The Uneducated PT Podcast - Ep. 179 — John Joe: I Lost 75kg, But the Weight Wasn’t the Real Problem

Episode Date: September 7, 2026

John Joe’s story is about much more than weight loss. At 21, he weighed around 24 stone. He went on to lose over 75kg, completely change his lifestyle, compete in strength and field sports, and eventually turn his own experiences into helping others through coaching. But losing the weight didn’t automatically fix everything underneath it. In this episode, we talk about John Joe’s relationship with food, emotional eating, bingeing, body image, shame, loose skin and the constant “food noise” that so many people quietly struggle with. We also get into grief, losing his best friend, learning to sit with difficult emotions instead of escaping them, and why understanding yourself can be far more powerful than simply trying to have more willpower. John Joe shares what his journey has taught him about discipline, self-worth, happiness and why lasting change often has very little to do with the number on the scales. A raw conversation about food, weight, identity, grief, strength and becoming comfortable with the person looking back at you. This is Ep. 179 of The Uneducated PT Podcast.

Right, welcome back to another episode. First question I have. Seems like a very basic question, but also it's a very, a very kind of in-depth question as well. So who is John Joe? Who is John Joe? JJ, to people who I've met for the first time, because for some mad reason, not a lot of people have heard the name John Joe,

unless you're from Ireland. So I go with JJ when I'm introducing, and then friends. like yourself will call me John Joe but yeah I am a coach from Belfast originally North Belfast and I know I live kind of on the outskirts of Belfast and I specialize specifically in emotional eating and then outside of my kind of fitness and wellness career if you want to call it that I work in early intervention mental health services specifically with young people. And what shaped you to do all that kind of stuff?

The fitness kind of food side of things, the coaching side of things. I was incredibly heavy as a kid. It got to the height of it when I was about 21. I was 154 kegs, which I'm not sure what that is in freedom units, but it's about 24 and a half stone. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. the tallest like I'm I was going to say we have to put context of height or weight ratio as well I'm like depending I don't use dating apps anymore because I'm happily I'm happily together with someone but it depends on if you're on the app's not I I'm 10 I'm 5 foot 9 but um 5 foot 9 and 3 quarters if I'm trying to impress people um so I'm not I'm not the tallest at all so like my my frame was very very wide um and so long story short like I had like I had like

a mad, mad health scare when I was about 21 and I basically lost the weight through kind of 21 up to about 28 or so and I did it all myself like I back to the North Belfast thing I have a real chip on my shoulder and I was like oh I'm not going to let anyone help me don't need any help blah blah blah like never worked with a PT in my life and I think a little bit of that as well was like the idea that I didn't see any coaches who were like me like everyone else who you see back then it was Facebook and stuff and things like that. Anyone you see, typically they have their tops off, they're shredded, they're jacked and whatever, and that's cool, that's fine.

That's their lane, and I'm fully aware of that. But back then, I had this real, like, incredulous kind of angry little man inside me of, like, I don't need anyone with help who doesn't look like me. So I did it all myself. It was all self-taught. And I was working for quite a big publication. Up here, I worked in media in Belfast, and there were two girls who worked with me the entire time who had seen me at my heaviest and then seen me at my lightest and in and around the

end of that kind of when I got down to my lowest, they were like, can you help us with a little bit of diet and training and stuff? And I was like, well, I'm not qualified. But they just wanted a bit of advice, really. So long story short, if you fast forward across those two girls, across six months, they had lost about four stone. And I was like, well, oh, this works. Like, this doesn't just work for me. This works for other people. And, and then I kind of disliked. And then I kind of disqual, decided to go off and qualify like online with sports nutrition, things like that. And then COVID kind of hit. And the media that I was working in was like a real legacy media.

So papers are still dying now, but they were most definitely dying, especially with COVID, because people just weren't outside to buy the newspapers. And I said himself, well, look, you know what, now is the perfect time to take a jump. redundancies were kind of being started to talk about and I had said to him, I was like, look, well, if I go, will you give me a bit of a handshake to leave? And that allowed me to then set up revive. So revives my business.

And that's on the food side of things. But if you want to, we can get into the mental side of things as well. I think we should pull it right back in terms of, did you say it was 24 stone? 24 and a half stone, yeah. 24 and a half and kind of go into like when you decided to make that change

um was there was there times where the the the weight regained or did it all come off in a you know and and what was the kind of catalyst for for that change was there any mistakes like if you if you're if you're speaking to someone now who's in that situation where they're where they're at that type of weight that it's, you know, they're in a very compromising position where, you know, their health is at risk, but they feel stuck that they don't know how to change or they've tried and, you know, so nothing seems to work. You know, they understand the concept of calories and everything else

at this stage and yet they're struggling to keep the weight off. Like, how did you manage to do that? Well, I mean, the first thing is to be, is a realistic timeline as well. So, like, firstly, it took me in total for my heaviest. My lowest, it was about seven, maybe eight years, and that's the reality of it because I think everyone's washed,

which, by the way, I'll hold my hands up. I'm as guilty of it as well. Sometimes I mark it myself and I look back and look, oh, I shouldn't have done it that way and stuff. In terms of my services I'm talking about,

but time scales and timelines, especially if you're morbidly obese because that's what I was. You have to be realistic. It didn't take, it took me 21 years to get into the position that I was in. So the fact that it took me

eight years to get out of it is probably in and around right, if I'm being totally honest. But the answer to you about like fluctuations up and down, everything for me was all emotionally driven. So when I had a real kind of serious relationship, I issued around 25, I regained for maybe five stone that I had lost. And you could literally like, I think I did a post a while back where I was showing a timeline

and a graph of my scale weight. And I could literally pinpoint like moments. of like oh that relationship broke down there oh that happened there oh that cut that death happened there and you can correlate together and and for me if i'm giving someone advice is one be realistic to understand that like just because you know what a calorie is like everyone knows everyone their granny knows what a calorie is these days but it's that same thing like everyone knows how to save money but not everyone has tons in the bank do you know what I mean um you need to to understand for me anyway that the emotional side of things of why you

is so much more important than how you eat and getting to grips with that did that because because you were obese very young in life did a lot of that come back down to childhood did it come to like how did you kind of how did you kind of figure out that what the actual route of the of the cause was that was contributing you to be 24 stone at 21 I'm smiling because we're about to be two white guys with Mike's sense all going back to our childhood

right but it's true right so for me look I've done a ton of my own work with two or three different professionals over the years and the truth is that when I do look back at it my relationship with food was formed in childhood and in reality it was the case that

within our household food was everything for every emotion. A lot of people go, oh my God, I'm comfort eating, I'm sad, I eat ice cream. Yeah, cool, that is definitely one facet of it and a huge facet of it. But actually, and this is a bit of an Irish culture thing as well, I hear sure it's communion, loads of food.

