Realfoodology - Falling in Love With Yourself with Sylvester McNutt

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

96: Sylvester McNutt III is an 8x bestselling author, podcaster, public speaker, course creator, and father. Sylvester teaches people how to transform their mindsets through self-awareness and healing practices. As a retired arena football player and survivor of traumatic experiences, Sylvester has used storytelling to teach people how to introspect, gain confidence, and sustain self-love.  Check Out Sylvester: Sylvester's Instagram: @sylvestermcnutt Sylvester's Books Check Out Courtney: Courtney's Instagram: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database Further Listening: Why Do You Want To Be Healthy?

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. A lot of times people will project their limitations on you and you have a duty to figure out your own path. And that means that sometimes you can't listen to the people you love. Sometimes you can't listen to the people who are in charge of you or who are your leaders or who are here to show you the next level.

Some of the people who are here to show you your next level have never even been to your next level. Hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology podcast. I am your host, Courtney Swan. I am an integrative nutritionist with my master's of science in nutrition and integrative health. You guys, today's guest is a good one. If you don't follow him on Instagram, what the hell are you doing? Immediately open your app. Don't pause this podcast though, and go look up Sylvester McNutt. I've been following his Instagram for a while now, and he's one of those amazing accounts that just has this ability to really put the human condition

into words. And he has such a way with his words that really resonate with me and a lot of different transitions that I've gone through in my life. He also has this special way of posting things that kind of seem to line up and resonate with whatever I happen to be going through during that time. And I can only assume that if it resonates with me, it will probably resonate with a lot of you as well. We dive into self-love. We talk a little bit about healing trauma. He's also an ex-football player and an ex-personal trainer. So we talk a lot about what his health and wellness routine looks like.

And he drops a lot of wisdom on us, you guys. Okay, before we get into the episode, I was just perusing his Instagram and I found a quote that I wanted to read because I just really loved it. Fall in love with taking care of yourself. Fall in love with the path of deep healing. Fall in love with becoming the best version of yourself, but with patience, with compassion and respect to your own journey. Oh, I love that so much. Well, I don't want to waste any more time on the intro. Let's just get straight into the episode with Sylvester McNutt. Did you know that most cookware and appliances are made with Forever Chemicals? Yes, that means your nonstick pans, your air fryers, your waffle makers, your blender

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of menopause and adjust your recommendations to keep your metabolism healthy through hormonal shifts. So if you want to take the next step in improving your health, go to lumen.me and use real foodology to get $100 off your lumen. That is l-u-m-e-n dot m-e and use real foodology at checkout for $100 off. Thank you so much to lumen for sponsoring this episode. Sylvester, you are an amazing author. I love following you on Instagram. You just drop so many daily gems of wisdom. And I think you really help guide people back to themselves, which is such a special gift that you have. And something that you speak so well to is self-love. And I kind of want to dive into that a little bit because I always tell people that one of the biggest acts of self-love is, um, that you can do for yourself

is taking care of your health and what better way to show yourself that you care about yourself than by feeding yourself nourishing foods. But I want to dive deeper into this and ask you what is self-love? Cause I feel like this is really hard to define and it may look different for different people. So how do you kind of define self-love? Very first thing, I think any person looking to find an answer to that question they have to do is they have to stop looking for someone else to define it for them. The definition is always specific to the individual journey. So I can only answer for me and in this moment. And it's also a recognition to recognize that if you ask yourself this question every five years, you'll have a different answer.

I like to think back about the high school version of me leaving when I was 17, the version of me leaving high school at 17, self-love for him was finding someone who genuinely loved him, a safe space, healing trauma, healing from physical and emotional abuse, healing from neglect. If you ask this version of me, this is 20 years later now, what self-love is, is completely different. It's actually, I need to go to bed on time. It's number one. That's the most important thing for me right now. I have to go to bed on time. You know, I need to go for my daily walk. I need to get my three workouts per week. I need to do my two yoga sessions per week. I need to meditate, if not every day, most of the days. I need to make sure that I'm laughing a lot. Because for me, I went through a lot of trauma when I was young. And so the way that I look to counter that, homeostasis, right, where I was looking for a state of balance. So the way I look to counter that is now in my 20s,

30s, 40s, and so on, I have to laugh a lot. I need to love a lot and I need to enjoy life a lot because I experienced a lot of pain and trauma. So for me, self-love is balance. It's balancing out my life story. So any person looking to bring more self-love into their life, first and foremost, you have to take ownership over what it means for you. And you have to describe what it means for you, first and foremost. That's the most important invitation, in my opinion, is to come back to yourself. What do you need? It's always asking yourself that. What do I need in this moment? Well, damn. Now you know. Now you move from that, that question. What do you need? That's self-love. Yeah. Well, and I think we often forget that we have all the answers we need inside of us,

but sometimes we have a hard time accessing them. And I think you start by slowly asking yourself every day that very question, what do I need? What do I need? It's kind of like checking in with yourself because I will say that on my journey of starting to figure this out, when I would ask myself, what do I need? Or oftentimes I would find myself in therapy or with a friend and they would say, how can I support you? Or what do you need? And I didn't have an answer for it.

And so it's really getting clear with yourself and knowing that you have that answer, but you may need to do some digging and figure out and get more in touch with yourself. Figure that out. And one of the things that's important to note is that we don't necessarily need answers. We love certainty. We love certainty. We love to know, but you don't necessarily need to know.

