Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 546 - Losing 300lbs TWICE - Gormy Goes Keto

Episode Date: July 8, 2021

Gormy Goes Keto is the host of the podcast, “The Fat Guy Forum” and a weight loss coach for those who are in the same position he was once in. Gormy was once 540lbs and after discovering the paleo diet and a will power within himself to make a change for the better, and lost 330lbs by his 40th birthday in 2013. Unfortunately Gormy gained most of that weight back, but then successfully lost 300lbs again and has been able to maintain his new bodyweight. Follow Gormy Goes Keto on IG: https://instagram.com/gormygoesketo Hire Gormy as a Coach: https://www.theketoroad.com/coach-mike Listen to The Fat Guy Forum Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fat-guy-forum/id1472369190 https://open.spotify.com/show/4VrMW7FLva6i7RHMiqFcKs Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off the Power Project Panel! ➢Eat Rite Foods: http://eatritefoods.com/ Use code "POWERPROJECT25" for 25% off your first order, then code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off every order after! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 Subscribe to the Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

What up Power Project crew, this is Josh Setlidge aka SettleGate here to introduce you to our next guest Gourmet Goes Keto. Gourmet is the host of the podcast The Fat Guy Forum and a weight loss coach for those who are in the same position he was once in. Gourmet was once 540 pounds and after discovering the paleo diet and a willpower within himself to make a change for the better, he lost 330 pounds by his 40th birthday in 2013. However, this change was short-lived. By October of 2013, Gourmet had regained much of the original weight he had lost and was back up to 480 pounds. At the time, Gourmet had just accepted that he would live the rest of his life and die at that body weight. However, in early 2017, Gourmet changed his mindset and was able to lose 275 pounds again to get back down to 205 pounds.

He is now an advocate for breakthrough and health transformation, sharing his story and many other men's stories of struggles with weight issues of all kinds and the changes that they made to live better, healthier lives. On a side note, Gourmet is now on a new nutritional and lifestyle challenge called Just Meet July, but that is a different story. Please enjoy this conversation with our next guest, Gourmet Goes Keto. We're being recorded now? Yeah, we're being recorded. Uh-oh, be careful what you say.

Don't say anything bad. Why does it do that now? Maybe because people were recording without other people knowing no what happened yeah there's a there's like the school uh thing that had they had a meeting and all these teachers were talking hella shit on parents but they didn't realize that there was recording going on and it was like going live so like hella teachers were just like okay i'm just gonna resign now because they were saying hella shit about the parents it was bad so good it was great it didn't have anything to do with the guy whacking off that's probably happened a few times

too i know i'm guilty there was some guy uh like a tv guy um who like, he like beat off like during like a zoom call. And I think like he didn't know that his thing was still on or something. He's watching porn and like another window or some shit like that. Cause I think what it is is people like when they minimize the window, they think that so does the camera, like it goes away. And so they're just like, yeah, just, just acting like no one's

watching but literally everyone's watching i wonder if they like went on with the meeting i think people were like trying to be like no like they're trying to get his attention but he's already you know whatever porn has his intention by then. He found his video. He found the right video and he was like, it's this time. Let's get it. Y'all know, y'all know the struggle. I mean, former, former, former addict here, but you know, the struggle of finding the perfect one has to be just right. Gotta keep searching and searching. Oh my God. Okay.

Well, you know what? I'm done. I'm not even going to keep going down that rabbit hole, but cool. Yeah. Anyway, it was great having you guys in bodega Bay.

That was, uh, that was cool. Hitting the beach and, uh, grilling up a bunch of food. That was pretty awesome. Yeah,

dude. I really just loved it. Um, we, we didn't know, you know you know this is the first time we really had gone on like a long car ride and um on top of that you know just being fully like out right like um you know like well shit what if he shits himself like like all these things that we haven't really quite like had to deal with we've always had like i know we had

your house but we've had like a home base to get to to where like oh we have this room where we have this but we went to the beach it was like oh man what's gonna happen give them to you and he passes right out but dude it was incredible i'm always thinking that when i leave my house too like what's gonna happen if i shit myself even going on my walks and stuff i like i know where all the bathrooms are and everything like i need to be i got baby wipes in the car i'm like ready to go yeah yeah absolutely but yeah and sema you were right dude i felt like a million bucks after eating all that fat i told you had some fatty hop dotty patties from piedmontese um yeah and even stephanie was like okay how are these different than what we get

and i'm like well we don't get the full fat ones like these i like but on top of that mark cooked them on a um what's that thing called uh i don't know like a griddle yeah on the griddle so like blackstone thing yeah all the all the grease just kind of hangs out and gets cooked in with it dude it was so good yeah so good yeah You need to start eating 75-25. I gave you guys 15 of those, so you can tell me thank you later or you can just pay me for that later if you'd like.

I had four of those yesterday. I legit, every time I cook them up, I'll eat either five of them or four. I always just mess them up. They're too good. They were amazing. Plus, those hot dogs, don't forget, you know, they got over 20 grams of protein and I think they have about 10 grams of fat, which is usually hot dogs or the reverse of that.

Usually it's like 20 grams of fat, 10 grams of protein if you're lucky. But these are just steak tips according to the peeps over at Piedmontese. So you got to check them out. Yeah, absolutely. And so at the barbecue, I had, I think, just two hamburger patties and two hot dogs. And, dude, I was stuffed. I was like, wow, I'm done. I don't want to eat anymore.

I was really, really full. And then Andy Donald kept handing me some duck or whatever. And I'm like, this is really good, too. That was good. But, dude, I some duck or whatever. And I'm like, this is really good too. That was good. I'm like, but dude, I can't eat no more. Like I'm, I'm stuffed and I'm to the brim as they say.

But anyway, uh, yeah. Piedmontese, especially the, the hot potty patties, the hot dogs, everything else.

We talk about the flat irons, the pavettes, all that good stuff is incredible. And on top of it being amazing, we're going to get you guys an awesome deal. Uh, head over to piedmontcom that's p-i-e-d-m-o-n-t-e-s-e.com at checkout enter promo code power project for 25 off your order and if your order is 99 a more you get free two-day shipping so you can order sunday night be grilling by wednesday highlyly recommend it. Can't wait for you guys to check it out. Oh, you muted me. For today's guest today, it should be pretty cool,

you know, learning about, you know, the struggle that someone goes through when they're, you know, I think he was up over 500 pounds. So it'd be interesting to kind of hear his take, his mindset that he used to have versus the mindset that he has now and kind of what he's grown into. Yeah. What I love about Gourmet is like, he's very relatable. He's a real dude. Now, not many people can relate to weighing 500 pounds, but he lost weight. He

gained it right back. You know, and I think a lot of people have gone through that experience and then they've decided like, well, that's just who I am and that's just what I'm going to be. And to hear him kind of the comeback kid will say is kind of an awesome story. And I think a lot of people are going to dig his background and everything. Speaking of. Here we go. What's up, dude? Hello.

Hello. What's happening? How's it going? Man good man how are you i'm doing okay i'm doing okay i'm in i'm in sunny california how can i complain oh really what are you doing out here uh i moved to san diego um in the fall in the fall. In the fall. Yeah, one of the fun changes driven by COVID. I'm an East Coaster, a New England guy, and my sister has lived here for 20 years. And I saw COVID kill two of my careers and then start to affect my housing. And you kind of get into that situation where you need to make some temporary changes and it's when you're in your 40s the prospect of of temporarily moving in with mom and dad is not fun um and my sister and i have long talked about me moving out here so i was like why the heck not you know i'm a little more mobile

and what i'm doing right now so So might as well, might as well. So I'm in California now, which is very strange. But it's good. It's good. What do you think is a major thing that you've learned from the body weight that you used to be at versus the body weight that you're at now? I mean, there must've been some sort of, or not even some sort of, there must've been an addiction to food, addiction to just constantly like eating or drinking something. What did you have to learn in order to like break that habit?

Cause I think a lot of people suffer from that. Some people, you know, end up 300 pounds and people end up as heavy as you were. And some people end up with like diabetes or other diseases without barely gaining tons of weight. So what was it for you that kind of, you know, has kept you in this position to be able to hold it down for so long? Yeah, I think, I think for me, like it really was realizing that I wasn't just, I mean, I clearly was addicted to food. The way I used to eat was wildly out of control. Carbs, a huge part of it, but fat, protein, everything.

It's one of those things where I like to say I used to be a gourmet fatty. I would do my drive-thru runs, but then I would come home and I would make lamb curry with 17 spices in it and, you know, steam the rice and the vegetables and enjoy that as well. Like so I was on all sides of, you know, all areas of the plate were taken up. So I also realized that for me, though, it wasn't just food addiction. You know, I was addicted to that comfort. You know, like people talk about, oh, I'm a lazy person. You know, like people talk about, oh, I'm a lazy person. You know, like I'm not like I honestly just feel like I spent so much of my life not challenging myself, like really accepting this was my life. This was who I was going to be.

This was the way things were going to go. And so then you just start to reinforce that. And I realized that I had built a life that supported me being 500 pounds. Like you don't just get to 500 pounds and stay there. Like I, I've heard people say it before on podcasts, like, it's as easy as it is to kind of for the brain to take you there. It's work to stay 500 pounds, like, it's almost like you have to build a life that supports that. So I had to examine every area of my life, like realizing that, you know, I could barely walk in to a restaurant from

my car. And when you know, when you when you're a food addict, who starts to realize that you're not going to certain restaurants, because you don't fit in the seats, and you're not sure you can handle the walk in from the parking lot, you know, you start to make some realizations about that life that you're living. And I had to at the core for me, like it really came down to like, I'd given up on caring about living, like I just accepted that I got so much pleasure and so much what I defined as fulfillment from how I was living that I felt no responsibility to anyone else. I felt no responsibility outside of myself. And I had some things happen with my family where I had these kind of like come to God moments with myself where I realized that I wasn't just responsible for what I was putting in my mouth. I was responsible for this bigger sense of feeling and connectedness in my life. And so it shook me one night when I realized that I wanted to live

and I wasn't going to live if I kept going on the path that I was on. So really, for me, this journey over the past year, you know, the past four plus years now has been about that idea that I want to fight to live. And then it evolves, you know, it goes from I, and I was actually talking, talking with someone about this this morning, you know, when you're 500 pounds, making changes to the way you're eating, the way you're moving your body can be about surviving, it can literally be about, you know, grabbing that rope and trying to pull yourself out of that place where you might not live another year or three years or however many. And eventually, you're fine. You're going to survive. You know another year is going to come, but you still have to figure out what's going on

for you. So, from that place of survival to wanting to thrive in life, what life actually looks like for me, the things I can do now, you know, moving cross country would not have been something that I would have even thought about doing, you know, when I was, when I was 500 pounds, like I just wouldn't have even considered doing it. I wouldn't have seen it as possible because like, how could I even get myself and my stuff to that place? You know, I had done it once before years ago and it was not easy.

It was a huge challenge. And I think opportunities change and you start to realize that you can access life more. And the more you access life, the more you want to do, the more you want to be able to see yourself do. I just want to get an idea of like the timeline, because I know you've done that, like you've lost weight twice, but how long did it take you to get to 500 pounds the first time? How long ago was that? And then you lost it. Like, can you give us a timeline of like how long everything you, you were in every phase? Oh yeah, for sure. So for me, you know, I was big my whole life. I was

225 pounds when I was 10. Um, I was put, that was when I was first put on a diet by my family. I was, I was bribed onto Weight Watchers. I was told that I would be paid $3 a pound for every pound I lost. They weren't going to give me the money until I lost it, until I hit the goal weight. And honestly, I hit that goal weight. And then I went and spent that money on candy. Like I literally, literally like, you know, I, I planned this excursion where it was like, okay, they're done paying attention to me. I can go eat candy. And so I was, you know, that was sixth grade, you know, when I was 225 pounds and I got down to 110 pounds by seventh grade, because I'm fantastic at losing and gaining weight. And I entered high school and started putting weight back on. We moved. And by my, when I was 16, I was 350 pounds

and had my parents have another freak out moment and basically say, we're going to take your car away if you don't make some changes. So I went back to Weight Watchers and it's fun being 16 years old, sitting in a Weight Watchers meeting with middle aged women glaring at you when you lose nine pounds in a week. I remember very clearly this very large, intimidating woman. I lost nine pounds, I think, my first week. And, you know, they clap first week and they you know they clap for you and give you a medal and a ribbon and all these things you know weight watch is very big on like cheerleading and i sat down and this woman turned around and put her finger on my face and she said don't get too excited you're a man men lose faster we're not impressed and i was like

okay wow i'm very sorry i apologize i. I apologize. But I lost weight again. I graduated high school at one hundred ninety pounds, went to college. I went to college in Ithaca, Cornell University, which if you know the campus at all, it's all hills. So I think there was a combination there of my eating starting to get out of control in college, but walking all the time, all day, kind of kept it down under control. So I stayed in that, you know, two fifty, 300 pound range for most of college when I graduated. So that was, I graduated in 95. I'm close to 100 years old. So I graduated in 95. I started working. I was working in student affairs. I was a residence life person. I worked in the dorms and I moved to Vermont and my weight just kind of took off from there over the next few years. Um, my weight then went from 300 to three 50 to 400 to four 50

to North of 500. And I saw 500 for the first time in the early two thousands. So I was probably in that 500 to 540 pound range from about 2002 to about 2000, um, 2008, 2009. Um, and then I, like I said,

I had moved cross country. I decided to kind of pursue some other opportunities. I moved from Rhode Island to California. And I, if you remember 2008 was the economy collapse. So I chose a great time to move. Um, everything was really,

you know, everything was coming up Everything was really, you know, everything was coming up roses. I, you know, a 500 pound person moving cross country then and then trying to find work and all of that just was not adding up. And interestingly enough, if you're not making money, you start to lose weight. I know, you know, food has nothing to do with our, you know, there's been a lot of posts on social media recently that, you know, what you eat has nothing to do with your body type. But apparently, if you're poor and don't have money, you start to lose weight. So I went on a little bit of a poverty diet. I moved back to the East Coast in 2009.

