Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #32 Noad "Neo" Lahat

Episode Date: May 7, 2018

Bellator featherweight Neo Lahat talks MMA, the fighters mindset, how his training has evolved throughout his career and the ways medical marijuana has helped him treat a debilitating disease. Neo Lahat on Instagram Twitter Facebook Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on Instagram Twitter Facebook Get 10% off at Onnit by going to Onnit.com/Podcast              Onnit Twitter         Onnit Instagram

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on it at checkout for $20 off plus a free slab of bacon on a podcast. We've got a very close longtime friend and training partner of mine, Noadia Lahat, better known as Neo. My man Neo is a guy I've trained for a very long time in AKA in San Jose, California. He moved out to Las Vegas. I joined him there shortly after. And, you know, he's been a brother of mine for a long time. We talk about all sorts of cool shit on this podcast.

He's a fighter by nature, but he's got a much bigger story than a long time. We talk about all sorts of cool shit on this podcast. He's a fighter by nature, but he's got a much bigger story than that. So we don't talk too much about fighting. A little bit about training, a bit about his coach who passed away recently. We dive into deeper topics. We dive into the benefits of cannabis, how it's helped him with ulcerative colitis. I'm not sure I'm saying that right, but that's okay. And it's been the fucking one thing. I mean, out of every drug prescribed on the planet, cannabis has saved his life. And we dive into that. We dive into some of the other plant medicines that we've had a chance

to take together and what it's like growing up in Israel, what it's like knowing you're going to join the military at 18. Like's there's no ifs and or buts about it what those experiences were like and just so much more i think you guys are really going to dig this podcast as i have and thank you for tuning in on a podcast with my boy neo no idea is that what we say it no idea no idea lahat israeli army ufc fighter longtime teammate from aka both moved to vegas you moved first led the way yeah i joined you there uh shortly after and you're fighting in bellator now fighting with bellator right we're not gonna talk about that shit we got way more cool shit to talk about way more let's let's dive into uh let's dive into some fucking the beginning, the origins, growing up in Israel and jumping into service as all are required to do.

Okay. Talk about that shit. What was it like growing up there? So first of all, you know that when you're done with high school, you go to the army. So you start all the screening for the military pull that mic up a little bit there we go around the age of uh 15 16 you start doing uh kind of planning the units you want to go to and you start doing all kind of uh testing physicals and uh and medical they say they see your profile and uh so me personally because uh

i volunteered to the to the to the unit that i joined so i knew exactly where i'm going to some people go and the day of it's like a lottery like i don't care where i go and they just select something for you yeah something like that okay yeah but i but I was a paratrooper, so I knew from the beginning that that's the one I'm going to. So I think that was a little different for me. But I know for you it may be weird, but for me it's reality. I know my whole life that when I'm 18, I'm going to the military. I know that's what everybody does. So it's not weird for me.

Yeah, and then going into that, like you have three years of prep kind of so you're doing physicals you're doing different assessments and as as you chose you planned out what you wanted to do like you wanted to be that so you got to go in and do that yeah how hard is it to get into what you want to do like a lot of people are like i want to go to the air force and they don't're not smart enough, or they want to go into this or that, and they don't make it, so they end up choosing something else. Is it fairly common that you can select what you want to do and get in? I think they try to come as much as they can towards you, what you want. But if you can't do it, then it's the military.

Yeah. And so your whole life you have obviously there's no shortage of war no shortage of violence it's all around you you're surrounded by it and so it's not like like getting drafted here in the states back in the day there may have been war there may not have been war you know and a lot of people would volunteer if there was a war like look at guys like tim kennedy who re-enlists after he's out because there's something to fight for that he believes in there there's no question it's not like yeah i might enter and then i can do my four years it'll be easy and i'll get out and get some government grants towards college and shit like

that's got nothing to do with that and it's a cultural thing how do you think that affects people growing up like like just being surrounded by violence more or less well i think we mature much faster you know than than the americans especially and we mature much faster. Uh, uh, Israelis in their twenties, they're more mentally like 35 to 40 American male, so you see the way they dress, the way they talk, the way they, um, like Israelis, usually they all go through a certain path. They all go to the military after the military, they go work, save money, and then go on the big trip. They go either South America or Southeast Asia,

places like that, for six months, a year, and then come back, go to college. And everybody work through college, you know, because you're already adult. You're not a teenager anymore. And then go to work so me i just went to the to the trip and never came back and you're a fucking world traveler yeah right when i met you i was like i remember uh dave camarillo was our jiu-jitsu coach at the time and um obviously you know we we he ended up leaving and we have uh leandro vieira checkmate

guy who you brought in yeah because he card over here is your your jiu-jitsu coach gave you your black belt uh one of leandro's older brothers one of his two older brothers but there was all this talk like you were already a black belt in judo you had just gone back to see jicardo in in uh brazil because he was down there and you wanted to get promoted. I think that's when you got your brown belt. Your purple belt when you first got to AK, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you've been all over the world.

You're like the fucking, the world traveler for training too. You know, we just did our taxes and Stephanie, my wife, was counting the days. I'm out and we come out of a little over 100. And I hate traveling. But I feel like if you want to learn something, you have to go to the surf.

So I wanted to learn Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I went to Brazil. I wanted to learn Muay Thai. I went to Thailand. And if I want to learn something from someone, then I go to the person. I like to go and not learn from YouTube or someone that learn from, I like to go and I feel that it's really, as a person, I always travel alone.

I travel to Brazil by myself, I travel to Thailand by myself, I travel to Europe by myself. I traveled to Thailand by myself. I traveled to Europe by myself. And it makes you grow as a person when there's nobody to count on. You know, I landed in Thailand in the middle of the night. I got to my hotel at 3 a.m. I couldn't find the hotel. What do you do in Thailand at 3 a.m.? I can't even read the signs. You can't find the hotel. I'm in the middle of nowhere. And then you get to the hotel. There you do in thailand 3 a.m i can't even read the signs you can't find the hotel

i'm in the middle of nowhere and then you get to the hotel there's nobody there you have to wait it it's like it's stuff like that you only when you travel alone you learn yeah and you speak how many languages uh so i speak four but but you but, you know, forgetting because, uh, cause you don't use it. Yeah. You can like Portuguese. Yeah. I lived there for a while and put in, uh, in Brazil, you have to speak Portuguese.

