The Sevan Podcast - #8 - Penny Guccione

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

Hospitals in New York CrossFit Covid 19 Saving Lives The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. I feel like my patients all day, they're just like, what? They're like talking. I can't hear a word they're saying.

I'm like, use the audio. Oh, because you do Zoom with your patients? So it's like 50-50. Half of them still are comfortable coming in live, and the other half are like, I'm not leaving my house, and we do telehealth literally on Zoom just like this. Penny, you own Orchard Valley CrossFit? Yes, I do.

And that's in Newburgh? Yep. So it's in Newburgh. We're 60 miles north of the city. Newburgh, New York, 60 miles north of New York City. Yep. The Big Apple. Big Apple.

Not the place you want to be right now, for sure. Pretty big city, 28,000 people. Very diverse in our city here. 50% about are Hispanic or Latino. 25% African American. Also pretty significant. 51% of the people here live below the poverty line. The national average is about 13%. So definitely poverty stricken area. How did you end up there? stricken area. Um, how did you end up there? So I grew up right across the river, about 10 miles from here. Um, and then when I graduated from, um, NP school and their practitioner school, I, um, needed to find a place that was, um, it's, I did a scholarship through a thing called HRSA.

Um, and so after school, you basically, they repay your loans back if you work in an underserved area. Um, so it has to meet a certain score. And so the city of Newburgh, which was very obviously close to my home was like off the charts. Um, so it was my first job out of NP school and I've been here ever since. Yeah. NP is nurse practitioner school. Yep. Nurse practitioner school. How old are you? You look so young. You've done all that already. I am 28, 28. And, uh, yeah, so you are young. Um, it's, it's interesting. I did an interview with Trace Kennedy. Um, he owns a CrossFit gym and he also is, uh, I guess you call it owner of a church. CrossFit gym and he also is, uh, I guess you call it owner of a church. So his whole life mission is to help people. And you're a nurse and you're the owner of a CrossFit gym. And it's like,

that's a pretty focused mission, um, that your life has been dedicated to help people also. Absolutely. Definitely. I mean, you're aware of that, right? That's not like, I'm not like springing that on you. Like, you know, you see the. I mean, you're aware of that, right? That's not like, I'm not like springing that on you. Like, you know, you see the. Definitely. I mean, I just think, I don't know. I think we're all put on this earth for a reason.

And mine was just to help people in whatever way I could. So through CrossFit, through, you know, healing them, reversing their chronic disease and my practice, they both just go like perfectly hand in hand. How did you find CrossFit? So I was a competitive Irish dancer my whole life. I had an injury, couldn't dance anymore. I was in my early twenties. I was bored. I was going to like the global gym type thing with my husband.

And one day we were just walking down the street in our local town and it said opening soon and it was uh crossfit gym so we emailed the owner originally and it didn't work with our schedule then like six months later she followed up and was like hey do you wanna do you wanna still are you still interested and we're like ah let's do it whatever and we've been hooked ever since so literally just we had never heard of it before we were just walking down the street um saw it on the window and it was like oh that looks interesting so what year was that how many years ago was that um i've been doing it for six years now holy cow were you married to your husband at 22 no we we did get married 23 okay yeah wow yeah man you've had a life. I've had a very full life. Very fulfilling too, for sure.

And so competitive Irish dancer. I mean, as soon as you say, as soon as you say that I can see you doing that, you look like, you look like a competitive Irish dancer. I see it. Are you first generation here in this country? So, yeah, I was, I'm actually, I was actually born in England and I moved here when I was three. So in England, like Riverdance and Lord of the Dance and all that, it's like huge. So my parents, I believe it was like, I don't know, a date.

They went on a date to see Riverdance one day and they were like, I want my daughter to do that. So that's how I got into it. The hospital you're currently working in is in New York. Yep. So I work actually in an outpatient center. So it's called a federally qualified health center. So, you know, we see patients mostly with no insurance, underserved community. I don't work inpatient technically. So I do mostly primary care. And then one day a week, I do endocrinology. So like diabetes is mainly the biggest thing we for sure see here. And where are the offices? When I say New York, is it in New York City?

Nope, it's in Newburgh. Okay. During any of this in the last few months, have you worked in any hospitals in New York city? No. So you're, you're focused in New, in Newburgh. And did you say, you said it had 28,000 people and you said it's big. That's not big. Decently big. When you're 60 miles North of New York city, is that country? New York City. When you're 60 miles north of New York City, is that country?

So like if we take, you know, if I drive down, it takes me 60 minutes to get there. Are there cows in your town? No, no. It's very, very urban up where we are specifically. But there are farms. Yeah. And that's actually the reason we called our gym Orchard Valley. My husband and I met on an apple orchard in high school. So we called it Orchard Valley CrossFit. There's definitely farms up here. I wouldn't call it like rural. But I mean, you can drive 15 minutes and it's a little more rural for sure. Have you, have you had COVID-19?

aware of. I mean, we had like a week, my husband and I went probably end of March that we work out like six days a week and we were a little bit more short of breath after our wads. So I don't know if it was just, we did, we did a couple of hero wads in a week. We were like, I don't know, maybe we did some harder wads. Maybe that was a little bit of the COVID, but no, as far as I know, no, I haven't. When was the last time you were tested? Never. I haven't been. Oh, interesting. Yeah. For some reason, I just would think that all people in your profession would be tested.

No. So they started rolling out antibody testing and you can volunteer to do it if you want. You know, if they make us do it, I'll do it. But I'm not like super into it right now. I mean, I'm safe at work and I just, I don't worry about getting it. Even if I do get it, if I have had it, it's just, it's not really, it's, it's not on my radar personally. Yeah. So you don't have fear. You don't have COVID fear. No, not at all. Go to work and you're not like, Oh my God, I can't believe I'm working in this environment. What am I doing? This is life and death.

No, I mean, it's definitely a scary thing to see. And I can see how, you know, others are frightened of it, but personally, no, I'm worried about getting it and dying. No, I'm not. So you, you walk by this CrossFit gym at 22, you're with your fiance, you guys end up working out there. Are you guys, are you guys good workout partners? Like if he looks over at you and is like, Hey, you're not squatting low enough. Are you like, Oh, thank you, sweetheart.

Or are you like, fuck you mind your own business? It depends on the day. I just finished not really good workout partners today um but no most of the time we are we definitely love doing like partner workouts and stuff together um but yeah it just depends on the day if someone of us is a little testy then yeah yeah anyway did you guys do your l1 together, I did it probably a year before him. And then he did it afterwards. What's he do?

He came across the short period of time that I interacted with him. He seemed really smart. He's he's a financial rep for Northwestern mutual. So it allows his schedule to be very flexible with the gym. Northwestern mutual. So it allows his schedule to be very flexible with the gym. Um, so he, he coaches more than me at the gym because he has the ability to do like our early, early morning classes and the, like the 9am class when I'm usually physically at work. Um, so he could definitely coaches more than me. Um, but yeah, it has like a flexible, mostly like from home type of work job anyway.

So then you guys, um, you're working out the gym and you, you take your L1 first. And when you take your L1, do you take it with the thought in mind that you want to open a gym or just to sort of deepen your, your knowledge? No, it was kind of, uh, you know, I, I realized what an amazing impact the coaches that I had had, had on me. And, you know, I, at the time I was in, I think I was in nurse practitioner school. I was already a nurse and I was like, I feel like I could kind of bring something to the table here with a little bit of like medical knowledge also. And, you know, I feel like I could kind of bring something to the table here with a little bit of like medical knowledge also. And, you know, I wanted to be that person for somebody like those coaches were for me at the time. So, you know, I went into it.

I was super pumped about it. And then when I left, it was like it was one of those like insane things. Like I could not stop talking about it. When I came home, my husband was like, shut up. Like you can't keep saying the same thing over and over. Those two days were just, it had a huge impact on you. Yeah. Huge. Massive. Remember who the trainer, any of the trainers who were there?