Oh, she hears her, it's a christening, she're loads of food. I hear sure, he's dead, loads of food, right? So it was grief, it was sadness, it was happiness, it was whatever. And then all that did was form my little JJ, little John Joe's mind. when you're your most neuroplastic that every single emotion, all roads lead back to Rome.

And that Rome is food, right? So then when I was 17, 18, 19, 20, and I now had my own money and I was not just relying on someone to give me food. Well, then if I was sad, then my brain went, okay, yeah, cool, now we eat. And if I was angry, it was like, oh, yeah, cool, now we eat. Oh, we're happy, fantastic, excellent. Let's get a Chinese. Let's get a chip, let's get it, whatever.

And then when these major, major life milestones happen, I lost my best friend when we were 19. A major relationship of mine broke up when I was about 23, 24. Like these major milestones, there's peaks in scale weight. Why? Well, I can reflectively look back and say, because my emotions are linked directly to my use of food. And that's a key word, use of food, because I was using it. I always like I remember someone said to me before about well like how do I get rid of emotional eating and it's like if you want to get rid of emotional eating you have to get rid of your emotions and you can't do that because you're a human and humans come with emotions so how did you how did you learn to deal with that to be able to you know still have emotions and still feel sad and still use food now and again but being able to also, you know, follow through with what you wanted to do,

which was to ultimately become healthier. Yeah, well, the fact of the matter is that some of the same kind of neural pathways that link people into misuse of drugs, misuse of gambling, misuse of alcohol, like some of the same pathways are the same ones that are involved with people who use food. and I always used to joke and it's like a morbid joke now you look back but I always genuinely used to joke when I was like 17, 18, 19

and it was almost like it was prophetic when I look back at it now but I always just said people's like because I've never smoked a cigarette my entire life like I could think of nothing worse vaping smoking like and I do have the odd drink but it wouldn't drink that much right and I used to joke with people when I was younger

and it's like ah Chinese is my cocaine like Chinese is my weed like I've never smoked a cigarette, never smoke the joint, never done anything like that in my life. But in reality, I am the same person who struggles with alcohol. And I am the same person who struggles with substance abuse because it's the same pathways. And they answer you in terms of like, how do you get to the point? The truth is that people physically, and I mean physiologically, like I know people will probably argue emotionally and things like that, but physiologically, humans can live without alcohol. We can live without cocaine. We can live without heroin. We can live. We can live without heroin. We can

live without whatever drug of choice, you physically will cease to exist if you don't eat food. So that is such a nuanced conversation to have with someone who struggles with food then. And the way that I then was taught through my own work and then the way that I teach my clients now is that you need to get your mind to the point that you've accepted that food is still okay to be an emotional tool, but it's not your only emotional tool. And that is the key difference. That is the key difference. We need to understand that we have physical tools of coping mechanisms. We have emotional tools for distress tolerance. We have all these different, all this different arsenal of different ways to deal or cope or live through emotions. Sometimes

you just need to sit with it, right? But it's that food is not your only outlet. And that is the difference between food and alcohol and substance abuse. There's such a great point. Like you can be absence of of alcohol and drugs and gambling and porn and all these kind of coping mechanisms that we use for for the struggles in our own lives but you know you you can't be absent of of nutrition of food of calories you know that that's that's not something that you can you can do so in terms of the conversation people have around addiction and people feeling like they're addicted to food. How would you go about that conversation with people? What's your thoughts? For me personally, and it's, I mean, I'm not this type of person like to be intentionally kind of

hot take and click Beatty and things like that. But my hill to die on is that people are not addicted to food. They're not. Okay. And someone who is saying that is most likely coping with the pain of admitting that they're not addicted to food so it's a cope by by saying oh yeah I'm addicted to food and you're not what you're addicted to if you're being honest is what food does for you you're addicted that food will help you with when you're sad because sadness is a really painful thing to go through you're addicted to how food helps you get through anger because anger can be infuriated can be all consuming or the big one in today's society and the whole different rabbit hole but you're addicted to high food helps you when you're lonely.

Because everyone has this little black box and they should be hyper-connected, but in reality, they're the loneliest they've ever been. And food is predictable. Food is readily available. And food is always there. Okay, that girlfriend might not pick up the phone. That husband might not be there to look after the kids. But to tell you what is, like Tesco's is always open.

And the centra is always open. And there's always a donut and there's always a piece of chocolate. And there's always a packet of crisps and there's always, for me, it was breakfast cereals, which is a whole different conversation we can go into. But food is predictable. It's repeatable. It's moderately cheap in the grand scheme of things. And it's always there for you.

Did breakfast cereals remind you of Christmas? No. So Saturday mornings, live and kicking, watching. And it was like I was safe. I was happy. It was, and it's not even just breakfast cereals. There was two. There was sugar poffs, which don't exist anymore.

and then there are cocoa pops. Do sugar puffs not exist anymore? No, and unless I'm doing a whole Mandela effect, right? So funny stories. So like my best, best friend still to this day will, which by the way, it shows you like male banter and like whatever, like he'll still slag me sugar puffs. And like the reason for it was at one time we had like a free house,

you know, like the parents were away for the holiday or whatever. We were about 16, so we had this madhouse party, the guy who doesn't drink, right? a madhouse party and he genuinely was looking through the cupboard the kitchens um kitchen cupboard sorry for more drink and he found six boxes of sugar puffs right and he just absolutely you know when fellas remember one thing for the rest of your life like this is literally 20 years ago now and still to this day i'll get like pictures of sugar puffs randomly um on what's up but um it was because like sugar puffs were everything like breakfast cereals were everything and but for me yeah it's that real

kind of it works safe you said safe yeah like think about it's like it's that you know the it always do you know what it makes me think about it now when I'm trying to describe to people you know that meme of homer sitting in front of the TV when he's a kid and then old Homer later on it's that it's like you're sitting in front the TV on a Saturday morning eating sugar pops or eating cocoa pops and it's like it feels safe it feels homely there's no there's no homework there's no school that day and things like that and and if you go back to as I saying like if I'm trying to deal with emotions when I was then 11 or I was 15 or I was 19.

It's like the emotion was sadness or loneliness or anger or angst or anxiety, whatever you want to call it. Well, what do you want to feel safe and you want to feel nostalgic? And that was like a portal. Serials were a portal to that little moment of like small joan jo. It's such a difficult thing to navigate in terms of because people want to see, you know, they want to decide that, okay, I need to make a change. So now I need to lose weight.