You can't, you can't, nobody speak, not even a little bit of English. If you don't speak Portuguese, you, you, you can get alone there. So I had to learn Portuguese, but Ricardo always make fun of me because they forgetting, you know, you're not using it you forget it yeah they're funny guys the vr brothers they're damn funny so how long did you spend in brazil did you spend some time there yeah a year overall okay yeah and then you've lived in a bunch of different places you lived in san diego in diego trained with uh dean lister and jocko willink for a while out there yeah a little bit yeah and then um that was right before you came up to ak is that right yeah trained at ak for a bunch of years and then out to vegas

yeah we were just talking to you i mean it's a pretty big deal it's it's newer i don't i haven't spoke with anybody about this on the podcast that knew him but i didn't i didn't even put two and two together that robert fallis was your coach yeah yeah yeah so yeah unfortunate deal man do you care is it okay to talk about that yeah it's okay yeah um break that down what that was like because i was at a wedding i was at nate corey's wedding up in portland oregon and everyone was talking about it and i had heard about it kind of through the grapevine before then, but I wasn't really sure what had happened. I thought he died.

I didn't realize he took his own life. Yeah, yeah. And everyone was really broken up about it. And obviously, we spoke a bit about how he had come from that background as a Jehovah's Witness, which is, without a doubt, a fucking cult. There is no doubt that's a cult you can say that about yeah you know some people would say all religions are cult some people would say i'm christian and it's not a cult or i'm jewish it's not a cult but there's

no doubt that certain ones like scientology or jehovah's witness they have very very cult-like characteristics and one of those is if you leave you're disowned and it's not just disowned from the church you're disowned from your entire family from life for life for fucking life and so it didn't it didn't hit me until i was at nate's wedding and he had tears in his eyes thanking me for coming and how much it meant to him and i was like fuck you man i wouldn't fucking miss your wedding you're my brother you him and i was like fuck you man i wouldn't fucking miss your wedding you're my brother you know and he was like no he goes you don't understand i have one family member that showed up for this one and there's hundreds living one came to my wedding

oh you know so it obviously it meant more to him than i understood you know but but so i think i had a moment like that with uh with foley's he came to my house in israel and he'd been at my family's house with my parents house for uh for almost a week and we show him the country and now when he left he thanked me and then he called them and thanked them and for me it was obvious yeah he came to my house and he said he never felt like that. Like, you know, he said he felt at ease right away. He felt comfortable with everybody. And he said he never felt like that.

And so to me, I didn't know about his past. He never shared with me. But I heard after I heard from Corey and he was talking about that. And then I realized and then you know You start making one and one and you realize You really know all the sudden you understand stuff you understand. Why is it mean to him so much all kind of stuff like that and to me it's really surprised me because Everybody knew him. One of my friends in Israel came to my fight and he heard about that. And he texted me, you know, I could never imagine that.

I was jealous. He told me that I was jealous of him for his happiness and how he talked and share and his positivity i could never guess that someone like that is actually depressed under you know underneath to the point you know so much pain to the point that you take your own life it's not it's not obvious yeah yeah that and obviously you were you were training with him in vegas he was one of your coaches and and um you know in mma there's you be you form tight bonds it's you know people make the comp people over compare this to war and battle far too often and as i'm sitting across from a guy who's been in war like it's yeah it's silly to do that you know even like football players in the nfl like we're going to war like no you're going to

play football it's not that but there is something where the bond the bond is the same right there's a camaraderie and you're going through you're putting your ass on the line you're maybe not putting your life on the line but you are putting your ass in the line it's the same to us you go to the cage you know you go with the mentality of there's a good chance i'm going to get hurt yeah really hurt you know and there could be long-term damage you know i've tried a great deal to unpack the brain damage that I've had through diet, exercise, supplements, and biohacks. But all that to say, like, you know, when you go to Vegas, especially before I get there, you know, and there's not a ton of people there. Like, you form really close connections to the people you train with, the people who coach you, the people you go into these fights with. Yes, especially all this time.

Obviously I was new in Vegas. All I knew is home and gym. So I didn't know anybody outside. He welcomed me to Vegas. Josh Thompson introduced me to him because I was looking to leave San Jose and I was thinking about Vegas. And I was talking to Josh and Josh told me,

I got the right person and Josh told me I got the right the right person for you and I went to Vegas I moved to Vegas and then I met him there met him there and he helped me and I trained with him almost every day for the for the two years I lived there so yeah you know it's the cutting weight that people don't realize it's not even the actual fight it's the cutting weight that's who's there, you know, and helping you when you're like, just about to every time it's a, that's the worst fight.

Like you're about to break every time. If you don't break, you don't cut weight. You know, that suffer of that, or like they push you when, you know, the right person to tell you, hey, you over-trained, you're not under-trained, go home and rest. That, you know, especially right person to tell you, hey, you over-trained, you're not under-trained, go home and rest. That, you know, especially in that sport,

we miss those people so much. And I think that's what I learned from him the most. I remember thinking when I got to AKA and you were talking about taking the day off because my pulse is a little higher and all I'm thinking thinking like, pussy. I was thinking that, look at this giant pussy. He's like taking the day off.

What's wrong with you? I got a little shit for that. Oh, so much shit. And today I'm like, oh no, he's not a pussy. I'm an idiot. That's the difference. So he helped me. And you know, that's like a mental thing,

like to take the time off. And I learned from him and you know, that's like a mental thing, like to take the time off. And I learned from him, you know, you want to get first healthy, then in shape, then the fight game, the fight plan, that's it. That's the most important tools to win a fight. And when you put the shape before the health and before the game plan, then, and we did it for for too many years and and nobody get healthier or stronger from that yeah that's why we see you know so much in mma

people keep getting hurt people have to pull out of fights like you don't get injured when you're fresh you don't get injured when you're when your gas tank is full yeah you feel great it happens at the end of practice. It happens two weeks before a fight because you've been overtraining for four weeks. So for me, thank God, I got a really strong hardware. I never got, you know, like a bad injury, but I fried my software.