And once I got work, surprisingly, the weight came back. And I was working at that point for a family company and that had been open for 40 years. And through everything that was going on, the company closed, which was devastating to my family, but also devastating to me because there I was 500 pounds and realizing that I could barely walk into an office for an interview, nevermind, like look presentable, show someone that I could work for them. You know, like I hate to talk about these things in these terms sometimes, but the reality was I wasn't hireable. You know, I was a mess. So I decided I had that opportunity

to work on myself. I needed to get work to pay rent, all of those things. That was when I discovered paleo. It was right when the whole 30 was first kind of popping up and people were talking about ingredient quality and all of that. So I dove headfirst into paleo and by 2013, my birthday in 2013, that was my 40th birthday. I got down to 210 pounds. That was the goal that I had set for myself. And I had spent a solid, you know, two and a half years or so, um, just hammering away, white knuckling through, um, honestly, like I, as much as I loved what I was doing with paleo, it was always about just holding on to the rails as tight as I could and pushing to get the scale to move. Um, I was starting to do fasting

before fasting was something anyone was talking move. I was starting to do fasting before fasting was something anyone was talking about, because I was just trying to calorie restrict. So I was like, well, if I eat every other day, and then I only eat a little bit on the days that I eat, you know, that's even, you know, that's going to keep the scale moving even more. So I, you know, it's funny, because I was listening to one of your episodes that you put out like a week ago, the Q&A, and you were talking about when fasting and calorie restriction starts to become disordered. And I think that started to happen for me. Like I was just chasing the scale.

I had nothing to do with what I wanted my life to be like. I had done no work to prepare myself for what my world would be like when I went from being 500 pounds to 210 pounds. And when you've lived your life significantly obese, and then all of a sudden you're quote unquote normal there's a lot of changes there's a lot of different things that happen there's a lot of things that you're not expecting from the world that you've never even learned about

and which is why for me so it was may of 2013 i was 210 pounds and i went on vacation and came back from that vacation and fell off the rails hard, fell deeply back into eating the way that I used to eat, living that life, convincing myself that all the changes I had made weren't worth it. There was just a lot of just really powerful self-delusion that this was not what I was supposed to be doing. And I shot back up in weight. By the fall of that year, October specifically, by mid-October, I was 480 pounds. So I put on 270 pounds in under six months, which people hear sometimes and don't believe.

I've got pictures. You know, it was happening. It's not. That year was about eating. Like I was eating almost every moment I was awake. It was about indulging every whim. I like I say it was like a someone who deals with alcohol issues going on a bender that lasted for months. And I came out of it and coming out of it.

It wasn't like, holy crap, what have you done? It was more, OK, I guess this is the way life is going to be. Let's just accept that this is what's going to happen. You know, you may die soon. You may not make it like, but hey, at least you're happy, right? You know, you had pizza last night. You're happy. And I just lived that life for a few years. And I really had convinced myself that there was no future for me beyond what i was doing within that world like i like to say the bigger you get the smaller your world gets and when you start to build that really small of an existence it's hard to see outside of that bubble um i wrote a letter

to my family that i used to keep by my bed just in case i didn't wake up because i was convinced i wasn't going to wake up one morning and And the letter was all of this bullshit about, you know, don't worry. You know, there was nothing you did wrong. I lived a happy life. And, you know, to me now, when I talk about it, it almost makes me uncomfortable because of the hubris it takes to be able to like put something like that down on paper and, and pretend, you know, pretending somehow that's okay. You know, like that's going to make everyone feel better. And it really was just about how lost I was as a person. And it took coming out of that. Like I said,

it took finding that desire to live. And I, it doesn't make sense to a lot of people that it took me being in my forties to finally realize that I wanted to be alive. Like I was just existing for decades. Like it was just, whether I lived or died, I didn't care. I didn't, I didn't go to doctors. I didn't do anything to take care of anything medically for myself because I knew the answers I was going to get. I knew what they were going to tell me. I knew I most likely had diabetes from the symptoms I was showing. I knew that I was experiencing challenges and difficulties. I knew that I probably had sleep apnea

and I was terrified. And I never went, I hadn't gone, I didn't go to a doctor until I finally got pneumonia a year after I started keto or not a year, about six, six or seven months after I started keto. And that was the first time that I had to kind of face that music and like deal with that. And I don't think if I had started this, if I hadn't started this journey, I would have went to the doctor when I was sick. I probably would have just let whatever happened happen. It was realizing, Hey, you know, you've been telling all these people that you're fighting to live. So now you need to face, you know, this biggest fear that you've ever had in your life. So that was 2017 that I started that I came around to keto, like I discovered, I feel like when you're someone who significantly. I tried every diet, like you can name almost any diet, and I tried it at some point in my life.

You keep up on what the trends are. So the K word had kind of bounced around a bit. I'd heard it out there. I bought Vinny Tortorich's book. I bought Jimmy Moore's first book. And I never read them, but I had them because I think you feel a little bit better, at least if you have the books in your house. and my my the situation that developed for me in 2017 was my parents were adopting two infants and that were a part of our family that were going to go into the system and i had a discussion with my dad and he basically said you know we're older we're doing this but we're going to need your help

and i was like okay okay yeah that's great and him saying that had nothing to do with him pleading with me to not die like he was never judgmental of me like was very kind of accepting and but it was more about him expressing a real need that he had and it struck me you know to have another human being basically saying i need you around because i realized that as much as he was saying he wasn't going to live to see them graduate high school, I wasn't going to live to see them go to preschool if I didn't do something. And I realized that I wanted to make change. So I knew I had to do something. I knew low carb was always something that helped me with the severe hunger and cravings and all of those things that I dealt with. And I also knew I needed to be more mindful. I needed to work on what would come as I

went through this journey. How know, how was I reacting? How was I feeling? What was going on with me emotionally? And needed to work on that. So it was February of 2017 that I dove into that world. Do you feel that you've been successful with actually changing yourself? Or do you feel that there's still a lot of those urges and like they're just being suppressed? You're just trying to steer this ship.

I think that's a great question. I like to, the way I like to kind of define it is I think a lot of the, the behaviors are still there, you know, waiting, simmering under the surface. It's,

it's the same challenges, but I feel like you get better and you get stronger at fighting them when you find the tools that you need. Like for me, like I honestly, like I know there are people that can, you know, count calories, just count calories, do it if it fits your macros and have great success. You know, and I applaud those people. For me, eating a higher fat, low carb diet, you know, specifically kind of a well formulated ketogenic diet, finally gave me freedom from the physical side of what I was dealing with, you know, gave me a physical relief from the cravings, gave me physical relief from the

constant hunger. And that allowed me to actually realize what was just the stuff that was inside my head. And what are the things that I need to work on inside my head and started to help me build that place of mindfulness. So I think it's going to take constant vigilance for the rest of my life to survive. I don't think I'll ever feel like a hundred percent normal person because you see people who go on these weight loss journeys and they post on social media. I was at a party last night and there was a tray of cupcakes sitting in front of me and I didn't want any of those cupcakes because they look like garbage and I know they're made out of crap.

And I'm always like, you are a dirty liar. You know, if there is like a chocolate frosted chocolate cupcake tray sitting in front of you and you're alone with it, you know your hand is starting to move. But I think the win is acknowledging that I want those cupcakes, but I'm not eating those cupcakes.

You know, and it's not about willpower. It's not about like, am I strong enough to fight the cupcakes? It's about realizing I'm making choices to do better things. I'm making choices for things that are more important. It really isn't about the idea of food leaving my life. It's the idea of me not making food the center of my life. Through the journey, how do you kind of like, just let yourself be a little bit without being like too mean to yourself or without being like too restrictive, as you mentioned, maybe only eating every other day, like some things that you maybe learned through that process? Well, I, one, I think you realize that there's times you need to be mean to yourself.

You know, there are times where you need to tell, you know, give yourself a good talking to and tell yourself that this is not, you know, you're, this is the bullshit starting to come back. This is the crap inside your head that has nothing to do with what's going on. But as far as,

so one of the big things for me, honestly, is with myself and with anyone I'm interacting with or anyone I'm coaching, like I don't like the word cheat meal. Like I think the idea of cheats, it just makes no sense to me. You know, cheating never gets us anywhere. You know, I talk, I think of life as choices. I think of life as choices that all have consequences. And some of those consequences are great. You know, when I eat along, you know, the plan that I like to follow, I know that my body feels better. I know that I feel better in the gym. I know I, you know, look better. I know all of those things add up in a better way. But I also know then there are

moments where I choose to have those deviations, make those choices that are quote unquote, not on plan, but are those worth it moments for me? That was an idea that was put out to someone, a friend that I had on my podcast really early. He said, you know, he lost his weight and has kept it off for eight years. And he said he thinks about life in these moments of whether something is worth it or not. And he defines what's worth it. And so for me, what I've had to think about is, is something worth it? So I went to Disneyland last week. And I'm a Disney freak in terms of the parks.

I love that environment. I love all of that. And they have a thing at Disneyland called the Matterhorn Macaroon, which is a hybrid of a coconut macaroon and a shortbread cookie. It is the shape and size of a mountain covered in white chocolate snow. I hands down believe it is probably the

best cookie on Earth. You can only get it in one location, the Mary Poppins Bakery in Disneyland. You can't get it anywhere else. The only time you're getting this cookie is at Disneyland. And when I go to Disneyland, I have a Matterhorn macaroon. And I sit in Disneyland and I have a Matterhorn macaroon. And this experience that I have in that place, it's not that I walked down an aisle at a supermarket and saw a bag of Chips Ahoy cookies.

And so I grabbed a bag of Chips Ahoy. Like it's realizing that there are sometimes, I think sometimes it's okay to place experience, make food be a part of an experience as long as food isn't the only part of the experience. Like, I think it's important for us to acknowledge that because I think there's a lot of strict people out there. And I was one of them for a long time who was like, Thanksgiving's coming. I need to prep all my food. I need to have it in small containers and bring it with me and heat it up separately from everyone else's food so there's no cross-contamination with gravy, and sit there at my plate and be somehow morally superior to everyone else because I have this steamed turkey instead of the pasture-raised organic turkey

instead of the turkey that has the injected stuff by Purdue. And then I eventually realized that there's something to be said about coming together to share a meal with people that we, we developed culture because we shared food, you know, early go back to like kind of early hunter gatherers. They realized that together, they could get better access to food and could survive. And I think there's something deeply ingrained in all of us, that idea of kind of breaking bread together, even though it may not be bread, that idea of kind of sharing those times. though it may not be bread that idea of kind of sharing those times and so some of those moments are worth it but is the so if if my

grandmother is making her pie you know that she only makes once a year that's a different experience than my aunt picking up a sheet cake from costco to bring to a birthday party you know because costco sheet cake i've had before. I know what that tastes like. I know what that's going to be like. That's not something tied to an emotional experience or anything in my life. So I start to think about, I know if I eat that piece of pie or eat that piece of cake, I'm going to see a scale bump. I'm probably going to feel like crap because I really don't eat a lot of wheat. So when I do, my joints swell up and I deal with some pain. Is that worth it to me or not? You know, what's actually worth it to me in

this situation? So I make those decisions based on those opportunities. I think also, though, you have to not fall into the trap of having so many worth it moments that you're not following any diet. You know, like there's, it can't just be that a holiday is worth it. Because we know now there's a holiday every other day now, like, okay, so we finished Memorial Day, and then it was time for July 4. And now July 4 is done and people people are prepping for Labor Day like there's always going to be another big celebration you know especially you have a big family there's going to be a birthday party every other month it's about determining is it being honest with yourself is this actually a worth it experience and sometimes it doesn't mean that it's the best

food in the world I remember I when I was working was working with a coach myself, we were talking about kind of building like what maintenance means and what worth it experiences mean. And this was before COVID, obviously, because I was I had it like I finally wanted to go to Europe because I never traveled internationally because of being as large as I was being in a plane for that length of time, not fitting in the bathrooms on the plane. Although now I understand that there are a little bit bigger bathrooms on some international flights. I'm that old that I didn't realize that was going on. I was talking to him and I'm like, I want to go to Ireland because my family is Irish. I want to go to Paris because I want to go to Disneyland Paris. And then I, so the situation I set up for him was if I'm in Paris in front of the best French

bakery and they just put out a fresh tray of croissants, I'm probably going to have a croissant. If I found myself in Italy, I would probably eat pasta. But am I going to have pasta back at the Olive Garden here in the States? Probably not. Like that's not what, if the opportunity is something that I could just access all the time, then I need to understand that my choices have to be about

what's better for me every day instead of what I could access all the time, then I need to understand that my choices have to be about what's better for me every day instead of what I could access all the time. Because I used to have a constant flow of access to all of these foods that I love to eat. I never turned anything down. I never stopped myself from getting anything. It was always about saying yes. So it's learning about saying no. And then the power of saying yes when it's appropriate has been a big part of it for me well i mean dude an incredible story and there's like a lot to that we can revisit but i wanted to go back to when you were being bribed to lose weight as a kid um can you dive a little bit more into that and i mean because i'm sure so i mean these days i'm sure some parents have thought of it but they've probably um you know oh, wait, that's not accepted these days. But I guess with your young adopted, I guess, brother and sister or brothers or siblings, whatever, I'm not sure exactly what you have.

But what's the approach there? What would you recommend somebody even try that? Like, yeah. What, what was your experience like? Um, in a lot of ways it was traumatic for me.

Like, and I honestly think it shaped a lot of what came in my life because even though I was a big kid and I went through the experience of like playing little league and not being able to fit in the little league uniforms. And so like basically having to go to the uniform store and buy men's pants and have them altered so that i could play little league and all of that i still never really had shame about my body or about my size until my family really started in on you need to make change you know we need to do something about this my aunt it was the weight watchers queen we like to call her she had probably done 10 rounds

at that point herself. And it was so long ago that children were not allowed at Weight Watchers meetings. So we had this big family, almost an intervention night, where my parents and my aunt and I had cousins over. And a large amount of my extended family was there. And they're basically like, you can't go to the meeting. So we're going to do this at home. My aunt's like, we'll meet up once a week. We'll weigh you in. We'll write it down in the book. And I was terrified of being weighed by my family because at that point it was like, I don't even want to know. Like, I'm going to have to tell you. And so we go in the bathroom, my aunt and I, and she's like, don't worry, I'm not going to tell anyone. This is just between us. This is just between us. Like, don't worry, I'm not going to tell anyone.

