WHOOP Podcast - How This WHOOP Member Lost Over 100 Pounds | The Story of Daniel Day

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

After reaching nearly 300 pounds, WHOOP Member Daniel Day committed to changing his life, turning WHOOP to give him the guidance he needed. On this week’s episode of the WHOOP Podcast WHOOP Staff Research Scientist Dr. Greg Grosicki sits down with Daniel to discuss his unique journey to optimize his health using WHOOP. After ultimately losing more than 125 pounds through sustainable lifestyle changes, endurance training, and a relentless focus on long-term health, Daniel decided to challenge himself to complete a Half Ironman. Daniel shares how WHOOP became an essential part of that transformation, providing the accountability, and daily insights that helped him build better habits and stay motivated through every stage of his journey. (00:00) Cold Open(00:44) Daniel’s Weight Loss Journey and Life Motto(07:43) Daniel’s Motivation, Family History, and Journey to WHOOP(10:02) Finding Your “Why”(12:29) Breakthrough Moments: Daniel on Running His First Mile(14:44) The WHOOP Metrics Driving Behavior Change(16:56) Impact of Strain Coach(19:20) Daily Tracking and Daniel’s Biggest Wins(28:23) WHOOP Advanced Labs and Healthspan(33:06) Picking Up New, Active Hobbies and Habits(33:40) Improving Energy and Mindset(35:53) Training For A Triathlon(37:04) First Open Swim Sprint Anxieties and Lessons(39:59) Building Resilience for Half Ironman(44:04) Daniel’s Half Ironman Race Day Experience(46:41) Impact of Strength Training on Race Day Results(52:03) Daniel’s Reflection on His JourneySupport the showFollow WHOOP:Sign up for WHOOP Advanced LabsTrial WHOOP for Freewww.whoop.comInstagramTikTokYouTubeXFacebookLinkedInFollow Will Ahmed:InstagramXLinkedInFollow Kristen Holmes:InstagramLinkedInFollow Emily Capodilupo:LinkedIn 

You've been able to lose over 100 pounds without any weight loss medication. All of it documented by Wu. Tell me a little bit about, you looked in the mirror, 300 pounds. Why do you feel as though you were able to actually finally lose weight? The why was really heart, soul, strength. You live life with all your heart, all your soul, a large strength. I just looked at myself in a mirror and was like, I'm not giving everything in my strength category.

Things just got heavy. I kind of had to be broken down to my core to really understand who I was. as a man, it really started to like manage itself as like, you need to change something. So that's where WOOP came in. Let's find something that like can actually assist me in my goals. Daniel, how are you doing today? Good. Yeah. Awesome. Kind of beat me up this morning on our run. That's all right. That's all right. Yeah. So grateful to have you here. We've been talking and working together for over a year now, as you've told us, your wonderful story of this complete cardiometabolic health journey and really remarkable transformation. And so it's so great to have

you in Boston and in the studio. Yeah, thanks for having me. Of course. Yeah, it's our pleasure. So, Daniel, one of the first things you told me when we were interacting over Zoom was that you have a tattoo on your wrist right below your boot. Do you want to tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, it's DSAL, which is an acronym for don't suck at life, which is so fun. My buddy Jeff, he taught a financial aid class, and in that class, he handed out these bands that were DSAL, and he would say, don't suck a life, but for the kids, don't spend a lot of money, or don't spend a lot. Yeah. The bands kept breaking and breaking and breaking, but it eventually led into a mantra for me of just like, don't suck it life, don't suck at life, don't suck a life. So I would always go to his office

and be like, can I get a, can I get a few more? Because I'm just training a bunch and they just kept breaking and breaking and breaking. And so eventually when I lost like 30 pounds-ish, I was like, I need a tattoo of something. Yeah. Like it's a mile marker for me. All my tattoos mean something to me. That one was like, okay, I've lost 30 pounds. What's like something I want? And it was DSAL. And of course I want to put it right underneath my whoop and in a place on my wrist. You could put the tattoo like anywhere, right? I thought about like my forearm. I thought about my wrist. But ultimately I landed on, let's put it on the outside of my wrist. And that way whenever I'm like on the bike, whenever I'm running, whenever I'm swimming, no matter what I'm doing, when I'm editing, I can see it.

Like it's in a place where it's always visible. Don't suck a life really is kind of the best thing that I could do for myself at the time. Just like something I could say to myself and see every day. It's really about the long term, not the short term. And so when I lost 30 pounds, that was really key for me, was just like, keep going. It's about the life. It's about the life expectancy. It's about going the distance.

