The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - The Secrets To A Long Happy Life Ft. MindBodyGreen Founders Jason & Colleen Wachob

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

#591: Today we’re sitting down with husband & wife, Jason and Colleen Wachob. They are the co-founders and co-CEOs of mindbodygreen, one of the leading brands dedicated to wellness, and more recently, they co-authored a book The Joy of Well-Being: A Practical Guide to a Happy, Healthy, and Long Life that has all the tips & tricks on leading a more health-conscious life. We cover a lot in the episode— the benefits of day drinking, the dangers of loneliness, the importance of breath, why you should be critical of the info you’re taking in, how much protein you actually need and why you should lift weights, birth control, IVF and male infertility issues, and the secret to a long and happy life. Please welcome Colleen and Jason to the show. To connect with Jason Wachob click HERE To connect with Colleen Wachob click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you by Athena Razors Club Switch to the better razor & show your skin you care with Athena Club. You can find Athena in-store at Target nationwide. This episode is brought to you by Cymbiotika Cymbiotika is a health supplement company, designing sophisticated organic formulations that are scientifically proven to increase vitality and longevity by filling nutritional gaps that result from our modern day diet. Use code SKINNY at checkout to receive 15% off your purchase at cymbiotika.com This episode is brought to you by the Clean Simple Eats Clean Simple Eats protein powder is non-GMO, gluten-free, 3rd party tested, always grass-fed and made with zero artificial ingredients. You can get 20% off your first order by using code SKINNY at checkout at cleansimpleeats.com . This episode is brought to you by Dreamland Baby Use code code SKINNY at checkout for 20% off all Dreamland Baby Co items at dreamlandbabyco.com This episode is brought to you by eBay Ensure your next purchase is the real deal with eBay Authenticity Guarantee. Everyone deserves real. Visit ebay.com for terms. This episode is brought to you by Stitch Fix Stitch Fix is the best way to discover new styles and brands just for you. Visit stitchfix.com/skinny and get 25% off when you keep everything in your Fix. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her.

We have such a complicated relationship with the word wellness. When we look at how it's reflected in society, it comes from this place of restriction. And what can I take out? We wanted to shift the conversation to a world of abundance and bring some joy back into all of this. What's the point of being around a living to 100 if you're not having fun? I think so much of this conversation is about rigidity, as Colleen's saying, and eliminating things from your diet, being so rigid. The protocols, I got to do the hot and the cold in the morning sunlight, and then it's like two hours have passed and my wife's filing for divorce in the morning.

You can't live this way. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. Today, we're sitting down with another husband and wife duo, Jason and Colleen Washup of MindBodyGreen. We have been trying to get this duo on the show for years now. We've had an incredible time getting to know them and we really love this episode. They are such a wealth of knowledge. And like us, they're a couple that also has worked together, killed it together,

and is building an incredible life together. Some of the things we get into in this show are the dangers of loneliness, the importance of breath, avoiding doctors turned celebs, and why you need to be critical of where you get your information. We also talk about diet, exercise, the importance of resistance training. This is a very much a wellness-focused episode. And Lauren and I learned a lot as we always do on the show. We really enjoy talking to Jason and Colleen. They're a wealth of knowledge, like I said, and they've built an incredible business talking all about this kind of stuff. We also get into the secret to a long, happy life, Colleen's experience with birth control, male contribution to fertility issues,

and IVF. We really covered the gambit with these two. With that, Jason and Colleen, welcome to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her. Okay, so why should we be drinking margaritas in the middle of the day as opposed to tonight? Talk to me about that. Do you want to take that one, Colleen? I mean, I'm giving everyone here permissions to day drink. I am someone who has struggled with sleep for over 20 years, literally was in the hospital in my 20s when I couldn't sleep for like three nights in a row where the doctor gave me a Xanax, which is where my sleep etiquette kind of started and stopped in the hospital. So I've kind of been obsessed with sleep since that happened. And I did wear an Oura ring for about two weeks. I found it made me a little anxious about my sleep, so I don't wear it, even though Jason loves wearing it. But it was great

to see the data around alcohol and sleep. I don't think the answer is let's not drink, let's not toast with our friends. For me, the answer has been let's bring the margaritas earlier into the day so that it has less of an impact on my sleep. And I love to be that person at brunch that's ordering a margarita at noon. Obviously, if you don't drink, don't start. But if you do drink, enjoy it in the company of friends and be prepared for, you know, I'm a guy who's wearing an aura and a whoop. And last night we came into Austin for the first time in two years. We wanted to have dinner and sit at the bar like a normal couple does. Things we don't do with little children. And they had a great cocktail list. I'm like, I'm going to have a drink. I'm going to be fully prepared for a terrible aura and whoopscore. And that's okay. I love sitting at the bar as a couple. That is so underrated.

More people need to do that. I always tell Michael how fun it is to sit at the bar and eat dinner because you could talk with the bartender a little bit like if you're getting a little boring for me michael you can just offset the conversation a little and also it's it there's something about sitting up that's sexy i think it takes us back to pre-kids dating life yes huge win that's i mean that's that's a tip in itself so you guys told us off air that you are exploring more about connection. And you talked about how you do have a TV in your room. Talk to us about that. It all goes back to sleep, right?

And one of the most important things when you struggle with sleep that you hear and you're like, oh, crap, that's so obnoxious, where you have to let go of the anxiety about getting a good night's sleep. And when you struggle with sleep, you hear those words and you're like, you just get like all this frustration. But I've actually found that to be true and getting to a place where you can still enjoy going to bed and having it not be something that stresses you out. So we totally break all the sleep etiquette rules in the sense that we love watching TV in bed and it takes us away from work. And we travel to, you know, these wonderful non-wellnessy destinations. We get to fully unwind and learn

stuff. You know, right now it's been a lot of Netflix formula one, a world that's super new to us and also super fascinating. And it helps me relax. And I think with regards to connection, you know, it's been 14 years since we did my Buddy Green. We've seen, yeah, it's been a minute. We've seen quite a bit. And our world has come so far and we would all agree that, you know, nutrition and exercise are foundational. You know, you got to eat right. You got to work out. You got to move. But where we sit today, there is a loneliness epidemic. The health implications, I think, are more serious than I think we're beginning to understand how serious they are. Pre-COVID in 2019, there was a study out of Cigna that said half of Americans, only half

of Americans have meaningful IRL daily connection. Pre-COVID. Pre-COVID, 2019. Imagine what that looks like today. Today, if you look at the loneliness epidemic, we're off the COVID levels where I think it was almost a quarter of all Americans were lonely. Now that number is 17%, but almost a quarter of young. If you are lonely, if you look in terms of whether risks for premature being lonely is equated with smoking 15 cigarettes a day. So okay, 15 cigarettes a day, I'm lonely.

It is also, it is twice as worse, being lonely is twice as worse as having six drinks a day. That's 42 drinks a week. I mean, you're probably gonna explain it, but why does it equate to that? So let me go down the list and I'll come back to it. So then, so we've got smoking, drinking, then lack of physical activity.

It is three times as worse. Being lonely is three times as worse. And then obese, being obese, being lonely is four times as worse. Being lonely is three times as worse. And then obese, being obese, being lonely is four times as worse as being obese. And so if you go back to like the mental health epidemic, when people lose hope, when they lose connection, there are serious consequences for our health and wellbeing. And it's something we don't talk enough about. Like we've all, you know, someone's ever struggled with their mental health. Like that's really hard to regain. And when you're lacking that connection, all sorts of things start to go wrong in the body. You know, there are studies that will say essentially exercise and

nutrition can lower your risk for premature death, more or less the same, the 20, 40% range, but having a real meaningful relationships, being in a loving partnership can lower premature death by 45%. And so this is out there. The studies are there. And we are lacking connection. We're lacking joy. We need to have fun. We need to be with each other. I think we've learned the hard way. I think that that makes total sense because normally people who are elderly are alone and they obviously end up dying. And I look at some elderly people and a part of that probably is because they're lacking connection. My grandmother passed away in 90 and she was constantly on the move with tons of friends and working with me. And we had sushi nights and she constantly

had connection. And then I look at someone else's grandmother who's sort of locked in the house and hibernates and gorophobic and they end up dying sooner. So that makes total sense. Do you think that the reason that we're seeing such surge in loneliness is because of social media? I think it's all the above. I think it's social media? I think it's all the above. I think it's social media. I think it's the lockdowns. I think so many of the younger generation have lost the art of communication.