Yeah. Yeah, so this is like I got hurt from that. And I learned, like now, unless I feel good, like I really, I feel good, I don't push. And because I'm older now, I'm not young anymore. I have already my black belts and stuff. So I know how to fight. So it's not about that. Now for me, it's about the timing.

It's about the game plan. It's about being healthy. And that's how I win my fights now. And the most important thing for me, because this is so, it's maybe the worst career path you can choose, but I just love doing that. So I make sure I'm enjoying doing that. If I don't enjoy doing that, that day I told my wife, that day I'm stopping. There's no reason. What's it all for? Yeah.

Right. So I make sure I'm enjoying in training. That I go to training, I'm enjoying. day i told my wife that day i'm stopping there's no reason what's it all for yeah right so i make sure i'm enjoying in training that i go to train i'm enjoying i'm not just have to pick myself you know those times when you like have to get off bed drag yourself to take hot shower just to warm up your body a little bit to be able to stretch so you can go down the stairs to get breakfast before you go to training and today i'm like no if i can't walk i'm not going to training i before you go to training. And today I'm like, no, if I can't walk, I'm not going to training. You know, there's like stretching for 40 minutes

just to be able to warm up. So I don't do those anymore. That's good. You finally found the way to listen to your body. Yeah, so he helped me with that. He helped me. It was like, I would come to the gym. I was like, no, go home.

I was like, well, what do you mean go home? Go home. I don't need you here. You can barely move. I was like, no, no, just give me like a half an hour i'll stretch i'll come back it's like stretch and then go home so uh so he got me out of that cycle he really helped me with that yeah that's tough man so you you took off to to thailand after to clear your head you went out and saw our boy Mike Swick. Yeah, yeah. He's got an awesome fucking gym out there I want to go out to see.

Oh, he built America over there. It's crazy. He got a little America in town. It's insane. He got this gym look like a little bit like that, only like MMA. Really nice. Everything is clean. Everything good taste.

I really enjoyed going there. You know when you have the cafe right there and everything is outside in the open so you train and then sit there and it was really nice i did a podcast with him talking about old how i got to mma and stuff oh the old yeah yeah i can't wait to get out there i'm gonna get out there at some point maybe i'll i'll get on it to take care of that trip if i podcast with swick we'll call it a business business trip that's the way yeah but he's um swick's been another dude that's been there from day one I remember when I got there this week was funny too because he really was like bat crazy yeah like you remember him blowing up he would take he'd be it was when so

swick was in the top five at welterweight with john fitch and kostchek in the top three and they would go to war with each other and if swick lost a round to either one of those guys who's in the top three he would spit his mouthpiece out start cursing at everyone in his corner so when we had a ring it's in that shitty mall that mini mall and start peeling trying to rip his gloves off before he could untie him he's like mother fuck i fucking just yanking shit off screaming and he just run it's like inconsolable yeah it was funny it was like watching like a five-year-old go ape shit so passionate yeah yeah he gave a he cared that much you didn't you want to lose fucking one round yeah yeah he's a good dude man i'm happy he's doing well out there and his gym's really successful

definitely want to make a trip out there but let's let's let's lighten it up a bit let's talk about one of my favorite things on earth weed uh-oh let's talk about cannabis i've been a pretty big proponent of this uh obviously both of us were in california for some time it is now recreational in california i helped vote for that before i moved and it now recreational in California. I helped vote for that before I moved. And it's recreational in the great state of Nevada where you live, brother. Yeah. So we got a lot of good stuff. Yeah. How has cannabis helped you?

Because you've had some pretty serious gut issues over the years. Yeah, yeah. Like I told you, I fried my heart, my software. My immune system just went crazy from stress, emotional, physical. I was training like crazy. I was really poor and I didn't want to leave the gym because every time I step out of the gym, it costs me money.

So I would wake up in the morning, come to the gym and for 10 hours straight, just train. And I didn't know how to go light. So everything was all out war. And a few years you do that, a few fight camps you do that. And, you know, the body start giving you signals, stop doing that. And, you know, I learned in the military,

everything is in your, right here. Everything is in your head. You just imagine the pain. So you push through and i was keep pushing and i got i went to the bottom when i was the the really the bottom when i when i cut weight for one uh one fight and i just couldn't put the weight back on i got to the fight it was i won the fight but it was one of the most painful experience of my life every every muscle in my body was cramping and I was in so

much pain and you can't stop when you cramp to take a stretch the guy's trying to take your head off and I was remember I was clinching with him and I hear my my back go park park park everything just get out of line from the pressure of the, of the, yeah, of the pressure of the cramping. Anyway, from that, I didn't got better. I had to go to the doctor, realized I'd been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. The same thing that GSP just retired second time for.

That's, I know I'm that much tougher. Yes. Hell yeah. So I've been at the bottom. I got to the point, if you see there's two years in my career that I didn't fight. I was in the gym every day.

I was 130 pounds, now I'm 165 healthy. I was 130 pounds, anemic out of my mind. Don't even know it. Help, uh, sparring the cage with Thompson, uh, help him ready for, uh, for his fight. Who walks around at 170. Who walk around. Yeah. Plus 175.

Like he's a fat kid. Yeah. So, you know, just Bob was looking at me. He's like, yeah, he wouldn't tell me that he won't get one. Let me fight, but, he wouldn't tell me that he won't let me fight. But he like keeping it on, just let me, let me, he wanted me to like to heal first. But in my head, I can't heal. So I was keep training.