So now I need to do the actions that are going to help me to lose weight. and they want that kind of direct bit of progress and it's just like turn off turn on turn off your emotions do the thing get the result but emotions are always going to be there so you're always going to have this constant you know push and pull

towards using food as a as a coping mechanism for stress for loneliness for sadness for nostalgia and then also having to deal with them conversations with yourself that actually it's okay to eat when I'm sad but, you know, if too much of anything is going to have

negative consequences, even if there was a positive intent at the start of it. Well, that's the thing. It's like two paracetamol for a headache is great, but 70 paracetamol ain't that's not a good outcome for someone. Do you know what I mean? And it's that, it's that idea of like the poison is in the dose and understanding

that food can still be comfort, food can still be a loneliness buffer. Food can still be a distress tolerance tool, but if it's your only tool, then you're in dangerous waters. So what did you do in terms of helping to not always go to food for that emotional safety blanket? So initially, I was flying by night with it

because I was very focused on. When I first initially started to try and lose weight, it was all physiological. It was like, right, got a, like, man, I remember. I remember going back and like literally there was when I first started out, I was boiling chicken breasts. Yeah. To like to literally have as low calories as possible.

And I used to, I can still remember it in my mind's eyes. It's like it was boiled chicken breast and boiled sweet potato. And that was my meal prep sitting in top of where. Like if that doesn't make you, do you know what I mean? Like I'm not, do you know what the best thing is that's part for the course. Like there's quite a lot of boys my age who you talk to and like that was what they were doing. So for the first two or three years, it was all physiological. it was what I was actually doing

if we're being honest and this is the same thought processes that got me into the issue with food I was using but I was weaponising it so I'm sure you've heard like you've covered all or nothing thinking before or splitting or black and white thinking so that that like real like all or nothing of food was then transposed into all or nothing

with clean eating and clean eating and gym so like there was times when I even up my heaviest I was still playing rugby which is a mad concept even thinking how my knees coped, but I was training rugby twice a week. I had a match on a Saturday as well. I was still jimming four, sometimes five times a week. So that all or nothing thinking of like all in on food of like binge food, that was just transposed into ocean being healthy now. And I was weaponizing it. And now that I look back, I mean, I could probably say it was maybe borderline kind

of orthorexia of that idea of like so hyper focused and obsessed with clean foods and clean eating and only drinking water and and weighing in every single day and weighing in multiple times a day and training, gym training before going to work then rugby in the evening and then gym the next morning again even after a full contact session on a Tuesday like and then you wonder why that relationship broke down in my mid-20s. Do you know what I mean? There's there's timelines to be drawn together there and then once that relationship did break down and I kind of had a little bit of a backward step I regained three or four stone and I realized it was like right okay well it's just that. So then I looked down CBT initially with the counsellor. I met a fantastic,

fantastic lady in Belfast. And I will give her a shout out. She runs impossible mental health in Belfast. Her name's Deborah. Phenomenal woman, phenomenal, phenomenal woman. And she was the catalyst for me, understanding the cognitive side of things. But then she also introduced me to a whole new side of things called DBT. which I don't know if you've explained that for me and for the listeners as well. So CBT is cognitive behavioral therapy. So it's anything to do with cognitions, obviously your thought processes and stuff.

But sometimes the nicest analogy I heard of this is that you can't always think your way out of a situation. Sometimes you need to do your way out of a situation. Yes. So DBT is dialectical behavioral therapy. So it's much more tangible. It's much more directive. And it really sat well with me. There's quite a lot of research that shows that it sits well.

people. So would you say, would you consider that's like using your, your body or essentially to? Body and actions. Behaviour. So dialectical behavioral therapy. So it's like, it's how you behave. So like, now they combine and there's a lot of like a Venn diagram of both of them. But, um, because you need to have the theory before. It's a bit like your theory license plus your driving. Do you know what I mean? It's like you need to know the theory before you can do the driving. But, um, DBT is much more like, okay if this situation happens well then you need to do try this first try that try that and these are like behaviors of yeah like if someone uh offends you in this manner we'll try handling the situation like that try handling like that blah blah blah blah blah and then it links it back into the cognitive side

of things of and here's why we're doing that so there's quite a lot of quite a lot of evidence and research to show that dbt sits really really well with people who are maybe neurodivergent or in and around that neurodiversion space, which I mean, I would have traits of. I would never turn around and undervalue someone who's been fully diagnosed by saying, oh yeah, I am too. But like, I definitely resonate with people who have different neurodiversion challenges. And so DBT was like a real, like, it was a turning point for me. And that was what then gave me the skills to turn around and go, okay, well, when I feel this, okay, cool, I go, blah, blah, blah, blah, oh, it's like a, like a yeah, you're not trying to just submerge yourself.

in the tot and it's not rumination. There's that great analogy or metaphor and it's like trying to tink your way out of a thinking problem. It's like trying to sniff your way out of a cocaine. Cocaine, yeah. And that's it in a nutshell.

There's a, the kind of like godmother of DBT if you do want to go down a rabbit hole is Marsha Linehan. And like she has quite literally wrote the guide book on it. And she is phenomenal. Very, very good. A lot of her stuff is.

is excellent but that then in my mid-20s gave me not just the cognitive understanding but also like the directional framework to then go and deal with my emotions as well and and i know that i'm biased because i literally now have made a living out of it with revive but you could have all the under you could literally be a phd level nutritionist and if you're sad if you're in the ads. Like you ain't doing anything you've just spent the last 10 years on, right? And I am biased, I get that, right? But if you don't look after the why,

how much to eat will never, ever matter to you. So tell me this then, when you did start to kind of implement this and you started to see the change and what was it? It was a 75 KG of weight loss. Yeah, in total. That's me.

That's me. I'm gone. Do you know what the mad thing is, I don't have the context of that. Right? I really don't, because was like I was the same weight in stone as my age. So like when I was seven, I was seven stone. When I was 11, I was 11 stone. Like I was a big first year in school up here. Do you know what I mean?