I think it's one out of seven women don't have a single friend. It's one out of seven men don't have a single friend. One out of 10 women don't have a single friend. If you think about that, it's sad. And I hate to be ageist, but we're all relatively the same age. And I was, I saw-

Oh, you guys are much younger than us. Not too much younger though. Like, what is it? Maybe- I'm 48. Okay. So like a decade. And Colleen's 43.

Well, you'd be 44 in a month. Okay, but still- Thanks for aging me. Do not add numbers to my age. She's 43. Do not add numbers. I'll be 49 in November. So you can add a C to it.

Speak for yourself. But I think, but we are one of the last kind of, we're in the same generation, last generation to kind of grow up prior to having phones, social media, all these things. Like you kind of had to figure out all your social interactions. Like Lauren and I got our smartphones

when we graduated college. So basically grew up without all these things. So you actually had to have a human interaction. If I wanted to meet a girl, I had to actually go speak to somebody. If I wanted to have a friend, I actually had to go meet up with them and do things. I think so many people now, it's at their fingertips, especially when it comes to dating. You're just to our younger siblings and some of their friends and they're complaining about these things that just weren't issues when we were coming up. And even, you know, we were joking that I'm telling people to get back in the office, but there's a lot of young people that work in the company. I'm like, listen, I know you like the lifestyle of having the flexibility of wanting to be at home, but there's something to be said about being around other people and going to lunch and

getting coffee and getting drinks and going and like and even if you're wasting time and you feel like that meeting's kind of useless, it's about being around other people. 100%. My all-time favorite study, which is in the book, is the Rosetto study. And Rosetto was a small town in rural Pennsylvania in the 1950s. In the 1950s, this is when heart disease arrives in America, the exception of Rosetto. Men under 55 had half the rate of cardiovascular disease than the rest of America. No, sorry, 65, half the rate, under 55, nonexistent, no heart disease.

By the way, you are phenomenal at remembering stats, but keep going. It's all the caffeine I drink. I'm also very pro-black coffee. That should be in the book. Keep going, I don't want to do writing, but I'm just saying that these are- And I had tequila and mezcal last night, so it's working for me. This'm also very pro black coffee. That should be in the book. Keep going. I don't want to do that. But I had tequila and mezcal last night, so it's working for me. This is a very good recall.

Sorry, Dr. Amen. And so they took a look at Rosetta. What are these people doing? Are they doing NAD injections? I'm joking. It's 1950s. They are drinking. They are smoking. They are having meatballs. they are having pasta and they're like puzzled like we don't get it they're doing all the things you shouldn't do they take a closer look these people have like the strongest social connections multi-generational living was paramount grandparents were living with grandchildren they were the the drinking and the smoking was in celebration you know they were parades and parties you know people were knocking on each other's doors,

and that was the context for this. And guess what? 1960s comes, community starts to break apart, people move away, heart disease catches up with the national average in Roseto. If you think about it, that's a pretty unbelievable experiment, and we kind of did the opposite of that

in the last couple years. And I think, for me, that's a good reminder, because look, I like the gadgets the things i got the aura i got the whoop i've tried all the diets like i like working out trying to you know gain lean muscle mass right now as i'm starting to age and shrink but it's something i need to think about this is my theory with it i think that there are so many different ways to to get a hold of people now. Text message, WhatsApp, email, Skype, Zoom, Facebook, FaceTime, Instagram DM. By the end of the day, people are fucking tired and they need to recharge their energy because all day long has been interaction. The problem is it's not human interaction. It's digital interaction.

So when I think of myself, like, why don't I go out all the time with my friends? It's because by the end of the day, I've engaged with so many different people on, you know, also with what we do with podcasting that I need to recharge my battery alone. I think that there's something to be said that maybe people just have so much interaction all day long and so much stimulation all day long that they almost get lonely at night because they're tired. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I think we're just led to believe that a digital interaction is the same as a human interaction. It sounds like it's not. Sounds like it's not as true. There's, there's data that, you know, when you actually get a hug from someone, it creates different brainwaves and more oxytocin than when someone says, you know,

I'm giving you a virtual hug. A hug and a virtual hug are not the same thing from a brain standpoint and the emotions that we're feeling, you know, as part of that human interaction. And we throw around words as if they're interchangeable. I have a community. Okay. A community in a digital community is so different than a community of people who are IRL there to support you and be with you and be that call at 12 at night when shit has hit the fan. Yeah. I'll tell you. I mean, I know we had you guys come travel in person, but when Lauren and I have tried to do these kinds of things remote, like you can go look at any of the ones we've done around in the rare now, but they're just not as impactful. They're not as good because we don't, we don't have this to play off of. I don't

see the person I feel I'm looking at this screen. I'm kind of like, you go, I go, it's artificial. Like I can see you laugh. I could see your, I could see what's landing. What's not landing. I can like see your body movement. And I think again, people are missing that when they go and they focus on all these different kinds of digital interactions and they don't actually get out and meet people in person. I think also in the dating world, when you've prefaced all of this and you're swiping and talking online, you haven't had that spark to see, is there actual human chemistry here? And then people are let down.

It's like, oh, I like what this person said. And who knows how long it takes them to come up with that response. I talked to my friends and they're sitting here, they have a whole group of eight people that are coming up with a response to one girl. I'm like, guys, you know, see what it's like to actually just go out and riff with somebody. But I think it's important. And I don't know if we're going to get back to that place because the more abundant these platforms become, I just feel like the more people are going to lean into them.

Yeah. And look, I don't think we're not anti-technology or anti-social media. I think they're wonderful tools for connection with maybe the exception of tiktok uh i do not have that on my phone but but i think you know what what we need now you know let's take a step back and within social media you know we've got nutrition influencers we've got fitness we've got all types of influencers like what about like connection influencers like how do we leverage this for good you know it's so clear we need to get out we need to meet people we need to be out in the real world like having influencers? What about connection influencers? How do we leverage this for good? It's so clear

we need to get out. We need to meet people. We need to be out in the real world, having eye contact, hugging people. We need to do more of that. We'd love to create a conversation so that happens. I think we're just so hurting for connection. We are always optimists, but when you look at the data around kids, you guys know we have two girls, six and four. And, you know, why we're so frightened of these wonderful little humans becoming teenagers is really because of the social media impact. And it impacts girls more than boys, although there's tons of data on how hard it is to be a boy right now, too. It's just really hard to be a human. But about 40% of teenagers suffer from loneliness. It's higher in girls, about 60%. I'm optimistic that we're going to understand that the impact of social media on kids is equivalent as tobacco. In the same way, you're not going to give your 13-year-old some cigarettes to smoke. We're not going to be giving our kids phones, hopefully, when our kids become of age, because the data is just becoming so clear

where you just can't ignore it. So what's the solution? I wish I had it. The answer isn't that social media is going away. There's such a huge boom in creators. 40% of Gen Z wants to be a creator now. Creators aren't going away. Influencers aren't going away. Social media is not going away. I just think we need to give our kids the tools to understand how to interact better with it. Because we just kind of gave them this amazing technology, lots of cool, shiny, bright objects, and then expected them to be able to control these super addictive, addictive apps. And we need to give them better tools. We need to teach them critical thinking in school so they understand how they should be interacting. And I think one of the takeaways is rather simple, and this is something I've had to work on. So I've definitely, men are worse. Men are proven to be worse than women in keeping in touch with

friendships. I go back to my 20s, New York, all the guys I played basketball with in college, we'd go out all the time, and that was great. Then the 30s happened, and then we get married, and then kids, and then boom, you lose touch. And it happens to men all the time. We're terrible. And I think it's as simple as this is where you use technology for good. A long time ago,

you'd actually have to pick up the phone and call someone and then wait, hello, who is this? Prank caller, prank caller. Now it's a text message. Hey, so-and-so, it's been a long time.

Thought of you for X, Y, and Z. How are you? Would love to catch up. It's as simple text message. Hey, so-and-so, it's been a long time. Thought of you for X, Y, and Z. How are you? Would love to catch up. It's as simple as that. I'm reaching out. I think you'd be surprised by the response. I think approach people with empathy. A lot of people are suffering and I think it's good to check in. This is an important conversation. I love it. You guys have had access to some incredible people being the co-founders of MindBodyGreen. Out of all the people that have come on your platform that you guys have interviewed, what are some really great wellness tips that people can implement into their self-care if they're feeling down? I think maybe start with breath since that's the first chapter of the book.