This is just between us. This is just between us. And so I got on the scale and her face dropped. Like, she freaked out. And she ran out into the living room and told everyone what I weighed. And basically was like, oh, my God, he's 225 pounds. Oh, my God. And so it was like, that was that first moment as a kid of connecting hysteria to what it meant to who I was.

And then I think what that ended up building in me was like that rebellious side as a kid. Like, okay, you don't like that I'm fat. Well, I'm going to show you how fat I can be. Like, you don't like how I eat. Well, I'm going to show you how I can eat. Like, I really think. Let me just pop in here for a second and explain why this situation is so fucked. So when I was a kid, I got the nickname smelly because I hated to take showers, but my parents didn't control my showering. Like I was allowed to go shower whenever I wanted to. So in your situation,

the reason why it's bullshit is you're 10 years old. Somebody's feeding you. Somebody's presenting you with food. Somebody is keeping food in the house. And then so to try to bribe you to lose weight, unless the whole family's on board, unless someone came to you and said, hey, you know, we're kind of recognizing as a family that we should be a little healthier. So we're going to change some things up. We're going to go to the park a little bit more often. We're going to change some of the foods. We're going to swap out some fruit. And every Friday, we're still going to enjoy some dessert or something along those lines, something more reasonable. But what happened to you, I think, would probably be

traumatic for nearly anybody to go through because at 10 years old, you don't have any agency or any knowledge or any skill or tool on how to cook for yourself, how to take care of yourself. If no one ever really explained it to you before. So that's where I see the problem. The problem isn't necessarily addressing that you're heavy. Oh yeah. I think that actually that's, I think that's reasonable. But for the,

for your parents or whomever was kind of involved or in charge to probably shoulder that blame more because they're responsible for what you're doing, I think would have probably been maybe a little bit. It's a tough thing to figure out exactly how to handle. But for me personally, that's probably what I would have tried to do. And well, and think about it. It was 1983. You know, there was no there was no Internet. There was no one really talking about diets. There was no one really talking about health. There was no real education out there. My parents were young. My parents at that point were probably 28, 27, 28. They had me very young. don't i don't fault you know i i think they saw a crisis and had a crisis response you know it was the dam is breaking we need to fix the dam and don't worry about how well we we shore up the dam for the future we just need to stop the dam from breaking right now and so i don't fault that

but i do think now especially right now like i think you hit on the on the thing mark like if because when i made changes no one else in my family made changes. So it was never about like, was everyone else eating the same food I was? Nope. It was me having my Weight Watchers meals and my steamed chicken. And you get very good at figuring out with Weight Watchers how you can fit in a Reese's peanut butter cup as long as all you eat the rest of the day is boiled chicken breast. And I had many days where I was eating boiled chicken breast in one Reese's peanut butter cup because that was the way the points worked out. But I think it's about making family habits and realizing, like, what are you building?

What are the habits you're building as a family? Kids learn to eat based on the food that you're giving them. Like, they don't learn to eat because they have a buffet put in front of them where they can make choices because yes, of course, sweet receptors in the mouth, they're going to, they're going to love the first time,

you know, kids have, there's videos all over the place of kids like trying ice cream for the first time or trying candy for the first time. And it's like lightning goes off in their eyes because it literally is like lightning going off in their brains. And if you work with your kids on choices and work with your kids on role modeling that, and then that's the hard part though, because then the parent has to admit that they need to

change something. And that's a whole different ballgame than wanting to change your kids. Like, I think that there's some ego that comes into play there. Like, do as I say, not as I do is very big, I think, when it comes to these situations, but for me, I just, it was traumatic. And that's why I said, like, for me, it was about, even then it was about holding on until they stopped paying attention. It was about holding, getting through the diet so that they would stop because we also back then, and you know, some people still do this today. You think that once you hit quote, unquote goal weight, you're done, you know, everything's done. So it really was like, I had these people cheering me on and watching me like a Hawk until I hit that goal weight, you're done. Everything's done. So it really was like, I had these people cheering me on and watching me like a hawk until I hit that goal weight. And then all of a sudden,

it was like the race was over and the banners were all down and there's leaflets on the ground, but there's no crowd left cheering you on. You're just left there to figure out what you're going to do. And I was 12. So it wasn't like at that point, I was like a, like you said, like a fully invested adult who could understand what my choices were going to mean i was a 12 year old kid who was given 300 and i did with a 12 year old kid who's given 300 who's been dreaming about swedish fish for months does i went and bought the biggest bag of swedish fish i could get my hands on like wild what do you think is the main thing that might be misunderstood uh about people that get to be you know 400 500 pounds um well one i i think obviously that

the people assume that they have no consciousness about their their size and what their life is like you know it's like people want to get in your face and be like, you know, you're big, you know, you're fat. Oh, I didn't know, you know, you spend so, you know, I didn't know that that chair wouldn't work. I didn't know I wasn't going to fit in that plane seat. I didn't realize that I couldn't fit in your car. Like you're conscious of it. I think one of the big things that's misunderstood though

is that it's not just about the physical, you know, it's not just about what their relationship, what food is like. It's not just about how they move through the world. It's about how exhausting it can be mentally to live that life because you're spending so much time planning. You're spending so much time making sure that you're going to fit into a space that you're going to have clothes that work. Like I, especially for me, like nowadays, like you can get big and tall clothes on Amazon. You couldn't do that when I was, my heaviest. If I needed clothes, I couldn't even get them in a store. There was no store that I could walk into and get clothes. So I had one option. It was the king size direct

catalog. It took them two weeks to ship. So if I had something coming up where I knew I needed a bigger shirt, I had to plan in advance to know months in advance because then the shirt would arrive and it wouldn't fit because their sizing is off and all of those things. Like you have to start playing all these mental gymnastics. So when people assume that a person isn't thinking about what, what is going on for themselves, they are like,

it's there. It's just that something else. It's that idea that something else is more powerful. You know, I used to go through all of that, but I didn't spend, I wasn't miserable every day. You know, I wasn't waking up crying. I wasn't waking up railing at the world. And, you know, the, the, I think of the image of Eddie Murphy in the fat suit and

the nutty professor crying, watching TV with the, you know, the Reese's pieces in his mouth and just crying with them falling everywhere. Like that's not what life was like, you know, I had built what felt like a happy life to me, but it was such a small restricted life. Like there was just things that I, you know, there were times that I made excuses not to go to family events because I just physically didn't feel like I could do it, you know, or because I didn't want the food that they were going to be eating. And I wanted the food that I wanted to eat. Like you start, you allow it to dictate your choices and almost let that autopilot go on. And I think it just, it starts to take up so much space in your head. And it's also amazing to me, the malleability of the human brain, you know, the idea that

you can, you know, because I think there are some people that hear me say, you know, I was 540 pounds. I couldn't stand for more than five minutes. Walking 25 feet to my car would wind me. You know, I couldn't fit in most people's cars. They hear all these things and their eyes get wide and they get terrified. And they're like, if that was my life, I would have run

screaming as fast as I could to a gastric bypass clinic or gone somewhere or done something. And what I you adapt. So it's a gradual adaptation, but then it just becomes your normal. That's what like

on the way to go to dinner with my family. It was normal for me to get food on the way back home. It was normal for me to start using grocery delivery because I had gotten so big that walking around the grocery store was exhausting. And I wasn't going to, I'm like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to test the weight limit on those electric carts. I don't want to be that person. So I'll just get my groceries delivered. Now, of course, everyone now is getting Amazon Fresh and all those things and Whole Foods delivered. But this was back when there was one grocery delivery service.

And I was like, well, that's just what I'll do. That's how I'll adapt to this. This is what I'll do. I remember I got a cold once and I needed to get cold medicine and there wasn't going to be a delivery window from the grocery store. So I had to go to a store. And I remember sitting in my car, parking as close as I could and watching for the store to get less crowded. So I knew I could get into the store, get the medicine I needed, check out and get back to my car.

And actually, when I was in the store getting the medicine, the line got bigger. So I ended up putting the medicine down, going back to my car, sitting, waiting for all those people to leave, go back and find the medicine I had hid at the front of the store and cash out then. And I tell this story now and I'm like, this sounds insane. This just really sounds insane. But for me, that was my normal. That was the life that I was living. That was what I did every day. So it didn't become something that stood out to me as, well, maybe the average person doesn't do this. What paralyzes you when you're that big? Like, what's the thing that prevents you from, you know, cause you're thinking of all these things. You're like, man, it would be great if I didn't have to, you know, wait for a five XL shirt.

So, uh, you know, starting on Monday, I'm going to do this. What prevents that starting on Monday? What's what prevents, uh uh someone who's that big for starting what paralyzes them well first i'll say it was an axl shirt that i was waiting for so they make them uh they make bigger than that um some people don't sometimes think about that idea but um i think what you know i'm not even sure it's what paralyzes me. It was about what I didn't want to stop, you know, because I knew that in order to make change, I was going to have to stop eating. I knew that I was going to have to give up, you know, to some extent, the food that I enjoyed. I was going to have to give up the experience that I had when I was eating. You know, for me,

cooking was this like rapturous experience of like creating this feat. Like it was about feasting. It wasn't just about mindless eating for me it was about consciously like i'm loving this flavor i love this combination you know like it was food was sport you know like it you know i wasn't a i wasn't on the professional eating circuit with you know joey chestnuts or any of those guys but i saw food as sport like for me it was a challenge was, can I eat all of that? Can I, you know, what can I make this, this dish that no one's ever heard of? You know, can I dive into this? Like I feel like most of the media I consumed even was food network, you know, was TLC special, you know,

discovery channel shows about exotic food and exotic places that I would never be able to get to because I was eating so much food, you know, like you can't travel the world when you can't physically travel the world. But hey, you can have the food from those places. And you can make that food in your own kitchen, and you can eat and enjoy it. Like, I don't necessarily think it was, you know, fear of making change for the sake of making change. It was a fear of what I had to give up. It was a fear of realizing, you know, that I'm going to have to start moving my body, you know, as painful as it is, I'm going to have to start moving my body, I'm going to have to get that going, I'm going to have to do something. And I think it's hard to live in that place of existence. And then is because it's

literally like the immovable object and the irresistible force, you know, the irresistible force is death coming. And the immovable object is me sitting there, you know, ordering this, ordering a second pizza. Like I had to realize that sometimes you have to step out of that place and have to be willing to fight for something else. You know, I'm curious about this, man. Like back then, what is it that I know that food made you very happy at the time. Um, but was there anything else that brought you a similar level of happiness? And then even now that you've lost all that weight, have you replaced that with anything? Like, have you replaced the feeling that you got from food with anything else or does anything still even meet the mark? Oh, for sure. Um, I, I think back then,

you know, obviously food was the primary driver. Um, I think, you know, obviously food was the primary driver. I think, you know, I enjoyed time with friends. I enjoyed all of those things, but I don't think I felt satisfaction. Like, I don't even think I felt satisfaction in the work I was doing. Like, I just felt like it was something I was good at and I could do it and could be the size I was and do it. And so it was the path that I chose. And I think now what I get a similar feeling from, a sense of fulfillment is from these discussions, is from being able to share my experiences with people, is from being able to work with others now to help them see where they're at.

I love the conversations I have on my podcast. I love being able to talk to other people and see what they've gone through and find our similarities and find our differences. I love, you know, being able to physically do whatever I want to do. You know, I love, I am notorious in some circles for the fact that if when I go to the gym, it's usually four o'clock in the morning, four 30 in the morning, because I like it to be empty and it's often not, but I like it to be less crowded. I like to get it done because I feel like it sets you up for the day. I love that I can do that. I love that I can actually physically get up and go out and do that. Now. I love that if I want to

take the dog for a walk, it's not about thinking, am I too tired to do that? I love if I want to go down to the street, to the ocean, I can go down the street, to the ocean. I love, I want to go down the street to the ocean, I can go down the street to the ocean. I love I walked almost 11 miles at Disneyland on Tuesday and didn't pat an eye. You know, like it's about accessing the world when you couldn't. Like when I used to go, I used to go to Disney World all the time when I was bigger, because for me, Disney World was an eating place. Like I love to eat my way around Epcot. I loved all of that. But I would rent a scooter, a heavy duty scooter from an offsite location that was dropped off at your hotel. So immediately, as soon as you're dropped off by the airport shuttle, you can get right on it and never have to get off it. And now I can experience things like I even realized that there's so much to like.

And again, I feel like I'm just talking about Disney, but there's so much to that experience that if you're using a scooter for your mobility. And again, I'm not denigrating anyone who needs to use it you know like along those lines but when i got to a place physically where i am now i can experience different things you know different parts of the ride different parts of the ride queue like the lines and all of that they have different experiences that you can see i can move through that space and i don't have to worry anymore about do i fit i don't have to worry anymore about do I fit? I don't have to worry anymore. Can I make it? Like, I don't have to. It used to be so much for me. And I think the thing that I love the most now about my life is that I don't say no as much. Like, it used to be that I would just always say no before I would even consider an opportunity or an experience because I would just assume that I couldn't do it.

And now I feel like I say yes more without considering things. And sometimes that doesn't work out to your benefit. And you figure out that you got suckered into something that you probably didn't want to do. But I can say yes, because I know there aren't going to be physical restrictions on what I can do. You know, it's not going to matter to me if we go four hours without eating. It's not going to matter to me if we have to hike up the side of a hill before we can get to the location we're going to. It's not going to matter whose car I go in. It's not going to matter how I get there. it's not going to matter how i get there it's not going to matter if i need to walk to a bus stop you know like all of those things like the freedom to be able to say yes

is such a powerful thing that i don't think we realize how much we say no because we have created that limited life that ability you know we've lost the ability to just have that that unknown you know like to have those things be things that you don't have to plan out all the time you know, we've lost the ability to just have that, that unknown, you know, like to have those things be things that you don't have to plan out all the time. You know, I developed into becoming a very structured planned person. You know, I had to always be the person in charge of our plans for everything I was doing in my life, because it was about me planning my accommodations. You know, that was why that was most important to me. So now I work on it. It's a challenge, you know, because I think once it becomes a part of your personality, it's a part of your personality.