Yep. I had Austin Maliolo. I was already a fan. So I was like, all right, let already a fan so I was like alright let me go to it was at Reebok CrossFit 1 and so I was like alright I'm gonna go there

like I know he works out there definitely have a high chance of getting him boom I was like fuck yeah I love him how cool is he

I know he's a sweetheart yeah it was awesome it was a big group because it was such a big gym but I was just, it was awesome. It was a big group. It was such a big gym. Um, but I was just like, it was like, it was insane. It was one of the best things I've done. Obviously I've done

my level two since again, just like super pumped. It was amazing. It was a little more intimate. Um, but I mean, I am like somebody that is like, if I could shout it off the rooftop, like everyone needs to go take the L1, I would do it. And why would you say that? What about the L1? You know, I think for everyone, because you think it's it's a coaching certification. And I feel like that's like the bottom of the list for what it really is. It's, you know, you think, you know, what CrossFit is about, even when you're in it and you're doing it and, you know, you've been doing it for a couple of years. But until you go and do your L1, it's just it's so much more than fitness.

And I think that's the biggest thing that I wish people other people understood for sure. Yeah, it's just it's amazing. I always like to refer to it. And I'm sure I got this from Greg, but sort of as the operating manual for the, for the human being, like there isn't one and Greg Glassman wrote it. And in two days you can take it. And some people are, it kind of has, it even transcends CrossFit. It's it's you don't even have to do CrossFit

after you take it, just take it for two days, get all that stuff. And it really is, it will have a profound impact on you. Going back to Austin Maliolo, he's one of those people you think he's cool when you see him on the internet and he's 10 times even more charming and kind in person, isn't he? He really is. He really is. You know, you're never sure. You see these people, you follow them on social media and this and that. You're like, eh. But he truly is, he's just a sweetheart and so knowledgeable and so impressive. You know, he just, he brings so much to the table. I was very, very inspired by him for sure, specifically, for sure.

So I have three kids and I'm, and so when I start hearing about COVID on a cruise ship and killing people and stuff, it kind of like piques my curiosity. And then, um, start, you know, you hear about it coming to the United States and you hear about people dying, but right away I saw this word, um, and I'm not very smart. I got a lot, look a lot of words up, but I see this word comorbidity and underlying conditions. So I immediately look up those words and I see, oh, this thing is killing people with like comorbidities and underlying conditions. So I start looking up those and I sort of brush up on all of that. And I hang out with a lot of doctors. So they let me call them and pick their brains and a lot of nurses. So I get a pretty good grasp of what underlying conditions are. Underlying conditions are basically diseases that people

have if you have multiple diseases. So if someone dies, and I know you know this, but if someone dies with COVID-19, they may have underlying conditions of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and asthma, and they might have like six underlying conditions. So, and the reason why I'm curious only is because I have three kids and I don't want to die because I want to take care of them. I want to raise them. So that's the only reason why I give a shit. And all of a sudden, so I'm watching it. Then all of a sudden I start seeing things like, Oh, old people are dying and black people are dying and men are dying at a higher rate. And I'm like, well, how, um, underlying conditions transcends all those. I'm thinking,

I don't see any proof that old people are dying. I see people that maybe have been drinking Cokes for 30 years dying. Or I think that culturally, maybe black people have a different diet or sex wise, men have a different diet than women. Like in China, there was like, men were dying at a much faster rate. And then I found out that men, like 80% of men over 65 smoke cigarettes or something like that, you know? And so I'm just like, man, they're really muddying the waters with this, with these bringing in black people and men and old people. Like, I just want to look at like what's actually killing them. It's definitely, it's not the

color of your skin or your age or your sex to me, just from what I've seen. And I'm no doctor, like I said, I'm not that smart. So then, as I made some posts about this on social media, I, oh, and so then for, since we do CrossFit, I've been hearing for the last, you know, 20 years from Greg that this is a hedge against chronic disease. Basically the CrossFit diet, the bottom of the pyramid, which is basically don't eat sugar. Right. And, and I'm seeing it and I'm asking all my doctor and nurse friends, Hey, so these, most of these chronic diseases are caused by sugar. Right. And they're like, not most of them. I'm like, they're like all of them.

And I'm like, okay. And Greg has always said, Hey, as a fitness guy, I want to tell you that you can exercise away a bad diet but you actually can't and that actually eating will get you to the you know 80 yard line or 90 yard line right so then I come across a post I think it was on Orchard Valley CrossFit's Instagram where you were drawing the comparison of stores that are open that sell Big Macs or cheeseburgers what it was and it was a beautiful glass of coke yep sparkling coke versus gyms that are being forced closed that actually give you a peer group that will support you in making the right nutritional decisions and will keep you moving. And why is this place closed? That would help you fight COVID-19. When I say fight it, I want to be clear

people, not that you can't get it. Um, anyone can fall down the stairs, but if you're a CrossFitter and you follow the CrossFit protocol, you have a better chance of surviving falling down the stairs and you have a better chance of surviving COVID. So when I saw that, I got all excited and I reposted it. And that way, if anyone when I saw that, I got all excited and I reposted it. And that way, if anyone got mad at me, I could just blame you. And I saw, I don't know if you saw this, but then maybe, I don't know, 20 or 30 people within 24 hours reposted what I posted, which was pretty cool. So then I got to finally meet you and you're a nurse who's actually you're not just a CrossFit owner with the CrossFit bias you actually are seeing both groups of people you're you have

experience with a super duper healthy cohort that does CrossFit and how they're dealing with COVID-19 and then you work in a hospital where the sickest of the sick are coming in with COVID-19. And I'm just like, oh my God, this is the perspective I want to hear. Yeah. It's like, um, it's almost like if you're at a doorway and you can see both sides of it, you know, it's, it's very, it's very interesting. It's very frustrating. Um, you know, I mentioned when we were on that call, you know, I've been, I've been telling people for the last four years, the same patients and, you know, until I'm blue in the face, you gotta do this. You need to do this.

You need to stop eating sugar. You need to stop eating carbohydrates. Like this like this is this is not gonna get any better the way you're going and then you know every day i go to work and notification so and so died covid19 so and so died covid19 patients on a ventilator for the last four weeks poor prognosis covid COVID-19. And it's like, it's insane. It's insane. Tell me what is a ventilator? Like where does it, does it, someone told me they cut a hole in your throat and shove it in there. Is that how does it work? It depends. It depends. Like if it's an emergent situation, non-emergent situation, it totally depends. Basically it's just, you can't breathe for yourself. So you have a mechanical machine breathing for you.

And how does it push the air into you? Does it push down your throat? Sometimes, yeah. So it depends, but it's applying positive airway pressure. It's forcing your lungs to open and close, expand, collapse. Because obviously the lungs are the thing here that is failing. It's the respiratory side of this. But an important point on all of these patients that have been dying,

I actually went through my last one month of patients, all of my patients that I saw. I didn't add up the whole number. I didn't get a chance, but like I have it all listed here. Not one of my patients since April 13th have not had an underlying condition. Not one. And these are not just COVID follow-up patients. Some of these are just routine follow-ups, chronic care management, COVID follow-ups, suspected COVID cases. Not one patient that I have seen in the last one month has had zero underlying

conditions. So the takeaway from that is you work in an unhealthy community. Absolutely. That's the only thing I can people from age 18 to being my oldest patient was 97 that I saw, not one. Okay. So you, and are we talking more than 50 people? Oh yeah, absolutely. I see an average, like if I work an eight hour day, I see 25 patients usually. So definitely a lot more than 50. So hundreds, we're talking hundreds. Hundreds, yeah. Okay. And why do you, is that, why do you see so many unhealthy people? Is that the city you live in? What's going on? You know, the city we live in definitely is it's worse, you know, than the national average for sure. It's even worse than just our local County. Um, but you know, there, these people are poor. Um,

they think diabetes is a normal way of life. It's not, you know, if it's when, you know, my mom, my grandma, my grandma, mom had diabetes, I'm gonna get it. You know, I'm 28. It's about time. It's, it's, it's the perspective that this is something normal, that, you know, when they're 67, and they're on dialysis, and they're nearing the end of their life, it's like, well, I'm 67, you know, I'm dying from diabetes. And so did my three fathers before me, you know? So it's that, but number one, it's, you know, the mixture of this, the culture of the types, the type of food that they eat. Like I said,