And I think, you know, I think of the biggest objection people have to health and wellness is I don't have the time. I don't have the resources. And it's like, we get it. This is one of the reasons, the why behind the book, because we started to feel this way. It's like, we're in this business. We don't have the time for everything. We like all the stuff. And if you think about it, breath from a pure ROI standpoint is an amazing place to start. If you don't breathe, you're going to die probably after a few minutes. Maybe some people on the show can maybe do like seven or eight minutes, pure ROI standpoint is an amazing place to start. If you don't breathe, you're going to die, probably after a few minutes. Maybe some people on the show can maybe do like seven or eight minutes, but a couple of minutes, I'll be gone. You breathe 17 to 30,000 times a day. So you're doing it no matter what. And half the population is breathing wrong in that they're breathing through their

mouth. You are more prone to anxiety when you're breathing through your mouth. You are more prone to sucking germs when you're breathing through your mouth you are more prone to sucking germs when you're breathing through your mouth and nasal breathing is an amazing tool i think we could all benefit from you know our male listeners you know just shutting the mouth sometimes when the when the partners the wife literally shut the mouth at all times yeah it's just a fantastic therapy you're annoying i'm going to get one of those i i just take away loneliness loneliness i could not suffer from with my husband i'm the opposite of lonely with him so maybe sometimes i'll just tell you to breathe through your nose and shut your mouth no no i read the reviews and they say they love it when i interrupt lauren that's like all the reviews so

colleen can finish the so i'm gonna keep doing fantastic benefits on breath work and i'll just zip it and do some nasal breathing no No, I mean, I think one of the wonderful secondary benefits of nostril breathing, and there's so many great reasons to do it from like an immune response standpoint, is really because it activates your parasympathetic nervous system. So the rest and digest system. And we talk about the anxiety epidemic. If you want to tune into feeling a little bit more calm, like nostril breathing is the easiest place to start. And I like it because I too got, you know, perhaps frustrated with a lot of the more popular meditation and breathwork techniques that require 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes at night, which was wonderful before I

had kids, but perhaps not as applicable at this life stage. So when there's something you can actually activate when you're in a meeting, when you're in one of those tense situations that you didn't plan for, that you weren't anticipating. Love it. I also think that there's ways to get creative when people say, I don't have time. So you guys are telling me that breathing through your nose is incredible. Okay. So let's say I say, I don't have time. Then tape your mouth shut at night. Last night, I taped my mouth shut the entire night. And for me, it's like I'm multitasking while I'm passively multitasking why I'm sleeping. You're obviously going to sleep. If you want to implement more nasal breathing, tape your mouth shut. There's ways to like or I'll give you another one. Today, I made the bed and also oil

pulled at the same time. I'm doing two things at once. Like, I think there's ways when people say they don't have time. I sort of, to be honest, think that's a little bit of an excuse. I think there's ways to make time for little moments throughout the day. Totally. We're all about integration. We are we are low on time as a family, as a couple. But I also see that the way you see health and wellness on social media assumes that a lot of people have a lot of time to do this stuff. A morning routine is glorified where you're like, it's like 40 minutes. And fantastic if you have the time to do it. Are you guilty of that, Lauren? No, but I fall into your camp because I'm the one, I maybe get a little busier in the day.

And so in the morning, I take on the kids and I let her kind of have her time. Morning time is when I make them breakfast and I run around, I deal with the chaos of school and all that stuff. That's a wonderful concept. He's a great dad. I don't feel bad. I carried them for 10 months. But she's doing it at other times. But I think to myself, I don't have the time anymore to have these extensive morning routines, at least until they get a little older and contrast themselves. You do little things though. No, no, but I do. So that's what I'm saying, similar to what you're saying, is I try to find the little pockets where I could do something quickly for five minutes or while I'm doing something else. I think we're big believers in editing and not adding. I think it requires

taking an honest look at your lifestyle, work, family commitments, and trying to fit things in and make wellness work for you and not you work for wellness. I think January 13th was National Quitters Day at the gym this past year. So why is that? Everyone gets excited, they go to the gym, they make these extraordinary commitments that have no basis in reality with their life,

and that's it, it's over. So do the inventory. Where do I have the time? Where do I have the pockets? Where do I have the pockets? And you can find them. You just may have to be a little bit creative. And I also think, you know, why we called the book, The Joy of Wellbeing,

like I'm a big believer. If it doesn't bring you joy, you're not going to do it. I hate running. If you see me running, call the police because I am in trouble. I'm not going to do it. You know, I enjoy walking. I take the stairs everywhere. So like that's something that brings me joy. Of all the things you guys have seen running MindBodyGreen for the last 14

years, what are some of the things that have maybe stuck? Like, are there things that you're like, Hey, we've been doing this now for close to 15 years and that just stuck and things that you kind of maybe started doing like, Hey, that's not sustainable. In terms of, of content, I'll take food. For example, you know, we have a chapter of food in the book and that one that we've seen so many i'd say diets come and go and i think where everyone can agree and where we agree is essentially eating a whole foods diet and avoiding ultra processed foods that's like a big one where i think everyone can more or less agree and that that's what we believe is foundational anything else i think we believe in bio-individuality, believe in doing some basic blood work and getting an understanding of your risk factors. There are some people,

so like our mutual friend Mark Sisson. Mark's 69. He looks amazing. He feels amazing. He eats pretty close to a carnivore diet. And we have our other friend, Rich Roll, who's 56 and basically 100% plant-based. And he looks amazing and feels amazing. So who's to say one's right, the other's wrong i think there was a lot of that a couple years ago and i think most people have come around this idea of like understand your genetics your blood work and your risk factors but eat whole foods that's one thing i think the food conversations almost feels like political right or left it is like can we just all agree that everyone is different and how their digestion is different?

There was a concept that I started talking about a lot during COVID and I was pretty unapologetic about it. And I said, basically, extremes get answered with other extremes.

And I think that doesn't just happen in politics. It happens in food. We went so far extremes with these documentaries on plant-based. Now we're going so far extreme with carnivore.

It's just the pendulum swings. I have a lot to say on this. Go I'll just want to the what there's a stat we have in the book on media and how media rewards extremes and we reference a study that Wharton did on the most emailed articles in the New York Times essentially like the most widely read articles in the world my widely read articles in the world and widely read articles in the world. And they classify the articles by emotion. And the top three emotions were anxiety, awe, and anger. Guess what number one was? Anger. Anger increased virality by 34%. In other words, if someone read an article in the New York Times and that article caused that person to be angry, it was 34% more likely to go viral. I don't think the New York

Times is unique. I think this is media in general. I get it. Extremes play. And that's the world we live in. And if you're building a personal brand, you're talking about food. How many Mediterranean diet influencers you know say like, have some olive oil, a little wine, maybe some sourdough occasionally. I don't see a lot of those. It's full-on carnivore or full-on vegan. We don't like nuance. I also think that there's an element to it of people having it as a part of their identity. That is exactly what's happening. And there was a Harvard study that as people moved away from organized religion,

they applied this exact same fervor, passion, and when it goes awry, tribalism to their wellness practices. You see it play out. You mentioned nutrition. We see it play out now in Pilates, where we're getting spicy and heated in the comments when someone suggests that Pilates is not going to give you enough muscle strength to protect yourselves from sarcopenia. It's just gone too far where people wrap it up with their identity. And we always say the only thing to be rigid about is being flexible. The science changes, your body changes. As you go through different seasons and decades of life, you respond to different things and your philosophies are going to grow and evolve, I hope.

To your point, I'm not going to eat the same way that I ate a week postpartum with my baby as I do now. It's going to be maybe more warming after I have a baby and maybe more soups and maybe now I'm eating more meat. I just think you're right. It's different seasons. It's being fluid. It's being flexible with it. And people do take their diet and their fitness as a religion. It's like a religious, it's almost like they transferred the energy towards religion to diet and fitness. Because they've made it part of their self and their identity. And if you question that practice or process, you're questioning them as a person.

