, and do you do anything special for sleep? Do you do the blackout curtains or do you do sleep mat? Do you do anything special or you just kind of make sure that you get in your full eight hours? Yeah, luckily for

me, I have no trouble falling asleep anywhere at any time. So I had to implement a lot of those things, but I do try to sleep in a dark room and try to help myself relax a little bit before I go to bed. So I'm like stressed out. I don't have a lot of thoughts going through my mind as I'm trying to fall asleep. Right. Yeah. The other guys on the show, they always have, or not always, but I feel like the rest of them all have trouble going to sleep. And me, I can like, I'll fall asleep while talking to you. My girlfriend hates it. She's always like, oh my gosh, stay up. But you know, it's a perk, unless the room is super hot. I can't do it if it's super hot. Oh, sometimes you'll go to like a hotel and it's like, man, they don't get any colder than this.

Come on now. All right, so let's see. Oh, speaking of rituals, next question is, do you have any daily rituals? There's things that I would like to do every day that I tell myself I want to do every day, but it doesn't always happen. Probably, sorry? What are those? that I tell myself I want to do every day, but it doesn't always happen. Probably...

Sorry? What are those? Oh, you know, things like the whole, you know, kind of winding down before you go to sleep, meditation. I do do meditation, but it doesn't happen every day. Definitely not. If I may interrupt, what kind of meditation do you do? Anything in particular on that front that you're doing?

I just do a basic kind of mindfulness practice and use it to go into some visualization that helps me get ready for competition and things like that. Cool. Yeah, I've been doing some. I was kind of in the same boat where I was on and off doing it, forgetting to do it, don't want to do it. And recently I've gotten really caught my stride in doing it all the time.

And it is really awesome and kind of, like you said, more mindfulness. During that time I usually like to think of, you know, some things that I'm really grateful for and kind of prioritize my day. But also just to kind of silence the mind a little bit and just enjoy just being. Cool. So no rituals. We're working on it. Maybe next time I see you, we'll be driving through.

On that note, because meditation and mindfulness kind of goes with your overall mentality, is there anything you do specifically before a competition mentally? Or how big is the mental game for you when you go into, let's say, regionals? Yeah. By the way, regionals this last year, you smoked that thing. I was there. I was watching. That was insane, the workout where you started on the rower and I was just like, what is going on

yeah, that was a lot of fun but yeah, the mental game is huge, I think that's a place where you can totally make or break you and for me, especially in regionals where you have so much time to prepare and you know the events

so far in advance, I do a lot of visualization beforehand and just kind of putting myself in the right mental place, the right sort of place where I know I'm going to be at my best. Kind of just, you know, visualizing, reminding yourself, you know, what you're doing, why you're doing it, and going back to some of those times where you felt like you were really in the zone so you can try to get back there. Alright, so here's the million dollar question. Why are you doing it? Why am I doing it? I actually wrote this down last year. I think that I've thought about it a lot, like what do you think your purpose is? Why do you think you're here? And I think right now my working answer is that I think

part of my purpose is to help people live more fulfilling lives and healthier lives, whether that be through CrossFit. Maybe I can inspire some people to live healthier or to exercise more or change their life in some way or eventually through medicine in a more direct way, working one-on-one with people. So it's all sort of working towards those goals, helping people to maximize their potential. Awesome. That's cool. Yeah, most people, I mean, that's something I struggle with too,

trying to think, what's my purpose? And I'm sure we all do. But I think it's always kind of going back to that and trying to just think about it. You've got to actually sit down sometimes and actually think about it to even get there. So you're not going to get there

not thinking about it. So it's a good practice to have in, something you can incorporate in your meditations to always kind of be mindful of that. So real quick, before I ask you the very last question, just a couple things on the fly that I'm thinking about. You're doing the Open this year, right? Yes, I am. Are you excited? I'm very excited. It's coming up quickly. So, you know, after multiple years of doing the Open,

what's changed at this point? Like, you know, is it the same? Yeah, I think that this year is going to be different, though, since there are so many changes to the format of the Open. So I have no idea what to expect, but I'm sure there will be something different. Mm-hmm. Okay. And does your gym throw down? Do you do them by yourself? so I have no idea what to expect, but I'm sure it'll be something different. Okay.