Like I was big this way. Do you know what I mean? And so I don't have the content. And I throw these numbers out, partially to remind myself how, like what I've done. But I don't really truly, I can't grasp that. Like I've never, you know, you see those people online that do the reels of like,

and they hold the weight of what they've lost and stuff and things like that. I've never physically done that, but I don't think I could hold in two hands, 75 kilo, do you know what I mean? Can maybe hold it in like two kettlebells or whatever. But yeah, so my heaviest,

I was 154, my lightest, and the reason why I know that specifically to the end's degree is that it was for a powerlifting competition, so you had to weigh in on the day. And I was 82 kilo on the nose, like completely on the nose. So that was my absolute heaviest,

and then my absolute latest was 82 as an adult. Can I ask you a question on the back of that? So obviously I've spoke to a lot of people who have gone on kind of, I don't know if it would be to that extreme end of weight loss, have lost a lot of weight, whether that's true, using GLP ones or whatever it is. And even though they lose weight and, you know, they might feel physically better, there's also this kind of oh why do I feel sad

why do I feel depressed oh now I'm not getting to use food as the coping mechanism that was that was helping to solve the actual problem that wasn't actually food in the first place and also then they also have to kind of essentially go through an identity

change because they're not the you're not the big person in the group anymore that you know even if it was making them feel sad at times it was still huge they were and now they have to disassociate with that and sometimes the body's changing before the mind has time to catch up with that um did you go through anything in that sort in terms of like identity change of just the sadness of actually having to change who you were even though you

want it to change yeah i mean there's two different parts that like it's a double kind of a double end of the sword answer to you so the first thing is there's a concept that like and i truly resonate with it. Now, I lived through it and didn't know what was going on, but you know, when you make sense of something, once you hear a concept. So it's like the idea of brain lag or mind like, or sometimes people call it identity like. And it happens quite a lot with physical change, right? But because you have embodied that funny, fat friend for your entirety of your life, because I look back now and there's things that I, and by the way, it's not always positive. Like, I look back now and some, there's one guy in particular I'm still really, really friendly with. And I don't know how.

because in school I used to bully him and the reason why, and he and I have had genuine real hard-to-heart conversations about I used to bully him in the friend group because well if I can be the first one to shout and make everyone laugh, well then sure no one's going to notice that big fat asshole in the corner no one's going to make fun of him

no one's going to make fun for his teeth and for the size of him and all this. I used to be like a real and I don't say it with any pride I said it was like a lot of regret but I was on the offensive to stop that so but the whole idea of a dentity lag can it usually happens with physical but a lot of time it can happen

with like i work with people who are like quote unquote like average size and stuff as well it's not just people who are like morbidly obese that i work with and there's times where i'm working with someone and like i know one there's one specific thing in the head where like there's a girl who was like avid avid crossfitter like mad mad crossfitter fell pregnant not planned all that good stuff all fine and she couldn't, couldn't comprehend and wrap her head around the idea that her identity had to change. She physically had a little reminder in her hands

after nine months, nine months that her identity is different now and she's not able to go to the 6am wad four times a week and she's not able to compete every other weekend and things like that and it takes a while so for me personally the identity lag thing probably took about

two years if I'm being honest of like from my lowest to actually go oh right okay I'm embodying that now. and that is who I am but there is the whole issue of body dysmorphia and not truly seeing what other people see and things like that as well but

the other side of it as well is that when you lose weight and this is genuinely a hill that I will die on the world feeds you better I was literally just about to ask you that question I was going to ask did you find that people treated you more differently and how did that

impact your perception of people. It's really, it's really difficult to not talk about it now and sound revisionist and sound cope and sound like, oh, but the truth is this, I have lived both, right? I have been that funny, fat friend. I have been the guy who was always weirdly the best friend with the girls, but never the romantic. Do you know what I mean? And I, that sounds like cope and I get that, right? But the truth is that the world treats you so much better when you lose weight. And it doesn't matter, it's, romantically he's the big one. Like, in fact,

I almost think now that there's this romanticised image of like the ugly duckling. You know, like, get yourself a guy who's a rough diamond kind of thing. Like, oh, his personality now is lovely because when he was younger,

he was never able to be the jock. He was never able to be the quarterback, right? Which I'm sure there's value to that, by the way, as well. I'd like to think I'm a half decent fella too. But romantically, you get treated differently. Sociinally, you get treated differently.

Like, choices, even at like, buffets and stuff like you get looked if I went up now and I got thirds at a buffet I wouldn't be looked at right but me 10 years ago 12 years ago if I went up and got seconds it'd be like mm-hmm yeah of course he's getting that even in terms of my career like see when my weight loss was occurring like I could draw you a line with my career progression as well and yes okay there's coincidence and maybe not coincidence there's correlations as well where I was getting more skilled and more experience as well and I do understand that but definitely there's there's correlations between how society how females the only people who really always treat it you me the same was like my

inner circle my closest friends like they'll slag me which is a beautiful thing really like they'll hammer you regardless if you are 154 kilo or 82 they don't care how do we square that one where because i know there's going to be a lot of let's say there be a lot of coaches in that space of you know know, positive body image, you know, positive relationship with food that want to probably live in a world where society, you know, values each person the same regardless of their weight. But as someone who was actually lived in the real world and understands that that's not the case, like, is there a way to square that as in, you know, just like accepting that, you know, we talk about, like diet culture and all this and trying to kill off diet culture and trying to kill off weight

stigma but is that ever really going to go? I don't think so and well here's the thing like if you if you see a really really tall well-built fellow what sport do you think he plays like really tall and well-built basketball exactly and you make that instinctively do that right and pattern recognition yeah anyone who's listened to this will do the exact same thing they could probably someone who they know right now right and that is just the truth is that whether you like it or not and I still do it right and this because we're all flipping flawed fundamentally right I still do it I will look and you make a judgment or now I'm obviously a lot more nuanced and a lot more sensitive to it now as well and also bias like I will be less likely to judge someone who is overweight because

I was that yes I will see a really tall guy or really tall girl and go netball bass or I will see a really yoked fel and be like rugby probably yeah and I'm not saying it's all body shape to sports but I'm just using that as an example and the truth is regardless of whether we like to soften the edges and we like to kind of live in this utopia or hopefully get into utopia or talk about a utopia the fact is that humans will make instinctive decisions it is just as you said pattern recognition and unfortunately quite a lot of that for whatever reason whether that is weight stigma, whether that is societal norms or whatever it

might be, I don't quite know the answer. I could give you different guesses of what I think the answer are, but the truth is that people will continue to make decisions, unfortunately, and they will make snap decisions quite a lot of the time on who and what someone is based on their appearance. Yeah, and then

I suppose if you want to, like, turn that into an almost inception, it's like, yeah, someone is going to judge someone else because of their weight or their height or their height, they're going to have that pattern recognition and then I suppose are you judging someone for judging someone else when like you probably do it yourself in a in a different domain obviously you understand the negative impact of of weight bias and

of weight stigma and you can be more empathetic and understanding to people who are struggling with their weight but then you might be less empathetic in another field that you just don't have the experience or knowledge around. And so we look at like, we look at the general public and we look at how they judge people who are overweight and we're like, oh, that person doesn't have empathy or that person is ignorant. And yeah, they are probably ignorant. They are ignorant. But we're also ignorant ourselves in many different fields that isn't to do with weight or the fitness industry. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the first one to kind of give you, an over arching answer is that, like, what is it they say?