I was in so much pain. I was in pains. The pain was so bad. It felt like every time I ate something that my stomach didn't like, it felt like I ate broken glass. You feel like broken glass coming down and going until it's going out. That's how it feel. Yeah, every once in a while you get cramping

and the cramping felt like I got a knife inside my stomach trying to come out. The worst pain I ever felt in my life. And I felt some pain. And you roll on the floor in pain, like cramping like crazy, and then it goes away. It's like, okay, I'm good. I'm good. Five minutes later, boom again. So it's the kind of pain that you can't get used to because it keeps attacking. I got to the hospital. They gave me a bunch of drugs that made me feel so much worse you remember me

prednisone all that shit yeah they gave me 80 milligram prednisone iv a day killed me like destroyed me i got home i remember i was on the couch like i couldn't pick up my uh my laptop i was trying to hold the laptop i was in bed the couch. Couldn't, it was too heavy. Couldn't hold anything. Everything I ate, always in pain. Couldn't sleep. Tried almost, I was on two different immune suppress and the steroids, the cortisone, the prednisone they gave me.

The side effects were horrible. And then Stephanie goes like, my like my wife hey why don't you try cannabis i'm like what's wrong with you i'm doing drugs now so like hey i you know they always tell that it's good for for stomach pain and stuff she so she uh she was like i'll let's go to the doctor there's those doctors the weed doctors in Cali. So I'm barely walking. She dragging me to the clinic. I sit there and the girl's like, okay, give us your driver's license.

I was like, I don't have it. Then we can't give you the card. And I'm like, I stand, I'm in such a bad mood. Fuck this shit. Let's go. Finally, like, oh, wait a second, wait a second. Do you have your license? Appointed my wife. And she was like, a second do you have your license appointed my wife

and she goes like yes do you have any of these problems and they they handle they handle a list a long list

she goes like yes I do have anxiety then you should have you should be treated with medical cannabis they call her in give her the license we go

we drive to the dispensary she goes in she comes out we medical cannabis. They call her in, give her the license. We go out. We drive to the dispensary. She goes in. She comes out. So she tell them like, hey, my husband is a beginner, never done it before. What do you got for me?

They give her edibles and a bong, this bong for a beginner, for someone who never done it before. I go home. I never smoked in my life. I never drink. I never been drunk. Never took anything. Cause my whole, you know, when I'm growing up,

I always wanted to be an Olympian. So my, you know, when the 14 years old stealing daddy's vodka, I'm like, no, that's not going to make me stronger. I'm not taking that shit. So first time ever, I'm 24, maybe 2000. I'm on something like that. First time ever I'm letting go and I try. I'm on something like that. First time ever, I'm letting go. And I'm trying to smoke and I don't know how to smoke.

So you take me like a few hits. I don't know what I'm doing. Did you blow into the bong? I swallow it instead of breathing it, like inhaling it. I was keep swallowing. So I'm like this shit, I'm not getting high. This is not going to work on me. And then, okay, I tried a few times

and then I took the right hit. You know, all of a sudden you're like, boom. And I'm laying back like on the couch. And I remember like then it was like already late because I'm trying to smoke and I can't. So I'm hitting it like a few times, like trying to smoke. I'm like, I don't feel anything. And keep hitting it. I don't, nothing at all.

You know, it took a few minutes to hit in, but when it hit, I already took so many hits. Lift off. So I'm going to bed and I'm so high out of my mind. And then my wife look at me and start crying. I'm like, why are you crying? She's like, that's the first time you smiled in four months. That's it.

That's the first time you smiled in four months that that's it that's the first time you smile in four months and you know and since then i tried every treatment possible from stem cell to every kind of diet to almost every medication there is nothing been beneficial to me like cannabis the only time i'm not in pain is when i'm high and when i fight that's it it's powerful man mother nature fucking figured it out yeah man it's so many i put my weight back on i can eat i'm relaxed and not only that it make me it really made me a better person. Because to me, there was not on and off. I'm always in fight mode. I'm always ready to fight.

And you would see on my face, you see like an older picture. I'm in fight mode all the time. The only time it's off, it's when I smoke. I don't get like crazy high because I'm always high. So I don't get that. But just to have that in my system and I know when I. So I don't get that, but just to have that in my system. And I know when I'm, when I have it and don't have it before fights that I can't like those weeks before, that's when I feel it. That's when, you know, the pain come back, everything.

And now that's another stupid thing that I can can take my medicine before fight. But, but that's the time that I time that it's changed me as a person. You know, I can turn off the fighter in me and I can relax and I can let go. You know, make me a better dad, a better husband. Because I can, you know, I get high and my son come jumping me. All I do is like hug him and kiss him and play with him and stuff like that. You know, instead of thinking about Kimuras and chokes and stuff like that you know instead of uh instead of thinking about uh kimuras and chokes and stuff or or the knee-jerk reaction of you just kicked me in the nuts when the kid

runs up and jumps on your lap you know and you're like oh what are you doing you know it's like ah oh okay be easy it's not as worse since they're running to you with like dirty hands and mouth your new clothes and like and like wiping it on you wiping the boogers all over you fucking grimy hands it's help you understand that like like a little relaxed like it's just fucking close who care yeah yeah it takes it takes the load off everything it's kind of like everything's a little sweeter everything's a of like um everything's a little sweeter everything's a little calmer everything's a little bit more relaxed you know it's funny because people think about these things you know and and it's it i mean i've been in airports i don't watch

cnn and shit like that but i've been in airports and seen it on and they're like they'll run some fucking stupid ass stat like such and such is up in the state of colorado since cannabis has become legal you know and it's like yeah but domestic abuse is down drunk driving is down duis are down fucking taxes are up schools are up like all it's a complete reversal you know uh including was something they really had a concern for which was the kids guess what kids have had access to fucking weed for fucking centuries you want fucking weed if you're a kid you're gonna smoke it i could have smoked if i was a kid and my friend was offering to me i was like no no thank you yeah i so i first tried it when i was 15 and i

was like it's not for me you know like i got high it was cool but i was like it's not for me i don't appreciate it yet i'll come back to it later. Yeah. And I did in college and I loved it in college. But it's a funny thing. And then now when they look at the stats in Colorado, kids don't start smoking till they're older. The child use is down. Because it's not that of a big attraction anymore.