Sometimes what's more important than an answer is a question. Sometimes the question in itself is enough. Yeah. Interesting. So I, I, this has been a journey for me, which is why I asked this question. And I'm, I love the way that you put that, that it depends on where you are in your life. So I would say right now I'm learning self-love for me. It looks like saying no to things that don't nourish me or that are not aligned with my goals and my future self or walking away when my boundaries are not respected. I'm also dating right now. And that means walking away when my boundaries are not respected. Um, I'm also dating right now. And that means walking away when I see red flags or when my needs are not being met after being, you know, after clearly communicating and you're so right. Cause had you asked me five years ago,

I'm not sure that I would have even had a question for you, but it does change depending on where you are in your life at that time. Absolutely. A lot to mull over on that. So for people that are, cause I'm trying to place myself in the position where I remember very clearly a couple of years ago, telling a girlfriend of mine, I don't know how to practice self-love for myself. And, and again, like you were saying, you're asking these questions and you're asking in other people, but what would maybe be some guidance that you could give people in order to help figure that out and maybe ways they could practice self-love if they're very confused? Yeah. So there are a couple of physical practices that you can do.

The one that I turn to as a coping mechanism and as an actual practice is journaling. And so that can look like a lot of different things. That could be writing songs, writing poetry, writing about your day. One way that it could be a form of self-love is to claim your new feeling or your new identity or your new reality by using affirmations. And so you could write out affirmations, like let's just say hypothetical, maybe a person is dealing with some type of image issues, you know, like just say body image issues, or maybe they got a bad haircut, they need their hair to grow back. I don't know, just coming up with something off the top of my head. One of the things that you can do is use affirmations to affirm your new feelings. So maybe you feel bad about your body today,

but by writing out affirmations and then repeating them aloud, you're creating this pathway where you can, I mean, we could just do it right now. I feel good about my body. I love the body that I'm in. I love my skin. I love my strength. I love what I've overcome. And just that four to five second practice of just saying those affirmations, saying them to yourself. It's kind of like when you put sunlight on a plant or you put water on a plant. It is exactly what that organism needs to grow. We need to be affirmed. Positive states, positive energetic states from an emotional standpoint, from a psychological standpoint. So I would say one practice that everybody has access to, which is free, is journaling. So get in a journal and kind of go back and forth in between what you need,

whether you write a story, you write your favorite song lyrics, you just go on the internet and find different quotes that inspire you or motivate you, and then just write that quote down, like, this was my quote of the day. And then what you end up doing is you collect a space of positivity. And so let's just say, you know, a random Thursday, it's a rainy day, you're having a bad day. Maybe you're feeling sad, unheard, you know, a little discouraged or whatever, which are all normal things. But you know, you can go pick up your journal anytime you want, you can go pick up your journal and you have this very genuine space of positive energy that you've created, you know, so that's a good practice that I've personally been doing since I was 11 years

old. Another good practice that you can do is having a commitment to physical fitness, you know, and I know when we look on social media, it can look like it needs to be a very specific way, but I'm a former professional athlete. I played football for three years, walked on to a Division I football team, and then I also ran track. And one thing I can tell you is that commitment to physical fitness, it gives you purpose. It gives you a sense of belonging. It gives you something to do, obviously, because sitting in the, you know, if we're talking about self-love, you just sit on the couch all day. That's not going to help. Like you need something to do. And so the physical forms of fitness that I personally do is yoga, walks, running,

weightlifting, and I play basketball. And this is the thing that I will say is you got to make sure that you're doing things you actually like. You know, if you're like, oh yeah, I'm just going to go surfing, but you don't know how to swim or you're going to go hiking and you don't like being in the mountains, you're never going to stay with it. It's, you know, I do what I like. I love basketball. I love lifting weights. I love going for a walk every day. I love running, you know, whether it's sprinting or run a two mile or three mile. I actually like that. So, you know, I think when people try to get into fitness and then they're like, okay, well, so-and-so said,

if I run three miles, three times a week, you know, I'll lose weight and strengthen my legs, which is true, but you're not going to stick with it. If you don't like, if like, if you don't genuinely like that, you probably won't stick with it. So I would say finding some type of, you know, physical fitness that you like. And that brings me to the person who's like, well, I don't know what I like. Well, good. You don't need to know what you like right now. Now you just need to experiment and go, go sign up for a yoga class, a cycling class, a swim class. Uh, uh, what else do they have? Zumba. I've never done Zumba, but I see them in there and they're getting it. I'm like, oh man, they're having a good time in there. You know, so just like sign up for these different things to see like what sticks for you.

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and it's also made with real whole food ingredients. It has a delicious berry taste, and it's low sugar, and it's gentle enough for kids to take every single day. And I really love the ingredients in this one. It's orange and acerol cherry, which is a powerful source of vitamin C and antioxidants, astragalus, elderberry, and propolis. These are all really great for overall immune health. If you want to try the products that I talked about today or any of the Organifi products, go to Organifi.com slash realfoodology and use code realfoodology for 20% off. Again, that's Organifi. It's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash real foodology. I love that you touched on that because this is something that I had to learn in my journey. When I was younger and just starting to get into fitness, I was doing the soul cycle and I was

doing the high intensity workouts and I got so burnt out, but I was forcing myself to do it for so long because I felt like it was the thing I had to do to be healthy. And there was just one day where I was like, enough, I've had it. I can't do another freaking soul cycle class to save my life. And I just started walking every day and I hike almost every single day now, or I walk on the beach and it gives me the most joy. And then I'm also getting exercise and I'm getting sunlight and it's just, you got to do what you love or you will not stick with it or you'll become resentful of it.