It's like opinions are like our souls. Yeah, yeah. Do you mean, like, you're always going to have an opinion, right? That also doesn't mean that you should tell someone it. Yeah. It also doesn't mean that you should act upon it. Like, I could, I could turn around and I could see someone. I could form an instinctive opinion or an instinctive judgment.

You don't have to act on it. You can, like, mad, mad concept, take a beat and actually talk to the person and go, all right, okay, yeah, cool. So, like, because the fact of the matter is that, like, as you use, said to be to play devil's advocate i have no interest no specialty no uh in fact i would probably be more likely to negatively judge someone in the bodybuilding world because i have you know what i mean i'll go if i see someone yeah if i see someone jacked and absolutely skinned and you go whatever i'd be like i'm not like i don't have to give my opinion but it would most likely if i'm if i'm

holding my hands up and go it'll probably be negative yeah do you know what i mean that's a great example that's exactly what I was essentially alluding to as well. It's like opinions are like arseholes, everyone has them, including me. Yeah, exactly. You just don't have to act on it. Like, I'm not going to go to every single bodybuilder that I know, well, he's an arsul, she's an arson, like, oh, she's obsessive. He's, he's, he's coping for something else.

Exactly, yeah. When we all are. When we all are, right? And I don't think it's an issue to have fundamental quick snap judgments on someone. I don't think that's a problem, okay? because that's trying to rewire the human brain. That's not going to happen. Okay.

But it's having that empathy, compassion and ultimately intelligence, if we're being really honest, to know that, well, actually their physical appearance isn't there be all and end all. They could actually be an absolute genius. They could be absolutely hilarious.

They could be a real savant and something that I'm also interested in. But I don't know that until I actually get to know the person. And that, for me, is more important. So the whole idea of like body positive coaches and things like that, that's kind of what they should be looking at rather than love yourself no matter what. I think that's a very wishy-washy kind of soft approach to it. The education, the coaching piece should be, okay, have a decision and have a judgment, but also understand that we're not just made up of atoms and muscle cells and fat cells. Yeah. Tell me about your friends that you lost. Ryan yeah so I

I lost Ryan it was his anniversary yesterday so he's 17 years gone yesterday so yesterday so yesterday was a pretty tough day and yeah so I met him in year eight here's was like first year

I know years worked slightly differently down south but so we're 11 so the first form of of secondary grammar school and I'd never seen him before my life so we met on the first day of that and I put a post up yesterday

and was saying the best way that I can describe my relationship with him because I only grew up with his sister is like if I could paint a picture of like what having a bigger brother who you idolized like that was it for me with Ryan. Like he was incredibly intelligent. He was for his age incredibly strong, well built.

He had like trials for Ulster rugby. He had sprint Ireland trials and stuff. like he was physically capable. He was emotionally classed, just absolutely everything when it became. Like literally he wasn't my best friend. He was everything. And then unfortunately when we were 19,

he passed away to his own life. And it was, that was the catalyst of when I went to my absolute highest weight. So my heaviest weight when I was 21 was about 18, 19 months after he passed away. Yeah. So it was horrible, horrible. for everyone involved.

Obviously, I have my own view of it and stuff, but his brother, his mummy, and his daddy as well. What emotions do you, were you feeling at the time? Like, what, we've spoke about emotional eating and I suppose what are the, what have been, from doing the work, what have been the hardest emotions to sit with

when you almost correlate your relationship with food with that passing? So if I'm being brutally honest with you, which is going to be quite a short answer that depends on how you want to go down it but I don't have an emotion so one of the biggest parts of the work that I have done on myself is that some of the hardest parts of my life which were during childhood and then Ryan's passing I have looked back and I literally have like scrawled my brain like I mean tried my hardest to write to voice note to do different ways to get through things I have 100% disassociated

and put them and compartmentalize them into some dark corner. There's times where I'll still get like maybe dreams and stuff and things like that where I'll wake up and go, oh, right, okay, yeah, that. But then because it's quite lucid, you don't know if then it's a dream of something that you thought actually happened or a feeling that happened during that time or if it really did happen.

So when I look back, I feel a lot of emptiness, if I'm being honest, like if I was to give you, if we were sitting in a therapy session here, it's like I just see darkness. I just see like a black hole kind of thing. and I definitely think that that's a protective mechanism, if I'm being honest. But I feel a great, great sadness in missing him and missing what he was and who he was to me. But at the same time as well, I feel a lot of love and a lot of happiness in remembering what he was as well, if that makes sense. That makes perfect sense.

That surprised me, it makes complete sense. but I thought you were going to go with anger and then, yeah, no, to disassociate completely which for some reason feels a lot more difficult than, like, at least with anger, it's an emotion, you can... I haven't got closure. Like, I don't have clue, like, I'm being honest, like, I don't have clue,

and I've never actually talked about this before, but, like, I don't have closure on his passing. I don't, because a lot of people, like, associate, especially deaths like that, they associate things like understanding why and you understand like I have no closure on that and it's and it it's very much an open-ended story still which I in a way the way I'm dealing with that is to perpetuate his memory and to talk about him when people ask about him and to like all of my like I said it in a post recently like a lot of

my branding and stuff with revive and stuff and even tattoos and things like that they're all geared towards memorizing him essentially and that's my way. of closing it off and that's my way of um you kind of you keep him alive in that way rather than kind of looking for closure of a definitive oh that happened because of this and i felt that way because of that and i actually came out of that at this time it's like for me that i don't think that'll ever happen um so it's the case that i try and kind of keep memories alive and i suppose if if if we're touching on that as well it's like do do you always need to feel closure to to to come to to him to move on and to get on with your life.