It's not. Yeah. It's not off limits. It's there. It was accessible before, but now it's kind of like alcohol. It's like, okay, I know at a certain point i'll be able to smoke this and i also know more about it like i know what it does there's not like this like the veil is lifted there's not this huge fucking mystery mysterious aura behind it like you know what cannabis will give you you'll

get high it looks like this you know a lot of times they see their parents get high it's not a it's a social thing right it's not this thing cast into shadows where i'm gonna smoke weed in in the bathroom with the window open and not let my kids see it you know like yeah everyone i know that's in cali environment yeah like people smoke in front of their kids they don't blow it in their fucking face they want their kids to get high yeah and they're not smoking in the living room you know they'll go smoke wherever but at the same time like it's okay it's socially acceptable the same way you'd have a glass of wine in front of your kids and not worry about them raiding the pantry and getting shit faced when you leave for 30 minutes yeah you know follies told me that we're talking about follies uh he told me you

know the only side effects known to weed is that it may may lead to heroin use but if you know that right off the bat then there's no problem just just be careful not not to not to take heroin yeah that's funny well i mean alcohol is the ultimate gateway drug you say weed is the gateway drug it's like guess what alcohol is a fucking drug and i told this to many. I said it on the podcast with Uriah. Uriah was asking me. But weed, it is getaway to other drugs. But it's more to like shroom and like ayahuasca. You're not doing meth after you smoke weed.

Yeah, there's no attraction there, right? Yeah. But that's also because you understand the power. All right, we had a little hiccup there with the, with the, uh, with the zoom, whatever the fuck we're recording on. We had battery loss, but we're back, baby. So what I was bringing up was this point. When you have cannabis, you realize like, here's a plant that comes from the ground it's made by nature.

And whether you have a spiritual background or not, you begin to understand that maybe there's a little bit more interconnectivity than we thought maybe some things are here on purpose whether that's by design from a great source or a power or whether it's just fucking mother earth bringing up the goods and if you don't like it don't smoke it leave more to me yeah you don't have to yeah it's it's not it's not it's not a problem right it's not a problem for for everyone else if you're stoned it is a problem for everyone else if you're shit-faced drunk it's a problem when that guy decides to drive yeah it's a problem if that guy i'm violent this becomes violent with

his family or or at a bar it's a problem right it's not a problem when somebody's stoned it's far less of a problem at least right and so uh yeah you brought up a good point though that that when we start thinking of the plants and maybe there is a little bit of an awakening process where we say what other plants have a profound experience for us you know it was like healing for the body orange got vitamin c that one got thc you know what's other stuff got yeah and we look at you know looking into obviously you know we're pretty big fans here i can't speak for olive on it but for kyle kingsbury and aubrey marcus huge fans of psychedelics and the plants and um when you look into tryptamine-based psychedelics like psilocybin mushrooms ayahuasca dmt like all these things fit into serotonin receptors in the brain

they're quite healing for the brain and many parts of the body they help heal the gut they help heal a lot of things thc it fits into cb1 receptors in the brain but cbd and all these other cannabinoids fit into fucking every cell in the body like cbd and all these other cannabinoids fit into fucking every cell in the body like it goes throughout our entire system yeah you know and there's all these alkaloids and terpenes in the plants that have a number of benefits you know they used to just think of cannabis as like oh thc is the best so we'll make all these strains have really high thc and we'll dumb down the rest and then now it's come full circle we know that there's cbn and cbg and thca and every all these things have anti-inflammatory effects there's terpenes like

d-limonene which is what they use in orange oil to fucking rid your house organically of termites what does that do that gets rid of parasites candida it's antimicrobial it helps heal and get rid of bad bugs in the gut it's incredibly beneficial for the immune system whatever you said all this shit's in the plants though you know what i'm saying it's all it's all there right yeah and and and it's done that way you know i mean they used i think there's no way to know for sure but it looks like cannabis before we started mucking with it obviously it had far less levels of everything you know until we started to uh cultivate and crossbreed but i know we'd now it looked closer california wind strong a whole different ball game you know you talk to any any old timer used to smoke in the 70s and they're like man it's a

lot different oh it's way different but but it looked like things were much closer in ratio cbd to thc was closer to a one-to-one. All the other alkaloids and terpenes were much higher, you know, and there is balance and we're creating that now through research. You can still get those if you want to. Yeah, well that's- But what's beautiful today, you can, there's so many strains and they're so different.

You can almost get the medicine to whatever problem you have and you need. Like, oh, my problem is in the morning. That's what i want oh i i can't sleep at night you you take something that help you to sleep help something to help you you know like focus you can find those uh strength for almost everything and uh and that's amazing yeah we were talking about that earlier with with because israel has been on the front lines of medical cannabis yeah there's one there's one lab in Israel, in the university, that I don't know how to...

They're checking which strain good to every type of cancer. So if you have certain cancer, they can tell you which weed will be good for you. Yeah, that's phenomenal. I mean, that's the future. And for everybody that's, ah, snake oil, cannabis doesn't cure cancer, blah, blah, blah. Don't smoke it. Yeah, it's like, well, look, there are, hey, I don't say don't take chemo if you need to, but even if you take chemo,

weed will make it that much better. Yeah, and I know three really close friends of mine that have gone through chemo and cannabis they they get they credit everything to cannabis yeah their health being able to get through chemo being able to eat while they couldn't eat being able to sleep at night while they have a smile when you feel like shit yeah you're so sick and yeah and you have a smile you laugh a little bit it's kind of like the the the study they showed uh rogan was talking about how fasting can benefit and we we know now there's kind of like the the study they showed uh rogan was talking about how fasting can benefit and we we know now there's numerous studies one of the reasons i just finished a