It's so important. I also want to touch on what you were talking about journaling. So I want to give people some tips cause, um, I wanted to add onto that. This is something that I do that has really helped me along my journey. And I got this from my therapist. So I have a folder in my phone and it's called letters to you. And anytime I get a beautiful text message from a friend, um, an email from someone, a DM from someone on Instagram, that's, you know, a really sweet message that says you helped me with this, or you're such a good friend because you did that, or I love you for this or whatever it is. And I have all those saved in my phone. And when I'm really feeling bad or I'm having a horrible day, I'm down to myself, I'm, you know, lacking in self-confidence, whatever it is, I will scroll

through and I'll read all these quote unquote letters to myself. And I would encourage people to do that. I've told all my friends to do this because it's a great reminder of what you do have to offer to the world. And then another thing that I do is anytime I see a quote, and actually I have some of yours saved in this, I have a collections little saved folder in my Instagram and it's called remember. And again, if I'm having a really bad day, anytime I see a quote or something that I love, and like I said, a couple of your posts are in there. I saved it under a collection Instagram and I just go through and I scroll through all of these different quotes. And that has really helped me a lot. I support both of those. Yeah. Those are both

really good. Thank you. I appreciate that. So you, I know your background is football and I believe you said you were also a personal trainer. What has your personal journey with health looked like throughout the years? And what are you kind of practicing now? I heard recently you say that you want to get in the best shape of your life. So maybe you can walk us through kind of where you started and where you are now. This is a huge question. And I feel like there's like seven stories that just came to my head that all seem relevant. And so. Well, we have some time. Yeah. I mean, when we're starting with the origin, I think we have to go to our childhood. Right. And so grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and I hated

the wintertime, but I love the summer, spring and fall. And, you know, I was one of those kids. I was always outside, always like all day outside. I remember my mom would say, you know, every couple of hours, you need to come back and check in. And I would tell her like, mom, sometimes I'm too far away to come check in. And she was like, well, where are you at? And I would be like, I'm in the next suburb over, you know, I would just get on my bike and be gone. And she hated that. But like, that's who I was. Like, I was just a traveler. Like, I will get up, I would just get up in the morning and just start walking around. I will walk to all my little friends house, knock on the door, I'll be the one waking them up like, all right, come on, let's go. We got to play dodgeball today. We got to play soccer today. I play all the sports, dodgeball, soccer, head bikes. You know,

we also play, I play in the recreational league. I played peewee football, peewee basketball. So for me, like my childhood was just super active. Like that was one of my first passions was falling in love with activity. And so as it progresses to high school, you know, school for me was, it was two experiences. One, it was really easy. I was a gifted student. I was in honors classes. It was really, really easy. School was really slow. But the problem is, is that by the time I got to high school, I was dealing with a lot of trauma. And so as a consequence of going through trauma, I didn't care about doing schoolwork at all. So I would have, it's, it would be crazy because I'd get straight A's one semester and then straight D's or straight F's the next semester. And then the next semester I would get, you know, say you had six classes,

I'd get like four A's, like AP classes A's and then have two F's, which is like the craziest thing. You just don't see that type of discrepancy in a student. And I remember talking to my counselor about it when I was in high school. And she was just like, what's going on with your grades? Like, why do you, you know, and I just told her, I was like, yeah, I'm just dealing with too much at home to care. You know, it's like, some days I show up and I care. Some days I show up and I refuse to take a test. And I know all the answers on the test, but I was like, oh, I just don't have the energy to do it. You know, because I was so burnt out

and just energetically drained from what was going on at home. And so she asked me, she was like, well, you know, what's something that we can do to help you get on track? Because you're literally a straight A student and you're getting A's and F's. Like, how do we eliminate the F's?

And I told her that the best thing that they could do for me is let me get on the sports teams, which I couldn't do. I was ineligible to be on the sports teams because when my parents split, I ended up living with my grandmother. And so I didn't start school on time. So as a consequence, I didn't start high school on time. I missed my first semester of high school.

So it made me behind. So because I was behind, I just didn't do sports. My whole life, I love sports. So I think I was like 14 or 15 at the time. She's like, all right, well, oh, to compound that, I didn't mention that also as one of the ways to deal with the trauma I was going through, I turned to anger and I turned to violence, you know, because boys are mean as hell in school. My last name is McNutt. That's my real name, you know? So, you know, now as an adult, it's like, you can just laugh about a goofy name, but when you're a kid and someone's making fun of you, teasing you, it doesn't matter what they're teasing you for. You want to fight, whether they're talking about your nose or, you know,

a shirt you're wearing, you know, or your last name. It doesn't matter. You know, when you're a kid, especially a boy, people are making fun of you. It's like, okay, well, I'm going to fight. Like, I'm not going to let you bully me. Yeah. So between my freshman and sophomore year of high school, I had 43 days total of suspension, which is like every week. And it was all from fighting, lashing out. And so it's like,

when I look at that person, I just think, well, damn, he was going through a lot. Like, that's the only thing, like he needed love. He needed compassion. My teacher asked me, or my counselor, she says, you know, what do you need? I said, I need to play sports. Like, that's all I need. I just need to be on the sports team. So they figured out a way. They got me on the sports team. They got me on track. They got me on football. From my junior and senior year, we turned the football program around. Like, they had no wins for four straight years.