And it's about just not sucking at life, ultimately. I love your focus on the long term, because that's ultimately what brings you here today, right? It was three years ago and 125 pounds ago that you set off on this journey. And it's interesting you talk about like the band snapping because I think when people think of weight loss. Yeah. They think of, you know, yo-yo dieting and the band snapping. Right. They lose weight. They lose weight.

They lose weight. They lose weight. They gain weight. They gain weight. And so that was you three years ago. Tell me a little bit about, you know, your life. life growing up, I think there's a lot of people on who are particularly interested in improving their body composition. Every year we have members set goals in the platform to either do more cardio or drink less, but losing weight almost always is one of the things that's most popular among our members. Tell me a little bit about your life growing up and how you got to where you

were three years ago. I started gaining weight in high school. Um, mostly because of football. Like I was a center. I was a lineman. I'm a pretty big guy and in general. Like, look at these tree trunks, you know. And so I just like naturally fit in the lineman category when I was in high school. And center was like, okay, I want to be a leader. And my dad was like, yeah, let's let's make you be the leader of the lineman. I started gaining weight in high school, started lifting a ton, thousand pound club, doing all this like heavy lifting. But I would also eat a ton of food. So I gained like 50 pounds my sophomore into junior year high school. And I was moving bodies.

Like I was pretty mean and lean. Small for my age or small for my position, but also like pretty mean. And it's all about getting low, being aggressive. And so it really just kind of like naturally evolved into, okay, you're a strong guy. But then at what do you do post high school is you don't have a gym. You don't have like the. the fancy trainer anymore. My dad was the weightlifting coach,

but I don't have the cardio coach anymore. And it really just kind of came down to like, I have the same appetite, less metabolism, and I'm now like continuing to eat and eat and eat as if I'm like training for lining position. I feel like that's pretty common, right? Yeah.

Because all of us are active when we're young in high school. Right. In college, we get out, we're working, we have families, and pounds start coming on. Yep. I mean, I got married at 21. And so, like, added stress. I mean, marriage is great. But, but, like, added stress and we're moving into Kansas City. And it was just like all this stuff. I mean, Kansas City has good barbecue, too. So I can't blame me for everything. But it was just like the food, just the access to everything.

And having actual, like, what I would say, adult money, you know, at that point, too, was really. really like, you know, pretty detrimental to my health. I didn't realize it at the time, obviously, but so I just kept eating and eating. And then eventually I got to 250 and then I was like, oh gosh, like let me slow this down. It would start something and then stop something. And then it just never really clicked for me. But my dad. So your heaviest, sorry to interrupt, your heaviest. How much were you at your heaviest then? I would say like 300 pounds. Okay. I mean, on the scale, it was 299.5. But in reality, Like, I just stopped weighing myself once I saw $2.99.

So really, it could have been $300 plus. Yeah. I was a pretty big guy. Sure. I mean, let alone just having a big physique. I was able to hide it well. So it was never really like a problem. Like, people were always like, oh, yeah, that's a big guy, but, you know, he's just a big guy.

Yeah, the transformation was pretty drastic. Like, people were like, holy cow. Yeah. That was hiding under that. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, it was pretty life transforming. life transformations wise, it was just like really good.

So you get 300 pounds and how old were you approximately at that age? I was, what was it, 26? Okay. So 28, 29, 30, 31. Yeah, 26. So 26, 27 years old, 300 pounds. Yep. You and your wife.

Yep. Living in Colorado. Yep. And you're working as a content creator. Yes. And then all of a sudden you stepped on the scale one day and then tell me how that went down. Yeah. I just kind of looked at myself in the mirror, and my dad had recently got diagnosed with Crest

syndrome, which is an autoimmune disease. It affects your blood and a lot of different joint problems and stuff like that. But my whole family has heart issues. And that really kind of bled into, man, I really need to start. Like with my dad's diagnosis and then all my history of heart failure, with my uncle passing away with heart aneurism, and then ultimately a heart failure. It was just like really eye-opening to see myself in the mirror and be like, I'm going down like this path that I don't want to be down when I'm 35, when I'm 45, when I'm 45, when I'm 55. I'm really building a house for now, building the base and the foundation for now for the future. It's all about give and take, you know, and I was taking a lot more than I was giving.

and that like total life transformation only happened because of all of the diagnosis and everything like that with my dad and then just seeing all the family issues that we were having with heart stuff it just it just kind of like opened it up to be like look at myself in the mirror see myself as like this big guy looking at reality and saying I don't really like who I am right now yeah That was pretty eye-opening. Yeah. And I imagine that a lot of people have experiences like this. So I think a lot of people can probably relate to that.