five-day water fast fasting after four days kills cancer it kill it through cellular autophagy and apoptosis it's there's a natural recycling that occurs and the body's intelligent so it's not going to pick apart muscle and make you weak it's's going to clear out old immune cells. It's going to clear out anything that's become senescent. It's going to clear out anything that's become cancerous and it will digest and break that down first to recycle it into the body. Then when you eat again, you get a boatload of stem cells released and you create brand new immune cells, brand new cells where they're needed, right? So there's a refreshing that happens there. Many to do that but with cancer specifically not only does it help to eliminate cancer to reduce tumor size but in conjunction with chemo that was what was cool this study that rogan was talking about

where in conjunction with chemo it showed 300 benefit to chemo alone if you fasted with it so there's also studies that are coming out that show this benefit not in the same way and maybe not a 300 change but there's a huge benefit to having cancer with chemo i mean having i think there's a bit of it there there's a huge benefit to having cannabis with chemo right and so i think down the road as the as we see more and more science become available and like we were saying earlier, I mean, it's fucking dominoes. There's too much money to be made. Even states in the Bible Belt, they're going to see how much money is coming in from tax dollars. California has already stated

they will make a billion, one billion with a B in their first three years. And then it'll be a billion a year annually. Every fucking year year after that a billion in tax dollars and this is a state that is notoriously been known to have shitty infrastructure shitty government that doesn't know how to fucking spend money and so they can use that yeah but they're missing that because they become too greedy and trying to get too much and they're waking up the underground i think colorado set the bar high with 40 tax rate yeah but people still fucking pay it yeah they'll still pay it no but it's it's great for the for the for the everyday person they just go every once in a while if you if you pay an extra cents on on your drone that you smoke once a month just to just to have that ability it's amazing it is amazing and with colorado leading the way they're now funneling

money back into research so we have for the first time in the u.s state-funded research on cannabis that doesn't have to go through nih previously the government the federal government held a monopoly on all weed and it came i think out of missouri from one farm which grew shit weed you know just fucking like dirt brown mexican weed like the fucking worst weed on the planet and so all studies were done on that well of course it's not organic it's not fucking high quality and now through legalization and third-party testing yeah largely because the medical community it's one thing if you decide i'm gonna eat this shitty food it's another thing to smoke pesticides and herbicides especially if you have cancer it's a fucking big no-no right so what that's done is

it's raised the quality of cannabis across the board with third-party testing so people know what they're putting in their body you know if you get a 20 milligram edible it's 20 milligrams it's not from you know joe's kitchen where the fucking brownies. It's anywhere between 500 to 500. It's from the same batch. It's got to be the same, right? But it isn't. It never is. So I think it's really cool for people that are first starting out.

The products are clean. It's amazing. It's just everything is on a different level. And it's raised everything up because everything has to be transparency now. You don't sell it you know in the parking lot so this is uh and the regulation and stuff even though you know the pain in the ass but still just raise all the quality of everything and it's uh it's different game yeah it's a completely different game it's coming up big time let's talk a little bit about

the other plants because we had an opportunity a few years back fuck maybe five years ago it was a while ago yeah our old coach who passed away um we got a we had a chance to do ayahuasca together yeah let's dive into that brother break that break that experience down thanks well that was uh 2014 that was a while ago yeah it was that that was in the the indian reservation yeah i was uh it was my first time doing uh any kind of uh psychedelic straight to ayahuasca. Straight to the big leagues. Yeah, I don't play around. First fight was in the UFC. No big deal. Yeah, I really enjoyed that.

What I think, my view of that is different than yours. The way I see it, I think it's just growing up in society, any kind of society, either society or yourself or your expectation or your parents, you're putting checks and balances on your character. No, I need to go to school because that's what everybody's, that's what the good people do, so I go to school. Oh, I have to find a 9-to-5 job because that's what society good people do. So I go to school. Oh, I have to find a nine to five job because that's what society tell me to do. I need to do that.

Even if nobody tell you that, you're still being pushed and being limited to the certain things you want to be exposed to. And that's, I think, that's what you see when we did the ceremony. Most of the people were crying and they come with their resolution that, I need to change my life, I need to do this. The only people that are laughing, enjoying, and enjoying there, and it was me and you. That's it. There was so many people, everybody's crying and miserable and throwing up. Me and you, the only one happy, because me and you knew they didn't want to do what we want to do.

They wouldn't tell me, no, you have to be a fighter, right? I do because that's what I want to do. That was like a big, you know, going to that and not getting a real job, you know, years chasing that dream. And I think for me, it just took that and i just felt so comfortable with who i am over there and uh and you know the visions i saw all i saw is that i do what i love and and i think that's why stuff like that is so important for people that really know want to know the true self because you don't really expose your true self unless you can take those those checks and

balances out and just really expose the person you are how can you be happy if you don't do what you want because you you can't even tell yourself what you want like i have so many people i don't know what i want but they want they know exactly what they want they just don't have the guts to actually do what they want because it's a little scary to open a new business. It's not what you really want to do. And I think that's the main, why is it open people's eyes after that? I know what I want to do. I want to leave my wife and live with a man. Yeah, it could be anything it could be anything at all you know it is funny you brought that up because we were we had a fuck it was one of the

most beautiful experiences i've had gentle for sure yeah and um we were we were laughing we were enjoying it and it was a day ceremony the trees came alive i mean you're so connected in nature it was true beauty but i think the more you know there's there's no doubt there's been ceremonies that i've done it's different every time there's been ceremonies that i've cried there's been stuff that i've needed to let go and it is different every time you know i think what you recognize was a lot of people were in pain you know and it's it it doesn't take ayahuasca to understand that you can look around and and sorry to quote rogan again but like one of his pinned tweets is like we don't have a gun issue we have a mental health health issue in

america right we have a fucking mental health problem here there's no doubt that a lot of people are in pain and largely due to the fact that we do have these agreements you know they talk about that domingo ruiz and in the four agreements the domestication of man we're born into a system of ideas and from that we have more ideas placed upon us from parenting from teachers from elders from other classmates on tv you open tv and that's how a man should look like I'm sorry but there's not many men on tv I want to look like them you don't want to look like Johnny Depp in one of those fucking French cologne commercials. No. I don't know where they get the fucking recipe for these cologne commercials, but they're fucking so bad.