Yeah. And you know, like I think about, you know, running media businesses, you guys may relate to this and doing this show. I think the low hanging fruit for us, if we wanted to quote, quote unquote, go more viral or capture more listeners would be to plant a flag in one of these sands, right? Like if it was political, maybe you're like, I'm going to go super right or super left. Like, you know, that that's going to garnish the most attention. If it was a diet thing, you'd say, I'm going to go super plant based or super car. Like Lauren and I think about that all the time. Like there are things that

could for sure light this on fire in a much different way if you just went to an extreme, because you know, like that's the stuff that plays, but I think it's much harder to have nuance and try to have well-rounded conversations. 100%. I think we have similar conversations. Listen, and I think there's a balance here where I personally kind of disregard creators or people on television if I can look at them and say, okay, I know which way they're going to go in any instance. For example, if you take a political issue and I can basically look at you and say, okay, well, you're going to just go down the line on these issues to the right or to the left. I can't then take you seriously as a person because I don't trust

that you might look at the world in a different way if you were presented with different information. Does that make sense? I can look at some of these, like if you're plant-based and I present you information about, hey, maybe this study that was done on meat's good for you, but because your identity is so stuck in plant-based, you'll disregard it. Then I can't trust you as a person because I've realized that you're unwilling to look at any other data outside of the data you like. Same with someone who's meat-based. If they look at plant-based data, they look at someone like a Rich Roll and say, well, how do you answer this guy's lifestyle and see why he's in such good shape? And they disregard that.

I'm like, well, I can't trust you either. And the same with politicians, right? If I can predict right away where you're going to stand, then I just can't trust you on anything else. We're all living in our own echo chambers of the algorithms that we live in. And we often say if we were individuals, we see the incentive to just go super hard on an issue and not waver and speak to your base because unfortunately that is what's being rewarded right now in the algorithms. Yeah. I mean, sometimes I'll see, we'll have a guest on that people don't think we would have on. And I see some people that think we're a certain way get enraged by this. I can't believe you would give this person a platform.

I can venture a guest with two of those people. Yeah Yeah, there's a few people like that. And I go, guys, the last person I ever want to be is the person that you can predict. If at any point in time you think I'm just going to always vote or look or think a certain way, then I'm not an evolved person. I've failed myself as an individual to look at more data and information and create a more well-rounded version of myself. Like I want to know, even if it's somebody I disagree with, why they think that way, because maybe I'm missing something. So a practice we did, I don't know if this was good for a sleep, but around the election, Colleen and I would spend our time at nine o'clock going, flipping from CNN to MSNBC to Fox, just like want to understand what's going on here. What's everyone saying?

Wasn't good for a sleep. I would not recommend that. But it was like helpful. And I don't think most people do that. And obviously, we're not in the, you know,

we're not in politics. But I think it holds true to health and wellness. People aren't open to different points of view. What did Denzel Washington say again? If you watch the news.

If you watch the news. No, if you don't watch. If you don't watch the news, you're not informed. If you watch the news. If you watch the news. No, if you don't watch. If you don't watch the news, you're not informed. If you watch the news, you're misinformed. That's a good line. You know what my favorite thing about you is? Yeah, I asked you because I know you just told me it.

Is you take my content that I tell you and then prepackage it to yourself. I literally just asked you because you told me it the other day. One time he told my best friend a story with all the details. A story that she had told him months before as his own story well i was trying to tell no i didn't make it my story i was trying to be suspicious when he told the story i was trying to tell a story that she told me so i didn't say it was happened to me i said hey i heard this story but i forgot she told me the story this was at a time in my life when i would say i was night and day drinking. You guys talk, or you mentioned avoiding doctors turn celebrities.

Can you elaborate on this? It's funny you bring that up because when we were doing a podcast interview with Sarah Godfrey, MD, who I have a ton of respect for, she's like, am I one of the doc stars in your book? And so there's good doc stars and there's bad doc stars. The answer is no. The answer is no in case there's good DocStars and there's bad DocStars. The answer is no. The answer is no in case there's any ambiguity. We love Sarah.

But going to our earlier point around people being incentivized to speak to the algorithms, there are some DocStars out there who will just beat that drum, whether the science evolves, whether it's not something that's the right information

for everyone, because they have the same flawed incentive structure where they are just going to go deep, deep, deep with one point of view. So I think we have to be critical of everything and every place we get our information. And ultimately, when it comes to our own health and well-being, what we encourage is to be your own CEO of your own health and well-being. You can see the best doctors. You can see the best practitioners, the best healers. But ultimately, you are the only person that knows what's best

for your body. You know what else I noticed too along to what you're saying is that a lot of celebrities will use a doctor to promote their agenda, which then makes the doctor famous. So let's say a celebrity wants to launch a line of herbs. They'll get an herbalist to be their doctor. They'll promote the herbalist and then they'll use the herbalist that they promoted who they've then made famous to promote the herbs that they're launching. It's very manipulative.

They'll use the doctor to content market whatever they want to sell to the masses because they use the doctor as another sort of layer of credibility. Yeah. And doctors are humans. And look, some doctors are great and very credible and everything they promote, they believe in. But I think that's been around. I remember watching infomercials as a kid. Here's a doctor and i'm wearing my white coat and here's the you know uh chuck norris or like there have been so many celebrities who've done this and look i trust chuck norris completely i'm just kidding but you know it it is what it is doctors Doctors are humans too. Yes. Diet, exercise routines, you guys have seen it all with your site. Talk to us about that.

What have you found? Overall, we want to shift the conversation to be more about making the cake than the frosting. You got to bake the cake before you can put on the frosting. And we think in general that there's too much signal too much noise around a lot of the frosting and don't get us wrong we sleep on an eight sleep we like frosting in life we're not saying don't go enjoy your cupcakes but like you got to focus on the fundamentals so our own routines are like extraordinarily simple sometimes because of our time compression and the life stage we're at but jason talked about walking huge believers in. We are now from like a nutrition standpoint.

Well, you can speak to that. Yeah, I think the biggest shift that's happened in our 14 years of MindBodyGreen, so like the why behind MindBodyGreen, yoga saved me from back surgery. It kind of opened my eyes. And, you know, dating back to this is 2009, the word wellness really wasn't a word.

It was something equated with the spa. And it was through that experience. I went from a guy whose idea of nutrition was palm and excuse me uh steak and martinis at the palm steakhouse like that was my routine i consumed so much my faces in the wall next to adam sandler and joe namath at the midtown palm of manhattan is that true yeah it's insane i'm still there see what i look like at 27. much fuller face a lot of vodka uh still eat meat but not as much so forth so at any rate it was that experience like everyone's got wellness wrong true well-being is this fundamental physical spiritual emotional and environmental well-being my degree one word not three and so like yoga was like everything we talked about so much about yoga and i think

the biggest evolution was yoga to where we sit today is resistance training. As Colleen alluded to, sarcopenia is very real. This idea of losing your lean muscle mass as you age, lose 1% a year and if you're in your 80s, half the population is living with it. Now I'm 48, we have two little girls. Men in my family have a terrible track record with regards to longevity. My father died of heart disease at 47. My other grandfather, heart disease at 49. Other grandfather, cancer at 44. And so this is something I take really seriously.

And the great thing about longevity is there's so much data and science that I do believe in epigenetics, that we do have the power to turn on and off genes and can live a long, healthy life. And I'm blessed there. And I think, so I went from yoga to resistance training, that we do have the power to turn on and off genes and can live a long healthy life and i'm you know blessed there and i think so i went from yoga to some to resistance training and the why there is sarcopenia there's this crazy statistic that a quarter of all americans over the age of 65 is

fall if you fall and if you fall once you're twice as likely to fall again if you fall and break your hip there's a 30 to 40 percent chance you will die within a year keep in mind it's not dying from the broken hip it's all the things that can go wrong complications from surgery infection depression and so on and so for me it was like wow like i need to i went from you know being a college athlete being strong and i kind of lost that with yoga i had a moment in the process of writing the book where i noticed i lost a little weight and i'm like nothing everything feels the same and i looked in the mirror i'm like oh my god i got old white man's ass my ass is like disappearing like i need to like get in the gym and so that

like resistance training is a big focus because one, I don't want to wither away. And two, why the resistance training? So let's just pretend you're about to fall. What do you want? You want the mobility so you don't fall. You want the strength so you can grab something or you want the armor so you can break the fall. And we have little kids, you know, I want to be running around and playing with, you know, maybe their grandchildren and have that mobility and have that strength to pick up like a little 30 pounder and squat. And that's a big, we went from yoga to resistance training in our 40s because that's something that's very real and it's harder to

put on muscle as you age. What is your resistance training routine? We are lucky that there is a gym across from where we live. That's so i do like 15 minutes 15 to 20 minutes sometimes a little longer when i can maybe that's through this week it'll be three days a week sometimes it'll be five and then when i can't make it before i would very big believer in just doing stuff at home like your classic like air squats sit-ups push-ups like make time for it in your day but i i don't think you need to spend an hour or two in the gym. I really don't. And then like I put on seven pounds of lean muscle in six months. I'm like religious about doing the test and I'm not doing a ton. I'm eating a lot of protein, which is an emotional conversation discussion we can get into, but like I'm focused on it you on to the best razor. So my facialist told me that I needed to basically