I get there, and this is not me taking credit. I just was with a really good group. You know, I get there, my varsity year, my junior, senior year, we do great. Like, we do great, considering we hadn't won any games any games for like four years. I go on the track team and, you know, it's just a great experience to be on track, be around 100 other guys. kind of kept us separate. So end up high school ends up and they created the scholarship for me in Illinois and it was called the most improved student. And I don't know if they still give it out, but at the time they created a scholarship in my honor because of the turnaround that I made. And so, you know, when school was over and, you know, I was going off to college, you know, they asked me, they were like, well, what made the biggest difference, you know, in your life?

And I was like, well, you know, the trauma and everything I'm still dealing with is still here. But the biggest difference was having sport, was having athletics, it was having that physical fitness, having that outlet. Because whatever I was dealing with, I got to exert it there. If I was sad that day, I got to get that off me. If I was sad that day, I got to get that off me. If I was angry that day, I got to get it off me. You know, if I was happy that day, that got to come through. You know, they say that physical fitness is the greatest antidepressant. And I agree.

Yeah. So it started for me there. Now, the next version of that is I remember one day my coach, I looked at my teammates. His name was James. He was taller than me, faster than me, stronger than me. He did better on his ACT than me. He was just better than me at everything, right? But he wasn't a better football player than me, in my opinion, at the time.

And so I went to my coach, and I'm like, coach coach why does James get all these letters he just gets recruited by all these colleges I haven't gotten one yet like I want to play college football and this is about leadership this story is about leadership this was a point where you know he could have really inspired me he could have rallied me he could have did whatever and this is not me also being angry at him or resenting him or having any ill will, because I know that my coach did the best that he could at that time. And he was trying to comfort me, but I didn't need comfort, but he was trying to comfort me. And he said, Sly, you know, guys like us, we don't get recruited by division one schools. You know, we don't play division one

football. You know, we're just play division one football. You know, we're just, we're just not tall enough. We're just not strong enough. We're just, we just don't have it. We're not fast enough. And for anybody listening, you know, I write about this in my book. I write about this specific story is a lot of times people will project their limitations on you. And you have a duty to, just like we were talking about with self-love, you have a duty to figure out your own path. And that means that sometimes you can't listen to the people you love. Sometimes you can't listen to the people who are in charge of you or who are your leaders or who are here to show you the next level, because some of the people who are here to show you your next level have never even been to your next level. They've never even been there, so they don't even know what it's going to take.

So I'll never forget. You know, when I think back on my high school days I don't even think about the games I think about this this is the most important day for me is my coach telling me what I couldn't do and I could have folded and I could agree with him I could be like yeah you're right James is just that much better than me James my best friend at the time I stood up in his wedding um I remember walking back to the huddle and I said to myself, man, that motherfucker doesn't know what he's talking about. I just had this conversation with myself. I remember saying, he doesn't know who I am. I get to design my life.

I get to decide what my life is going to be. I get to decide if I'm not good enough. You don't get to decide that for me. I decide if I'm good enough or great enough or not enough for this situation. Not you. And it was like, that was like the, one of the most important days of my life because I went home that day and I went to my journal and I wrote every single thing that I wanted to happen over the next 10 years. One thing that I wanted to happen was walking on to a Division I football team. Walking on, for people not familiar with that term, means you basically force your way onto the roster by proving to the coaches that you're worthy of being on the spot.

And so that was my very first goal was to walk on to a Division I football team. My very next goal was to actually go to college. I didn't even want to go to college. Okay. But once he said that to me, I was like, okay, I have to go to college because, you know, otherwise I won't be able to play football. And the third thing that it made me want to do is it made me want, that conversation made me want to study communications, which is what I studied in college, because I wanted to understand how to motivate people, how to lead people. Because when I walked back, and I'm not even lying to you, I had tears when I walked back to the huddle, because I feel like he broke me a little bit at that moment. But then he also

inspired me because I was like, no, fuck that. You don't know what you're talking about. And it was like that moment that I recognized my voice and that I could be a leader. So it was just a big moment for me spiritually, you know? So yeah, I would say that that was the origin between, you know, the home thing and then coming into sports. That was the origin. And when you ask where I'm at now, the question you asked me was, you know, I want to get in the best shape of my life. Yeah. When I play sports, I was in elite shape. And I can define that as like, I could run a three mile in like 19 minutes. I could run a mile in like six minutes. I could run a 40 yard dash in like 4.5 seconds. I could bench press 225 pounds like eight times. Was very flexible, was very mobile. I could do, I can't remember, but probably like 20 pull-ups, non-stop rest, get up, do another 20. Like I was an elite athlete. I could swim. I know they have