But I think what's different is that remarkably, you've been able to lose over 100 pounds without any weight loss medication. And that's not a knock on weight loss medications. They're highly effective. But you've been able to achieve the same results through lifestyle. And this is a three-year journey. journey, all of it documented by whoop, and I believe something like 1,146 days of data. Incredible. And so tell me a little bit about, you looked in the mirror, 300 pounds, you have this

realization of this family history and it's catching up to you. What happened? And why do you feel as though you were able to actually finally lose weight? Yeah. It all kind of like culminated in a lot of different things. There were a lot of different heart things, head things, strength things that were like all happening all at once. And my like, the why was really heart, soul, strength. That was like the three things that, you know, you live, you live life with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength. Really, just like heart, soul, strength was like my main motivation. Giving the Lord all your heart, soul, and strength. That was, that was a big thing. And I just looked at myself in a mirror and was like, I'm not giving

everything in my strength category. Like, I'm pretty good at that. of mine stuff, pretty good at the soul stuff, but the strength was like, I just had to look at myself and be like, you're not, not doing it. We would go on a hike, and I remember Chief Mountain, and if you're from Colorado, you know that Chief Mountain is not an easy hike necessarily, especially being so new to Colorado. But I kind of, I like, I remember going distinctly to Chief Mountain. It was a beautiful day, but I just could not keep up. Like, I was walking up this mountain and I had to stop every few seconds just to catch my breath. Yeah. And it wasn't just elevation. Like that's a fun excuse, but it's, it wasn't just elevation. It was because I was

just frustrated with myself that I couldn't keep up like with my wife. You know, I'm like, I'm working in film industry. So like I can't hold a camera for that long. Like I would have to put it down or, you know, find some sort of stabilizer to like hold it or whatever. Yeah. Like things just got heavy, you know, and really kind of dark for a bit. Yeah. I kind of had to be broken down to my core to really understand who I was as a man. And that, like, was really tough. Yeah. I'm going to be honest. But I started using, like, the artist's way. And that really kind of motivated me to, like, her big thing in the book is to handwrite three pages every single morning of just like a normal notebook, not like a tiny one, but like a normal, you know, composition notebook.

And that really challenged me to say, what are these emotions I'm feeling? How am I dealing with like what are the things that I'm actually doing that make a difference in my life. So once I got through all the like the depression and I mean, I still have that, but like once I got through that big wave of like seeing myself as 300 pounds, it really started to like manage itself as like, you need to change something because now your heart is getting better. Your soul is getting better. Now let's work on the body.

And that strength aspect, I just had to tell myself like, no, you can do this. So I just laced them up one day and just went out for a run. Yeah, Rocky music playing. Yeah, I mean, like, literally, I was just like, let me put on the hardest music I can. And I'm just going to go for a mile run and see how I do. Yeah. So I downloaded Nike Run Club, you know, and just ran for a mile just to see how it felt. And I think I ran like 15 minute or more plus things.

But I just like ran and just said, yeah, this is what I think is the missing. piece for me. That's kind of how I started losing. And then like I lost about 15 pounds doing that through Nike Run Club. And the big thing with them too that really motivated me was, you know, I'd put on their like coaching sessions. And their coaching sessions would be like, you are a runner. You chose to lace up today. You chose to go out today. Like you are a runner. No matter your pace, no matter what you're doing. And that was really motivating for me because running is very difficult. like especially whenever you're not a runner. Yeah.

I was alignment. So like running was never a part of my forte. It was like get big, get strong, move bodies. Running is like move your body for the, for the betterment of you. Yeah. And so that really like motivated me. And so I was looking for something that like added to that. So that's where Woop came in was like, let's find something that like can actually assist

me in my goals. Yeah. when people think of weight loss, there's obviously the mental hurdle of it, right? And the words of my colleague, Bill Von Hippel, if exercising every day and restricted in the calories we eat in a day or easy, we wouldn't have a worldwide obesity crisis. Right. And we do. So there's a mental where you took care or you were helped to manage it with the artist's way,

and that kind of helped transform your thinking and then help you build the inner strength to want to pursue this weight loss journey. Then there's the actual act of, you know, restricting calories, which I'm guessing you were tracking in some way. Absolutely. And then being physically active, which we know is critical. And that's the reason that you turned to whoop or fell in love with whoop. Tell me a little bit more about that. So I started running and lost 15 pounds, which was great. But I would text my friends and be like, hey, is $199 heart rate good?