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it over and over. I think people are too scared of the scale. They start looking at the number on the scale. They don't realize when you start to resistance train and put on muscle mass that the scale may actually go up. But that doesn't mean that you're putting on more fat or that you're heavier from fat. It's because the muscle is more dense and it weighs more. And I think what people, they're conditioned to be like, I need to be X weight on a scale and if i'm over that i'm not you know in good shape and so i always tell

people when they're starting to do this like don't not even look at the scale for a while like you just want to basically build that mass and tone up because if you're so focused on a number on a scale you're going to get scared the minute you start to put on muscle mass and then you're like oh i gotta stop doing this yeah i'm lucky i did one of those machines that they do your body fat and the whole. Yeah. And I work obviously with a lot of women. I've heard so many women say, I don't want to bulk up. Or what if I bulk up? Do you know how hard it is? Do you know how hard I work to try to bulk up? And even with all that time in the gym, it's not easy to put on that quote unquote bulk. It's a myth. I also think girls today, fortunately, are growing up with different role

models. We went by our kids' high school gym. Girls are in the weight room. This wasn't healthy habits that I saw at a young age that I was thinking about, that I was understanding the importance of muscle. And so I'm just fortunate people are talking about it more and that girls are developing these habits younger. Yeah, I think culturally, it's okay to be strong as a girl. That wasn't a conversation at all when I was growing up. Another, you know, more women are more prone, I think, I forget what the statistic is, but way more prone to ACL tears. And it's because women weren't doing strength training around like the muscles around the knees. So like it's really important. I'm not saying this is for everyone, but I, since giving, actually probably since my daughter was two I've been weightlifting four

times a week and it has changed my life I feel so much better I have more energy it gives me a dopamine hit I feel tighter I feel stronger and it's it's literally like I'll try on pants and it's like shrunk me in a different way than losing weight. It sort of like shrink wraps you. So I mean, again, this might not be for everybody, but as a woman experiencing what weightlifting has done for me has been incredible. And I lift heavy, like, I mean, I don't lift like Michael heavy, but I lift heavy for quote unquote a girl. No, but I think it's important conversation because there's a lot of younger people that listen to this show. And to your point, it's much harder for me personally now in my mid thirties to build muscle like I used to when I was in my twenties. And I think the earlier you start and the more you get when you're early, the easier it's going to be for you.

And I'm sure you've found too, like as you get older, it gets harder and harder and harder. So I just encourage people to start earlier than they think they need to start because you're just going to get so many more tremendous results. Yeah. And I think for us, look, everyone likes to look better and look good and feel strong and muscular. But for us, it's very much about longevity too. I don't want to be the old guy hunched over who's like, sorry, I can't play soccer because I can't move. Yeah. No, kids change it for me because I did this post. I was like, oh, I had like a dad bod with our first kid. It was not a dad bod. It was not. He thinks it was. I never looked at you like a dad bod. For me, I felt like it was a dad bod. And this is your same point.

I need to be able to pick up my kids. And I didn't want to feel like I couldn't do that or I couldn't carry them up the stairs or I couldn't like, if they were tired on a walk, I couldn't throw them over my shoulder. That to me, I can't imagine how hard it is as a parent when you're out of shape and you can't do those things. It must make it exponentially harder and you're constantly tired. I just got to be in shape to lug these kids around. Yes. And they want to play with you now. That's not probably...

It's easy when they're a baby. When they're three or four years old and they want to be picked up, it's like, I got to dig deep. Yeah, they do want to play. This morning I woke up with my daughter's eyes open right in my face and she said, mouth tape off. She literally said, mouth tape off. Are there things that you've both seen as maybe fads or trends or things that were popular that have just kind of gone by the wayside. What I'm excited about that's actually gained momentum is that the spirituality conversation actually has some science behind it. Because I think spirituality has always been a part of

wellness that was like, oh, that's woo-woo. What do you believe the power of the crystals are? But one of our Coconut Grove friends, Dr. Lisa Miller is a PhD at Columbia, and she has done some fascinating research on the power of spirituality to give it a little bit more science and teeth behind it that shows that when a mother, and you can substitute mother for parent, caretaker, father, grandparent, when a mother and child are high in spirituality, the child is 80% protected against depression. And what I love is that she has a very generous definition of spirituality. So it could be organized religion. It could be spending time in nature. It could be volunteering, caring for others, picking up trash. It's really just about this belief that there's something bigger than all of us. And I take Dr. Miller's findings as something that you can apply

to so many areas of your life. It's like when, you know, you and your child are high in movement, you know, eating healthy, nutrition, whatever it is, like there's likely your child's going to be more protected. But for me personally, getting science around spirituality finally has given it a lot more longevity. I think people too also are more open to nature things like grounding and getting cold and getting hot. Whereas if you look back 10 years ago, they kind of were like grounding. What are you talking about? Putting your feet on the ground? If I told my dad, go put your feet in the sand, he'd look at me like, he'd probably smack me upside the head and be like, you're an idiot. Yeah. People are more open to that. I've noticed

even like meditation. I noticed people are more, they let it in their ether. You mentioned earlier, you said there was an emotional conversation around more protein in your diet. What did you mean by that? Yeah. So this is where the science is really strong. If you want to put on muscle, in order to promote muscle protein synthesis you need to ingest enough protein and so the current rda and i always speak in grams not kilograms because i just can't i can't do it is 0.36 grams per per pound and that that is really to survive and not thrive if you're serious about putting on muscle you probably need to double or triple that so is that a it's just math is not my strength. Basically a third of your body weight

to just survive. So how, if you want to put on muscle, how much, if you're say you're, let's say you're 120 pounds. So we'll just do a hundred pounds for the round number. Okay. Okay. Probably 75 to a hundred grams of protein you're going to need if you want to put on muscle. And so, but here's the thing, you need the amino acid profile is really critical, specifically leucine. And so you need to have at least two and a half grams of leucine within the context of call it that 25 or 30 grams of protein to promote muscle protein synthesis. Other words, in other words words if you're having if you're not meeting that threshold the protein just kind of goes to waste and so this is where it

becomes an emotional conversation because animal products by their amino acid profile are much higher in leucine like you can you can do this if you're eating plant-based but you need to consume so much more protein and so many more calories to get the leucine. Kids, it's different. Kids can like kind of have everything. They're good. For us, no. And so that where you got to have, if you don't want to eat meat or dairy, you're probably going to have to have a protein powder, but you really need to eat enough leucine. And the best way to do it is probably with animal when it probably is with animal products when someone decides they want to eat plant-based i have no qualms with that but when they tell me that they can eat that way and get these same amino profiles i'm like well

you can't unless you're doing a lot of other things in term and eating a tremendous amount and i think what they're then not calculating when you eat that amount amount, like you have to deal with a whole host of other issues because you're eating so much. You got to have a lot of soy. Like it's possible. It's just a lot more difficult. It is significantly easier to get it through eggs, dairy, meat, fish.

I mean, if you pinged 10 people that said they were plant-based, I would imagine nine out of 10 of those people would have no idea what we're even talking about here with aminos and leucine, right? And so I think that's, and it's not a fault on them. It's just, we're not educated as a population. So they think they're eating the right way and they're misinformed. And so people that have meat in their diet don't necessarily have as much of an issue with this

kind of stuff when it comes to muscle building because they're getting these amino. And the beauty of it is you don't need to have like a 16 ounce ribeye. Like if you look at the serving size, it's like three to five ounces, very small portions of meat to get that amino acid profile and the protein to pack on muscle. Do you know what I just had the other day? Liver. And you know what? I read about liver and it says, now this could be wrong, so everyone can go Google check me. But it says that if you eat a serving of liver once a week, it's basically like almost all the supplements you need for the whole week. Now, could be wrong, but this is what I read. And I will tell you, when I ate a serving of liver, I was bouncing off the walls. I can't do it. It's not that hard. I just put it, I had onions, tomatoes, and the serving is like this big and you just wolf it down

well you know i think there's also you could do it i think again what's giving liver a bad name and listen we've had some of these people yeah the funny story he was in our studios in la and anyways side story but i think like when people see a guy like that and he's got a giant liver slap and he's biting into it raw with his bare teeth and there's all this other meat and heads around like okay this i get it's good for content and it's good to draw attention but like the average person is going to be immediately turned off you said hey you're going to take a dime-sized portion of liver and have that once a week i think people might say okay that's maybe reasonable to see if i could feel a benefit right like you don't have a giant bowl of liver.