But I try not to be the over planner. You know, I try to say, let's just let today be what it is. And let's let us take us where we end up. Because that's not something I ever did before. I really love what you said there. I actually have been practicing this a lot more myself. I say yes to a lot more things than I used to. What I recognized in getting older and more mature is that you drink a drink for somebody else, not necessarily for yourself.

You camouflage yourself. You eat what other people are eating. You occasionally just do shit that other people are doing. It's not just for you. I think that's an important thing. Like there's just like stupid stuff that I just am not interested in. I don't, I don't like, um, you know, uh, certain like trips or certain things, uh, that we may do as a family. But now I'm like, no, no, no. That's another opportunity to hang out. Like I'm doing that. I'm going to go. And sometimes I'll even have a drink, but I'll just nurse it the whole time. I'll barely drink it.

But it just chills everybody else out, you know, and everybody else kind of just is in recognition of like, oh, we're all like enjoying this together. Because I think it's hard for people to recognize that what we're doing is fun for us and it's a hobby. It's like, oh, you think eating like, you know, not eating carbs is fun, like you're fucking out of your mind. But it can be and it can be like a challenge and it can be something that hits the dopamine receptors and serotonin and it can make us feel really good about ourselves. But it's too big of a conversation to try to explain to other people every once in a while it's good just to be like

yeah fuck it man i'm doing what you're doing oh i think for sure and that's it's it's that being able to participate for other people and what you put out to them is what they put back to you and then people are more apt to be there for you. You know, I think especially when you're someone who's been bigger and isolated, there are people that fall out of your life because, I mean, blatantly, they just don't want to watch you dying anymore. You know, I had a very good friend who wrote me a letter once that said, if you don't make change, I need to not be in your life anymore. And I was righteously indignant when that happened. You know, I was like, who the hell are you to tell me what to do? Like, that's ridiculous. Like, you're the bad

person. You're the person who needs to change. You know, I'm not going to die. What are you talking about? And we actually reconciled a few years later when I was like, you were one of the only people that actually said to me, I'm watching you die and I'm concerned. Because I remember vividly, like what the, in in 2013 when I lost the weight, my 40th birthday party had a ton of people there that I hadn't seen in years. And pretty much every conversation that night was, Oh my God, I'm so glad that you're not going to die.

And I'm like, you thought I was going to die. We never had this discussion before. And they're like, well, you know, you don't want to say anything to hurt your feelings. And I'm like,

okay, but you're like the 20th person tonight that said, I'm so glad you're not going to die. And again again i think there was a part of me with that that was like why did none of these people say this to me and i know we know why it's hard conversations and we know it's about not wanting to kind of put things out to people that they're going to react negatively to and all of the and also probably if some people had those discussions with me i probably would have told them to f off like you, you know, it doesn't always go well, but when you start to realize that you can interact with people and you can show care and they can show care back to you and what you get out of

that, like my decision to lose weight again, this, you know, to try one more time for the 150th time, when I say it was driven by that conversation I had with my father, I've had people say to me, so you lost weight for other people. You know, you're still not doing this for yourself. You're still not in the right place. And I said, no, you don't understand. There's a difference between choosing to lose weight because I want to be responsible to other people and losing weight for other people. You know, the idea that we are responsible to our communities and to our families and we owe things to these people that helped us, you know, that raised us, you know, I think is powerful. Like, I think that's more powerful to me than just thinking if I'm doing this, you know, and at the core, it's for myself. It has to be for myself because

all these people could go away. There could be a, you know, a world ending tragedy and I could end up living alone and I still have to do what I need to do to live. But feeling that deeper sense of connection has been such a powerful part of this for me. And it's also a part of why I feel like I've built the networks I had and reached out to the people that I have and have seen all these amazing men and women that I've come in contact with over the years, you know, blossom and grow and like feeling this responsibility towards each other to help each other along the way. And all of that just continues to fuel that for me and allows me to keep going. You know, man, I'm really curious because, um,

there are probably people listening. Cause when you mentioned like the conversation with your dad is kind of what shifted things for you. There are people listening that probably have someone in their life. That's a very, very overweight. And they like, I know I should talk to them. I know I should try to do something, but I don't know how, or maybe they've tried to talk to them and they just know they won't listen. And everybody's an individual. So it's not like you can just talk to everybody the same way. But my question would be, how could someone figure out how to navigate that where they could potentially get a message through? Because obviously every individual needs to make the decision for themselves to make movements, to start to trend downwards.

They have to find that thing that helps them out. But if there are people that have people in their life that they're like, shit, I don't want them to die. I don't want this to happen. What are some good ideas or ways they should think about trying to get through to that individual? Well, I would say first, you have to realize that no matter what you do, you can only affect yourself and you can't control how that other person is going to respond. So obviously, I've heard you guys talk before, stoicism, all of that, like the idea that you can only control how you react and what you put back out there. So realize that if this is something you feel moved in your heart to actually express to someone, express it to them,

you know, find a way to have a conversation. Don't do it in front of a family gathering. Don't stage an intervention. You know, I don't think any of that is positive, but I think finding time if in, in realize though, this is something I'll say with this. So I'll, I'll say fine, you know, finding a way to have an intimate conversation with someone is important. If you don't feel like you can find a way to have an intimate conversation with someone, then maybe this might not be the person that you should be expressing this to. Like, I think that's a bigger, a bigger part of this whole idea of having relationships with human beings. Like maybe there's something bigger to work on with your relationship with that person

besides just talking to them about their weight. Like it should be about, you know, are you people that communicate about caring enough that each other are alive? Like if that's important to you work on that part of it, but I do think it's okay to say to someone You know, I I want you to know, you know, you may not want to hear this But I these are some things I feel like I need to express to you. Is that okay? I'm worried, you know, I see you doing this. I see this I know that these are challenges that you're facing. If there's anything I can do for you, I want you to know that I'm here.

We don't have to talk about this again, but these are just things I wanted to make sure that you know. Because there is something selfish in that moment when you're expressing that to that person, when they're not asking you for that discussion. There is something a little bit selfish about that. But I think that's all about the human experience. But I think it's okay to say to someone, you know, you may have this all figured out for yourself. I just want you to know that I do recognize that I care about you. I'm worried about you being alive. If there's anything that I can do or anything can help you find, let me know. I'm here for you. And let that be the conversation. It doesn't have to be, I brought this pamphlet. I know this is the best way for you to do this. I saw this podcast on keto and you should do this. Or I saw you eating cake the other day. You shouldn't eat cake. Because who knows what that person is actually doing

and what they're working on and what steps they've taken already, where that's at. But just letting them know that you're open to a dialogue. You're open to be there as a resource. And don't ever say that to someone unless you actually mean it. Because they could come back to you and say, oh my God, you're right. I do need help. Can you help me do this? And then you're immediately like, well, I don't know if I can do that. I just wanted to tell you

that I was worried you were going to die. Sorry, good luck. I think you need to be willing to back up whatever you're saying to someone. And I think understand that it's hard and understand that that person could get mad. Understand that that person could come back from a very reactionary place. And that's also not your responsibility. How they react is not your responsibility. other issue like take it to drugs or alcohol like if you had a family member who was getting black out drunk at every family event and would i don't think there'd be as much hesitancy to having that discussion to saying every time you come to a family event we're carrying you home you know we need to do something about that like we want to talk to you we're worried about you and that person would you know have whatever reaction they wanted to have but if at every family event someone is is finishing off everyone else's leftovers or going to town in the kitchen when they're left

alone with something like, and I'm not saying everyone's doing that, but you know, done it myself. Um, we don't want to have that discussion because talking about food issues isn't really socially acceptable. You know, it's like you're, you're stepping into like murky waters, but I think it's okay to have those discussions. Like, I think it's okay to express that to someone and then accept their reaction for what it is you know if they get mad let them be mad if they're mad at you sometimes in some ways that's a good fire to light you know if someone gets pissed off let them get pissed off and process it let them get pissed off and realize that hey you know because it could be two months down the line that they're like wait a minute maybe that really was about care for me. I'm mad at this

person, but maybe they really did care. Like I said about that experience with my friend, I was pissed off at him for years. I was adamantly mad at him for years. State kept him out of my life. I basically went from, you're going to step out of my life? No, I don't want you in mine anymore. And I eventually went to this place of realizing that he did it because he cared. And so I had to go back to him and say to him, I want you to know that I understand why you did that. You know, I want you to know that it didn't,

you know, the way it affected me at the time, wasn't the effect you wanted it to have, but I want you to know that I hear what you were trying to say. And some people will come to that place and some people won't. And that's when you have to make a decision about what you need to do to care for yourself. You know,

like he did in that circumstance, you know, he was like, I can't enable this behavior anymore. I can't be a part of this. It's an interesting thing to think about. But if you were to consider, particular problem because we all have problems. How would you feel if they identified a problem of yours and brought it up? And would it be helpful? I think you would be in extreme denial, you know, because most other problems you can't see, but you can see when someone's heavy, you can see when someone's, you know, overweight and struggling with their,

with trying to make changes in that sense. So if somebody found out that you were secretly like an alcoholic or something, you know, and someone came to you and said, hey, man, you know, I'm recognizing, you know, I can smell the alcohol a little bit and i've maybe had some issues myself you'd be like what like no like fuck that man i don't have a problem and so it's something to kind of consider is like how would you almost speak to yourself and uh try to do so with as much uh love as you can but why do you think it's not like socially acceptable to, um, use the fat word, you know, to kind of just say like when someone is, uh, like kids get teased and stuff. And sometimes I think that that actually can be productive in some ways. Cause like, well, fuck that. I'm not getting teased anymore. I'm not getting

picked on anymore. I'm going to go a different direction. And in many other countries, they just say fat. They just flat out, you know, we had some people from Russia here at super training gym and they were talking about how they just, they just flat out say, hey, you're getting fat. And they say it way before it becomes like a huge, huge issue. And therefore there's like less people that are heavy there. But I know in the United States, it's, you know, quite a bit different because of the freedom that we have here. You know, you got freedom to kind of choose and go out and eat and do whatever you want. And we have just a massive amount of different kind of foods you can get to. But what are some of your thoughts on that and and kind of like body acceptance and uh fat shaming and kind of how do we tow that line and what do you think

would be effective to just assist people more ah well well i i think we've built a mess in this country like not just with weight issues with every issue of that someone could be offended by, you know, like, and so it's, we've gone from this place of hurting feelings to offense. Like, I think there's a difference there, you know, and I think we've gotten so far down this, this rabbit hole of, if I say something to you that you might be offended by, then it's like, I took a knife and actually jabbed you with a knife. And it's gone from being able to have discussions where we disagree and debate and all of that to now we can't do any of that because it's, it's offensive. And I think that then spills over to these other issues.

Like, I think it starts to spill over into, you know, body positivity. Like I don't even, you know, and I feel like I was a part of that. Like I was a part of that movement in a lot of ways. Like I was like, it's one of the things that I regret the most. So last October, um, Instagram killed my account, uh, without warning. Um, I had a much bigger following than I do now. And they just deleted my page. Like it just went down the same day they killed Robert Sykes, Keto Savage page and the Redmond

real salt page and a couple of others. They just took my my account away but that had been the account that I had started on Instagram and when I started my account on Instagram it was a full-on freak show display of my gluttonous life like it was the food I was eating it was me eating the food it was where I was going and where I wasn't going it was all of that and it was about me screaming at the top of my lungs hey I'm fat you have to accept me like that was really what that account was about and then when i just made the decision to make changes in my life obviously there i had two choices to make do i keep that account going and just change the name or in the focus or do i create a whole new page and i decided to create

keep keep the account going because i wanted to be able to send people back to that page, you know, be like, scroll back a little bit and you can see what my life used to be like. You tell me that I don't understand what it means to restrict, go back and see the life that I used to live. And it used to be so much fun to get DMs from people that were like, I spent an hour last night scrolling back through your account and holy crap, you weren't kidding. Like there was some, what the hell was going on? And I'm like, I don't even know, you know, to some extent, I don't even know what I was doing. You you know the things you do for the gram but i think body positivity has gone from this place of wanting to be a good thing to now becoming

something that just enables negative behaviors like it's gone from this place of let's you know let's make gyms accessible to every person of every shape and size so that they can work on bettering their health you know not even whether they want to change their weight or not but bettering their health and now it's become if you suggest to someone that they might do something you're you're hurting them you're attacking them like it's it's gone to this place of we have to so far swing in the other direction that we just can't make any, any headway, sorry, headway, in terms of actual discussion, like that idea of discourse around these issues, just I feel like it's been taken off the table, because it is quote, unquote, you know, fat shaming, like look at Pinterest announcing that they're not going to allow weight loss ads anymore. You know, I feel

like that's coming to Instagram soon, I feel like fitness accounts are getting shut down left and right all the time. You know, you're not allowed to boost posts if you actually mentioned, you know, before and after pictures are fat shaming, I think is one of the most ridiculous trends over the past, you know, year or two, the fact that, you know, I share this, you know, I share this transformation I've made. And I get told that I'm attacking people by sharing that, you know, I'm proud of the work I've done and I'm attacking people by doing that. I'm making people feel bad about themselves. I'm, you know, doing all of these things that have nothing to do with what I'm doing.