I would just be like, I have no idea. I had no metric of like what is good, what is bad. I mean, at this point, I am like trying to figure it out as best I can. And of course, I'm calorie deficit. Like, as you said, like you can't do one without the other. Right. You have to restrict food, like no matter what. Yeah, for sure.

That part is hard and easy all at the same time. Like, once you start getting in the habit of it, it's like actually pretty manageable. The exercising is probably the hardest part for me. Sure. I just needed something that. was like me texting my friend, hey, is $199 a good heart rate to have for a one mile run? And he said, probably not. Probably need to go a little slower. And I'm like, how can his own four or five time man, that's for sure. Yeah. How can I? And I texted him out. Like, how can I get slower? Like I'm

going 16, 15 minute, 60 minute pace. What do you mean slower? And he's like, walk. And I'm like, okay. Yeah, let me figure this out. So I started looking into like all the other options, right? everything else was just a little too expensive at the time for me, like not knowing if I was going to commit to it or not. And so Whoop really kind of stood out as like this, oh, it gives me a metric and a graph to kind of like gauge how I'm feeling every single day. That was like kind of eye-opening for me. Yeah.

I didn't know that that existed until I saw it like through an ad or something. I just started looking up like weight or fitness trackers, like stuff like that, you know? That's kind of how I found Whoop. was like just just Googling. It really became apparent this is for me when I started the two-week trial or the one-week trial or whatever. I was like, okay, I actually think this could be something I can continue with. So I signed up for the monthly, tried it out for like four months. And then I was like, yeah, this is definitely something that I can do.

Yeah. For a lot of different reasons. But it was just, whoop is for me like the X factor. It was the bridge that connected calorie deficiting, sleep, and all. also like my strain, to use whoop terms. Yeah. And I think that's one of the beauties of whoop, right, is that for those who may not know,

it's looking at the strain you did yesterday, the sleep you got last night, and then metrics you woke up this morning with to give people a target of how much strain that we recommend they accumulate in a given day. And your experience with whoop providing you with those strain recommendations and helping you to achieve your weight loss,

goal isn't something that exists in a bubble. As a matter of fact, Jenna Cohen on our team is doing a large-scale analysis and over 30,000 people. And we're seeing extremely significant associations between individuals meeting strain recommendations and succeeding in achieving clinically meaningful weight loss. People are something like 20% more likely to achieve that goal if they meet strain recommendations. So it's kind of cool being able to tie the dots of your lived experience, seeing the strain recommendations and having something to chase after with this large-scale data and 30,000 of our members who are also achieving weight loss. And I think the other thing that's so cool about it, and we talk about this all the time,

is that originally, when Woop was built back in 2012, we were building for athletes, right, used by Michael Phelps and Patrick Mahomes and, you know, Tade Pagotcha in the tour now. And it's the same principles that are going into guiding training and adaptation and human performance in the most elite reaches of sport that are also helping people like yourself who was weighing 300 pounds at a time achieve weight loss. The principles don't change. It doesn't matter if you're trying to win the tour or if you're trying to lose weight. And I think that this is like a perfect example of that of someone who's able to use the data that will, is giving them to meet life goals, right? Absolutely.

And kind of marks our transition from unlocking human performance to now we're unlocking human performance and health span. Right. And so as you lost weight over the last three years or 1146 days, which is incredible, I'm guessing you noticed some changes in your boot metrics. Do you want to talk a little bit about some of those, changes and, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, yeah, I think the change. I saw besides the physical. Yeah. Because, you know, I'd walk in the office one day and people were like, wow, that guy is, like that shirt is way too big on it. Like, that looks like a blanket. Yeah. Like, it was kind of like wild to see that change, that physical change happened,

which is awesome. And that was also motivating. But honestly, the data was, I was locked in to whoop every single day. It was like a morning routine. It was like, wake up, brush my teeth, check whoop. that truly was my everyday like how hard can I work out you know what what are the metrics that I'm using but it was it was mostly about like okay how did I sleep I would immediately go to the sleep tab and just be like how do I how did I sleep last night which I know is a little crazy but to be honest