And they haven't changed them in 20 years. Oh, Luke Rockhold just got one. Did he? Yeah. Luke Rockhold. He fucking looks like a cologne boy. Yeah. A little fucking pen doll.

Luke's a little piece of ass. He's a hot piece of ass. He's a hot piece of ass. But yeah, you know, and I think there is that awakening process and it is different. And, you know, it can happen all in the same day where you go through some shit, you release that, you see the beauty in all things, you come to a greater understanding of what you want to accomplish in life and what are the things. Because people don't even produce the natural drugs that they're supposed to. They don't go to sleep in time. They don't exercise. They don't eat what they're supposed to do. So their body is whack out of hormones, out of balance.

So how are you going to feel good if the chemical imbalance in your body is so whack? If you don't sleep, you don't eat, you don't exercise, what do you do? You just be in a machine in someone's office to you know sit in front of the computer you're not human anymore yeah and you so a lot of i think a lot of people are uh are you know i'm not talking about people with a serious problem that depress and sick i'm talking about there's so many people that depress and they go to the doctor, hey, take this.

But the doctor don't tell them like, no, motherfucker, you're depressed because you're supposed to be depressed. You haven't seen the sun in two weeks. You don't exercise, you eat like shit or, you know. So yeah, you'll be depressed. So just adding more chemicals to that not gonna do anyone any good the doctors

aren't going to prescribe you more exercise or more sunlight it's your responsibility yeah and it's not it's just like i don't go to an auto mechanic for really good water i don't go to you know i don't go to the dentist for organic food like it's not in their wheelhouse to serve that to you right and some good doctors i'm not saying they're all bad but some good doctors will say oh you should exercise more but they don't even fucking know what that looks like a lot of doctors are fat and if and if or or just not in great health and and it doesn't like some of the doctors some of the best doctors i've learned from like dr stephen gunji who wrote the plant paradox high level fucking doctor dr david perlmutter who wrote grain brain and brain maker neurosurgeon high level doctor and both those guys were extremely

out of shape and in very bad health before that was the catalyst that caused them to change to realize that diet and exercise chicks at some point in your life your health gonna be your number one priority right sooner or later sooner or later your number one concern yeah there's no doubt there's no doubt and people push that aside like you know i'm just living life i like this thing or i like you know but i did the same thing for me was performance before everything else i was i was okay with sacrifice everything to perform better but surprisingly i didn't perform better it always catch up with you you know it'll always catch up with you at some point i look i fucking joke with

uh gary tonin online who's one of the best jiu-jitsu players in the world and he'll always post some picture of him eating like a fucking some shitty ass cheeseburger from mcdonald's or carl's jr or whatever he's 20 something he's 20 something exactly and he when he i remember when he went on rogan's he was talking about how like no i don't pay too much attention on that it's like yeah i could get away with that shit when i was fucking 20 also i could drink like a fish and go train at 5 a.m when i played asu football i could show up half drunk leaving the bar at 2 a.m at 5 a.m to work out and still get through that workout but at 30 you can't do that but i think even in 20 you'll pay for that in your 30s no doubt yeah a lot of this shit is unpacking the damage that

i've done right there's no doubt and so it's just it's just funny though is oh i got my degree in this and i know what i'm doing and you know or it's the 80 20 rule but what does the 80 20 rule really look like it looks more like 50 50 50 of the time you make good food 50 of the time you eat like shit and because you're you look good on the outside you think that it's okay watch it on the inside yeah so many people in fitness fit that claim you know that's why you know you follow like these instagram models shit like that and they're it's pizza night or it's this is that and i'm not saying i don't fucking eat pizza. I'll eat it against the grain. I won't eat gluten. But I mean, I'll throw caution to the wind every now and then.

But that looks more like 90-10. But I eat like even pizza and burger doing like fight camp. You don't have to eat shitty food to eat pizza. You can have a good pizza and have a good food. Like my wife make this pizza from cassava flour. Tastes just like, not just like bread like bread but tastes good but it's not grain you know you put that goat cheese stuff like that you want a burger you can make your own burger it doesn't have to be burgers all the time exactly it doesn't have to be a shitty burger

like i don't have to eat shitty food you know to to eat good food to eat food that tastes good it doesn't have to to be like i'm not eating a boca burger made out of beans just so i can feel like i can have a burger yeah right yeah no doubt no doubt so you've got uh let's talk kids your your your little boy was born two or three days after bear two days yeah two days ezra ezra he is he is a beast you know it's funny because they are like for the longest time we lived in vegas same height looked like the same weight same body structure both of them have their shoulders back like fucking defiant little animals running around tearing shit up yeah big ass and then he's got a big ass just like you but the only difference is he has your calves yeah chicken legs just the calves not on the thighs.

That's why I do my... That's why I'm a runner. I love running, dude. Every Sunday I'm going, you saw me, you've been there. Yeah, man. We'd go up to Mount Charleston, run at altitude. Yeah, man. You do most of the running.

I do some kettlebells. So check this out. I was in LA after my August fight and and I was in the beach with him, and all of a sudden he start running on the soft sand. And I'm like, okay, he'll get tired, he come back. He's not getting tired, he keep running. So I'm getting outside chasing him, and he's like, no, I wanna run.

So me and him running two miles. Since then, me and him running around the block one mile every night. He's three years old, not even. He's- Not three yet. Yeah, not three yet. He run every night. He's three years old. Not even. Not three yet. Yeah, not three yet. He run every night. He's a savage.

But he make me run with him. I'm like, dude, I don't need that mile run now. I just train twice. Daddy's on the train. But yeah, every night, me and him and the dog. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, that's really cool.