this stereotype that black guys can't swim, but I can actually swim, you know? So I didn't, I couldn't always swim, by the way. I had to learn, you know, so I could swim. And this is also while having no major injuries whatsoever. Yeah. You know, so to me, I was an elite athlete up until I was like 25. You know, I left, I stopped playing football. I played three years of arena football. I stopped around like 22. And so I feel like I sustained my elite athlete level up until I was 25, you know, and I started working at Corporate America. I was doing sales management. And like right around 25 is 25, 26, 27. I feel like right around that age is when I stopped being an elite athlete. And I just started being like, you know, regular, like to me, you

know, still in shape, but being in shape and being elite are two different things. And so I would say I'm 36 right now. I would say for the last 10 years, I've been in shape, which is great. I mean, I'm grateful for that. I'm in shape right now. You know, I just ran a race last week. It was like a four mile race. Like I'm in shape. I'm good. But I have this theory with my 37th birthday coming up in August where I thought a lot more about death and about my own vitality and about my own wellness and about my own mortality. And, you know, while I'm not necessarily afraid of death, I 100% don't want to die right now. You know, I buried my father when he was 51 and his hair was like mine. It was like barely any gray hair. And I think about that, like, wow, I'm 36. I buried my dad at 51. You do the math. What is that? 14, 15, maybe 16 years. And I have a little boy. My little

boy is two years old. And I'm just thinking like, damn, do I want to die when he's 17, 18? Of course, you know, this is not we don't know what's going to happen, you know. But I just started thinking about that, like, wow. Well, what's one way I can sustain that? And also, I don't want to get to be, you know, he's 18. My boy is 18 years old and I can't move. I can't get up. I can't walk. I'm just tired. I'm just drained. I don't want that either because I know what happens because I was a young boy who became a man. I know what young boys go through. They go through this period where they need to know that they can kick their father's ass, you know, and I don't want my boy to ever think he can kick my ass. So I gotta, I gotta get moving. I have to become elite. I have to be in the best shape of my life because he'll probably be able to kick my ass. So I got to get moving. I have to become elite. I have to be in the best shape of my life because he'll probably be able to kick my ass a lot sooner than I want to give

him credit for. That's just the way it works. So that recognition, when I kind of put all that together, is what prompted me to go on this journey to just get in the best shape of my life. And I'm on it now. I'm training in the right direction. I'm getting there. Yeah. I mean, it definitely sounds like you're on the right track. I also just want to acknowledge your perseverance and all of that. I had a similar story with my dad. And I want to preface this by saying I know my dad really cares. And it was all what he thought was in the best interest for me. But when you have someone in your ear telling you that you can't do things, it's really hard. And so I just want to acknowledge that perseverance that you had,

because look at all these amazing things that you've accomplished and you never would be here had you not listened to yourself. And it's a great reminder for everyone listening to really listen to yourself. We have to learn to cancel out all the noise. And there is a lot of noise between Instagram, your parents, your friends, everyone projecting on you what they think you should be doing. I mean, my dad, one time when I was 27 or 28, we got in this big fight and he goes, you just need to go work in corporate America. You need to check in at 8 AM, have an hour lunch break and know what it's like to leave at 5pm every day.

And I just knew in that moment, like you said with your coach, it broke me. But in that moment, I was like, that will never be me. That's not me. And if I had listened to him, I would not be doing the things that I'm doing now. I would not have this podcast. I would not be having this conversation with you. And so, um, it's a great reminder. And I'm so glad that you brought that up for people listening to listen to yourself, cancel out all the noise. It's really important. So I read somewhere that you, uh, that your core belief is that healing is the key to success. And I want to hear kind of, uh, what that means to you. And I want to share a little bit about what that means to me, because I'm curious what you have to say about this as well. So, um, I, when I started studying health and wellness

and nutrition, I started really tackling these certain key points to my overall health and health journey. Um, I felt like I really had the diet locked in. I had the exercise locked in. I had all these things that I was doing, but I could not get past certain points. I was having crippling panic attacks, anxiety, and all this stuff. And the missing puzzle piece for me was facing the trauma of losing my little sister when I was eight. And I had this immense grief that was sitting on my chest, like a pile of bricks that I didn't even know was there for the longest time. And I share this story only to, um, to help people understand that you can be doing all the right things, but if you're not addressing your grief and your trauma, you're

missing a huge piece of the puzzle that I don't think is talked about a lot. And I know you talk a lot about trauma and healing. And so to come back around, I'm curious what you're, what you kind of mean by that of like healing is the key to success and how does trauma kind of come into that? The American view of looking at success is often related to our accumulation of tangible goods and or status. That to me, me personally, is not success. At the core of who I am, and I don't necessarily want to use a whole bunch of terms to box myself in,

but I use them just to help anybody understand. I consider myself a minimalist. I could get rid of everything. I have no attachment to everything. I have no attachment to anything that I have. I have a Lexus that's paid for. Obviously, I don't want anything to happen to it. I plan to keep it because it's an asset that I earned and paid for. But I don't really care about it, if that makes sense. I do care about what it allows me to do, but I don't care about it itself. There's

been times where I needed to walk. When I worked at Walmart in college, I walked six miles to work every day. I can go without. I have a beautiful job that, again, I've earned this opportunity. And there's things that I have like this $500 sure mic and lights and all the technology and all the things at the end of my body, I don't care. None of this is success. For me, success is when I'm 17 years old and I say, okay, it's time for me to heal my trauma because I don't want this on my body because trauma stays on you, you know, and that's okay. But I wanted to make different choices. I didn't want to be fighting so much. I didn't want to be stuck in these negative thought patterns. I didn't want that. You know, I remember there was this girl we used to hang out