more than half of the population here is Hispanic. They eat a lot of rice, a lot of tortillas, is Hispanic. They eat a lot of rice, a lot of tortillas, a lot of soda. So it's kind of a mix of the three. Poor, the culture, what they're eating. It's all kind of like a vicious cycle. Oh man, I could take this so many ways. I have so many questions. So of these clients, so you're seeing, so in this last month you're, you're seeing people die. Absolutely. Yep. Patients of mine that I've been seeing for four years, um, dying. Yeah. How do you process that? Is that like, have you cried a lot? Initially in the first, probably two weeks. Yeah. I would come home. I was a wreck. Um, and it was really hard not having the gym because the gym for me is such an outlet because I

mentioned like it balances everything out. You know, I see like this horrible end of the spectrum, but then I see all these people improving their lives right in front of me, you know, at the end of my day. So it was hard to not have that. And, you know, people that I care about, and I've been trying my very hardest to help, you know, just boom, dying, you know, previously, they were, they're kind of trudging along on a Vespa, slowly, slowly nearing their death, diabetes isn't going to kill you in three days, it's going to kill you in 10, 15, 20 years. And then all of a sudden it's like they got off their Vespa and got into a Lamborghini, boom, zero to 60 in like three

seconds, you know? So yeah, it was, it's emotionally hard. I'm definitely a little more numb to it at this point. And, you know, I'm kind of, I've taken it, I've grieved, and now I'm just pissed. And I just, I'm being pretty ruthless with people. I'm going in and I'm like, are you scared? You should be. You need to make a change today, like what you're going to eat for lunch. Not maybe next week, June 1st, like when this all passes. No.

Tell me, Penny, let's just say I'm 60 pounds overweight and I'm your friend. Tell me what you would do if you were me. Give me the plan. Just your personal opinion. If you were my friend and you were 60 pounds overweight. Penny, I'm scared I'm going to die of COVID. What should I do? I keep seeing all these obese people die.

Yeah. I mean, the first thing I would do is, you know, try and talk to you about what you're eating. Like, let's sit down and let's, you know, I use my fitness pal. I track my macros. Let's just enter your day. And we actually did it with our friend the other day and it was shocking. He was eating 400 grams of carbs a day, you know? So I probably sit down, see what they're eating.

I try to keep it really simple. Like with my diabetic patients, they are zero carb. That's it. You know, they're like, oh, but I went on the American Diabetes Association. I'm like, no, the American Diabetes Association is telling you that you can have carbs every day. You know, like it's insane. These, the diabetic diets in the hospital. I actually, I wrote one down here from the university of Rochester upstate breakfast is going to be good. All right. Half a cup of V8 juice. Okay. Uh, three quarters of a cup of bran flakes, carbs, more carbs. Don't worry. a sugar substitute and a cup of fat-free milk though okay with a slice of whole wheat toast and low sugar jelly that's your breakfast unreal literally keeping your sick you sick not to mention say you're on oral diabetic medications

outpatient they're too damn lazy to keep you on them when you go in. They just shoot you up with insulin the whole time around the clock. Oh, no. Yeah. When you're in a state that you need to be admitted to a hospital, sick as hell, they're feeding you carbs. Tell me this. Why are carbs – what do carbs specifically do to the immune system? Is that what's, is that what's happening? Carbs are making us up. Why, why are carbs and COVID-19 a bad mixture? So it's an, the idea here is that it's an inflammatory state, right? So my

whole spiel on this is, and the endocrinologist that I work with, who I mentioned before he was the first member of our gym, super gung-ho about CrossFit. You know, our view is that the, you're lucky by the way, you are lucky. These doctors are in the minority. I mean, there's a lot of smart CrossFitting doctors out there, but there's a lot of knuckleheads. I know it's, it's, it's frustrating. And luckily when I first met him, you know, like you would listen and you would be like, you are nothing like anybody else. What you're telling me, it's not in the books. It's not on the websites.

You know, he's like, do not, you know, he'd get pamphlets from these drug reps or from, you know, diabetic companies straight in the trash, you know, like, he's just like, fuck this. It's, it's terrible. Um, so I was blessed that our paths crossed. We worked together for a year or so before then I opened the gym and he was like, hell yeah, I'm in there. Um, you know, but our belief is that the causation of this disease being so severe is insulin resistance. So this is not a state that you want to be in. Okay. It's also why such a wide range of ages is affected by this, right? So like the flu, it's not like the flu, you know, it's not just killing super old people or the very, very young, right? It's affecting everybody. You know, I've

had patients that have been in the ICU in their late twenties, not without underlying conditions, right? Not just regular people in their late twenties. And without underlying conditions, right? Not just regular people in their late twenties. And what's something that affects the entire population regardless is insulin resistance, right? It can affect absolutely anybody. It can affect a 14 year old who's, who weighs 200 pounds, who, who grows up on fast food and four sodas a day, right? And Kool-Aid. on fast food and four sodas a day, right? And Kool-Aid or type one diabetics. Should they be scared? So, no, I don't like definitely. I'm glad you brought that up. You got to make the distinction here. Type one, you know, born with it. It's, it's not a disease of poor lifestyle. Of course, you know, eating a low carbohydrate diet would be beneficial to them

for sure type 2 is a disease of poor lifestyle choices that's it you know people think because their mom had type 2 diabetes well that's why i got diabetes i'm big boned and it runs in my family doesn't mean you get it you have to work a little bit harder to not get it that's it and people use that as a corruption as an excuse it's bullshit it's not that's not the way it works right so people can take personal responsibility absolutely and fight and fight this thing back for sure you i have countless cases countless cases of like reversed in three months. Reversed what? Reversing type two diabetes. Patients that have been on four or five oral,

you know, anti-diabetic medications, insulin, 50 units of insulin off their meds in three months. When you say patients, are these people, you do this through CrossFit or you do this through your hospital? No,

it's just through work, through work. work yep and is that frowned upon there was a doctor friend of mine who said that um someone was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and they started walking them through the process of getting rid of their diabetes and they got reprimanded by the admin they're like your job is to tell people how to take insulin not tell people how to take insulin, not tell people how to stop to reverse type two diabetes. And they had to bring the person back and have another doctor explain to the person how to take insulin. I was like, Oh, that conversation ever happened. That would be my last conversation at the organization I work for. But, um, we kind of fly under the radar. We do our own thing. They leave us alone. Um, you know, I did message our admin about changing out a vending machine that was just full of soda in the staff lounge. I didn't get a

response. You know, we, myself and my colleague, I've been talking about the endocrinologist. We messaged the, the, the head of the organization about, you know, our take on this insulin resistance and what we can do for like all of our employees that are super unhealthy no response so i mean there's only so much you can do um and they kind of love us leave us to do our own thing because have any of the employees at the hospital died um no but a very significant amount of their family members. Um, because, you know, it's the majority of people that work for the organization are people from the local community. Um, and a lot of their families are, you know, patients of mine, or even like other colleagues of mine are patients of mine. So when this thing first came, are patients of mine. So when this thing first came, um, and even now there, there's a protocol to follow. I don't know what it is, but roughly I know what it is because people will yell at me

in my community. Like, you know, I went to the, uh, uh, to lunch yesterday and I tried to order, you know, you know, you order from the door now, they don't let you in the restaurant. And I tried to order and they told me to go away and come back with a mask. So I know you have to wear masks. And we were kicked off the beach by the police. There's all of these ordinances in place, right? When this started to, you know, two months ago, these types of ordinances, I'm guessing the same thing happened where you live, maybe even more strict because you're in New York. What was your feeling about them and how is your feeling towards those ordinances changed?

So they're definitely it sounds like maybe a little bit more strict here. You can't even enter a store at all around here. I mean, the only things that are open right now are the grocery stores, liquor stores that you can walk into and you can't even go inside them without a mask on. Yeah, that's the way it is here. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to misrepresent, but the restaurants you can't go in, you have to order at the door now. Yeah. Same thing. Like if you walk up without a mask on, well, first of all, if you just walk down the street, like my husband and I walk, you know, there's sidewalks all over the city. If we walk down the sidewalk and someone's like 20 feet ahead, they're like going on the grass. Like you're getting looks. Yeah. It's definitely, definitely not. Yeah. People will tell us in my, in my town, Hey,

you should be wearing a mask. Even if it's somewhere where you don't have to be, people will snap at you. They will definitely snap at you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my thing is this, that you can't just sit and avoid. We have to make an effort to avoid having the profile of the person who dies from this disease, not just avoid the disease, which is all we're doing with social distancing, right? We're sitting at home, which is all we're doing with social distancing, right?