in this world you got to got to be crazy yeah just to be able to like understand it more I was just like okay it's sleep tab that's great and then I would look at like all of the heart rate data and just be like okay how am I doing this week what's the trend. How am I doing mentally, physically? Like, how's my journaling? Yeah. I had a journal and a journal. So it was like, I was journaling in the morning and I still do that. But then I would journal and whoop about my journaling. So it'd be like, did you journal today? And I'm like, yeah, I sure did. Yeah. So, yeah, it was pretty cool. Like seeing all the metrics, all of the, like, the data behind the screen, it was just really cool to see. Yeah. HRV, all that stuff. It was just

like really motivating for me. And so we prepared some of these numbers. And actually the way you originally got in touch with, WOOP, was we had a call for people to write testimonials. And we're very grateful our members love to share their stories with us. There was a story that was featured in the news a couple weeks ago about a college basketball player who attributes, you know, Woop to saving her life. she had some heart condition that was, she realized her strain was like 16 sitting on the couch. People write in to who all the time about their stories. And marketing had reached out to have me do some fact checking on some of these.

And obviously, because it is pretty crazy. It's crazy. And the stories we get are really incredible. I mean, every Friday at lunch will share stories from moot members. And it really is inspiring as people who are working for WOOP to see the changes that we're really saving lives. And it's incredible. But your data over these last three years, 1146 days, resting heart rate drops from 70 beats per minute all the way down to 53. Let's go.

That's crazy. Yeah, I mean, a 17 beat per minute reduction in resting heart rate. And HRV nearly doubles from 40 up close to the 80s. It was like 76, I think. Let's go. I think maybe you're in the 80s now. 20 beat per minute almost drop in resting heart rate and doubling in HRV is crazy.

And we reconstructed your Woop Age over the last. Unfortunately, we didn't have health span when you started this. But from when you joined Woop over three years ago now, your Woop Age Delta was over three years to most recently your minus 4.6 years, almost an eight-year health span improvement. That's crazy. And so when I see these data, I reached out to marketing, I said, man, we have to get in touch with this guy.

But tell me about how seeing those daily values change in real time and looking at the graphs in the app. How was that helpful to you? It was extremely helpful to me, trying to figure out, like, what is the reality? Going back to me looking at the mirror, like, I would look at myself in the mirror, even post my weight loss, which I'm still working on. It's a daily battle.

But I would just be like, okay, now the health span is in addition to my app now. Okay, let me look at that. And then it was just like amazing to see all that backlog data of just seeing like, yeah, the plus two, minus two, minus three, minus four. And I'm like, holy cow, what is going on right now? So that was like extremely motivating for me.

That data, like, honestly was very eye-opening too. I did not realize how much I was hurting myself when I was younger. Yeah. Because ultimately I was 26, but I was 30. You know? Like, that's crazy. With a family of heart problems, it became really apparent when that came out, the

health span thing, that I was really killing myself. Like, it was really hard to, like, see that. But it was really ultimately helpful to see it now, seeing the minus three, minus two. Yeah. Where I'm like, I am doing a difference. I am making a difference in my heart. making a difference in my body. It's not just physical. It's nice that I can buy a medium-sized shirt now. And I'm like, yeah, that's sick. It's nice that I can buy like size 4-36 pants,

you know, like that's really cool. I don't have to buy 40-sized pants anymore, which is awesome. It was mainly just like figuring out like, how am I actually making a difference in my life? Yeah. And that was one of them. I was like, holy cow. The Delta is crazy too. I'm curious on like a daily level. If there were any, you know, one of the great things about Woop is a journal, if there were any behaviors that in particular Woop may have helped you key into as like, ah, like this is something that I should probably change. Yeah.

Yeah. When drinking, that's one of them. I'm not a very heavy drinker, but I would have like a whiskey or two. Yeah, we both talked about our love for bourbon and that's all right. That's all right. I love a good bourbon. But it's also like, I was just like really seeing the negative trend. I was just like, I would have a drink or two or three, a chess night or a board game night,

you know, me and the boys would play whatever. And then we would, I would wake up the next day and have a recovery score of like 30 or 25. And I was like, what's the contributing factor here? So I started adding like alcohol, nicotine and all this other stuff that like kind of was, was my regular usage. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, okay, what do I need to cut out? And it was easily. alcohol. Like that was the one that I was like, okay, this one's gone. Yeah. So I cut that out and my recovery score immediately got better. And even to this day, I noticed that alcohol is the one that

like causes me to dip the most. Yeah. I think I saw that on a post recently where it was like yeah most or like after the Boston Marathon or something. It was like the drinking goes up and then it was like the recovery goes down. Yeah. Like join that 1% club. You know what I mean? I am a proud member of the 1% club, but all most of us who've been on move for long enough have have been on the 1%er. But yeah, that was probably the first one that I cut out. Second was like, what can I add to my life? And one was I am a pretty notoriously bad, like, doom scroller. And I would doomscroll before bed.