No. No, because I mean, if you look at the start, like, look at the start of relationships, right? You don't have this one like, oh, my, like I didn't see him on the first day of school and go, oh my God, he's going to be my best friend ever. It's like, things just kind of grow and fizzle up and they kind of like crescendo up. So they don't need to have this hard, like, full stop of a, oh, well, that's that boxed off and closed and that's fantastic and that's great. I think you just learn to live with what.

whatever, like we are the sum of what happens to us. And that sum isn't then a full stop and then you move on to the next sum. It's like, well, if I am two plus two because of what happened in that situation, well, my next sum, which is my next chapter, my next episode, well, now I'm four and it'll be four times three because that's a new different equation, if that makes sense. So there's no like hard stop for me. You're just, you walk into the next situation, whoever you are because of the last one

and then you just keep on kind of growing forward. Has it made you... Has it made you look at relationships different, or friendships different, or anything like that? Yeah, like, my partner will... My partner, McAil will joke that I have, like, one close friend. And I do. Like, it's mad because, like, I am public-facing for revive

and public-facing in my mental health work. I'm public-facing, even in my, like, hobby stuff. Like, I'm chairman of our football club. I'm manager, blah, blah, blah, blah. but I do youth football coaching as well. It's like all super, super public phase. And so like I have a large network of people and that's the key thing. There's a large network of people.

I have one mate. Yeah. I have one mate. Okay. And ironically, also called Rand. But I knew him as well at the same time. I haven't replaced. I haven't just put a new Ryan on top of it.

We all went to school together. That would be something for your service to work with me. Yeah. The new girlfriend's called the exact same name with my girlfriend. It's the same color hair, same job. that'd be weird no we all went to school together so yeah so i have one best mate and i do have other close friends i'm not saying that i'm this hermit um but i have a best mate and i'm the type of person that even though i said right on like i had a sister will have a sister and stuff but like i am very

insular i'm very um very solo i find it hard to delegate i find it hard to allow other people have find it very, very difficult to be vulnerable and allow other people and ask other people for help. And I think that then extends to my relationship with friends as well. And I always, I say a joke. It's probably like a joke with a jag. There's a Zach Bryan lyric where I think it's from in from Austin. And he says like everyone I've ever loved is either left or died. And like, and my miss is like, don't be singing that.

It's like, that's like, and she's obviously because she's like, I'm here for you. And it's like, it's just one of those things. never has a flipping a lyric ever resonated as much with me. Do you know what I mean? The idea. So for me, yeah, it's like any like field relationships or my friend passed away, Ryan passing away. Or like I idolized my dad as well and he had passed as well. And it is that idea of like I'm still getting to grips with the idea of it's okay to be vulnerable

because nothing is forever anyway. Like relationships will pass. People will pass. But that shouldn't stop you from allowing people in as well. But that's a work in progress. Yeah, I think when people start to go on a weight loss journey and they are struggling with their weight, and they're very much at the beginning of this journey,

like they never associate food with grief or food with these types of emotions or like understanding that food isn't the issue. You know, it's the solution to the issue and that we have all these other things going on. And like it's, it's, yeah, there's probably a lot of work that needs to get done in order for you to solve this problem that actually doesn't have anything to do with calories. No, it's like it's nothing to do with my fitness pal. It has nothing to do with bathroom scales, kitchen scales, body tape measures. It has nothing to do.

It doesn't have anything to do with protein shaker. Do you know what I mean? It's like those are our tools and ways that are certainly tightly interwoven with the situation, but they are not the thing. We need to be able to step away from the idea that they are the thing. They're not because if someone, like how many times, how many times have you heard either a girl or a fel going, revenge body, winter arc, or I'm going to show him, I'm going to show her. So what?

You're trying to take back control through the thing that you think you can control with a little spreadsheet in my fitness pile? No, you need to sit with the emotion of feeling sad that she left or you need to be able to go, oh, he cheated on me. I'm so fucking angry, right? Going and doing a hip thrust ain't going to help resolve any sort of trauma. And nothing,

on a small-handed, nothing annoys me more when people put up, like, deadly serious memes of like, the gym is my therapy. Like, you know what is therapy?

Like therapy? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the revenge bad one is interested. I remember writing a post about this a long time ago and it was like, but like you're still giving them control, even if you get them,

result that yes yes you're literally you're giving all the power to them by by doing that and you won't block them when you get your photos on you'll unblock them like oh here's me in crete but then but then the play devil's advocate as well i i i also think there is there is substance in it as well because like we all have we all use whatever coping mechanism we can use in order to get us through a a period of grief or pain. And, you know, I 100% agree with you. Like the gym is not therapy. It can be therapeutic.

It's not therapy. But I mean, whatever people have to use in order to get themselves through a dark period of time. As long as like, it's, it's potent fuel. But if used for too long, it can destroy you. So the analogy I use around that's interesting you say fuel. So the analogy I use about that is like starting to. fire, right? You need fire lighters, right? And that's cool, but you can burn a whole fire all night on that, right? So you need to start the fire with your potent, like high energy fuel, high octane fuel,

and then you put logs on. Yeah. And the logs is the discipline and the logs is the motivation and the logs is the kind of like, okay, this is my, this is my life now. This is my persona. This is what I do. I am a person who goes to the gym, as opposed to just someone who has a gym membership. Yeah. But you have to have the same way, the reverse of that happened. It's like you can't start a really good fire with just dry logs. You know what I mean? You need to have a fire starter as well. And so it goes back to the thing I said you order on.

It's like the idea is that the poison's in the dose. Like if someone uses the gym or food to help control an emotion, that is totally fine. Okay. But then that you need to have the self-awareness to understand that actually, oh, wait, no, that's now replacing my issue. That is just, I've just moved my issue on to something else now as opposed to dealing with it. Yeah. And I suppose using the the revenge bod example, it's like, all right, you, you broke up with someone or someone broke up with you. You're sad. But now you're angry. You can use that anger, that potent fuel to get you started on in your revenge bod. But, you know, if you continue to just train in terms of with anger or punishment or resentment in your body and your soul, like, that's going to be like you're not solving your issue of of of finally being content by yourself you're just again like we like we touched on it's like the the power and the control is still in that person

so it's like yeah you can you you can use that anger to start something positive but like the the example of the of the you know of the fire you know you put too much gasoline on there and you know you end up burning yourself exactly exactly that and it's It's people, people just need to understand to have the self-awareness to understand that what they're doing and when they're doing it and how long they're doing it for, I suppose, as well is the key thing because anything works. You know, like hate will work. Like if I hate myself hard enough, yeah, I will change in six months. But like, without an airy-fairy, you need to love yourself to keep that change off. Do you know what I mean?