We've put such weight and gravity on all of these virtual interactions that we've allowed people to just go to this place of constant offense and like not because when you stay offended, you don't have to face reality. Like if instead of facing reality, you can just be offended, you don't have to face reality. Like if instead of facing reality, you can just be offended, you know, and it's easier to just then not listen to what someone is saying to you. And I think that allows people to skip over the actual care, like the discussion we're talking about, like when you're expressing to someone that you're worried about their life and all they're hearing is fat shaming, fat shaming, fat shaming, fat

shaming, you know, it's easy for them to shut down and then go have a piece of pie. Like, you know, you don't have to make any changes. You don't have to actually think about it because you're like, Oh, well that's offensive. So I can just throw a wall up and not listen. There's this propensity to talk more and listen less that I think permeates all of this. And I think it's not just, it's, it's not just about screaming that i'm okay to convince myself that i'm okay which is something i really feel like i did um i think it's about just this

unwillingness to realize that we have this issue that is having a massive impact on our culture in general like it's not just about you know anymore like anymore. Like when I grew up, when I was that 10 year old kid, 225 pounds, I was one of two fat kids in my school, not just in my class, but in my school. And one of them, my friend, John disappeared in fifth grade and came back a year later, extremely thin because he developed, he, it turned out he was diagnosed with type one diabetes and he, and back then you kind of had to go to the hospital for a while. And he was basically went away for a year and came back a completely different person. So I then was the only fat kid in the school. And now if you go to a school and you look, you know, it's almost like the overweight children are the norm.

Like we've built this society of convenience. We built the society that just support, you know, I talk with clients all the time about, you know, it's not anymore, you know, treats and cakes and all those things are no longer about having to actually make it at home. It's about walking in a gas station when you're getting gas and there's 75 candy bars and there's 45 snack cakes and there's sodas the size of your head. Like it is about this stuff being accessible. And yes, like you were saying, Mark, like it is about this stuff being accessible and yes like you were saying mark it's about freedom you know there's nothing more american than a 72 ounce coke with with a five pack you know a six pack of reese's peanut butter cups you know that's how you celebrate liberty but we've we've almost

freedomed ourselves into a lack of freedom like a lack of literally a lack of ability to move on the part of many people like i think you look at like shows like my 600 pound life and it's not anymore like what it's not anymore that like the person who's 600 pounds is the rarity that needs a television show it's like the 600 pound person is the person that lives around the corner you know it's the person in your family like these things are becoming normalized and the more they become normalized it's not like it's not like any of these things drawing attention to the problems of obesity are helping it seems it seems like we're just getting bigger and and moving away from you know anything that could you know just even restrictions on language on social media now when it comes to

talking about weight loss and everything is just blowing my mind like i can see within a few years like not being allowed to post about it like not being allowed to talk about it on social media because you might hurt someone's feelings like so i know the part of that question was what do we do about it and there's a big part of me that's like i don't know like there's a like it's it's becoming this behemoth you know no pun intended that we're all having to battle. I think it's having, keeping discussions going like this one today, like what you all do, you know, that I, I love, like, I listened to your interview with Robert Lustig a couple of weeks ago and I was

honestly very intrigued because obviously also the headline of the episode was a zinger, you know, calories don't matter. You know, calories don't matter. It's insulin. And I know Lustig's philosophies. I've read some of his work. And so I was like, how is this going to actually happen? And I listened to that whole episode because obviously a keto person, I'm in on some of this insulin stuff.

But I was also very skeptical the whole time. And then you get to, I loved as soon as he was gone. And y'all were like, okay, so we understand that a lot of what he said is probably right and scientific, but there's so much more at play here. Right? Right? You guys were all together on this? Yeah. Because it was, to me, I was like, okay, like, you know, because some of the stuff he was saying, obviously, was shocking and terrifying.

Like hearing about the children, you know, with the brain tumor issues and all of those things, like it's wild, the biology. But it's like, I always try to say to people, like, it's about so much more, you know, and I think that's the bigger piece of all this. Like, it's not just about working on fat shaming, but it's about working on how we're educating people about nutrition. It's about having discussions that it's okay for a person to say that they need help and they don't know what they're doing. They don't know how to get an exercise plan started. They don't even know what that would look like. They don't know how to clean up. Like I have worked with clients that, you know, come to me that have been keto for a while or dabbled with keto. And I've worked with clients that have are in their 40s and have never gone on a diet in their life, which blows my mind

that someone can be 400 pounds, 40 years old, and never have been on a diet. And I think that's a part of the culture we're building is that it's not anymore about you have to make change. It's about just live life the way you're living life and accommodate it and support it. And I think it's got to be more about letting people know that there's other options and that there are ways to change. So I guess other than being accused of attacking people when you share your transformation story, as you're transforming your body, did you get any blowback anywhere else that kind of like made a difficult thing even more hard? I think one, obviously, there's a lack of understanding when you say you go keto. There's a definite lack of understanding. you say you go keto uh there's a definite lack of understanding like the people that wouldn't pat an eye when i would you know order three big macs and a 20 piece nugget at mcdonald's see me taking the bun off my burger and all of a sudden there's you know somehow it's like i've

set a house on fire you know like it's it's a big deal you know family members who are all of a sudden concerned who weren't concerned when i was eating the way i was before i think is a big part of it and then I think also like the interactions, you know, when you're that big, and you're living that life, you develop almost like eating buddies, like someone who has an alcohol issue develops drinking buddies. So you have friends that are a little like, are you really doing this? Is this really happening? And are you saying I should be doing this? Like, what do you what does this say about me? Like, so you have those discussions where sometimes there are people and especially like,

I look at, you know, in the social space, space you know my instagram account was not as big as it eventually got but when it was kind of like the the gourmet eats all the time account like i had a lot of people that followed and i don't know if they were following to watch to see when i was going to die or when i was going to have a heart attack or any of those things like i think that's probably a part of it that morbid curiosity but there are people that are just there because they're excited by it and cheering it on and like, just like, yeah, dude, go for it. And when you change, you've got those people that are like, this isn't as exciting as it was before, you know, okay, you're posting a steak again. That's great that you've got asparagus. This is really not as much fun.

And so it's like, you get told by people, you know, you've changed, you know, you've changed what you do has changed. You know, I used to also be very huge. Like I was a TV freak because obviously television was all I had. So I would just sit and flip and watch. And it was, that was my window to the world. So I could talk to you about any television show. I could talk to you about any movie, all of those things. Um, and now I barely watch television. Like, so now I just feel lost in conversations with people. You know, I sit there and I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. I have no idea what that show is. I don't have any idea who that person is. I don't know what this, you know, I don't know what these trends are. I don't know any of this. And like, it's, so it's like,

you almost lose touch with people that you used to connect with on a certain way. You know, I used to also drink a lot, like, and the biggest reason I really don't drink now, it's not because I think drinking is evil or anything on those lines. For me, it's I just know I make bad food choices when I drink. Even if even on keto, when I would have a couple vodka sodas, and I would get home and try to defrost a steak at two o'clock in the morning. And you know, because that's all I had in the house. Like, I just that's a propensity that I have. So I've moved away from that. So when you, you know, that becomes a part of it too. You've got people who are like, well, you're not going

to drink with us. You know, why are you coming? Like, why are you going to be a part of this event? Oh, we were planning, we were planning a pizza party, you know, but now we don't know if we're going to do that because you can't eat the pizza. Like they start to think about it in that way. And then that's sometimes when you have to have those discussions. Like I remember very clearly my stepmother one night, um, just finally finally being like are you sure you don't want to eat something like i just you know because she was starting to feel personally bad that i was bringing food with me to places or we like my family has a propensity to be like hey it's nine o'clock we're going out for a late dinner and i'm done eating long by that time especially at that point in my life

and so i would go join them and just have soda water with a lime in it and sit there and just because for me, it was about the experience of being together with my family. And I finally had to say, like, you understand that I'm doing this because I want to be around for these events. You know, this is why I'm not eating, you know, pasta with you at 10 o'clock at night in a restaurant that's going to close any minute, because I want to be around for when you call me to say, can you come over? You know, I want to be around for birthday parties. I want to be around for holidays. That's why I'm doing this. And some people hear those discussions and, you know, that response and they respond to it. And there were some people that I said that back to who still didn't understand. And I had to realize that then they weren't the people that mattered. You know, they weren't the people that really mattered in that discussion. You know, when you tell someone you're doing something to save your life and they say they don't understand. There's nothing you can

do to change that, you know, like when you say like and again, that's another discussion I've had with people, they're like, I don't know how to talk to this person about, you know, the fact that I'm not going to eat this casserole at that party. And I'm like, well, tell them you don't eat that because you're working to be around for more parties. You're working to save your life. And they're like, well, what if I say that to them? And then they say they still don't understand or they still don't care. I said, well, then does that person really care about you? If you actually say to someone, I am doing this to save my life and they can't understand, that's a whole bigger problem. That's got nothing to do with food. One thing that i was thinking about as we were having this whole discussion was that

like it's yeah i find it wild like how disciplined you were through like even when you were a kid you know to lose 100 and something pounds you were even and you you gave yourself a rhesus and ate chicken breast right that took a lot of discipline the first time it you lost the weight that took a lot of fucking discipline you gained it back and then you lost it again so it seems that like you've had this level of discipline and you kind of knew how to navigate those waters all along um and it's just like what i'm curious about is like you mentioned the individual that gets to 40 years old and they've never done a diet in their life. Well, by the time you were 40, you've done multiple diets. You've already lost a lot of weight before. How do you, uh, how, how would you, uh, what would

your advice be to somebody to be able to build that type of discipline to be able to drop that level of weight if they've literally never done it before? Because you've had the advantage of being experienced with it, even from a young age. No, I think that's a great question. And I think what it comes down to is not getting overwhelmed to start. Like not, if you've got 300 pounds to lose, if you've got 200 pounds to lose, 400 pounds to lose, not sitting there and thinking every day, I've got 300 pounds to lose. It's about thinking about what are the behaviors and habits I need to just do on a daily basis? Like, what are the things I need to do to start moving? And take it, make it small,

you know, like, make that list small, so that you start working on that repetition and start building. I think habit building is so important. It's so powerful. And I think building mindfulness into that, like, I love, you know, it can be corny as all heck, but I love gratitude journaling. I love the idea of getting up every day and saying, what is, you know, what are three things I'm grateful for? What are three things, you know, the five minute journal? What are three things that I'm going to, you know, make today great? What are three things I do differently? Like start to build those habits, because I think habits reinforce habits. those habits because I think habits reinforce habits. Like, so if, you know, it's something like when someone says like, what can I do to get started? Like I immediately say the biggest answer is, you know, and I know you guys will agree with this is like, stop drinking calories, like cut out soda. Like I, I had a woman win a contest to work with me for a month and she had no idea what keto was. She just entered the contest because she liked the show that I was on. And so we had our first discussion and it turned out she got most of her calories from sweet tea.

She was drinking upwards of 2000 calories of sweet tea a day and was not really eating any real food. And I was just like, well, I'm not going to set up ketogenic macros for you because we need to talk about sweet tea world and we need to get you to start eating actual real food, like taking it small. So for her, for a month, we just worked on her not drinking sweet tea and eating food. Like that's what it took. Like, I think start where you're at. Don't try to do what someone who has been doing this for years is doing on day one, but realize what are the small changes that you can manage?

What are the things that you can get started? I think a great place for anyone to start is to start eating whole ingredient foods. Like, okay, take away the soda, take away the sugar in your coffee, work on that for a while. Okay, the next thing, stop eating things out of boxes, and then see how that goes. Like, don't worry about whether something's a carb or not a carb, or a protein or a fat or any of that. Just start working on things on. And then at the end of the day, whatever path you choose, whatever tool you want to use, it's about that consistency. It's about being consistent.

It's not about being perfect. It's not about saying, okay, I'm going to do 100 days of perfection. And if you hit, you know, like, that's why like, I love people that do 75 hard. Like, I think 75 hard has changed people's lives. But I've also seen it crush people when they're like on day 45 and they screw something up and they're supposed to start over and they fall to pieces because all of a sudden perfection's gone. And it's like, well, that's not what this challenge was about. Like you have to remember why you were doing this in the first place. And I think it's that same thing when it comes to making lifelong change, realize that it's going to be lifelong change,

realize that you're not going to see things happen overnight, realize that it's going to be lifelong change. Realize that you're not going to see things happen overnight. Realize that it's going to take time, but realize that it took time to get to where you're at. When people say to me, does it upset you that you still have to be vigilant and struggle with these and have challenges? And I say, well, I spent approximately 45 years being obese. So if it takes me 45 years to work on this, then I can start to feel a little jaded. Then I can start to say that, okay, maybe this is too much and maybe I'm doing something wrong. It's going to take time. So be willing to invest the time. Don't think about a finish line. Don't think about... The other thing is I love... You guys, if you've looked at all at anything I do, I love keto like for me

it's been a life-changing way of eating you know right now i'm doing just meat for july just meat and eggs and i don't know if i love that but i'm doing it because i want to challenge myself and um but i love keto but i don't and do i think every person could benefit if they were eating a slightly ketogenic diet i i do but i don't think every, but I don't think every person should. I don't think every person could. I think it's about finding something that you feel is sustainable for you and that you look at as something you can do for the rest of your life. And that's the way I had to look at keto when I started it. It wasn't that I was looking at it as the tool to get me to a finish line. And then I could just go back to eating the way I was because we all know how that works out.

I had to think about this as changes I was making as sustainable changes for the rest of my life that vary and change, you know, we all go through that, you know, things evolve and move, but I had to at least feel like what I was doing was sustainable when I got it started. Because if I didn't, I didn't think that there's any way I could move forward. Like people always say, especially when you tell them your keto that, you know, oh, you're never going to eat cake again. I feel like cake is this big obsession with people.

Like that's the first thing that people go right to. Like you're never going to have cake again. And I like to say that it's not that I'm never going to have cake again. It's that I do know that if I didn't have cake again, I would live a happy, fulfilled life. You know, I could thrive without cake. So might there be times in my life where I choose to have cake? Of course, I can make that choice. But I also know that I, you know, I'm not in that place where I feel like I can't live without cake. I can't live

without bread. I know that I can. I've proven to myself that I can live without things. And that just becomes so freeing. So I think starting to prove to yourself these things that you don't feel you can live without, take them away one by one, see the things that you can manage, do what you can. And then also don't be afraid to ask for help if you need help. Like, I think that's also really important. Like realize that some of us do it alone. Some of us do it alone for part-time and then do it with help. Like all of those things, support and accountability are so important. And if you're not able to build that in yourself, like I honestly think consistency and accountability, regardless of the eating plan is the most important things that a person works on when it comes to weight loss,

you know, consistency, accountability accountability and mindset like are the keys it doesn't matter what's on your plate it matters what you're thinking about it how you're reacting to everything all of those things do calories matter in your opinion uh well no calories don't matter right no i i do think calories matter i do think i i i actually have a long time been one of those people that has said calories mattered and had keto people get mad at me. Like a lot of keto people get mad at me because they're like, well, you know, I went keto and I just lost all my weight and everything was great. And I'm like, well, you went keto and that caused a natural suppression of your appetite that allowed you to eat less calories. Like, I don't want to, you you know ruin the world for you like so i'm in that camp of i think

macro ingredients micro ingredients and calories both matter like i don't think we're in an either or place like i think it can matter but you know depending on the person i think all things can be important i do think the amount of food like i i have had weeks where i'm eating carnivore and i put on weight like It's possible. I'm the kind of person that could sit down and eat five pounds of chicken breast with a little bit of salt and pepper on it. I can do it. I can out-eat. It happened to me when I was losing weight on keto.