Filled with vitamins and minerals. I'm like, I love supplements. We have a supplement business. I take a lot of supplements. But with food, I just won't eat anything that I don't like. I get it. I get it. Hey, I'm not like yum liver.

Can't wait. But I'll eat anything for beauty. If you told me poo was good for my skin, I might put it on my skin. This is another, I think, topic of conversation that, again, is like getting in some controversial waters. And I was reading Peter Atiyah's new book and he was talking about some of these like, what do they call them? Centurions, the people that live past 100.

And like there was no kind of like some of them smoke, some of them drink, some of them drink a Coca-Cola every day. One big factor was many of them were social to your point earlier. But a lot of the common theme as I was reading was like, these people were not stressed out all the time about what they were eating or ingesting or drinking or smoking. Like they were just kind of living stress-free, carefree lives. And I think sometimes when we go to these extremes and we get so rigid with our diet or our fitness routine, you're just like stressing yourself out constantly and smashing so much cortisol into the system. Like that can't be good for you. Yeah. I mean, you pretty much summed up

one of the core reasons we have such a complicated relationship with the word wellness. When we look at how it's reflected in society, it comes from this place of restriction and what can I take out? And why we didn't call our book The Joy of Wellness is because we wanted to shift the conversation to a world of abundance and bring some joy back into all of this because at the end of the day if we're not having a lot of fun if we're not enjoying life if we're not connecting with others like what's the point of living to the centenarian olympics and so you mentioned it tia and he look he's brilliant i think something that's changed also in the last 14 years is like okay this idea of lifespan like we can get you to age 100 and i think the 2.0 was healthspan we, like we can get you to age 100. And I think the 2.0 was healthspan.

We want to get you to age 100, but you want to be mobile and fit for 99 years, 11 months and 30 days, then rapidly decline overnight and die. We like joy span. It's like, what's the point of being around and living to 100 if you're not having fun? And that's something we love about you guys.

You guys have a good time. And you have to. And I think so much of this conversation is about rigidity as Colleen's saying and eliminating things from your diet and being so rigid, you know, the protocols, like I do the hot and the cold and the morning sunlight. And then it's like two hours have passed

and my wife's filing for divorce in the morning. Like you can't live this way. No, my perspective on this, and I'm completely unapologetic about it, is it say work hard, play hard, but I want to live my life in the way where it's like I have a great relationship with my wife and my friends and I'm social and I go have fun and I let the wheels fall off and I'll go party and go crazy. Then I'll go run a business and I'll do a show. I don't see any point in excelling in just one area. I don't want to be the healthiest guy on the planet. I don't want to be the biggest businessman.

I don't want to only be the realest. I want to do all the things and have fun. And if that means I'm cutting my life a little bit short or I'm not reaching that extra dollar or I'm missing it. To me, I think people miss the mark where they just focus so hard on being the greatest in one area and then they forget that life is meant to be lived. I know so many successful people

i'm like i would never trade spots you are a boring motherfucker right like i look at these guys that are out there on the circuit like your life sucks it's boring you're not fun to party with i would never hang out with you right like that and i think that there's a lot of guys that you can point to that are like that we've only got 4 000 weeks on this planet yeah you've talked about that but it's had a profound impact on us you know it really puts into perspective there are also seasons for life. Seasons like with your kids in this particular moment. Like there's a window of time where your kids actually want to hang out with you.

And then that ends. And then when you have the time back, you know, it's like, okay. When you say it ends. Well, it doesn't change. It changes. It changes. And I think, you know, this idea of, well, I'm going to do this and achieve this. And then we'll spend more time. And then the window is gone. And there are these idea of, well, I'm going to do this and achieve this, and then we'll spend more time and then the window's gone.

And there are these seasons of life and it's something that's really hit home with children. I think some of the, I'd say the healthiest people we know, some of the most successful people we know, are also some of the most miserable people we know. And that should be part of wellbeing. You got to have fun. No. And we have a lot of people that are quote unquote health experts and they come on the show and they're like, hey man, you want to hang out? I'm like, no, you're boring have a lot of people that are quote-unquote like health experts and they come on the show and they're like hey man you want to hang out i'm like no

you're boring like i would never hang out with you and it's not i like you i respect your work but like we're not going on vacation together i don't want to count my calories and like be judged when i'm like slamming down on some shots of tequila like i want to go have fun with people and listen to each their own everyone has a different version of fun but i think we get sometimes we get so rigid in life and you forget, you only get one shot at this. There's nothing else. I don't want to look back and be like, man, I accomplished all these things, but I was so boring. Go have fun. Live a little bit. I love that you guys went out and got away from the kids and went to the bar and let loose a little bit.

That's what Lauren and I do. We like that. That's fun. Yeah. What are some joyful daily habits that you both practice so for me walking like if I don't get my 10,000 steps I am a grumpy dinosaur as my six-year-old would say walk when he starts to act up pretty much pretty much like I gotta get my steps in we have a rule if it's less than five flights I take the stairs like I have to walk there's nothing for me like I walked around all over Austin this morning. I woke up super early. I'm like, I'll walk there and I'll walk to Merritt and get coffee. I'll walk to Starbucks and get coffee. I'll walk to Trader Jet. I just had to walk and get outside. It brings me joy. There's nothing like walking on a beautiful day in Miami or Austin or any great city. I love it. And I think walking is the most underrated longevity practice.

Moving to Miami has brought me so much joy. Yes, it was a great move for our kids in school, but from like a personal well-being standpoint, I just find it so much easier to naturally integrate wellness into our life. So pickleball brings me a lot of joy. Going to the beach and just, you know, you have to physically decompress and put your phone away has brought me so much joy. And just being in nature in ways that are just so much harder to integrate into your life when we lived in Brooklyn. What is your favorite tip out of your book that you discovered while researching? I mean, Marguerite is at lunch. She's definitely a fan favorite for obvious reasons. You know, we're just, we're just big into justifying alcohol. That is one of, that's high on the list as well as Dr. Miller's research on spirituality and mothers and girls. It is just so top of mind for us. Like our why has evolved through these seasons

of life. Like I started in wellness when I had a near catastrophic pulmonary embolism from the birth control pill. And that was like my original why. And that started a really long process of this game of Marco Polo of literally trying everything in New York from Western practitioners to holistic healers. And when I wrote the article on MindBodyGreen about my experience with the pill, I heard from so many people who had had a similar tragedy happen in their families, oftentimes with a fatal result. And so the book we have now, The Joy of Wellbeing, is a roadmap I wish I had, which would have been a lot more efficient path to figure out for me what living a well-lived life meant. How did you know that you had something going on

in your system and it was from birth control? So I did not listen to the whispers in my body as well as I should have, because there were signs. I had gone to Miami for a fun weekend and came back and was like, oh my God. You stayed at a bad hotel though, so I don't think we had as much fun. True.

I think that may have contributed in the spiritual sense. True. I came back and I was like, oh, my ankle's a little swollen. Travel back to 2012. I was like, oh, it must be from too much TRX because I think I was doing TRX then. And then I went to Tara Stiles, who is the godmother of our second child's yoga class on a Saturday morning, which was my usual Saturday morning routine. And I left and I was like, I'm a little out of breath. And I called Jason and I was like, can you like walk around the West Village with me? And I decided we needed to go home. And I took the train home and we were walking up the A train, which has

really steep steps. And I collapsed on the steps. But then I did what so many women do and I gaslit myself. I got out of the subway station and I was like, I'm fine. I'm dehydrated. I don't want to go to the ER. That was a fluke. And so the rest of the weekend, I was lethargic. I took naps, things that are totally out of character. And I think women have more of a tendency to gaslight themselves than men. And then come Monday morning, I was working at Amazon at the time. And Jason was like, there's no way you are going to work today unless you visit your doctor on the way. So I went to my GP. And within a few minutes, he's like, you're having a pulmonary embolism.

And I was totally bewildered. He gave me a little sign that said, I'm having a pulmonary embolism. I wasn't sure if he was worried I wouldn't make it to the ER or if I wouldn't be able to articulate what was happening to my body once I got there. You know, sure enough, it was showers of clots in my lungs. Holy shit. How did he know that you were having that? That's scary.