Can I ask you question then? Because like off the back of that, a lot of people will be probably without realising. chasing their goals, their aesthetic goals, trying to get in shape, trying to lose weight, trying to tone up. They don't, they,

they, they think it's discipline, but it's punishment. And, you know, how do you distinguish between the two? Because I also see this a lot in there, like,

there's, you can see that, like, the ultra-maritan kind of craze that's going on at the moment. And, like, that started over in Austin,

Texas with your man, um, uh, something beer, I can't remember, name. But you have a lot of people who are just trying to outdo each other and run like insane amount of kilometers. And it's like, there's that joke during a marathon like therapy would have been would have been cheaper or something like that. But like even though it's a joke, there's a,

there is an element of truth. And a lot of that for a lot of people is that people are pushing their bodies to more and more extreme circumstances. And I know social media probably feels a lot of that because there's a comparison thing I want to the more I do the more engagement or intention I will get so there's there's the attention currency aspect of that but then there's also that like you probably have some you know your what you disguise as discipline is actually insecurity and punishment and um you should probably address that like how do people so it's it's that idea of like it's the whole davy gorgans isn't it's like who's going to carry the butts and the the truth is that I think The fact, regardless of whether people like to admit it or not, like social media is essentially

the center point for the majority of the conversations of any topic that you'll have in today's world because everyone in their granny has social media. And that's where the majority of people get their circle of influence from. That's where they get their information from. They get their thought patterns from. That's how they learn things now, if we're being really honest. And the truth is that in today's world, in probably the last four or five years, is that discipline and verticommas has been glorified and it is um it's essentially just masquerading it's like every the only thing it's really happening there is that people as you said are ignoring the check engine sign and i think a little bit of it has to go with you've heard like the purity spiral of like oh no

but i'm i'm more of an ultra man than you i was like you only did a half well actually i've just booked this in malaga um and then you'll hear something behind and going oh you're you only do a well actually I'm going to middle earth and uh and you should see this drama like it's amazing i'm not using any gels i'm not having it and i'm raw dogging the whole experience a barefoot because you know back then they didn't wear you know these uh cushy runners and you know i if i suffer more than you that means that i'm purity spiral yeah it's purity spiral and it's all the show it's in in a nutshell it is keeping up with the junses except when that was in the 90s it was like what new beamer does the does next door have because there was no

social media really um now it is it's it's also it's a lot quicker it's a lot more because like one new car a year or what holiday are they going on a year that was the 90s right and now because it's it's it's stories every 10 minutes because it's post every other day it's oh my god what time did you get in your merch well actually i did this oh you're only doing that well actually i don't keep those anymore I do those strict now and it is all keeping up with the Joneses and it's trying and but then what happens is that people get their self-worth attached to tangible metrics as opposed to going, oh, well, know your self-worth is, well, does your mom still love you? Like, how do you, like, how do you, like, when's last time you actually helped someone that didn't benefit you? Like, those are elements of what your self-worth should be relying on, not how many push-ups to Amrop you can do without, like, whatever, do you know what I mean? So, So that it is. It's just keeping up with the Joneses just in the 21st century. What do you understand about happiness?

That's a big one. I'm still looking for it, if being honest. Do you think, because, and the reason I ask that question is because you've been, you know, at your heaviest and you've been at your lightest, and there will be a misconception from a lot of people who are listening to this, who are struggling with weight, who feel that at the end of their weight loss journey is happiness. and that's why I wanted to ask you that question. The same way leprechauns don't exist

and there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, right? Like I hate it myself just as much at 154 as I did at 82. Because when I got the 82, I was like, oh, you don't have abs. Oh, but you promised yourself that you had abs. And it's that whole idea of like the gap and the gain, you know, where when you live in the gap rather than, instead of looking back and going, oh, my word, I've lost a whole human, right? like a whole whole human

I should be looking forward and going, geez, okay, well, like, sorry, I did look forward and well actually, if I just do one more kilo actually, maybe if I just do, maybe if I get under 80 because if I look like this now, then and there was never a happiness there and that is the biggest, biggest thing

that when I'm working one-on-one with people, I will get to the point where I almost sound sycophantic when I tell them, you're down another half pound this week or you've done this this week or, oh my, do you know that you just skimmed off, three seconds off your best time there? It's like, and it's not because I'm trying

to give them self-worth from numbers is to try and make sure that they're not living in the gap all the time i want them to look back and see where they are so what is happiness i've learned a lot more over the last year so that like happiness is letting people in if i'm being honest and it's still one of my biggest flaws but me now to me 12 months ago is definitely a lot more growing um happiness is and i'm going to sound so cliche and cheesy but like happiness is quiet mornings with the dogs and having a coffee and I have an almost autistic level of habit of writing every single morning. So I journal every single morning. I got a thing on my phone there today of a little, like I write a little mantra every single

morning and I got a flashback from 2021 and I wrote the exact same thing at the bottom of my journal. It's like keep being you. It works. And that to me, it's just like a reminder of like no matter how much you doubt yourself, no matter how much someone tells you you're wrong, no matter how much whatever, like remember,

like being you does work and people do love you for who you are and regardless of what size you are. And so for me, happiness is like simple things. It is spending time with my partner, spend time with my dogs, being able to write, listen to music specifically Noah Kahn and Zach Bryan.

And, oh, like, I am, I am Stan levels of Noah Kahn. Like, you've no idea. like so so so good um like can i ask a question off the back of that because this is going to be it's it's a hard one for people to square right because it's like okay you're you're miserable at your heaviest weight you were miserable at your at your lightest weight so what's the justification of going through that weight loss journey if you know the if the if the if you can be if the if the goal can be to be happy with a coffee in the morning and trying to be content what then what is the point in ambition or self development or self progress like it's because i've i always i always try

to wrap my head around these two concepts i do yeah we're working together simultaneously of like progressing towards something but also being exactly happy where you are i think for me the of doing something positive for myself is where the happiness is. Like, do so, and even if it is writing every, and I'm going to answer on the physical side of things as well, but the act of writing every, I could write, I could scribble down, flip me, like there's times if you looked at my journal, it could be literally like, slept well, feel okay today. And that's it.

And that's two lines. Like, it's the act of doing it that makes me happy. It's not what I'm writing that makes me like this magically more like, well-rounded individual. So why do it? because it feels good to progress yourself and to know that you're doing something worthwhile, because ultimately, whether people, like, if we look at it on the physiological settings, it's like, you can be, I could have been happier at 154 kilo. I could have had the dogs and the writing and the music at 154 kilo.