I started in February of 2017 and I went through a hospitalization. I went through all of these crazy things later that year. Then I came around to the end of 2018, my weight had stalled. I went from 480 to 280. And that's great. But I started to put weight on, but I was eating keto because I was eating more because those habits and behaviors of mine that I hadn't really fully worked through were starting to come back in. You know, when you eat, you know, a full pint of rebel ice cream and then have some, you know, keto baked goods, you know, you're eating, you're overeating. You know, why all of a sudden, magically, can you control these foods because they're made of almonds instead of flour? Like,

that's a question I haven't figured out the answer to yet. But so then I determined that I needed to change my approach. I started working with someone at that point because I was realizing that just quote unquote eating keto wasn't working for me anymore. I needed to actually look at figuring out macros and calories and those things. And I tried to do it alone and I got lost in the math. Because like even if you Google keto macro calculator, 25 of them come up and you put your numbers in all of them and they all give you a different answer. Like I was getting lost in the math. So I knew I needed someone to help me with that. But long, long, long story short, I think calories matter. I think there are different points in your journey where they matter more.

I think also it's not as an exact a science. Like I like to tell people sometimes when you're figuring out macros and calories for a person that on some levels, it's an educated guessing game. It really is about trying to figure out where their body is at metabolically in that moment and what they're responding to. And then we're going to make changes like it can. It's not just about one formula fitting every person. Like I think sometimes it can be about you need different amounts at different times and all of all of those different factors that come into play. I'd like to warn everybody that's trying to lose weight, you know, just be careful of any treats of any kind.

You know, there's nothing wrong with having them, but they most likely are going to encourage overeating. And if you already have a problem with overeating, you're probably going to overeat it. So some of these keto treats and some of these different treats that we might like on other diet plans, Most often it's going to lead to some overeating and sometimes it might even encourage you to binge eat because you might find yourself, you know, eating one or two of these things and it might lead to something else. Something I've learned from myself, I'd love to get your take on it is if I, if I kind of overfill myself, like if I, if I really stuff myself, that can also lead to cravings for me as well. So I still need to work on just getting myself to a point where I'm satisfied and satiated rather than like stuffed.

Because I like to kind of stuff myself. And then once I do that, then I'm kind of looking for like other, you know, different flavors than I just ate from my steak. Oh, for sure. Like one, I would a hundred percent agree with you on treats. Like, I think we've moved away from seeing treats as what the word treat actually means. And it's become like every meal has a dessert. Like, so I think, you know, I work, I work in a, basically a ketogenic grocery store here in San Diego. And when someone comes into the store and they say, what do I need here? You know, a lot of our store is stuff from local keto bakeries and things along those lines. Like, what are the things that you sell that I really need to be keto? And I'll be like, well, we have Redmond Real Salt right here.

And we have meat from U.S. Wellness Meats right here. And we have eggs. Buy those. That's all you need. They're like, well, what about the cupcakes? And what about this? And what about that? I'm like, you ask what you need. You didn't ask me what you want. You didn't ask me what might help you at different points, get through some challenges. You asked me what you need. And those are the

things that you need. I think that's really something that I just think people need to think about. Just because a cupcake is made from something that's not made from different ingredients doesn't mean you're magically going to be able to control cupcakes especially if you have a disordered relationship with food um the other piece that i think is important with what you're talking about is which i'm not hearing myself anymore okay um like stuff you were talking about stuffing yourself and like how that feeling like can lead to more cravings like i definitely agree with that like i think it's this idea of figuring out what satiation means and figuring it out for yourself personally can be a big challenge like for me like i i talk about every time i eat it's

like letting the fuse on a bomb like and if i don't extinguish that fuse some way i'm going to run into challenges i'm going to run into problems. Because if that bomb explodes, that's when I'm binging. That's when I'm going crazy. That's when I'm going back for food. And it can, no matter what food I'm eating, probably for about a 10, 15 minute window, all I want is more. No matter what I'm eating, all I want is more. And so I've learned that that's when I need to distract myself. That's when I need to go for a walk. That's when I need to have a glass of water. That's when I need to get up from the table go into the other room listen to a podcast open a book do something else for that five ten minutes and then i'm fine but if i don't do that that's when my head starts to obsess again on food you know that's when i stay in that place and i 100

it's almost like the more food i allow myself, the more food I want to give myself. Like the more, you know, the more, no matter what it is, like I w I was having a discussion with a friend yesterday. I wish I could get satiated by eggs. Like,

I just really wish eggs could satiate me, but I feel like for me, I'm a bottomless pit when it comes to eggs, like give me four eggs, nothing. Give me six eggs, nothing. I still could eat more,

you know? And then, so then he's like, well, try 12. And I'm like, okay, but now we're starting to get a little ridiculous. Like I'm not really, you know, I, I just don't want to know if I want to eat like 24 eggs just to see where my egg satiation point is. Like, I don't know if that's an experiment I need to do in my life, but I think there's, you figure out eventually there's different foods that have that different impact on you. And there's some things like, I know a lot of people, especially in the space of food addiction, want to talk about being an abstainer or a moderator when it comes to food, because you have to take that model when it comes to like drugs and alcohol. And I think it's, it's a grayer zone for people when it comes to food. Like there are some foods that you may need to

abstain from, from the rest of your life. And then there's some foods that you may learn that you can moderate. There's some foods that you can handle. Like it's about figuring out what works best for you in the end. Try a hard boiled egg. Those are a little tougher to get through. Yeah. Like I, I, I had six the other day. Like, I just, I don't know what it is. I don't do shit. Yeah. I don't know what it is. I wish I knew. I wish my egg problem could be solved. Like maybe someday, maybe someday I'll figure it out. Just mention that. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. I'm just curious. Like you were going on some good tactics there, but I'm just curious what other guardrails and tactics you've set up for yourself

that may be. Cause I know you listen to this show quite a bit, right? So maybe you've done some things that we haven't talked about or we haven't thought about. And I think you might have some really good insight there of some like some tactics or some things that we haven't talked about or we haven't thought about. And I think you might have some really good insight there of some, like some tactics or some things that might work really well for people that you haven't heard us talk about before. Well, I feel like in a lot of ways there isn't a wheel to reinvent when it comes to a lot of this stuff.

Like, but I do think for me, like tank for, because one of the things that I've really learned, like by getting in touch with my body was that when I up my protein, I'm not as satiated as I am when I go with a higher fat percentage. Like, so I think being willing to play with your macronutrients, like, don't just say, if you try what one person suggests and you don't get the same reaction that they have, be willing to play with it. Like, I very much fine-t tuned at one point and took my, you know, my fat percentage had been up around 75% for a while. And we decided to kind of play

with it and wanted to see what happens if I took it down. Like this was towards the end of working with my coach. And we took the fat percentage down to like 60 and brought the protein. And was hungry, constantly, constant hunger, like we controlled for other variables and i finally was just like i can't do this for a month like i'm going to mentally break like the white knuckling i'm having to do right now is just messing me up can we try what see what happens if we go back to the higher fat percentage and we did and all of those issues went away almost immediately for me and i've actually seen that with some different people I've worked with where some people respond more to protein, some people respond more to fat, you know, you've got, you know, kind of different things going on. So I think don't be afraid

when you're approaching your food to realize that you don't just have to if you're a calorie person, you don't have to just go by one certain set, kind of like, eat whatever you want within those calories, maybe play around a little bit with, you know, figuring out for yourself what works better, I think is really important. Being willing to figure out what works for you, I think is a bigger thing that people don't think about. You know, I think if you start to work with someone and they hand you a photocopied meal,

you know, a PDF of a meal plan that they're sending out to every person that signs up with them, you want to talk to them and be more about like what's actually going on for you individually, like figuring out for yourself that way. I think strategies when it comes to food for me, like I've realized that I respond better if I eat most of my carbs later in the day. Like, you know, for me, if I start the day with like a

vegetable heavy breakfast, my hunger rages most of the day. If I have my vegetables at dinner, I'm completely fine. I think also something that I've learned is not to not to force fasting for the sake of fasting. Like, I think that we too often are trying to struggle, you know, fight to get to like a 1618 hour window. If you're hungry, eat something that fits within your plan, you're not changing your calories or anything on those lines, like don't force fasting for the sake of forcing fasting. But then also don't be afraid to try it. You know, like don't be afraid to try new things. I think one of the things that has worked out best for me also is I talked about lighting the fuse.

I think having a concrete list of the ways that I distract myself when that happens is really important. It's not just, okay, if this happens, I know I'm going to do something. It's creating a list. For me, it was five or six things. These are the things I'm going to do something it's creating a list for me it was five or six things these are the things i'm going to turn to when i feel like i'm in that place of my hunger is raging a little bit out of control these are the things that i'm going to do that help me put me into a different place and sometimes it was i would write down you know drink a bottle

of water and journal for 10 minutes listen to a podcast for 10 minutes go for a walk for 10 you know like all of these things you know and i know, I don't think the idea of a 10 minute walk is anything new to any of you, you know, for the originators of the 10 minute walk. But, you know, that idea of shifting your focus can be really important. And I think it's not about avoiding your emotions. It's not about avoiding your feelings in that time. It's about sometimes you literally need a distraction to protect yourself, like you need a distraction to protect yourself. Like you need a distraction. So finding something that takes your head away from that place, I think, is important.

I, if any, you know, and this is something I know this is something you guys do, like, but I think reading every ingredient label is important. Don't ever make assumptions about the foods that you're eating. Like know what's going into something. You know, no, don't just assume that a bag of pork rinds is just a bag of pork rinds. Realize that there could be maltodextrin and dextrose and a lot of other crap in there that you're not even thinking about. Become an aware consumer. And the more aware you become, I think the better. And I just honestly, it's hearing, find a good group of people that you're connected with that are sharing their experiences and their challenges.

And follow as many accounts as you can on Instagram to find those moments when you're not feeling so great about yourself. You can scroll. Cultivate a positive social media feed that allows you to access success and allows you to access people that are being real with what they're sharing. Not just sharing products that they're trying to sell. Not just kind of sharing the bright side of things, but find those people that give you genuine feedback and also aren't giving you their genuine experiences so that you know that if you're having a crappy day,

that it's okay to have a crappy day. Like we're all going to have, like it's, I love to say like, and I've got a friend that she and I have been saying this for a long time is like, losing weight is simple, but it's not easy. Like we all know how to lose weight. Like you were talking about my experiences, like I know how to be disciplined. I know how to do it. Like it was never about not knowing for me.

It was about not wanting to do the hard part of it. It wasn't about wanting to take on that challenge. Like no one's ever promised that anything in our lives is going to be easy. And for some people, it just means you're going to, you've got a harder road to follow, but be okay with that. Like be okay with having the hard days, be okay with leaning into the harder things. Like, and I think that's really important. When you realize that there's something you're trying to shy away from, you know, identify it and, and break it up, you know, turn it into an action so that you can actually say, okay, you know, consistently getting to the gym is something that I just can't pull off. Why can't I pull this off? Like, what's going on? What's keeping me from doing that? You know, keeping all of my meals clean, I can't pull it off. Like, why? You

know, what are the things that are influencing you and helping those decisions be harder? And don't be afraid to write it down, to journal. Like, it's one of those things that I always talked about, and I always wanted to do it. I always admired people that journal. Like, I always really was like, wow, there's something really powerful about being able to do that. And I never got around to doing it till later in my life because it wasn't until I realized the importance of like self-examination and identifying priorities and all of those things that I actually got a benefit from it. Because before it was just about, I want to tell my story. I want to write this down. You know, I feel like I have something exciting to say, but it say. But it wasn't until I was actually motivated and had some questions to answer that I felt like I got something out of it.