He did, you know, just… The swollen leg and then you couldn't breathe. Yeah. That's a big one. If someone has a swollen leg, but I could see why you gaslit yourself. Like you could be like, oh, my ankle is sore from working out or I'm out of breath because I walked up the stairs too quick. Like I could see, I can understand that. And so what was the, what did you find out what the root cause was?

Birth control. Yeah. I mean, when a 32 year old has a PE, they do every single test. And what's interesting and about it is I don't have any of the genetic predispositions to clotting. So if you had gotten the prenatal testing that you probably got before your first kid, I don't have factor V. I don't have any of those obvious symptoms. And I had been on birth control pills for 10 years at this point. So it wasn't like, oh, new medication that wasn't working for me. I had traveled to other continents,

but the combination, like once you start to say flight, swollen leg, trouble breathing, you know, then when you get to the hospital and they do, you know, an ultrasound, then they can see, you know, the showers of clots that were, that were in my leg. So I'm upset that I gaslit myself. I've obviously like moved on from this and, you know, you know, taken a lot of life lessons from this experience. But yeah, I do see how it can happen. What did they do once they know you're having that? What's the protocol? So unfortunately, there's not much they can do. The clots have to work themselves out. They give you blood thinners. And it was, you know, we talk about how breath is the first chapter. And it's because it was the first time in my life I had thought about breath. I remember being on subway trains in New York and it was, you know, the sweaty summer when I was dealing with this. And I was so worried that I wouldn't get a seat that I was like the person not making eye contact with the old people to make sure that I could steal their seat because otherwise I was worried about standing the whole train ride home. Like breath became this area of concern and I had never thought

about it before. And I started looking at people who had overcome similar struggles in life. And I do think it's part of the value in sharing these stories of resilience because you're reminded of the resilience of the human spirit. And we look to people like Serena Williams and others who had overcome these types of tragedies because it's just this interesting state that I had never been in where it's a true invisible illness. If you looked at me on the outside, I would look totally healthy and no one would know that I was struggling for every breath on the subway. Birth control is one of those things that's kind of like implants because I just came out and said my implants removed but birth control has is a similar energy where we're just kind of told when

we're young I'm go on birth control when you start having sex there was no conversation about what it does to your hormones what what it could do what your experience like you you just kind of are like okay go to Planned Parenthood and go on birth control I remember going to Planned Parenthood at 15 and a half years old by myself to get on birth control and they give it to you okay but there was no context around what I was taking and I don't know if you had this experience but I took it for like 10 years who knows what it did to to my hormones and getting off of it. There's all kinds of things it does. You get hyperpigmentation. I mean, it's not like it does

nothing. I remember taking a 30 point test in college to be able to get birth control pills at the student health center. And all of the questions were focused on how not to get pregnant while you're on birth control pill. And there was so little education around clotting and what to look for. And I had heard about clotting and birth control pill, but I wasn't a smoker. I wasn't overweight. So I think I dismissed it as something that, well, that's not something I need to worry about when actually it definitely materially was. And then once we got off birth control, it took a really long time for me to get my period. And then we had a very long struggle to get our two children into the world. And I'm sure those events are somewhat related. Yeah. It probably does something to our hormones. Meanwhile, the guy does nothing, like nothing. It's honestly unreal. We have to take on this burden of this pill in our system for every single day you have to take it.

I mean, that is wild. There needs to be, in my opinion, more context and more education around women taking birth control, women getting implants, women getting an IUD. I mean, there's got to be repercussions of sticking something inside you and leaving it there. I mean, I don't understand how there's not more people talking about these things that women are just doing casually every single day. If you are looking for a grass-fed protein with no artificial ingredients that's non-GMO and gluten-free, I have you covered. It is by Clean Simple Eats. Okay, so most protein powders we know have like that chalky, thick aftertaste, but Clean Simple Eats is super creamy and smooth. So this is something that you could mix into your matcha. I'm a big fan of protein and matcha. It's

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everything in your fix. That's stitchfix.com slash skinny for 25% off today. stitchfix.com slash skinny stitchfix.com slash skinny. I'm glad that a decade later, women are talking about it a lot more than they were back then, but totally agree. There needs to be more education around this multifaceted thing because there was a moment in time when, you know, if you said something bad about the pill, you weren't being feminist. And luckily, you know, that conversation and dialogue has evolved. And I don't know what the answer is, as you know, I make guys do something because we're over it and we need a break. You guys go do something. Go take a pill that fucks up your hormones and gives you blood clots.

I'm sick of it. No. Next question. Just kidding. On that subject, men are responsible for 40% of fertility issues. We've been talking about that. I mean, we've been talking about that more. And so that was a big part of our story.

It's in the book. We were trying to get pregnant and it wasn't working. And then go- Hold on one slide. To your point, they did have me do two rounds of Clomid before they tested me, which was a major mess. So then they tested me and no sperm. I'm like, I don't understand.

They're like, well, no sperm. And so I had this condition, azususpermia and they didn't think it was genetic i didn't have a genetic mutation for it so they thought there was some sort of blockage something blocking the sperm so there was an easy test where i think north of 90 of the blockages occur and you had to go to the doctor i'll bend over i won't spare the details but it was painful and blockage wasn't there and so it was a very low. Bend over? Wait, what do you mean? See, Lauren, here you were saying don't do anything. Do you have the whole fist up there, doc?

Don't spare me these details. What do you mean bend over? Like up your butthole? Yeah, the doctor went in there elbow deep and just went. Wait, but how does that have to do with where the sperm's coming out? I was thinking it's the other way. He went pretty far okay so he the whole doctor went in there and the blockage was not in that spot where most of blockages occur and it was kind of like we were hoping for that

because that would have been the easier easier fix and so they actually it was a big question of whether or not i produce sperm at all and there was a very small chance that the blockage was somewhere else. And so we went to a specialist. This guy flew in from St. Louis to New York once a month to do this procedure. And this was like a factory, like a fertility factory show up there at like 7 a.m. on a Saturday. And we meet with this older gentleman and he sits us down. He's drinking Coca-Cola. And right away, I'm like, we're not gonna vibe here. And he jumps into, I hope it works out because adopting is a terrible idea. The kids have all these problems.

Oh, Jesus. We don't believe in this. So I'm like, we also believe in having a strong emotional connection with your doctor and the healing energy. And this guy was like the total opposite. He's drinking soda. He's saying, if it doesn't work out, you're screwed.

Adopted kids have all these problems let's go you're let's cut your testicles open and so essentially that that was the the procedure where they cut my testicles open i was had anesthesia from the legs down and we were lucky enough it was you know 12 vials of sperm it was it was a gold rush it was a success it was very the anesthesia wore off like an hour later and it was laying in bed for a while um and that was only like the living around for a while like how did they get the sperm out they cut open the testicle what happened do they have to like get the sperm saying guys don't do anything the doctor's working this guy like a puppet so the sperm is in

the testicle they cut open the testicle and extracted the sperm okay and took out 12 i want to commend you for talking about this jason this is so important for more men to talk about because what i notice is that the woman always gets blamed and the woman wants to protect the man's ego i've seen this a lot and the woman almost will go along with the story that she's the quote-unquote problem of why they can't get pregnant when it's actually the man it was and look this was getting to the starting line it was still it was still a journey and a couple year journey and call it number of like it was it was a tough process but like to your point like men don't talk about it and there was a problem to this day i even went back after we had our second children i'm like test me again like is this something spiritual or maybe it was like my homocysteine level or

something weird and like sure enough like nothing was coming out and the doctor was like why do you care i'm like that's a really good point like you have healthy kids you have sperm it's all good but like it was and then it still continued on like this was the starting line we got to the starting line and then we thought it would just be easy easy fantastic and it was a total of nine IVF transfers and 15 embryos. Hold on. Does that mean that you had to do the shots to freeze embryos nine times? So I did four retrievals when you do the shots. Wow. And then nine transfers. And on the ninth transfer, my doctor put in four embryos and the embryologist was like what are you doing so you could have got you could have had four kids at once i could have we just have one really we just have one really strong girl killed all the other six-year-old you'll ever meet and then on we have a second child. And the night before,

or the day before, I had seen some twins. And I was like, hmm, interesting. I don't think I could handle twins in New York City. And then I didn't sleep the night before my transfer. And I woke up and I was like, Jason, we're going to get pregnant. Called my doctor and I was like, just transfer one. And that's Grace. So you ended up transferring one even though he said four no so to get to ellie four were transferred well she eliminated the other three only transferred one got it happened got it yeah so so you had to be i don't know what the right verbiage is you had to what's the what are they what's the turkey baster thing that they do what's it called when they yeah they had to train that's the transfer yeah you would to do that nine times yeah yeah and there was also like some false starts along that so like there was times

when i was having these like weird issues where my lining wasn't getting thick enough but i would go through part of the transfer process and then in like the most painful form like the day before or the day of they'd be like we can't waste this embryo because this lining, you know, isn't perfect and we can't waste a precious embryo. And like, it was just this really odd thing because I had all the great vitals. Like my AMH was fine. I'd produce all these embryos. And I, you know, I saw the, we had a couple of miscarriages as part of those nine transfers. And I saw the guy you see in New York. And it was kind of like a funny full circle moment.