with. And you know, when you're in high school and college, you have all these like peer groups of different people who hang out. And so so I went to I went to Peloton high school in Illinois and there was this girl from one of the neighboring high schools Barrington now Barrington is like the rich like the rich town and so we're over there we're having like a movie night it's like eight people and this girl had a basketball court in her in her house you know and so her dad was there and so a full court basketball court at that so I remember you know this is like the richest man I knew at the time when I felt like I was at my brokest literally my brokest internally I obviously didn't have any money

because I was in high school and uh I just remember asking him like and I was a very like direct kid I'm like hey man how much money do you have? Like, you know, how do you, you know, how do you afford all this? And I don't remember if he told me the number or not. But, you know, he hit me with one of those, like, corny Yoda grandpa dad joke, like, inspirational sayings. And he was just like, you know, wealth is within. You know, and I'm like, okay,

I don't even know what the hell you're talking about, but okay, like how much money you got, buddy? I see, you know. You're like, within is not gonna get me this basketball court, but. Yeah, I need this basketball court, okay? So I remember he pulled me aside and he just started asking me like,

what I wanted out of life. And I remember the very first time I'm talking to this rich guy, I'm like, okay, of course he started asking me like what I wanted out of life. And I remember the very first time I'm talking to this rich guy, I'm like, okay, of course he's asking me about the things that I want. So I'm at that time I wanted a Cadillac CTS. So I'm like, yeah, man, I want to get a, I want to get a Cadillac. You know, I want to get a bunch of nice suits. Cause I didn't have any suits. Like I want to get some suits. And so, you know, I just go on to like name all these things. And then he says to me exactly what we've heard for thousands of years. And he said, well, you can definitely get all of that, but I just

want you to know you have everything you need within you already. And it was one of those things like, you know, I don't know if people believe in God or the cosmos, whatever you believe or you don't believe. It was one of those moments that make you realize that there is something greater than you. Because like I just got goosebumps going down my body. Like it was one of those moments where he was letting me know that I wasn't ready for what he was saying. But he just kind of planted it, you know? And, you know, I about took me about 10 years to kind of realize, you know, I come into my 24, 25, I moved, moved out here to Arizona. And the reason I moved to Arizona is because I knew that I could not heal in Chicago. I could

not heal in the environment where I experienced all my trauma. I knew that I needed a fresh environment. And so when I left and came out here to Arizona, I had nothing. I had no stories. I had no friends. I had nobody who knew me. As Joe Dispenza describes in his work, I was a nobody. I was nobody. And that gave me everything. That's when I became successful. And what like becoming a pro going to college. And I'm not here to downplay anything I've done going to college becoming a professional athlete. That was definitely a level of success that I know certain people aspire for and will get. My success is when I chose myself, you know, when I chose to leave the toxic environment

and chose to just be in a space where nobody knew me so I could just mold the new healed version of me. And as a consequence of doing that, now when you meet me, you're not meeting that person who was like deep in pain or deep in hurt or anything. You're meeting a person who's deep in love, deep in harmony, deep in peace, deep in success now, but that's because I'm healed. I'm speaking to you from a healed place. So when I say healing is the key to success, I say that because I had success without it and there wasn't success for me. Success for me, you got to heal and you got to be in this healing process because then you actually appreciate what you get. You actually love what you get. You actually value it. You're not chasing it as a mean to try to heal yourself. Let me go get, once I make X

amount of money, then I'll be happy. No, you won't. No, you won't. You're just going to be the same level of unhappy with a lot more money. Once you heal, then you don't even necessarily chase a particular amount of money because then everything external from you is just icing on the cake. It's not needed. So yeah, I appreciate that question. Oh, I'm so glad. Yeah. I mean, I just reading about you and scrolling through your Instagram, I was just very touched by your story. And I love that you weave what you've been through and your trauma and your healing process into your success and your overall process in how you relate to the world. Because I resonate with that very much.

So I kind of want to come back a little bit to what does getting into the best shape of your life look like now at 37? What are some things that you're implementing and doing in your daily life? Excuse me, this is good. So there's a deep contrast there for me, you know, obviously becoming a professional athlete. That method was bigger, faster, stronger, you know, so it was a lot of sprinting, a lot of jumping, a lot of plyometric work, a lot of weightlifting, like four to five days a week, heavy weightlifting. That's not going to work for this version of me. That's too much stress on my body now.

Too much stress on the joints. The amount of sprinting and running I was doing, too much stress on my joints. And so this version, also back then, I didn't know anything about nutrition. I literally would eat the same. I had the same meal twice a day. And then my breakfast, I don't even think I ate breakfast because I was working out. So I only ate twice a day back then. But it was the chicken breast, the broccoli and the white rice. That was it. And then I would repeat it. I would do it again for dinner. And then I didn't drink and there was no snacks whatsoever. Like that's literally all I ate. So of course at that time, I mean, you know, you're working out like six hours a day and I was like 8% body fat. To me, that's elite.