But I think it's a powerful tool. I think anyone who hasn't checked out the 5-Minute Journal, check it out. I think it's, for me, that was that life-changing gateway into being able to explore more things. I think, you know, when you're talking about some fasting and some of the stuff we were mentioning there, I think people need to be really cautious whether it's fasting or whether they're lowering their overall calories for the day, whether utilizing keto. You know, this idea of like being zero carb is not exponentially going

to make anything much greater for you. This idea of like fasting 20 hours versus fasting 14 is not exponentially going to make a huge difference. You can make an argument that over time, if you're able to handle that, that of course, it'll make a difference. But even being on a keto diet and eating a piece of fruit, even being on a, if it fits your macros diet and being a little bit over your macros here and there. But what we're talking about is, is really trying to have a lot of longevity going on. And so if you fast every day, you know, Monday through Thursday, and you get good 16 hours of fasting, but then it leads to a lot of overeating your body's now saying hey like let's let's fuel back up and

that beast comes back out uh you just went through a lot of suffering during monday through thursday and now you kind of cancel it out i hate to say it but you kind of cancel it out same thing on a keto diet if you go monday through friday or something like that and you're like zero carb zero carb zero carb i can't eat any carbs you might have been better off having a little piece of fruit here and there, having a little snack here and there, again, making sure you can kind of hold it down the whole time. But rather than, you know, the weekend comes and boom, you just you're drinking alcohol and you're eating cookies, and you just went way off the rails. Again, a lot of unnecessary suffering because it can feel like suffering. I know it's not suffering, but it can feel like it in the moment

when you're not used to it. It can be, it can feel very, very difficult and challenging. And you did all this great work and you demonstrated great discipline. You exercise the whole week and now you really just went off the rails again. So I really want to encourage people, you know, kind of take that slow and steady approach and don't beat yourself up. If there is a little mess up here or there, stay on top of those 10-minute walks, talk yourself back into hitting the gym again, talk yourself into, you know, keeping the carbs

wherever you need to keep them in accordance to your diet but if you really are restricting um and this is why i asked you the question earlier about changing who you are and you answered it very uh i thought i thought your answer was fantastic it's really fucking hard to change who you are i don't think we i don't at the moment i don't think we have the technology to do that. There'll be a time where you can change your, your avatar probably. And I could be whatever color or height or whatever I want to be, but we're not there yet. And so I think to really truly change like who you are at your core is there's so many bells that you would have to

unring that it might take an entire lifetime. I think we'll die before we have the opportunity to truly change who we are. No, I think you're right. And that's one of the reasons why there's a lot of right now, a lot of people talk about like kill your clone, you know, kill the person in your before picture. And I'm like, that person in your before picture is the person that made the choice to get healthy. Why do you want to kill the person that saved your life? Like, why do you want to do that? Like, realize that you're still

going to be that person. Realize that that's still going to be there. And I think what you said was excellent about if anything that you're doing is causing you to get to a place where you're feeling so overwhelmed that you that it leads to binge behavior, or it leads you to falling off, evaluate what you're doing. Like, don't don't give up.. Don't be too, you know, we know we can be too easy on ourselves, but also don't beat yourself up unnecessarily. Like it's, it's awful to be cruel to yourself. Like we just passed a holiday weekend. Like the number of people that are like, you know, I felt, I went off the rails at the barbecue this weekend, you know, this happened and I had more beers than I planned. I ate more potato salad than I could fit, you know, in my pants. Like, fine, that's great.

Just do what you need to do today. Like, one of the things that I hate the most in the world is reactionary fasting. Like, I think that reactionary fasting is a horrifically disordered behavior. Like, there's a difference between planning indulgence and then fasting, you know, around that. Like, I think there's a difference between restricting your food intake know, you're having an indulgence later that night or the day before any of that, it's a completely different thing. But punishing yourself with fasting, because you're upset is just reinforcing punishment. Like it's this idea that like, oh, I went off the rails. So now I can't eat for four days, you know, or if you're you guys are in

the keto carnivore space, you know, the the proliferation of the egg fast, you know, or if you're, you guys are in the keto carnivore space, you know, the, the proliferation of the egg fast, you know, up, you know, I, I went off the rails. Like I can't eat anything but eggs for the next five days. Like stop thinking about life as punishment and reward and just start thinking about life as choices that you're making and get back to the choices that are going to help. And, and honestly, like if you've, you know, you kind of have a weekend off your plan and then you fast for three days. Will you probably see the scale behave faster? Yes. But I think that the mental detriment that what you're doing to yourself is worse.

It would be better for you just to get back on your plan. Follow those, make those good choices and let it take two weeks to get back to where you were before. But you're going to feel better in the long run. And again, like you said, this is all about the long run. This is really about, this isn't just about losing 10 pounds for a wedding. Like this was not for me about losing enough weight to like just fit into an outfit and go do a photo shoot. Like this was about making sustained life changes and that's going to take work and I have to be okay with that. And, and I, again, like I also just love hearing you talk about the fact that intermittent fasting has nothing to do with caloric restriction.

You know, it's about an eating window. You know, I've got a group of friends out here who the other day, they were very excited to tell me that intermittent fasting is changing their lives. And they're all excited about it, this group of women that I was sitting with. And I was like, okay, so tell me what you're doing. And they're like, well, we started skipping breakfast. And I'm like, okay, so you're restricting calories. And they're like, well, we started skipping breakfast. And I'm like, okay, so you're restricting calories. And they're like, no, we're intermittent fasting. And I'm like, so you're eating that breakfast later?

No, we just don't eat breakfast anymore. And I'm like, okay, well, that's not intermittent fasting. That is caloric restriction. And that's okay if it's working out great for you, but don't get it twisted. Like realize that there's some different factors at play. I kind of have, I wanted to see if I could have asked this earlier when we were kind of going

into the whole, like the fat acceptance, how to talk to somebody. But there's also some, a new term that I learned of recently. I didn't know it was a thing in terms of being fat phobic. I learned this from some people on social media. Like I saw this video of this guy and he was saying, you know, if you lose weight, if you start losing weight because you know, you're, you're, you don't want to be fat anymore. Right. Or you start your weight loss journey because you're scared of being fat. You're fat phobic. And that's a problem. Right. um i don't know i listened to that video and i

was like maybe i kind of get where you're going with this but i just ah it just sounds weird so i wanted to just get like your viewpoint if you is this legitimately a thing now like do you do you think there's legitimacy to that to that idea in any sense of the word being fat phobic the funny thing is so i get where it's coming from i think the germination there is the fact that we can look statistically at how a majority of weight loss diets and plans and everything fail like statistically we can look at that so the idea is you know it's it's bad to want to change because you're going to fail anyway you know so why change and then if you say like if i say i don't like the way that my body looks does that mean i'm saying the way i don't like the way your body looks if you're the

same weight as me like it's just again it goes to this projection and how people are taking it on there and like so if i don't like being unable to stand apparently then i hate every person that can't do that like it's it's it's it's you know utterly it's ridiculous to me i know the video you're talking about i watched you know that idea that you're fat phobic like i don't think at the end i think there probably are some people that have a phobia of being fat and that leads to disordered eating and is a much bigger actual challenge so throwing around the term fat phobia i just feel is disingenuous and is about reducing something that is a serious issue for people it's not about being afraid of of fat people it's not about being

you know hating fat people it's not about hating my fat self it's not about any of that you know there's a difference between saying that I hate every person that's fat. And there are people out there that say that, you know, there are very much people on social media out there who are like, if you're 10 pounds overweight, I don't want to hear your opinion. You know, that exists, but it's not, if you say that you want to make change for yourself, because if you were to go out and say, you know, I have been living at the poverty level for years and I want to better myself. So I'm going to work on my finances and I'm going to get another job and I'm going to better my financial situation. People would cheer you on. But when you start to say, I want to change my fitness level and I want

to improve my health, it all of a sudden becomes, well, that's fat phobic because you want to lose weight. You said you want to lose weight. And that's where I think there is a kernel of truth that we become too obsessed with a scale number and don't necessarily measure everything against what are the actual health markers we should be looking at? What are the actual physical abilities that should be more important? But the reality is when you're 500 pounds, the scale matters because the scale moving is a huge measuring stick against what's actually happening for you in your life.

What are the actual benefits you're seeing that the work you're doing is actually having progress. And then eventually you hit a point where the scale doesn't matter as much because you're still making progress, but maybe the scale isn't moving as fast. Like you, you move through different phases with that. But I think again, I feel like a lot of times I give humanity too much credit because I also think a big part of like that, a video like that is basically just saying, if you try to lose weight, you're going to expect me to lose weight and I don't want to do that. So you're fat phobic.

And I know the guy that made the video isn't overweight himself. So it's a very interesting situation. But it's this idea. It's equating wanting to change yourself with hating other people. And I think it's a false equivalency. Like, I just don't think it adds up. I think it's just another way to enable behavior. Like, I think it is completely another way to just enable negative behavior to continue

and not wanting, you know, discussions that aren't even happening. You know, this whole idea, like, I feel like in a lot of ways, fat shaming, it does exist. You know, I was bullied horrifically as a kid like horrifically as a kid you know i i will not be too ashamed to say that the number one bully of me was was a girl um who eventually was arrested at the school because she attempted to kill her mom um yeah so but the funny thing the weird part of this story is i used to complain all the time about what she would do to me. And I would basically have the principal be like, you need to toughen up. You need to toughen up. And I'm like, you don't understand. She's threatening to kill me. No, she's not. And I'm like, she literally is.

And then it was like a month later and they're like, well, well, she won't be coming to school anymore. You look in the newspaper and she attempted to kill her mom with a steak knife. Like, OK, great. Does anyone believe me now what was actually happening the little gang she was running in our catholic school like no one anyone want to talk about that no we're going to ignore it you know i will say a few years later i ran into one of those bullies in the library and punched him um out of nowhere i ran into him and he kind of wanted to have a conversation and i didn't give him a chance to talk. I just decked him and walked away and it felt amazing and it probably was dumb, but that's life. All of that

fat kid rage came out in one punch, but I think at the end of the day, like I said, I watch videos like that and I laugh because I also know I would say stuff like that before and I would say stuff like that before because i didn't want you judging me when i was making my third trip through wendy's in the same day like when i was walking into you know the residence hall i lived in and i ran you know when i was walking in with with my saturday afternoon special which was a 10-piece family meal from popeyes with two extra sides and a dozen of donuts with a two liter of coke like i didn't want you judging me for that.

So I would call you fat phobic. Like, I just think, again, it's a false equivalency and it's just a way to allow people to throw up. But and again, like I said, I give too much credit to human humanity. I feel like there are people that have in some ways had their lives affected by quote unquote diet culture, you know, in negative ways. And I wouldn't want to, you know, kind of downplay that experience. Like, I think there are a lot of people that have to work on their relationship with themselves and have had that stunted and

affected. Like I think about 10 year old me being paid to go on a diet, like that had a huge impact on my life. Like, I don't want to hear anyone go through those things. But I think there's a difference between wanting people to have access to the world and to be cared for as individuals and just labeling someone fatphobic because they want to save their life. People get a lot of anxiety over somebody trying to be different, you know, whether it's somebody wanting to be better or whether and better is a subjective term. I mean, it's just, we don't know really what's better for somebody. Um, and, or when we see somebody quote unquote getting worse. So you see somebody that's really big and really fat. Um, people are going to make fun of them.

You see someone that's on the opposite side of that spectrum and they're really, really skinny. People are going to make fun of them. You see anything that's different, you know, you're going to get going to get picked on even when somebody really excels. Maybe, you know, all of us play football, but like one of us excels well beyond what any, any of the other kids can do. And now all of a sudden, that's not cool. And now all of a sudden, we're, you know, talking trash, because, oh, you want to go to college and get a scholarship and you want to play in the pros. Like people always, they have a problem with what we consider to be success. We also have a problem with what we consider to be somebody failing or kind of like letting something go. I think ultimately we're

just trying to follow our best interest, but it's hard to figure out what our best interest is. And I think a lot of times we're pointing the finger and judging like, why would that person choose to do that? That's not in their best interest. Why, why is this guy that's 500 pounds watching the food network? Like this is crazy. Like, but it's easy for someone else to throw conjecture at, at a situation. It's easy for someone else to throw stones at it because like I said earlier, we all got problems. We all got shit going on.

And it would be very easy if someone followed me around for a couple of days, they'd be able to say, Hey, you should knock off a B and C and he would be a lot better. Like it would be really simple for somebody to point, uh, point out the, uh, the things that you have going on that, uh, are less than optimal. And I don't think I do just want to say, like, I think there are people I want, I know people like 100% who are quote unquote overweight, who are heavier, who are just happy with life and are okay with what they have and are okay with their access to the world and live amazingly fulfilled lives like i'm if that is what a person truly feels then i fully

support that like i'm like okay you do you don't put your your issues on me but okay like be just live live that experience for yourself but if you are someone that wants to make change, don't tell that person that making change is wrong. You know, don't tell that person that wanting to live longer, wanting to be an active parent. I mean, the sheer number of people that I interact with who talk to me about just wanting to be more active in their kids' lives. You know, I had a guy on my podcast who he talked about the moment of change for him came because he was sitting in a lawn chair and he watched his two-year-old daughter running towards the road and he realized he couldn't get up to stop her.

And luckily his wife came and swooped her up before she got to the road. But he realized in that moment that something could happen to his daughter because of what he was doing. So he wanted to make change. Don't tell me that that's not valid. Don't tell me that his experience is fat phobic or shaming or anything along those lines. Like let, if you want me to let you live the life that you want to live, let me live the life that I want to live. And also too, I think it's important to recognize based off of what you just said there is there are people that are 40, 50, 60 pounds and maybe even more overweight that aren't necessarily compromising their health. We don't really know.

You don't really know. Someone would have to get blood work done. Someone would have to go to the doctor. So if it's not problematic in their life, it's not affecting them, they can still get around the way that they will and they feel happy and they feel fulfilled and stuff, then really it's just us throwing judgment at the way that they look. And at that point, I don't think that really makes sense unless they're not happy with the way that they look and then they're trying to seek out some help. 100%. You mentioned earlier, you lived inont and you lived on the east coast and then you

mentioned um that you are in san diego and that you work at like a keto grocery store um i find some of this stuff to be really fascinating because not everyone has the opportunity to just like get up and move um and also moving moving is not going to solve your problems. If you're an alcoholic and you live in New York City, you'll be an alcoholic in Los Angeles. It probably won't make a huge difference. However, when it comes to food, you can get to certain areas that are and you can get to areas that have better weather. If you live in Minnesota, the odds of you staying inside quite a bit is probably pretty high.

Oh, yeah. So, you know, and you mentioned Vermont right away because I'm fat. I was thinking of Ben and Jerry's. Like, man, I could really see how he packed on the pounds living in Ben and Jerry's hometown. Well, we used to have $2 pints at the convenience store in town. Like it was these factory seconds and it was a freezer that the factory seconds always meant that there was too much top, too many toppings, which is always, you know, so you get the the mint Oreo and it would just be loaded with Oreos, which was like the ultimate fact I experience. But yeah, $2 pints, $2 pints of Ben and Jerry's. They contribute. they add up.