We're sitting at home eating processed carbs more than ever on our asses, just waiting for it to pass. It's not gonna, it's not going to. So we need to fix the profile that we have as a person. You want to, you want to have the profile, the person like me or like you that is not, is not going to die from this virus if, if you get it right. We've come full circle. What is the, cause, cause they're muddying up that profile when they start, I feel like they're muddying up the profile. What's, what's Penny's profile. Like if you were to, if you were to tell someone, Hey, this, this person, you're concerned. If this person looks

like this, you'd be concerned if they got COVID-19, what is that profile? My biggest concern is number one, type two diabetes. Number two, you're hypertensive, meaning you have high blood pressure. Um, and number three, you're obese. Um, Can you fix all those? Can you fix those profiles? Absolutely. A hundred percent. I fix them. I wish I could say every day, but every week for sure. Absolutely. And those are all, and those are all caused type two diabetes,

hypertension, obesity. Those are all caused self-inflicted. Yeah. The majority of cases, very, very large majority of cases. The only one that might fall out of the range is hypertension. You know, some of them are not and do have a genetic component, but definitely type two diabetes, definitely obesity, 100%. And I guess that's the tragedy, even more so than the deaths. It's not, it's the fact that these people could, it didn't have to happen to them. They didn't have to depend on a mask or hand sanitizer or a ventilator.

They could have helped themselves if they got the right information. What do you say to people? I get a lot, I got a lot of comments about people not having the ability to fix their situation because of their socioeconomic status, not necessarily their ignorance, but their inability to, I mean, I know, we know there's a lot of ignorant people out there. I mean a ton, right. But, um, what about people who, who use the excuse that I just can't get good food? That's not true. Um, I can speak for where I live. I can't speak for the rest of the country. Um, but I live in poor area. We're one of the worst cities in the United States.

And I have patients that are undocumented immigrants, work in factories, making next to nothing, reversing their diabetes and losing 50 to 100 pounds. So if they do it, you can do it. Anybody can do it. And I have actually, because I actually used to get a lot of pushback from my patients saying, yeah, maybe you can afford that, you know, and you can do this and you can afford a gym membership. So I said, you know what, I'm sick of this. And I sat down and I did breakfast, lunch, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, nothing crazy at local fast food restaurants. We have a McDonald's on our main main street here, Panera, all that kind of stuff. Um, and then I sat down and I did meats and green vegetables,

all three meals, eggs for breakfast, right? Turkey, bacon salad with some broccoli and steak and whatnot, 35% cheaper to eat the way I'm telling you to eat. And I went to the store directly, it's called Save-A-Lot, directly across the street from where I work. Most of my patients walk to their appointments, could walk right to that same grocery store. So I said no. And I handed out to them, buy this, this is how much it's going to cost versus eating fast food all day. If that's what you're saying is the cheap option for you. And even if you were, even if you were to do the fast food, there's ways, right? You drink water, you don't get the milkshake, you don't get the Coke.

When you order the cheeseburger, you take off the top piece of bread. I mean, there's ways to really never eat the French fries. There's ways to really mitigate the um the damage even even at the worst restaurants yeah i had a guy that was um you know he essentially was homeless so um we we we track people that are homeless um you know it it secures funding and helps them get you know certain resources that they need so this guy was considered homeless he lived above a Chinese food restaurant on the main street here um and he was so committed to reversing his type 2 diabetes because he had already

had his one of his big toes amputated he was so frightened by it and unfortunately a lot of times it's stuff like that happening that really opens these people's eyes and freaks them out like COVID. He lived above a Chinese food restaurant and was so committed that he only got the leftovers at the end of the day from the Chinese food place. He had no income, no money, but he picked out the green beans and the broccoli and the chicken from whatever they gave him at the end of the day. And that's all he ate.

That is an awesome story. Yeah. A homeless guy did it. Yeah. And not to mention his A1C has been in the pre-diabetic range for the last probably 18 months or so. To put that into perspective, when I first met him, an A1C kind of gives us an average, you know, snapshot of your blood sugar over the previous three months. Normal is less than 5.7. Okay, that means you're not diabetic, you're not pre-diabetic.

5.7 to 6.4, you're considered pre-diabetic. Anything over 6.4, you're considered type 2 diabetic. This guy's A1C was greater than 15, meaning it was not even readable. That correlates to a blood sugar in the four, five, six hundreds on a daily basis. Is that the highest you've ever seen, 15? four or five, six hundreds on a daily basis. Is that the highest you've ever seen? 15? Um, I would like to say that that's the only time I've seen it, but I see it at least, at least two or three times a month. I see that new diagnosis. Someone comes in, boom,

A1C greater than 15. Can you get that just by, let's say, I just eat a pack of M&Ms and a six pack of Coke every day. Can I get that? Can I get a 15? You know, it's interesting. What do I got to do to get a 15? Because I actually had a patient I've been following for a couple of years. She was always pre-diabetic. I know a lot of people always hang around in that pre-diabetic range. They're not too freaked out about it, even though I put a huge emphasis on it. And then all of a sudden she came back. Boom, her A1C was like 14.

And all she had changed was she started drinking fresh squeezed orange juice. But like every day, a huge glass of it. So this is someone who's already insulin resistant. Three months of her drinking orange juice every day. Boom, off the charts. So growing up, orange juice was good for you and nonfat milk was good for you. And in 2006, I started hanging around CrossFitters and I don't know when it happened, but it wasn't right away. I'd say it took a couple of years, but hanging around CrossFitters and the peer pressure and the conversation and the knowledge,

I learned that orange juice is absolutely fucking the wrong thing to drink. Right. that orange juice is absolutely fucking the wrong thing to drink, right? Like soda. And now I would, like, I probably, I can't, I haven't had orange juice in 10 years, but isn't it, and I can't even ever even picture myself drinking orange juice, but it's amazing. That's the potency of the affiliate, that you just will learn that.

One day you'll come in with your orange juice in your thermos and someone will be like, hey, what are you doing? I even remember as a CrossFitter, when I first started, I heard orange juice is bad. I actually started diluting it. So I would have it like 50, 50. And then I just, and then eventually I just weaned myself. Right. Yeah. I mean like the society makes us believe that it's still part of a balanced breakfast. So I asked you about the evolution of sort of how you're seeing um the united states and the world address the problem through masks and hand sanitizers and ventilators and you went straight to this phrase what you would like to do is give me that again something about the profile people's profile so instead of you know you instead of avoiding the virus we want

to avoid having the profile of the person that's going to die from the virus. Right. It's like having a huge pile of dirty laundry. And you're just like, shit, let me just throw a laundry basket over this so I can't see it. Just because you can't see the dirty laundry doesn't mean it's not there. You're going to have to lift up the basket, see the laundry and just fucking do it. Or you're going to end up walking around butt ass naked or in this case dead. And how long did it take you to come to that? Like for the first week, like when, when the deaths were coming, like, what did you see? Do you, can you, can you take me back two months and tell me how you, you, you came to that? And was there any pushback

around people like, like this was callous of you? You know, or do you walk both lines? Do you walk both lines? You're like, Hey, we should be all quarantined and we should be taking responsibility. Initially, uh, you know, it's like fear of the unknown. You know, we didn't know right away. We didn't see the trends right away. You know, I had an inkling that this, of course, this disease was going to affect the week more. But we didn't know that for sure. And then, you know, it doesn't take long when something like this happens to really realize, I'd say it probably took two to three weeks for me to realize like,

this is not just affecting the average Joe. And when I say affecting, I mean, putting you in the ICU or killing you, you know? So initially I was definitely hesitant because I didn't know, I didn't have enough information about it. We still don't have a lot of information, but I have enough information