Cause last week someone pitched him to me as like an expert for our podcast. And I was like, Oh, little do they know. We were such edge cases. This guy agreed to see Colleen cause he was fascinated by her case because it should have been easy, but it wasn't. So there was this feeling of you're going to get pregnant, but at the same time, we have no idea why it's not happening. And to this day, we still have no idea why someone with so many well-tested embryos took

so long to get to the final result. And it is one of life's mysteries that we will never know. When you did the four rounds to get embryos, how many embryos did you get total to be able to do seven rounds of IVF? I would get a lot of them. The first time when we were at the factory, it was like a low dose factory where they don't give you as many hormones, so you don't produce as many embryos. Energetically, we needed to leave the factory. And we realized we needed to find someone. It was going to be a journey. We needed to find someone who was kind, compassionate, and had shared values. And Dr. Azeem of NYC IVF wanted me to get pregnant almost as much

as we did. And I found this kind, compassionate doctor who didn't care that I was single-handedly destroying his IVF statistics on his pregnancy rates, which eat with each and every time he saw us. And, you know, that was kind of, you know, what we knew we needed. We'd go to these other clinics and I was like, nope, I need the kind, compassionate doctor who believes in me. And then when we were ready for ready to do it again with Grace, Colleen called back and we found out he had passed away. And he must have been really sick. There had been a lot of coughing going on in our appointments.

And he actually, between children, had passed from lung cancer. And he and his wife were the co-doctors in the practice together. So then his wife was our doctor for Grace. But to this day, he's such an important part of our life yeah and i think just like with regards to fertility like it was brutal i was gonna ask i mean this sounds so stressful what were you guys doing at the time to kind of manage those emotional swings it's also was just earlier in the day it was also such a different era of being able to talk about this stuff because it was 2012 when it started, 2016 when we got pregnant, 2017 when Ellie was born. moments of being in Kansas City and having to do a blood draw and finding a lab corp on the way where I could get my blood drawn or going to leaving a failed procedure and then

having a meeting with someone who announced that they accidentally got pregnant. I don't want to understand. There's so many of those. I think that there's not enough almost time to pause to realize there's a lot of micro traumas within what you experienced. Yes, it's incredible you have two children now. First of all, it's a lot. And second of all, it's not like you can go back in history 100 years and be like, oh, this person did this this way too. It's such a new age thing to be able to get pregnant with IVF

that it's not like you can call your mom. And you guys are running a massive wellness business at the same time. No one knows what to do and say. And I know everyone's so well-intentioned and you're kind of, everyone's walking on eggshells around you who does know. And I didn't want to share with more people because I didn't know how long this insane roller coaster was going to last. And I don't think it was until COVID when I had a lot of time to read, wasn't doing as much, and I read The Body Keeps the Score. And I was like, okay, I think we had a lot to work through there energetically that had accumulated. I also think, and this is the reason why we're sharing it, people are more open now. And back

then it wasn't an open conversation. There was almost, when we talked to people in our world, there was a lot of guilt and shame. And if you weren't doing a natural birth, something was wrong with you. We went to all sorts of healers. I remember we went to one alternative healer for me, and he was like, oh, castor oil.

And I tried it. I tried everything. It's like, give me a break. In retrospect, like oh castor oil and like i tried it i tried everything it's like give me a break like in retrospect really like castor oil like i never want to see castor oil again and did you drink it no like rubbing castor oil like to to to undo the block to stimulate and on your penis he says no no it was above it was like above lord where's your mind i don't know i'm just like where do you put the castor oil do you drink the whole fist up so but but and there was this there was a lot of guilt there was a lot of shame that there may be something was wrong with you or you were doing something wrong and you know

natural wasn't even a viable option for us because of colleen's colleen and paul mariam was like she's gonna be high risk no matter what like like that's real. And so I, that's one thing I think that's been positive. People are a lot more open now, back then, not so much. I remember when Colleen was pregnant, we weren't telling people for all the reasons we were really waiting. One of our friends who was an influencer said, looked at Colleen and was like, I think you have SIBO. I think you have SIBO. Like you're, it looks like you're bloated a little bit like we just like kind of smiled and rubbed it off like no like Colleen's pregnant I think that being open takes the air out of shame like when you can just be an open book and just share your experiences or

your micro trauma or trauma or whatever you've been through when you talk about it, it takes the air out of the guilt. I can be self-aware enough to know that like that maybe comes more naturally to, to some individual, like being open comes naturally to Lauren. I just like, that's just how we've been. But I know a lot of people, I will talk to some people like, how do you just be open and how do you share it? I don't think there's some great superpower. I think it has a lot to do with how you grew up, who your parents were, the environment, all these things. But to some people, it's very foreign to be an open book because whether they grew up in a more strict household

or in a conservative environment, or they grew up in a place where there was religion that was maybe a little more oppressive. There's a million reasons why people might not be. So I do have some empathy for people like that. Easy for you to say. But at the same time, I think what we try to do is take the stigmas out of things so that people cannot their first reactions to not just pass judgment. And there's so many people going through a shared experience, right?

There's one of eight. Yeah. And I think with men in this conversation, it's more difficult. It looked like I wasn't sharing this. This happened in 20. Ellie was born in january 17 where it's it's almost june of 23 so a lot of time has passed and something like our family knew but like i wasn't like raising my hand to like post on instagram hey guys i mean there's

not a lot of men that want to tell that story like you know that's just sure it's just not one and that's probably a comment on us as men right like there's a like why do we feel shame around something like that when it's obviously to the betterment of your family and to bring you joy into your life but there is there is these weird pockets of society where we still feel like we can't share parts of the human experience yes i think it's so cool that that you're sharing this and both of you guys are sharing this i think it's amazing and i bet you're sharing this and both of you guys are sharing this. I think it's amazing. And I bet you're going to get a lot of DMs about this conversation. What can we expect from the joy of well-being, a practical guide to a happy, healthy, and long life? Well, it's a really fun read. It's not as boring as all the health books out there might be biased,

but it's the roadmap I wish I had when I was struggling with my pulmonary embolism. And I wasn't listening to the whispers of my body. If you asked me what brought me joy at this point in life, I would have looked at you confused. It's the roadmap I wish I had then to help me live a better life. And I think it squarely addresses the big objections to health and wellbeing, which are, I don't have the time and I don't have the resources. And we started to feel that way too. And this book takes the 14 years of knowledge we have and all the experts. And we were so excited because you know what? So much of the great science actually points to practices and modalities and routines that are actually one or lower, lower, no costs require very little time and effort. And we think like,

we can get you like 80% there. Like you can do it. It's possible. No matter how busy you are, it is possible. Where can everyone find both of you and follow MindBodyGreen? So MindBodyGreen is at MindBodyGreen and MindBodyGreen.com.

We also have a podcast and the book is TheJoyOfWellBeing.com. It's also on Amazon and every major book retailer. And we're at Jason Wachub and at Colleen Wachub. I'm going to go take a walk after this episode. Thank you both so much for flying out.

We will let you know when we're in Coconut Grove. Maybe sooner rather than later. And thanks for sharing your story. Amen. We got to take a pickleball? Come to the Grove, guys. Yeah.

Thanks, guys. Appreciate you. Thank you guys so much for listening. going to take a pickleball come to the group guys yeah thanks guys appreciate you thank you guys so much for listening we have a solo episode coming up for you next week it's so much fun it's all my postpartum tips and tricks and workout hacks i hope you love this episode please rate it on the podcast app and let us know what you think.