And if I ever do get to that weight again or somewhere in between, I now know that I have those emotional tools to be happy at that weight as well. Your weight doesn't define your happiness. but why do we do it? Well, because whether we like to admit it or not, there are health issues with being that size. There's health issues with being obese. There's health issues and there's issues around holding that kind of weight. So why wouldn't I want to improve myself in some fashion, whether that is cardiovascular fitness, whether that is learning a language, whether that is learning how to play a no account song poorly whether that is reading a new book like why do

anything we could go into a whole kind of nihilist real kind of conversation but it's like the doing of the thing is the important thing not the thing itself yeah yeah that makes sense and that like it's the the obvious and tedious and um overuse saying essentially is that yeah it's it's it's it's it's finding enjoyment in the process rather than the outcome. And that is it. Unfortunately, as cheesy and cliche as it is. And like,

as much as you tried to say it in 10 million different ways, that isn't that because that gets said so often, personal trainers who just want to say, oh, shut up, like it's true. Yeah. But cliches are cliche for a reason, man. And I'm okay with that. No, I used to shy away from it.

And I used to try and sound all like, oh, I'm so well read. And like actually I have a different way to spin. Like, look, cliches are cliche for a reason. And sometimes it is just the truth. The doing of the thing is more important than the thing itself. You need to find joy in the process. Because if you attach your worth to the outcome,

like the analogy I use around that is like running a marathon from a guy who's never ran a marathon. But like on average, the runtime is about maybe four to five hours for GM pop. Like so if you think of the percentage of time spent, you literally cross the line in a minute. like a millisecond. If all you're actually doing after 12 weeks of training and four and about hours, five hours of running,

the only thing you're hanging the happiness on is that millisecond across the line and you're completely missing like the tree for the forest, for the woods, for everything. Do you know what I mean? As someone who did the Dublin Marathon last year for the first time, I was like, the best experience in the world

was literally just running and just seeing people's faces and everyone's so enthusiastic and you're running and someone sees their brother, their sister and they run over. I remember seeing my friends. And like that gave me, them cheering me on and seeing them gave me more of a high than crossing the line,

which goes back to what I always say is like it's about the people, not the journey. Like it's not about the journey or even the destination. It's about the company that you spend it in. Absolutely. Like, I suppose the journey does entwine with like, all right, I'm going to have to live my life anyway and I'm going to have to decide to do something. So I might as well, you know, enjoy it a lot.

the way with good people. Carl Sisyphus is it? Yeah. I love, I love Camas. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not as, as bleak as he is. I feel like there's more, there's more meaning to life than just the absurdity of life. But if there was no meaning in life, you know, you still have to live your life anyway, so you might as well find meaning in the work.

It depends what day. You catch me all if I'm as bleak as he is. Yeah, but it is that. It is the eye. It is. It's Sissivis and his rock. The answer you, to be succinct about it, that is it. It's like, you may as well find a wee bit of crack in it. What do you find less important or what do you care less about now that you're older? What people think about me.

Genuinely, because like everything, self, everything was attached to my weight back then. And I always thought, maybe rightly or wrongly, that people were judging me because of my weight or because of my teeth or because of how I looked or whatever at my teeth. be I don't I genuinely don't care anymore like well it's still like I had an interaction last football season where a fella on the pitch had said something me it's like gosh or whatever you fat fuck or whatever and I was like in the moment it didn't really and then in the evening I was like is that how people still see me and then I had a little bit of a question like a bit of a moral kind of breakdown I was like oh Jesus after all this work am I still seen is that and and but then it settled in me for a wee while but yeah to

answer you succinctly it's like I genuinely don't care as much anymore what people think

and I'm much more confident in myself and my own belief systems and my own thoughts if that makes sense

so what matters more to you that you're older um my circle yeah yeah my circle my like

and I include the dogs in that like um so my best mate my partner um my two dogs

like that would be um everything to me and then to be cliche being the person that I would have needed like that is everything that I do so whether it's with revive whether it's with the charity that I work with I if I can be the person who I needed and stop little me who is that person in front of me now feeling or experiencing what I feel I felt sorry then that is like that fills me that that is everything to me That's the biggest thing that I can achieve.

Two, a double question and then we'll finish up. So what's something that you've had to forgive yourself on? And then what's something that you're proud of? Forgive myself on, if I'm being honest, we talked about Ryan already. It's like I didn't know. I didn't know. He was everything. He was the handsome sports star university, whatever.

I didn't know. And I couldn't know. And I'll never know. So how can I hold myself accountable for that? If I didn't know to be there for him, like in whatever way he needed. I think that's something most people who have had to deal with suicide have to try and come to terms with it. And some people never do. No.

But you could like, man, you see all those things all times. Like, oh, look out for the signs. What are the signs? Like the signs are a smiling, confident young man. what sounds so yeah i had to forgive myself and that and like i've definitely allowed myself to to get to the point where i've made peace with it and um i'll never probably as i said earlier on close it off but i've definitely forgiven myself for it um in terms of was second question was what i'm proud of yeah um genuinely like the work that i even more like people see me as revive and that's my

business stuff but the work that I do in schools with youth mental health is like I couldn't be more proud. The charity I worked for is called Hope for Life and I and we have a program that like there's three and a half of us. I'm the half like I work part time because I work my own chat in my own business but we have delivered over 60,000 kids like for three and a half people. That's huge. That is absolutely magic and for me as I said if I could, way because I even go back into like I'll tell you what we small story for we go as well it's like it was like a full circle moment so we go back into my old school where I met Ryan we go in all the time and the very very very first class that I delivered in was the same flipping room that I met him in which just you could not like I don't believe in universe stuff and whatever right but like could you write that of the hundreds of classrooms in that's cool like it was the exact room that I met him in and then when he passed away my first year tutor I was incredibly incredibly close to her and when he passed away we had left school probably about six or seven months and that was the first I just walked down to school I didn't know

where I didn't go to my mom I didn't go to my dad I literally just walked to school even though I hadn't been there six or seven months went to the front door and said look can I talk to shawneen please and they knew who I was still and she brought me up and she brought me into that room where I've met him and she brought me into like her side room but it was like in between two classes like her kind of like kind of coffee room kind of thing and we sat there the entire day and she just helped me she took all of her classes off and stuff but my first classroom in some malakies and belfast that i delivered in was the room that i met him in and that's just that to me is like huge huge chanjo where can people go if they want to continue to follow you and the work that you do um everything

that is food um fitness wellness related is um the revive method on line, whether that's Instagram or TikTok, so the dot Revive method. If you want to find any of the work that I do in youth mental health services, it is Hope for Life and I, or our little program is called Uber Heroes. So Uber as in the food, but it's all to do with superheroes, helping young kids deal with their emotions. But yeah, you'll find me on either Revive or Uber Heroes. My, thank you very much for that. That was a final. Thank you. I really, I love this, really really good conversation meal.