to make the conclusions that I make now about it, for sure. You know, I looked this morning, I believe in, I think it was, I don't want to misquote the numbers. It was something like 22,000 deaths we'd had in New York state. And 89.9% of them had an underlying condition or comorbid condition, which to me sounds pretty low. Um, you don't believe it, do you? No, I think it's a hundred percent and other countries have said it's 99%. Um, the very first person who died in the United States, they, they, you know, it changed recently a couple of weeks ago. It changed. It was a woman who died on February 6th in the Bay Area. And CNN reported that she was seemingly healthy. And they put a picture of her and it was just her head. I'm like, man, she doesn't look 57 years old. So I kept, I Googled her name and I found another article and it had a more recent picture of her and it was a full body shot. And, um, it was,

she was, she was obviously obese. She had those arms that were, you know, as big as my thighs and she, and she didn't look anything like the picture CNN posted. Now I'm not saying CNN did that on, um, on purpose to mislead us, but it is frustrating because I do hear people say, oh, healthy people get this or kids are dying from this. And it seems like whenever I look into it, I can see, oh, no, you know, like I saw a kid died in Jakarta who was healthy. And then I looked and the kid was already on his deathbed with dengue fever. And they actually didn't test him for COVID. They're just assuming it's COVID.

I mean, so there's always these. That's the other thing is that all these deaths recently, they're just labeling them COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. Everything. Why are they doing that? I don't understand this. This is just causing people to come up with conspiracy theories and like the government's trying to control you. Like what's the real reason? I mean, it's like 98 year old people dying COVID. No, they died because they were 98. Right. Have you ever seen anything like this working in the

hospital? I mean, they kind of do that with the flu though, don't they? I mean, so they, the CDC says 30,000 to 60,000 people died of the flu. And you're like, wow, that's a kind of a weird range. And then as you dig into it, you realize, oh, if you come in there with flu-like symptoms and you die, they just, you get to go in that bucket. So it's not new. It's not just for the COVID, right? No, it's not. It's not just for the COVID. Yeah. But I mean, I can only speak for my own practice and I have gone back. All the patients that have succumbed to it that I've seen every single one had not just one, probably three or four comorbid conditions. Man. Yeah, absolutely.

Do you think any of those people, this is just a huge speculation and I apologize for putting this on you. I don't feel like gift answers. Do you think any of those people who knew what they could have done to save themselves, or do you think that it was just all ignorance? No, I think they know. Really? Yeah. And I, you know, a good example of that is patients will come to me to be cleared for surgery. You know, the surgeon requires them to hit certain things to say, hey, they're not going to die on the operating table. They're not going to die because of the anesthesia. Right.

So I'll have these patients that are uncontrolled for years and years. And all of a sudden they want cataract surgery where they want. What do you mean uncontrolled? What's that mean? Uncontrolled, meaning their A1Cs are very high. Their diabetes is not well controlled. Okay. And all of a sudden they come to me, they want to be cleared for a surgery, whether it be

some type of elective procedure, like a cataract surgery or a breast augmentation. And they know the only way that they're going to, you know, get cleared for surgery is if they get their shit under control. And guess what they get their shit under control and guess what they get under control? Their diabetes. So they, they, no, they weren't ignorant for three years. And then all of a sudden, Oh, this is what I'm doing. No. Unfortunately, a lot of people do know. So that's terrifying. So as you're going down, you're having to talk with yourself. Oh shit. I, I did this to myself. Yeah. And I mean, I've had a lot of people, I mean, the biggest silver lining for me is that, you know, I, like I said, I've been talking to people

for years about this. I've had people making appointments with me saying, shit, I am scared. I really want to listen now. Tell me again. Awesome. I know what you're telling me. I just tell me again, I'm ready to change. So that I know what you're telling me. Just tell me again. I'm ready to change. So that is the big silver lining for me. And hopefully that'll transfer over to the CrossFit side of it too. You know, hopefully when this is all open and people are comfortable coming to gyms or starting something new, they're going to be like saying shit. Like I need help, you know, like we're like, we're those lifeboats, like we've said. I need help, you know, like we're like, we're those lifeboats, like we've said.

And I just hope that we're like overflowing, honestly, because this has been an aha moment for a lot of my very, very sick patients for sure. Let me ask you this. What do you think about this theory? COVID-19 really is nothing. It's in terms of relative amount of people who've died. 12,000 people fall down the stairs every year and die in the United States. 600,000 die from fucking heart disease. A hundred thousand die from diabetes. I actually don't know the number for diabetes, but I think it's like, I think it's less than a hundred thousand,

but there's all these people dying from all these diseases. But usually, usually those people die so slowly, even though the numbers are bigger in aggregate every year every day fucking so many people are dying from diabetes that makes covid look like nothing or from heart disease but the fact is that covid does it so quickly that's scaring people that it scares the shit out of people even though really relative it's not that we have monsters out there that are just plucking humans by the by the huge numbers torturing them you know they're losing their toes and their feet and their vision and the ability to get an erection and

heart disease and who knows what like it's like a slow painful death death. And I don't know why it does not scare people more than it does. It should. It's horrible. I'm glad you said erection. No show would be complete without the word erection being said in it. It's true. And that's another thing. People are like, I can't get it up.

I need Viagra. I'm like, no, you need to fix your A1C. Right. Yeah. My neighbor here at my house, they have a totally different take on what's going on. I live in Santa Cruz, California. My neighbor's terrified and he used to always come over and talk to me and we

were buddy, buddy and blah, blah, blah. And now with the COVID he's terrified. And I know why he's terrified because his dad has had his leg amputated. He doesn't want to give it. He doesn't want to give COVID-19 to his dad and kill his dad. I have to guess that's why he's scared. Right. Yeah. Right. And that's, that's a valid fear, you know, and that's, that's why when I'm scared, you know, I wear a mask cause I, even if I'm carrying it, I'm not, they're not going to give it to me and I'm not going to die from it. You know, they're in a wheelchair, they're blind. Like I'm going to give it to them. That's, that's, that's why I, that's why I wear a mask. Of course.

It's to spread. Why can't everybody see that? Like there's this, there's this sort of this movement and this thing to make people feel bad or act like we don't care because we want to open up society. Right. Really. 180 when really um we we've been doing our part uh pat ourselves pat our ourselves on the back those of us who have low a1c we've been doing our part to support civilization and we've been doing our part so that you could eat unhealthy and you could do all of these things and you could lean on us and you could still lean on us. Yeah. I mean, I get it.

They just blocked emotionally. Like what's going on. Do you see what I'm trying to ask you? I'm not being very, I'm not being very concise and clear about it. Like the idea of if, you know, if you do catch me not wearing a mask or, you know, maybe, you know, expressing my thoughts on the situation people. And I think you mentioned this when we talked before about that, like, oh, do you not value human life? Right. No, I literally dedicate myself to the value of human life. That's it. I'm here to guide you. Like I literally dedicate all of my waking hours to guiding people down the right path. It's, it's not that it's,

it's that, you know, it's, it's not that, that we don't value human life. It's that we just, we, we want people to open their eyes and see like, there's a better way. There's a really, really nice smooth path that you can go down. Like, and it's fun too. It's a, it's, it's not boring and horrible. No, like the best path you could possibly ever go down. You're going to make new friends. You're going to, you're going to feel like a million dollars. Like, you know, it's, it's just frustrating. We just want, if I could stand outside with a sign all day and say, I will help you.

Like I would, you know? Well, that's what, I mean, do you have a sign on your gym that says orchard CrossFit? Because that's basically what that says, right? We do. And it says never give up right under it. There's a, there's an Instagram account I follow. It's a, it's focuses just on jumping, like different jumping drills. And I go there and learn jumping drills for my kids. And the other day, the guy who runs Instagram account took a shot at CrossFit and then people in the comments just unloaded on CrossFit. And it kind of breaks my heart.