And does your gym throw down? Do you do them by yourself? I usually do them, at least last year, I did them all kind of by myself with a coach or with someone kind of talking me through it, maybe one or two people. It's just easier that way now that you have to have all the video cameras and all that stuff.

There's a lot of moving parts, so it's kind of hard to do with a lot of people. Oh, yeah. I think I saw a couple videos last year where, like, somebody would walk by and stand in front of the camera. Right. Yeah, I remember last time we talked was you called in when we were doing our open videos. Oh, yeah. So hopefully we'll have some more ridiculous open videos for everyone this year. Stay tuned.

Looking forward to that. Yeah. Let's see. So, okay, last question, and I'll let you go. If we gave you a billion dollars to improve the world, how would you spend it? That's a really tough question. I think, again, going back to the food topic, I think in some way using that money to give everyone access to real food so that it wasn't an know, that people could have real quality locally produced and grown food.

Awesome. Have you ever looked into, like, doing your own farming or anything like that? Not too much. I did want to be a farmer when I was younger, but I had not been. Oh, is that right? Maybe that's why you're heading this way. Maybe. It's all connected.

It's all connected, yeah. We got to do an interview with a local farmer in Vermont, and that was super cool to kind of see that side of things. And I know Mike Bledsoe, one of the hosts on Barbells Drugged, he's – I don't know if I'm supposed to be giving away the secret or not, but he's always talking about in the future, our long-term goal will be to have a Barbell Shrugged farm somewhere where we just have a huge farm.

It's like a big compound. I was like, man, are we starting a cult? I don't know what's going on here, but who knows? One day we might have that. Cool. Well, that is all I have. So, again, did this because these are the questions Tim Ferriss asked his guests. I want to thank you for coming on.

Do you have any shout-outs you want to give, sponsors, or anything you're up to? Where can people find you, stuff like that? Sure. I'm on all the social media, Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. And my website is JulieFoucher.com. And I have amazing sponsors in Reebok, Rogue, Beyond the Whiteboard, which is great for tracking your workouts. About Time makes great protein, Pure Pharma, RX.

Pure Pharma, RX Mercure. Yeah, Pure Pharma subscription. That's been super convenient and awesome. Awesome. You get all the supplements, you know what I'm talking about? Yep, yep. Awesome. So convenient for people who don't know what I'm talking about. Like they'll send you all their supplements in one little packet that you can rip open.

If you're like me and you're on the road, this is the best thing ever because you just pack it in your suitcase. It's all right there. It makes it super convenient. Like Tim Ferriss says, you put in the conditions and you set up the systems for success. That's the move.

I cut you off. What were your other sponsors? I think, I also didn't mention Fuel for Fire. Great little fuel packs. I like them for in the middle of your workouts. And Paleo Power Meals makes great paleo meals too. Awesome. Well, cool.

Well, hey, I appreciate you jumping on with me for a second. Maybe we could do this again. You were on episode 63 or something like that, a barbell shrug for people who haven't seen that one. We do most of the talking. Per usual, we interrupt our guests all the time, but we're getting better. So hopefully we'll have you on again sometime, maybe during the regionals or something.

You going to the Arnold? I won't be at the Arnold this year, no, unfortunately. Okay. Are you going to be in the area during that time or no? No, that's why I can't go. I'm going to be out of town. Okay. Well, never mind. Have fun.

I'm going to try to get Arnold on the show. Oh, yeah. Very cool. Well, I'll see you next time. Sounds good. Very cool. All right. Well, I'll see you next time. Sounds good. Thank you. Thanks for listening. If you like this, make sure you head over to barbellshrug.com.

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