That was elite like shape but like nutrition wise I for sure could have been better but also you know I would do when my friends were like oh you know we're gonna order some tacos hell yeah I'm gonna get that you know or you know whatever I would do that too but if they would if they didn't order anything it was the chicken breast from Walmart the white rice Uncle Ben's white rice and frozen broccoli. Like that was it. I didn't vary. I didn't have any variances. So I know like, you know, my microbiome at that time was probably like, Hey, you're not going to put anything else in here. Like this is it. No diversity. None of that. So right now that's something for sure. I'm trying to be a lot more conscious of

is, you know, having that microbiome. I never even heard that word when I was in college, you know, but now I know about it. So trying to be a little more diverse in like the fruits and vegetables that I'm eating because I am a guy routine. Like I could literally eat the same thing every single day and be happy. So I try to, you know, have some variances. Priority number one, I would say there's probably five main priorities for me to become the best shape of my life. And this is coming as a former professional athlete, former certified personal trainer, and someone who works in, you know, wellness, mental wellness. I would say number one is my relationship with sleep.

I love playing video games. I love watching movies and I love snacks. And all three of those things happen at night. You know, that's true. So with that, there was a moment where I had to have like some self-awareness with myself, with my habit, with the three. And I had to set in some boundaries so I could make sure I get to bed. So the very first thing is getting a bedtime. So between for me, that's between 830 and 10pm. That's my range. When I'm exhausted, I'm tired. I mean, I'm right in that bed at 830. And I'm typically sleep quickly. If I want to have my fun, you know, I play war zone if I'm going to watch a movie or, you know, NBA basketball is in playoffs. Now I love watching that. So I'll for sure I'll watch till 10. And then after that, you got to get into bed, you know, NBA basketball is in playoffs now. I love watching that. So I'll for sure, I'll watch till 10. And then after that, you got to get into bed, you know, especially during the week where I schedule my business and different meetings and things I have during the week.

The next thing is steps. You know, you go online and people are like, oh, you take 10,000 a day, 10,000 a day. For me, that's actually not enough. And the reason why it's not enough is again, what is my goal? My goal is to be in elite shape. So this month, I've been doing 15 to 20,000 steps a day, which is a lot, which is a lot. And it's a lot. Is that sustainable forever for me? I don't know yet. Maybe. I don't know yet. I could see it being sustainable, especially anywhere from like $12,000 to $15,000. I could see that being sustainable for me. The $20,000 per day, those have been some tough days. I'm not even going to lie to you.

That requires some intention. But my theory behind that is it's not necessarily the steps. It's just the movement. It's choosing to move, you know, the next thing is my three negotiations, non-negotiables. I do a workout, push, pull legs. And for me, I find that that's the best workout out there for me. You know, typically people, like when they start working out, they'll do the bro split, which is learned from bodybuilders, you know, so that's chess, you know, chess and try back and by leg day kind of, you know, you kind of split things up and it makes sense. I like push pull legs. I like that because one day all your movements are pushing.

The next day, all your movements are pulling, and then you have a leg day. I like that because I don't have to think about it and I get to hit everything. I also like it because you could do it twice in a week if you wanted to. If you're looking, you know, to gain more muscle, you could do it twice in a week. I don't. I do it once a week. The fourth thing for me is meditation and yoga. And so I started my yoga in 2012 at a hot yoga studio here in Arizona. And I had never even heard of yoga. I had never done it. And one of my buddies at the time told me to come to yoga. So I was like, cool. Yeah, that's cool.

I'll go. Fell in love with it the very first time I went. And it's just like, the consequences of doing yoga, oh my goodness. The relationship you have with yourself gets better. You're a more mindful eater. You sleep. Your hips open up. We store all our stress in our hips. We talk about people who are going through trauma and trying to heal. You need to open up your hips. You need to open up your posture, open up your chest and your back. And so yoga is one of those things where if I don't do yoga, I get moody. I get stressed easy. I get overwhelmed.

But when I do yoga, my life is aligned. So I have to go. My minimum is once a week. Now, if I can get twice a week, that's great. But my bare minimum is once a week. And for me, I like to go to a class because I like to be in the community. I like to be doing it with other people. And then the meditation piece is the fifth piece. That's the last thing I will say. We breathe all the time, but how many people actually stop and listen to their breath?

Right? So actually just kind of just right now, just like exhale and take a big sip of air and exhale yourself. You like literally regulate your nervous system when you take a mindful breath like that. You literally come back to your body. You have instant calm, instant relief. Anxiety goes away. Stress goes away just by taking one breath. And so when you actually do a meditation combined with yoga, where you're doing different types of breathing, like pranayama breathing or ujjayi breathing, where you're doing these different methods to activate different things in your body, what happens is you come out and you're calm and you're centered. And now that version of you is showing up to the party.. And now that version of you is showing up to the party. So imagine if that version of you was showing up to, you know, your business meetings, to your podcast, your friend groups, to your husband, your wife, to whoever, to your kids.