So for you moving, uh, has that been helpful? Because I mean, it's so, just so much nicer out in, uh, you know, certain parts of the country, you're in San Diego, you can get out and walk quite a bit. Well, I, I think physically it's, it's a, it's a much easier space, you know, to be active. You know, I live on Hills, like the ocean's right there. I could take the dog on beautiful walks. Like I can, I can be more active. Um, I think the move itself was it to some extent traumatic, you know, uprooting my life, not really by choice in the end. Like it was by choice, but it was okay. This career that, you know, I was working in marketing

for a construction company and thought that that was going to be the direction my life was taking. Like it was something completely new to me that they had basically educated and trained me for. It felt like it was going great. And then COVID kind of killed everything. I was a trivia host at several restaurants and had been doing that for eight or nine years, loved doing it. Obviously, restaurants shut down. And then my landlord decided he was going to sell the house. So I had all of these things basically... They all happened basically within a 24-hour period and had to make some changes, had to make some choices. And I moved out here. A month after I moved out, like I mentioned before, I had my Instagram account. I was

working on some sponsorships for my podcast and a couple of different... Working with a couple different companies. And without warning, my Instagram account was killed. And all of those deals then were ruined. All of those opportunities that I was so excited about moving out here were taken away without even me having any recourse in the end. Eventually, Instagram said, we're sorry we did it. It was a mistake, but we can't restore it. Have a good day. And at the end of the day for me, you know, all of those experiences were challenging. So on some levels, I think moving has been fantastic because it has allowed me to have a bit of that slate, you know, kind of clean slate. Like, OK, what am I building here? You know, what are the things that I want to see happen now?

I'm not held back by old restrictions or old, you just old ruts of behavior uh you know it's also in a lot of ways for me it's also nice that a lot of my old eating haunts are gone so even if i felt like you know i was at the bottom you know kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel in my life like i couldn't just turn and walk half a mile from my house and get to the pizza place that i used to eat at way too much when i was bigger. It's about opportunity and change. And I don't know if I'll stay in California forever. You know, I've got, you know, some other places I'd love to explore. But I think what this move has shown me is that I can do that.

You know, like I can uproot my life in ways that I never thought possible. And physically, I can't complain here at all. Like, you've got a heat wave blasting most of the country. And here in San Diego, it's sunny and 70, almost 24 hours a day. You know, I mean, the sun goes down at night eventually, I'm told. But, you know, I'm sitting here in my room right now. I can see the ocean from the window. You know, I can hear there are nights where you can hear the waves crashing.

Like I can't complain about any of that. You know, the fact that I can get up for a walk at five o'clock in the morning and have it be in the sixties. And so it's not also, you know, fat guys know that it's not really fun to walk when it's 90 degrees, you know, 85, 90 degrees, like getting up in the morning and going for a walk can be pleasant. You know, there's a lot of good things and gyms are finally open again in California. So that's been nice. And I'm actually, I used to be a hardcore planet fitness guy. Um, so I'm used to everything being on tracks and safe and controlled. And now I'm at a gym where the weights can move when they're in my hands. So it's a

little bit different. So I'm learning some new things and, you know, picking up some new tricks and tips and like this, enjoying the experience that I've had. And then you mentioned the, the grocery store out here, you know, um um i was connected with them on social media and when i moved out they were like we're looking for someone part-time are you interested we know you're trying to kind of build your coaching and work on that you know it seems like there's some synergy there so i've started working with them and i'm having a great time doing that i'm helping plan um an event down here in california down here in californ event down here in California, down here in California, down here in San Diego in August called Keto Palooza,

which is going to be awesome where we've got some speakers coming in and I'll be speaking. And it's just at Liberty station here, the third weekend in August, and it's going to be fantastic. And I just think it's, yeah, it's just a chance to bring the community together.

You know, there haven't been a lot of events like that for people that aren't working in the industry kind of thing. like it's a chance for regular everyday keto people to come together and have a nice weekend in a gorgeous place trivia host maybe you can fit maybe you can end the podcast here with a with a nutrition uh trivia question see the problem is when you host trivia, your brain becomes like a sieve because you're asking so many questions that people were like, you must be so great when you go play trivia at places.

And I'm like, no, I'm an idiot. Like I just read, I'm the talent. I don't write the questions. I don't play in the games. I just look pretty and read those questions to people. Do you know the answers or not really? Well, I have them on a sheet in front of me. Like, you know, it's not hard when you've got a piece of paper with the answers on them, you know, you're not necessarily a trivia buff. You're more of a, just a host. Yeah. I mean, I liked going myself, but I became more of a host. You know, I like, I had done a radio show.

I had done some other things along those lines. So I just, you know, it was a way to kind of work, work with the people, work with the public, have a good time. Where can people find out more about your coaching and some of the stuff you're helping people with? Sure. Obviously, I've mentioned a couple times Instagram. You can find me on there as, you know, at Gourmet Goes Keto. If you go to theketoroad.com, I work with my former coach.

He, once we stopped working together, he knew he wanted to kind of expand his company and said, are you interested in coaching? So actually this week has been a year. It's been pretty powerful. You know, I've worked with over 30 people. Um, you know, I've helped them lose almost 2000 pounds. Like it's been pretty life changing for me, the lessons I've learned doing that. So keto road.com.

Um, if you're interested in my podcast, I have a podcast called the fat guy forum where i share the stories of men um i share the stories of fat guys um i get sometimes some negative feedback because they're like when are you going to have women on i said i don't think calling a man calling a podcast the fat girl forum is a great idea i think i would get into a lot of trouble um but i felt like when i created it that there was a lack of in this space of like just average guys dealing with weight issues, talk, being able to share their stories.

So I've had some amazing guests on there over 120 guests at this point. And this week was also the two year anniversary of my podcast. So there's a lot of good stuff happening. A lot of synergy this week for me. But you can find the fact I forum on all podcast platforms. And those are the best places to find me. How long have you been lifting for? And was a transition into some lifting difficult or strange for you to like

try to find the right information? Well, I was lucky in that years ago, I had a, I have a good friend who is a trainer who helped when one of my first rounds of losing weight, probably late 90s, early 2000s. He was the first time I really got into the gym with I was going with him.

And so he really kind of got me into the mechanics of it all. And then when I got bigger again, when I first started, even when I started in February of 2017, I was walking for five minutes, and that was all I could manage. And after a month, I decided it was time to go back to the gym. I went into a planet fitness and tried to get on a machine and couldn't fit. And that was fun. You know, when you step on a treadmill and it stops, when you try to get into like, you know, get into like a get into a get into a bicep machine, and you can't get your gut in front of, you know, all the paddings in the way like it's like, okay, this isn't really going to work. Is there are the things I can do with simple dumbbells, you know, so I reached out to him again.

this isn't really going to work. Are there things I can do with simple dumbbells? You know, so I reached out to him again. And so that's when it became something for me that, you know, and again, people love to knock Planet Fitness. Like I was able to do a lot there and use the resources that I had there. And I feel like now that I'm in a place, you know, a gym that has access to some better equipment, I'm actually getting a little more focused in terms of wanting to actually

maybe see myself actually get a little bit stronger, I think would be fun. I think it's something that I've seen before. And you know, the COVID break has not been the most awesome thing. When it comes to that kind of activity, you know, I got my walking in all the time. But, you know, access to physical equipment, you know, was a challenge. So now that I'm back in the gym, I've got a another buddy I've connected with out here who actually is a trainer who's going to help put together a more focused program for me because I'm trying to adapt some of the things I was doing at the gym before to this new gym and everything doesn't really work the same way. But I've had fun exploring some new exercises and things my body can do and things my body can't do. And, you know, it's been a letting that evolve

has been an awesome part of this. Awesome, man. Thank you so much for being on the show and have a great rest of your day. Thanks for sharing your story. Thank you guys. I really appreciate it. This was really awesome. Yeah, man. Thank you so much. For me goes keto. That was really cool. So many things like,

I guess you, you don't think about from that perspective. So it's really great that we had that conversation with him. I think a lot of people are going to get some good stuff from this one. Yeah. I, um, the lifting side of things.

I know, like I have a lot of people ask me, um, you know, people are starting their, their weight loss journey and they haven't really stepped in the gym and they, they don't know what to do. And even, even some other folks that, uh, just some friends with and some people that I know, um, they just don't know like what to do lifting wise. Um, and it's just, uh, it's always interesting to me just because I've been doing it

for so long. I'm always kind of like, what do you mean you don't know what to do? Like, just go in there and like, you just pick up some dumbbells and move them around, pick up a barbell and move it around. But I think people are really concerned about like, maybe just going in and like doing all the wrong stuff or they're super self-conscious. But to me, I would treat it like going on a walk or I would treat it like running. Like I don't really know how to run. I never like, well, I did some track when I was young

and learned a tiny bit about like form when you run. But like, I don't have any form anymore. I'm too tight to have like decent running form. I just practice it. I just go and I mess with it. So people that listen to this show and people that are, um, you know, kind of just stuck or, uh, just really worried about what they're going to look like in the gym. I would really encourage you to, to go to a gym. And like, uh, Gormy said, he said he, uh, he grabbed a hold of a trainer and had someone kind of show him. But with YouTube and all the different resources there are now, you can look up certain workouts.

There's apps. There's all kinds of different things. But just go in there and just move some stuff around. I mean, even if you were intimidated by the free weights, machines are pretty self-explanatory. It's got pictures and stuff. You just sit down and do pictures and stuff just sit down and do an overhead press or sit down and do a bench press so i think it's it's a great thing for everyone to start it not only burns calories for the moment but will help build muscle which will

help burn calories down the road so just always want to encourage people to get some lifting in absolutely and i mean i'm not even nowhere near as deep into the game as you mark but yeah i get surprised when you know people say like yeah i want to get to the gym but i don't know what to do once i get there and you know i was kind of blown away but all i said was just like i'm gonna sit down on one of the machines and it can really only go one direction so just do that until you kind of get an idea or you, you know, have,

have somebody with you that can show you what to do, you know, as just the start. I'm like, but the, the main thing is there's really nothing you can do wrong. I mean, other than getting hurt,

but like, you know, it's like going for a 10 minute walk, like, okay, I guess we don't need instructions for that, but like, is there,

are you going to get anything negative from a 10-minute walk? Absolutely not. And so by just going to the gym, you're going to get a net positive by just going in there, having no clue what you're doing, but just sitting down, like you said, in a chest press machine and pushing the bar forward, you'll get some benefit from it. Yeah, it was a good show. I liked how he talked about how he varied his body weight so much.

That seemed like a crazy struggle. And for somebody that hasn't struggled with diet before, maybe they don't understand the battle, but you're trying to continually suppress who you really are over and over and over again. And it's going to kind of rear its ugly head. But now it just seems like he's still the same person in a lot of ways. He just has a lot better control over that person. And I think that's something that anybody can learn from because there's a lot of impulses that we have every day.

We know how it's not great to act on all of them. You know, there's going to be some impulses, some things that you want to do that you might feel are in your best interest. You know, like eating certain foods and stuff. It does feel good in the moment. It feels great. But ultimately, it's something that is really uh detrimental and and continuing to hurt you on a daily basis yeah it is interesting though like especially for him how again he did it multiple times so like one of the big one of the big things for like

for me when it comes to staying in shape because I know what it feels like to feel really good. And when I don't feel as good, I know what I need to do to get back to feeling that way. But he felt that way. He went all the way back and then he had to go all the way back to feeling that way again. You know what I mean? So that's like you mentioned, some people have been,

have been heavy their whole life and they've never been in a place where they feel truly feel healthy. So they don't really even know the difference. They don't know what, well, they know what they're missing out on, but they haven't really maybe felt that. And he felt that multiple times. So yeah, it's, it's, it's wild that he did that. I think you need to just find the exact way for him to do it because, uh, I think you need to just find the exact way for him to do it because, uh, like I said,

he was just trying to maybe restrict too much. And each time, you know, some, something different kind of popped up, but through exercise. Oh no, we lost Mark.

We'll give him a second, but dude, so what happened with your dog? Oh yeah, dude. Yeah uh so i took out my freaking trash recycling this morning and i looks like i didn't like close the gate tightly enough so then i put him outside because usually when we podcast like he i don't know if you could hear he's like whimpers and stuff because he's not getting attention right so i was like okay put him in the backyard for the podcast and i was like wait

did i i didn't lock it so when that's the backyard he just his ass wasn't there and i was like i'm just driving fucking around the circle here and then i stopped a lady i was like have you seen a husky gave her my number but then i saw him he was like fucking with somebody's lawn got out of my car came in brought him back home i was scared as fuck though because he's a good looking dog so somebody would really want to snag his ass up yeah no so i had a similar experience um i was actually in la my parents were watching at that time i had two dogs but one was a husky and yeah sure enough they're hey, don't know what happened, but they got out. And so, I mean, that was a drive away, right?

But that was an eight-hour drive to where I had to go from what you experienced to, oh, shit, I got to go find these dogs. But I had to wait a whole trip up and down I-5 just to get there. And so, that was terrible. But anyway, yeah, yeah dude today's show was incredible uh mark just said go ahead and we'll just close this one on close this one out really stoked that we got uh so his name is mike gore uh mike gorman i only know him as gorman yeah but i'm glad we finally got him on i've been wanting to you know schedule this one for a while just because i thought his story was just incredible.

Again, you hear people, you see somebody even like Anthony Lawley, from Fat Lawley to Six Pack Lawley. It's like, wow, he did it once and he kept it off. I can't do that. Gormy is so relatable because he had the ups and downs. He had the traumatic experience when he was a kid. That was mind-blowing to hear how people would be mad at him for losing weight when he was at Weight Watchers. Like, oh my gosh. So hearing somebody like him that can overcome all this, I mean, I just feel like anybody can hear this and they can be like, okay, I like actually, maybe I can do this. So shout out to Gormy. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

And huge shout out to Pete Montees. Gormy's going all meet in July. I'm sure he's going to use Pete Montees to do it as well. Links down in the description of Pete Montees in the YouTube description, as well as podcast show notes. And again, promo code PowerProject for 25% off. Please make sure you're following the podcast at MarkBell's PowerProject on Instagram at MBPowerProject on TikTok and Twitter. My Instagram and Twitter is at IamAndrewZ at TheAndrewZ on TikTok. And Seema, where you at?

Seema Yin Yang on Instagram and YouTube and Seema Yin Yang on TikTok and Seema where you at? Seema Yin Yang on Instagram and YouTube and Seema Yin Yang on TikTok and Twitter. Dope and then Mark is at Mark Smelly Bell all over the place. Thank you again for checking out today's episode. Sincerely appreciate it. Strength is never a weakness.

Strength is never a strength. Catch y'all later. Peace.