And you got a bun in the oven. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a daughter now. The little girl's coming. Yeah, That's really cool. And you got a bun in the oven. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got a daughter now. The little girl's coming. Yeah. Little girl's coming. And so this podcast will be out probably when she's here on earth. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. She's coming when? Next week or two weeks from now? That's up to her. Yeah. I guess that's right. We're just waiting.

Very cool. Somewhere this weekend and on. Do you guys have a name picked out we have a name picked out yeah uh we usually don't say the names that's uh like it's top secret we don't say the name until the until the baby's here it's like um we don't say the name we don't buy anything for the kid until he's here that's pretty good though then you get parents to to cough up the gifts and all that then yeah but now you know you got the second one so it's just uh hand me yeah what do they call that a sprinkle it's not

a baby shower it's a sprinkle yeah the sprinkle yeah that's awesome so are you guys have any have any plans to have more kids after that or are you just going to take it one at a time hey man you know i i uh i went to my went to my encounter a week ago, and me and my wife sitting there, and he's looking at me like, you know, you Jews not doing your share of faith. I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, look, Christians, over a billion. Muslims, over a billion.

How many Jews are there? I was like, maybe 20 million. He was like, you see? I was like, well, yeah, you got something. But I come from a big family. I'm one of five. And I like kids. I won't.

But, you know, it's up to my wife. But I want at least two more. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah, we wanted a big family. My wife's one of five. She has three step-siblings. I want to build a tribe.

Yeah, build a tribe. My dad is the oldest of five. My mom is second oldest of five. My mom is second oldest of five. My mom is one of seven. My dad is one of 13. Fuck! 13 kids? Yeah.

So there's a story. My grandma married my grandpa when she was three years old. Now that sounds like the most, yeah. When did they consummate the marriage? Around the age of, so let me tell you the whole story from the beginning my my my dad's family is from yemen originally jews in yemen um live among the muslims and they love the muslims if the the girl doesn't have a dad or a husband to own them then they come and take the girls so my uh my grandma's dad they killed him and then right away the same day her dad has died they found my grandpa and they

married them that day so the Arabs won't take her yeah so they got married my dad went back to his uh to his family they got to his family and around i think the age of uh 12 13 something like that they actually your teenage or something they got really got married that's awesome but yeah so they start really young so one of 13 that would be fucking nuts it's one thing to know you're gonna go into the military from the fucking first time you can speak and comprehend language it's one thing to know you're gonna go into the military from the fucking first time you can speak and comprehend language there's nothing to know like wait a minute i've already got a wife i'm already accounted for yeah i got a ball and chain so that was in yemen in 1947 a year after uh the independence of israel their neighbors decided that they're just gonna come and kill everybody so they left everything they had behind and just left to Israel my family the same

thing from from Afghanistan my mom family in the 40s there was a war in Israel Jews and Arabs and the Muslims in Afghanistan he said that somehow it's their fault even though they lived there for hundreds of years, start killing them, left everything behind, ran to Israel. Wow. Yeah, so basically, yeah, I'm a second generation to refugees, but we don't grow with that mentality.

You know, Israel is our land. This is our home. So we don't... And your parents are very successful people. Yeah, very successful. It's crazy to think that they left literally with nothing. Yeah, both of them grew up in a tent, you know, no home. We're homeless.

Israel was a young country. There was not enough food for everybody, constant war. My dad used to tell me the stories. They used to go look for just any kind of green weeds they can find, make a soup out of it to eat something, to have a taste in the water. And then my dad, they sent my dad to an orphanage, to a school in Jerusalem because they couldn't afford feeding him. And that's another trip.

He grew up there in Jerusalem in the winter snow. He used to go to the cemetery. The Jews buried their dead not in a casket, no chemicals, goes dust to dust. You go back to dust. So no clothes. You wear a cloth, something, they put you in a- Straight in the ground. Straight in the ground. So the clothes, nobody want to take wear a cloth, something, they put you in a... Straight in the ground. Straight in the ground. So the clothes, nobody want to take the dead people's clothes.

They throw it away. So my dad used to come and take those clothes. Yeah. That's how he dressed himself. That's how you get dressed. Yeah, so from that, you know, to where I am today, I grew up in a different world. I grew up, I had whatever I wanted to, you know, from... I could never ask for something I didn't have. I always had whatever I wanted to. I could never ask for something I didn't have.

I always had whatever I wanted to. So in one generation, the whole country just changed so much. It's insane. And now we're 70 years old, the country's going to be soon, and my kid is here. It's like a tech empire. We're a strong military. My mom was telling me when she was 16, they took all the high school kids in the 70s to the national park in Tel

Aviv to dig graves because there was a war coming and they expect that at least half of the population will be dead. So they took all the high school kids to dig graves. Damn. Yeah. that's a fucking whole different way to live yeah so you know you know you've been in my house you see how my mom cooked there's so much food yeah she grew up hungry so she can never think she can never bear the thought that anybody come to her house and be hungry that's why you always my mom is there the whole neighborhood's eating she's my favorite cook on earth yeah i'd say your i'd say your wife is probably a close second yeah she's learning

she's learning the the tricks of the trade yeah and tonight we get to feast you're cooking up a fucking i'm gonna break keto i hit this five day fast i've been balls deep in ketosis for a while now when i'm in town that's right now when you're in town when in rome brother i'm gonna do yeah afghan it's gonna be afghan uh rice and chicken yeah i'm fucking so pumped well we're gonna jam off this podcast so we can crush a workout get some good time on the mat you can show me some some jiu-jitsu shit that i've been missing out on definitely thank you for joining us brother it was awesome we'll definitely have you back. Yeah, for sure. Thank you guys for tuning in to the On It podcast. Make sure you check out my boy on social media.

He is at N-O-A-D underscore L-A-H-A-T. Noad underscore Lahat on all social media. We normally get to that at the end of the podcast, but my mind is on other things such as getting on the mats and learning from this great jujitsu practitioner, which we'll be doing here shortly. Thanks for tuning in, guys. And if you enjoy the show as much as I do, please leave us a five-star review. It helps get the word out, lets other people see what's going on here with this on a podcast. Thank you for listening as always.