Or is it the version of you that's stressed out, overworked? You're not in elite shape anymore. You're not in elite mental shape. You're just jumping from emotion to emotion, from dopamine to dopamine, from trigger to trigger. Who are you? Who is that person? Well, that's probably a person that none of us like. So how do we begin to recenter ourself? Well, breathe. You know, so that's why I have to do, I have to do the meditation and I have to do yoga. Otherwise I go crazy. I love that you're speaking about that right now. I literally felt like you were speaking to me. I just went to a yoga class last night and it was the first yoga class I've been to in probably two years just because for a long time in LA, everything was closed and then people were making you wear masks. And I just was like, I can't do the mask in the, you know, heated sauna yoga situation. It was too much for me. But I went last night and I remember thinking if I can do this once a week, I'm going to be so much better off for it. So I felt like you were just speaking to me in that moment. So thank you for

that reminder. And I'm sure everyone else listening really appreciates that as well. Also, I thought it was so funny because you literally named non-negotiables. So a question that I ask all my guests at the end of the episode is, what are your health non-negotiables? And these are things that no matter what, no matter how crazy your day is, you prioritize them, which you just listed off. Is there anything else that you would add to your health non-negotiables that you didn't bring up? Yeah, I have to laugh every day. So I'm a serious person by nature because I, you know, I'm determined, I'm focused, like, oh, let's do this. You know, I'm running the business. So I'm by nature, I have to be serious. But I don't like being serious all the time. And so again, balance, how do we balance that? We laugh. So, you know, I know the cool thing that everybody does when they're out

for their, you know, they're in their car, and I know everybody's listening to an audiobook and a podcast and we're upgrading our life. I get that. But I figured out that there's comedian shows on the Apple Music. Like, the other day I was driving, listening to Kevin Hart's

his entire special. So I had like a 45 minute drive to go pick up my buddy. We were going to a baseball game. And so I put on that Kevin Hart special and like he gets in the car and he was like, man, what the hell are you laughing about? Because he got in and I was just like smiling and like all giggly, you know, the hell are you laughing about? I'm like, man, this dude, Kevin Hart, man. So, you know, I would definitely say keep doing your personal development and all those things. But, you know, mix in that laughter in there because you can't be serious all the time. You know, that's that's for me.

That's personally for me. So, yeah, that's that speaks to me as well. So is there anything else that you want the listeners to know? Like, how do you want to end this episode? What is the takeaway that you want people to have? You can become whoever you want to be. When I'm thinking about some of the topics we talked about, I feel like that's the summary. You can be who you want to be. And embodying who

you are first in this moment is the first step. So if there's some love you could find for yourself for where you are right now, like if there's a thank you, you can offer yourself for where you are right now. And finding the ability to also hold. There's this thing that I want and I'm going to get it. And it's not like, well, maybe I'll get it. Do I deserve it? Should I ask permission for it? There's this thing that I want and I'm going to get it. Like really speaking that from your heart and really meaning that. So I feel like when we leave, I just want the people listening to take those two things. Like where you are is already, you are already the right person.

This is, you're already at the right time. You are already done enough. You're already good enough as you are. And, because it's an and, whatever you want, you can do. Doesn't matter if it's easy. Doesn't matter if it's hard. Whatever you want, whoever you want to become, you can do it. I would say that's it. That's so beautiful. I love ending on that. So for everyone listening that wants to find you, where can they find you? Where can they find your books? Well, if you come to Arizona, you'll find me in the gyms. You'll definitely find me in the gym, walking, and in these yoga studios. My books are everywhere. They're all over Amazon and my website, which is sylvestermcnut.net. My most popular book is probably the Care Package

book. The newest book is called the Loving Yourself Properly book, which is all about the topic we talked about today, how to love yourself, how to root into that process. One of the things that I love about that book is it opens up talking about shame because shame is one of the main components. One of the consequences of shame is that you act small, you think small, you behave small. It minimizes you because shame, we don't want to be seen because we're ashamed of something that we either done, have said, was done to us, that we witnessed, participated in. And so one of the things that I'm trying to get everybody to do is just to develop a better relationship with shame, you know? And so one of the practical things you can

do is like, let's say, what's, you know, think of something you're embarrassed about. Okay, I'll give you an example. I peed in the bed till I was 14. I used to be embarrassed to say that, you know, especially like when I was in college, because I was like 19. So it was only like five years removed, you know, and it's like, I'm like dating girls in college are like, tell me something embarrassing. Oh, yeah, five years ago, I was pissing on myself. You know, it's like, nah, I'm not gonna tell you that. But you know, I used to be super embarrassed about that. And rightfully so. Yeah. But as I grew up, I came to understand that that was one of my body's responses to trauma because I used to think that I was going to be attacked at night. And so that

was my body reacting to it. So then when you find that, you find that out, you're like, oh, okay, well, I just have compassion for that person. Now the shame goes away. So one, my, my homework for you, not my homework, my soul work for you today is try to think of maybe like an embarrassing story that maybe there's some shame there. And obviously it's like not super, super deep and maybe just tell it to one person. Obviously I just told it to thousands of people. I'm going to get a DM tomorrow. Hey, you're that guy that used to piss the bed. Where can I get your book? You know what? We all have our things. But when you talk about your shame, guess what you're doing? You're showing up fully. You're showing up as yourself. You're not hiding. So then the shame doesn't exist anymore. You know,

when shame is present, love hides. When love is present, there's no shame. Oh, that's so beautiful. I mean, there were so many things that you said in this episode today that I felt like I needed to hear. So I can only imagine that the listeners are really going to love this episode too. So I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on today and having this conversation. It was really special.

Thank you. Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. this conversation. It was a J. Love you guys so much. See you next week. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. Thank you.