It's just a total misunderstanding of what we're doing. And they're saying, don't train, don't train fitness, train like an athlete. And it's like they don't realize like this is this is a health church. And you can do your jumping and your athletic training here or you can do your fitness here it's all in this orchard crossfit facility yep and if you needed if you some of if someone came to you and said hey i'm on the wrestling team and the workout today says burpees but i want to practice shoots instead of burpees could i do that you as a coach would be like of course sub those in for yourself. You're a wrestler. Do, you know, do double leg practice, double legs while we're

doing burpees. I mean, it's like. Absolutely. And that's my husband. We were just talking about that after our WOD today, we were like, just kind of brainstorming, you know, ideas on how to make people feel more comfortable. I mean, it's people think CrossFit is elite fitness and they think it is what they see on the Netflix documentary. And, you know, we try our very best to make our website look, you know, it's just us. We're just normal human beings. And that's like our logo, ordinary people doing extraordinary things. That's it. Like we are not, I don't have a muscle up.

I can't back squat that much. Like I don't give a crap that I can't do that stuff. We're like, we are not, I don't have a muscle up. I can't back squat that much. Like, I don't give a crap that I can't do that stuff. We're just normal people. Right. Really cool shit and living a really healthy, fun lifestyle. That's it. And so we were just kind of talking about how, you know, how do you, you know, I talked to my mom about it and I talked to my, you know, my husband talks to his mom about it and they're like, Oh, I can't flip tires. It's like, we don't even have a fucking tire in our gym. So it's like, how do we break that barrier of this stigma that's attached to CrossFit? We do everything we can. And word of mouth is how we spread. We do not advertise at all. We post on Instagram. We post what we do. we spread, we do not advertise at all. We post on Instagram. We post what we do.

We have a pretty welcoming website. In my opinion, we have bios about our coaches. We try and be as transparent as possible. The Apple logo is very welcoming. Yeah, no, it's, I don't want it to be someone like lifting weights and like a dog and like, no, like it's just, we're normal people. So we try our best to be honest and transparent and not intimidating. But at the end of the day, it spreads through word of mouth. Someone joins and they monster up the courage to message us, you know, and even when you message us on our website, the first thing you said is like, the first thing it responds is congratulations. You made the first step. Awesome.

Huge. Just, just the message across that gym, you know know so we do everything we can and word of mouth is how it ends up being someone comes they realize oh shit like this is for me this is for my mom this is for anybody and then they tell their friend and then they tell their boyfriend or their girlfriend and that's how we grow and you know it's a slow way of growing but it works it works for us it works great um but it how, how do we, how do we tap into these other communities? That's the struggle we're having, you know, people that think, oh, I'm too fat for CrossFit. I haven't worked out in years. I can't, I can't do CrossFit, you know? Were you ever fat? No, I was never fat. I've definitely gained weight when I stopped dancing. Since I started CrossFit, I probably lost 20 pounds, which for me, I'm only five feet tall is, you know, a decent amount. So, yeah, but I just I want everybody to think like, this is fine. Like, you're not gonna die if you come here i promise you quite the opposite if i understood

the message correctly from the government powers that be democrat republican the whole fucking shebang the reason why they told us to shelter in place and to put all these protocols into place was so that we don't overwhelm the hospitals. Yeah. What is your opinion on that being a medical professional, a nurse? So it's kind of like, do you just rip the Band-Aid off or do you rip it off really slowly? We went the really slowly method. You know, it's been devastating, obviously, economically.

Do you mean to rip it off slowly, the sheltering in place and the quarantining? It's ripping it off slowly, the mandate. Yeah. Like it's going to have to come off. You're going to have to unpause the state and the country. You know, the governor has been pretty transparent in New York about his phases in how he's doing it and his metrics. Like you have to meet seven metrics and four of the, of the regions in the state have met and they'll open on Friday. Um, not our region, not this, not New York. Those metrics are like COVID cases. Yeah. So it's like the number of new cases, the number of deaths, the number of open beds in the

hospitals, the number of patients. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I mean, the virus is not going to disappear because it gets hot out. Like it's still going to be here when we open again, you know, it's, we ripped it off slowly and there's no going back now. It's like, you're too, you're too deep into it. Um, you know, had you ripped it off fast and maybe got some herd immunity, I don't know who can really say if that would have been a better way of doing it. Who can really say if that would have overwhelmed the hospitals, you know, initially. Yeah. We have seen a slow and we flattened the curve,

but like you're seeing around the whole world, it's spiking again. You know, um, was your hospital overwhelmed? Was your hospital overwhelmed? So, yes, all of the local hospitals were definitely overwhelmed, but I think planned really well. They had good protocols in place. You know, all the elective surgeries had been canceled. You know, they turned other units into makeshift intensive care units. So yes and no. Yes and no. For sure. early on and it showed them going through a hospital and they were blurring out all the people's faces and the doctor was wearing the GoPro or whatever. And I noticed that not only

were all the patients obese, but all the people working in the hospital were also obese. And then I also, I, and the reason why I had asked you earlier, if anyone in who you work with died is because if I don't want to misquote, but John Iannotti's out of Stanford, who's a, who's a researcher. He had said that, I think it was even stronger than what I'm saying, but he had concerns about bringing people to the hospitals because none of the first responders or the caregivers were going to have a vaccine. And so what was going to happen is they were going to get it and then they were going to leave. And then that's when it was really going to explode. Basically these people who are supposed to be helping the situation are going to end up being the biggest spreaders of it. Do you have an opinion on that

theory? And yeah, I, I totally agree. I mean, I don't want to throw people under the bus, but, um, you know, I work directly with, let's say I work directly with seven physicians. More than half of them are overweight, more than overweight. I've always been someone who practices what I preach. If I sit down and I'm 250 pounds and I'm telling you that I'm grilling you about your diet, why the fuck should you listen to me? Right? I mean, I wouldn't even feel'm grilling you about your diet, why the fuck should you listen to me? Right? I mean, I wouldn't even feel comfortable grilling someone about their diet.

I wouldn't tell someone facial hair is horrible. Yeah. Even though I think it is. So, yeah, I mean, absolutely. A lot of physicians and nurse practitioners and... Are they scared? I'm a doctor who's a hundred pounds overweight. Am I terrified of COVID-19? The one that I work with? Yes. Is, and actually refuses

to see any sick patients in person. Have you invited him to the CrossFit gym or her to the CrossFit gym? No. Oh, why, why not? Um, you gonna do it now i'm gonna do it now i mean you owe it no particular reason yeah just how about this um when i first started working at the place i was working at i used to eat these things called ice age meals they're like yeah i know them i know it feels great they fit my macros you know whatever um and you know i'm kind of boring i just liked the plain ones nothing fancy microwave and eat them with my water or my seltzer every day people used to shit on me in the break room because you're skinny why are you eating like that? Like lighten up, like go across this.

Yeah. It's almost like reverse bullying. Oh, it totally is. Yeah. Um, the new norm, unfortunately is,

um, 50 pounds overweight. Absolutely. That's the, that's the baseline. Right. We are abnormal in, you know, lifting a barbell and running by choice and eating, counting our macros. Like that's not normal. Most people don't even know what the word macro means. It is right. As much as you want to say that it's just normal people in the gym, when I do the open, I rank really, really, really, really low in my age group even. But if I go out in public, out of my non-crossfit friends, I've got to be the fittest. And when I go out in public, like if I go into Safeway, I'm like a man amongst the boys. Yeah. It's crazy. Like you, you're a

weirdo if you're carrying two, two boxes of waters. Right. Like for me, it's like, that's, that's nothing. But for a CrossFitter, I'm still like, I should be carrying 12. I mean, there was actually a pretty staggering statistic that I came up, I think it was in the New York Times opinion piece recently, that only 12% of Americans over the age of 20 do not have diabetes, pre-diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol. I'm going to see if I can repeat that to only 12% of the people over 20 years old in the United States are without prediabetes. I saw, I want, I'm going to say his name wrong. I'm going to butcher it, but I follow this doctor out of the UK, a scene Malhorta and he said that 83% of all the people, once again, please bear with me if this isn't exactly right, but I'm damn close.

the people, once again, please bear with me if this isn't exactly right, but I'm damn close. 83% of the people in the United States and the UK are metabolically deranged. So I just wanted to make, and I, you know, I hear that term a lot in my circles, but I just wanted to like, be like, okay, what does that mean? Metabolically deranged. And for people out there, my understanding of that means that when your, your metabolic capacity is your ability to take the food that you eat and officially, uh, efficiently burn it into useful energy. And when you're metabolically deranged, the food you're eating is not being burned efficiently and you're not using it efficiently. And that comes from just eating shitty food. Right. So people, people DM me and they're like, are you saying no sugar?

I'm like, I'm saying no sugar. The way I'm saying, don't put peanut butter in your gas tank. They're like, well, so-and-so says a little bit's okay. No, a little bit's not okay. So you're telling me you don't eat sugar. No, I'm not saying that. Yeah. I do eat some sugar, but I don't eat, but I like, it's not like when I was 16 years old where I have ice cream every night, like I'll have ice cream once in every It took into account that they have, you know, under an optimal waist circumference, right? They're fasting glucose of less than 100, which is normal. That's what we want. Hemoglobin A1c, which is the number I've been talking about, less than 5.7. So you're not pre-diabetic or diabetic and a blood pressure of less than 120 over 80, which is normal and triglycerides less than 150 and bad cholesterol below a certain level

also. And they're not taking any related medications. So that doesn't mean you can't fall into that 12% of healthy people. If you're a controlled diabetic, no, you're still in the diabetic no you're still in the other you're still in the other part you're still you're in the you're in the unhealthy part yep yep because you're on you're on medication to control those metabolic conditions right you're not healthy without them if you didn't take them your sugar would be high and your blood pressure would be high so you you own a business a Um, it needs to open up to stay

in business. And yet you also, um, work in a hospital. And so where I was going earlier is that the reason why we shut the country down, um, was to protect our hospitals and our first responders and our caregivers. So you're kind of in a, you're in a weird spot, right? Yeah. What are you, do you feel comfortable telling me what you think we should do do you think we should just open up do you think it's time to tear the band-aid off and save your crossfit gym or do you think like hey protect your the the hospitals or and i'm giving you something i don't even know if it's true what i'm saying so so i mean wherever you want it's kind of like a two part thing. So number one, you know, gyms are being lumped into phase four. The last thing to reopen essentially is, is word on the street. That is wackadoodle.

If liquor stores, you know, my post liquor stores and McDonald's and Burger Kings are open this whole damn time. Why are gyms the least essential business? First of all, a CrossFit gym is not gold's gym. It's not Planet Fitness. There's not people hip hopping all around, touching all this equipment, not cleaning it. No, right? We could tape off our entire gym that's 6,000 square feet, have eight people in there, and everyone has a shit ton of space, their own equipment, and they're cleaning it with, you know, bleach and Lysol every single time, right? As you know, we don't fall into the gym category. I personally believe we fall into the professional services category, which is the next thing to reopen. But I mean, at this point, we've come

this far, like, you know, the governor, the way he's opening it, if they've done everything right, this phased plan should work. Two weeks, he's going to open, well, on Friday in the right regions, he's going to open certain things. He's going to see the effect on the infection rates, if it's still okay. He's going to open the next phase of things. I disagree with the phase of things, for sure. But the way he's done it, it's all right. I mean, we're already this far. You might as well just do it the proper way and see it to, to, um, completion. Um, yeah, I mean, our gym definitely needs to reopen on that side of it. Um, a little like the backstory on it was that we immediately dropped all of our memberships.

We closed on March 16th. So we're pretty much at the two month mark now. So we dropped all the memberships and stopped charging everyone mainly because we didn't want to be another bill for everybody during this time, you know, and we had the inkling that this probably will be dragging on for quite a long time. We did not want to have that uncomfortable conversation with our members to make them have to reach out to us and be, hey, I love you guys, but I can't financially support you right now. I lost my job. My partner lost their job.

I got to feed my kids. You know, I want to pay my rent and my utilities. So who wants to have that conversation? Nobody. So we just did it for them. We gave out all of our equipment for free. We kept a barbell, a rower and a bike just for ourselves to use for our sanity. Um, we started doing zoom. You go in there. Yeah, we go in there. Absolutely. We literally live a mile from it. So most of the time we'll just ride our bike from our house to the gym. Um, we started zoom classes, like most other gyms started offering all of our programming,

like an at home WOD form. So I don't know, you know, some gyms might disagree with what we did, you know, giving our equipment and programming for free and whatnot. But I mean, that's the beauty of CrossFit, you know, like we don't have to do any certain thing. We do what works for us. At the end of the day, we did not get into this for the money. It's a stressful time financially for the majority of the world. And we thought it was vital that we decrease people's stress and their financial burden if we had the opportunity to, and to keep them moving, you know, giving them equipment so they can do some kind of decent fitness at home. The great thing was we had a group of members reach out and insist that we keep charging them, which for me was like overwhelming. Like, yeah, you know, and that helps us out, cover our rent and it helps us cover our utilities.

You know, of course, we still have to pay out of our pocket, but I don't give a shit. You know, I don't want any, anyone to be like, Oh man, I really got to email penny and like drop my membership because I really can't afford it. But I really like, like, nah, I didn't want any of that to happen. Um, but I mean, the novelty of zoom has worn off. Everyone seems to be over it. Yeah. It's been great for the podcast business because people will tolerate some really shitty footage. The bar has been really lowered. So let me push you a little bit, a little bit. So, so what you're, it's governor Penny. What do you do yeah what would you do would you just open

everything up like who are we protecting like so so let me let me play devil's advocate here or let me it's not even devil's advocate on one hand if we told let's say we told people hey in 21 days we are going to open up in those 21 21 days, if you want to protect yourself from COVID-19, we recommend you do the following. Reduce your refined carbohydrate intake to zero. Reduce your sugar to zero. Brisk walk for 30 minutes a day. And after that, you're on your fucking own. I mean, in a dream world, what's the plan for you? What would you do? Like if I told a patient type of thing? Yeah, or just you're the dictator. You're the, What's a, in a dream world, what's the plan for you? What would you do? Like if I told a patient type of thing?

Yeah. Or just, you're the dictator. You're the, you're, you're, you're a governor. I say, I keep it simple. I do not overcomplicate things. I don't give out pamphlets. Like, no, you are going to eat meats and green vegetables only. Those are the only two categories you get into this and that, and maybe some, a little bit like, no, people are going to, they're going to get confused. If it does not fall into the category of meat or green vegetable, you cannot eat it. You're going to drink water and only water. Okay. Half your body weight in ounces per day.

You are going to dedicate one hour of your day to getting your heart rate above 100 whether that be biking walking squats burpees i don't care anything vigorous teeth brushing you uh vigorous teeth brushing vigorous tooth brushing yep um that's it that's what you're going to do. You know, it's funny. Some people think that that's crazy, but they don't think printing $4 trillion and asking the nation to shelter in place is crazy. Yeah. Yep. It's mind-boggling. So you're saying open it up. I'm saying open it up. There's no reason that you can't be having curbside retail like you're having curbside, you know, restaurant takeout. You know, if there's they're not limiting the amount of people that go into Lowe's and Walmart.

So why are we keeping all these huge businesses open and closing all these tiny little businesses that are going to go out of business because of this, these little, you know, gift shops and boutiques and candle stores on, on our main street, that's like barely hanging on are closed. But then a mile down the road, Walmart is like the parking lots overflowing. Right. It makes no sense. It's just backwards.

And regarding gyms, you know, if people aren't comfortable coming back to the gym, they don't have to. I'll still offer you at home workouts. Absolutely. I'll even do Zoom. I don't care. But if you're comfortable and I can keep people safe and clean, what does it matter? do you think this is going to happen again do you think we'll flip the switch and let everyone out and then you know i wish i could say no but i have a feeling that in the harder hit areas new york city long island the bigger cities around the country when they start to slow these restrictions i have a feeling it might spike again and we're gonna have to backpedal does does does i'm asking you all sorts of questions like you're uh you have a crystal ball does president trump and governor cuomo and gavin newsom know that this is killing people who are 30 years complicit in their demise do they know that it's people who are abusing their lifestyle and refined carbohydrates and sugar do they know that i don't think they do i don't honestly i do not they are not in the medical profession

i mean if you just listen to i mean does fauci know it like this how come like they're spending so much time talking about ppes you would think that you could reduce that by 80% and ramp and take that time to talk about true life-saving measures, right? Right. Absolutely. Does he know it? Do you think Fauci knows it? I mean, he runs six miles a day or something. Right. But I mean, I've just met so many doctors that just don't believe in what I believe in that, you know, it leads me to think, no, honestly, they think, oh, your your your A1C is this. OK, here's your two meds. Have a nice day. See you in three months. Not even a conversation. So many patients have come into my office and said, do you know what diabetes is? No. My mom had it. They've been diabetic for five years. And finally finally their primary will refer them to me for endocrine no one has explained to them what it even is what a normal blood sugar is

why this happened you know they don't have time they're too excited that top gun 2 is coming out this summer yeah that and they're getting you know these lunches catered by these drug rep companies like they're more worried about oh what's uh what's lily bringing in today for lunch do you um do you ever get um do the doctors ever uh i think the term is big dick you like try to like, like, Hey, you don't know you're a nurse. So like some have like other, other specialists have not my direct colleagues. No. And my colleague, the endocrinologist I was talking about, absolutely not. He has the utmost respect for me and what I do. You know, it's happened for sure. It's happened, but most of the time,

no, it's amazing what you're doing. It's God. I was just, I was thinking how lucky the patients are who come across your path. They are so lucky. Has anyone in your gym gotten the COVID? Um, only one case that I'm aware of only one one and how did they do mild symptoms said she was sick for a couple of days that was it is your community torn 50 50 like i'm hearing so many of the affiliates are half your members are like you'll be negligent if you open up and the other half are like geez what are you doing you're hurting us by staying closed? Yeah, I would say, I would say, yeah, probably pretty torn. I would say more are about opening. They're, they're more gung-ho for opening more are than are not. Um, but I mean, that's, that's, that's life. Like you can't please

everybody. Um, you know, everybody knows that our intentions are good. Absolutely. And knows that if they say, hey, like, I'm not comfortable coming back yet. I respect that. Absolutely. You know, maybe they live with an elderly parent or they live with a child with some chronic condition. Like, they know that we respect that. They know that, like, I have a medically sound mind about this. But I would say that they they're definitely split for sure

there'll be a lot of gyms though my last question to you and i'm asking you to do a lot of uh like crystal ball gazing i apologize i'm a gypsy um does everyone come around at one point like like even in the beginning if if I was, you know, if the first week I was like, yeah, we should be wearing masks to protect each other from the disease. And then, you know, I quickly realized as soon as you see the statistics come out of China, you're like, wait a second, this thing's not killing healthy people. Um, does everyone come around eventually? Does everyone realize that, that we, that we never had the honest discussion with the damage being done to civilization by the close down versus the lives we're saving? Like, does everyone

eventually become honest and have the conversation or no? I really hope so. Yeah. I mean, I would say it's been encouraging to see the amount of people that have come around, patients and not patients, you know, it's been really encouraging and I'm going to, I'm going to capitalize on that to help them improve their lives after this. But no, I mean, they're not gonna, not everybody. And that's okay. I mean, that's, that's life. Yeah. But hopefully. that's life. Yeah. But hopefully there was a, there was a, there was a sign up in a gym. I got, it was Reagan Dooley's gym and I cannot remember the name of it. And it was in Phoenix. It was a CrossFit gym and they put on the sign above their gym. We cure type two diabetes. So I was just talking to my husband about this. So I, um, I like to paint. So, and like I painted a mural on in our gym, on the outside of the gym, and I'm going to paint a huge sign, type two diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and just arrows pointing inside the gym. Like you can fix your,

cause it's not us. We're guiding you. Right. Right. Of course. Right. Right. So, you know, I'm, I'm going to make that sign. That's my next quarantine project. Can you put on there also, um, we can protect you from COVID? So that's the other thing. I have no shame in after this thing. Did you fear death from COVID-19? If yes, send me a message right now and we will fix this. I have no shame in doing that. And I think people will appreciate the, you know, the honesty about it. And just me being so like direct to the point about it. Cause that's it. People are

fucking scared of dying and they should. You're so callous. You're so callous Penelope. I told, I told someone the other day that they should stop eating sugar to protect themselves from COVID. And they told me I was sugar shaming. I mean, I was like, it was along the way. Wow. If I told you stop running that way, there's a cliff and you're going to fall off of it. Would you say I was cliff shaming? I mean, how, like, how do we live in a society where you're trying to help people and they're saying you're sugar shaming? I know just trying to help. That's it. So one more stat for you here. Yes, yes, yes. Say whatever you want. Say whatever you want.

This one's a big one. So the average person spends 0.03% of their lifetime with their doctor or their nurse practitioner as their primary care provider, right? 0.03. Okay. The average person goes to the doctor once a year, maybe twice a year, right? I see my patients every three months. So quarterly, I see them. Okay. The average person goes to the doctor once a year, maybe twice a year, right? I see my patients every three months. So quarterly, I see them. Okay. Um, if you, you know, hopefully, they're spending time with a good doctor or NP who's telling them the right information. But that's just not the reality, unfortunately, right? Most of the time they're in and out,

but that's just not the reality, unfortunately, right? Most of the time they're in and out. Oh, which medications do you need refilled? Okay. Have a nice day. Right. So even on the good end, they're spending 0.03% of their lifetime with their doctor. Enter CrossFit. Okay. The average member at our gym comes five times a week and spends about 90 minutes at the gym, right? They come for their one hour class. They hang around for 30 minutes afterwards because they want to. They want to talk to their buddies. They want to talk about what are you making for dinner tonight? You know, what are we doing this weekend? They want to do accessory work. They just want to be there, right? That means the average person, member at our gym, Orchard Valley CrossFit, spends about 6% of their week. Obviously we don't know their life, but their week with us from 0.03% up to 6%. They choose to spend 6% of all of their hours

in their whole week with us around people, positive influences, positive coaches, people that are pushing them, encouraging them, applauding them, like-minded individuals. If you want to shut that gap, it's CrossFit. That's it. There's no other place in the world that people willingly go and spend 90 minutes of their day. The average person's only awake for 16, 14 to 16 hours. Tell me another place that you spend that much time willingly in such a positive environment. There's no wonder it works wonders. It's just math. That's it. Everyone there wants to better themselves. Absolutely. No one walks through that door and does not want to better themselves. Nobody. Okay. Without doing it that is really really awesome that's that because 0.03 percent of six

percent is like uh what was that it's over 50 times more time right it's a lot oh more than 50 to 500 oh i shouldn't do math live on the air. It's a lot. Let me ask you this. Let's talk about CrossFit gym etiquette. Yeah. So it's where you spend 90 minutes of your day where there's a certain kind of healthy peer pressure to work hard. Don't be the weakest link. Don't come in with Coca-Cola. Come in with water.

Be kind to your fellow man. You know, like be the person you want. What do you, what do you see your clients who then at Easter time bring in the cookies for everyone? Cause that happens, right? Everything in moderation. Something, you know, if they bring some cookies in, you're not going to get shamed if you bring some cookies and we're not that crazy, but shit take the shit out of you if i worked at your gym that's why you're the owner that's why you're the owner right yeah no we never want to create an environment for someone to feel uncomfortable because shit maybe some people do you know they did used to drink coke and they're they're like stuck on that like wow i was, I was such a piece of shit. I used to drink soda. All these people don't drink soda. You know,

we also want to like ride that line of not, you know, not shaming people opposite way too, you know? So I guess you can take your vote by just not taking a cookie off the plate and maybe realize shit. No one ate my cookies. And that's, that's usually what happens. Honestly, the cookie plates and this and that you're usually having to beg the people to take them home with them. Right. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Well, Penny, thank you. Thank you. Um, I can't wait to hear if there's more stuff you

want to talk about your, your, your, a wealth of information and knowledge. The community is just going to love hearing from you. That's awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. All right, cool. I got a little bit of my anger out. Awesome.

You don't seem angry at all. You're fantastic. All right. We'll talk again. Thanks, Yvonne. Thanks. Bye.