You know, I would just be on my phone, just like, hey, like, what's going on? And then I realized, oh, it's like 1 a.m. Oh, my gosh. We've all been there. I still do that. No shade. But it was like, okay, let me figure this out. So I started reading over the last year.

and that has really helped me kind of wind my brain down. You know, I got a Kindle and just kind of like, I don't know, just started reading more and I fell in love with that. Awesome. And that, like, really improved my recovery as well. Yeah. Even though sometimes I can't put it down and it still is 1 a.m. I'm doom scrolling in another way.

Yeah. But it's like different. My brain is like shutting down and it's way less stimulus. So we got Daniel Day's Journal. We got alcohol. We got nicotine. We have phone before bed and then we had read before bed. Yep.

Those are all of my vices. Those are forced dates. And then there's sleep at altitude, which I guess for you is constant. Yes. Yeah. I am from Denver, so not native. Yeah. Which is a big deal there.

I'm just going to be honest. I am from Missouri, but when we moved to Denver, it was like the altitude was certainly affecting me, which led into the hikes, which led into me running. It was all hard. And it was extremely hard. Yeah. And so that may contribute to the weight loss too. I mean, Denver culture is also very much a hyperactive.

For sure. Like everybody's active. You're always doing something. Yeah. It's easier to follow trends and positive habits of those you surround yourself with. Yeah. And when you surround yourself with the fittest people in the world. It's pretty easy to be like, I want to try cycling.

Yeah. Like, I want to try running. Like, I see all these people. And there's like over 500 miles of trail or something like that in Denver. So it's like really easy for me to be like, yeah, like this is accessible now. Yeah. Kansas City is also great, but it wasn't as like accessible as Denver is. for this sort of thing.

For sure. I want to circle back to the running and cycling, but before we do, we were talking about Woot metrics and those changes, and you were talking about how you felt seeing them that before you were like, you used the words really killing yourself.

Another, like, I think just super cool transformation we see was with some advanced labs. And so you were kind enough to share some just blood work you got at the doctor's office. And this is actually a year after you had started losing weight, by which point you had already dropped. I believe it was something like 40 to 50 pounds. 40 to 50 pounds.

But even then, when you got your blood drawn, your glucose was over 100, which put you in the pre-diabetic range. Right. More recently, I think it was in July or August of 2025, your blood glucose had dropped 80 milligrams per deciliter, which is crazy. Healthy normal range.

It's actually a couple milligrams for deciliter lower than mine was in my advanced lab's blood draw last week. Go, dog. Major kudos to that. That's an example. of some, you know, a total health transformation. You went from pre-diabetic to normal.

No medication. Lifestyle. Super cool. Yep. But that wasn't it alone. Triglycerides dropped by 45% from 134 to 74. Your LDL cholesterol, that's a bad one, dropped by 20% and your HDL increased by 25%.

So what is going on in the app with your resting heart rate and your heart rate variability? And whoop age is mirrored by. some of the most sentient metabolic biomarkers that we can measure and that a doctor is interested in. That must have been pretty cool to see. Yeah, it was really cool. And honestly, like the biometric, while being, like, fairly new and, you know, you were gracious enough to, like, go through all this data for me, which thank you for that. I don't know, I just added to the motivation. I realized that how lucky I am to do that.

And so, thanks for that. Yeah. But mostly it was like seeing that amount of change was pretty crazy. And so like this year I'll do another biomarker test after my 70.3 in July. And I'm really excited to see how I've changed even from that one. Whether some numbers gone up or down, I mean, nowadays it's all about maintenance. But that is crazy. I mean, I felt the pre-diabetic because I would I would eat sugar and I would eat all these like basically

junk food and I would crash so hard. And I don't have diabetes, so I'm not like, like, I'm not like that. I don't understand what they're going through by any means. But it also is like, I felt it. Like, I felt like I'm crashing. Like, I'm feeling like I'm tired all the time. I can't really get a grasp on like how I'm feeling just without food. Yeah. And so that was, that was pretty big. And that's something that I think is really interesting, is. So you mentioned feeling kind of tired all the time. Yep. And when you initially joined who, my guess is you were probably doing a little more activity than you were before you did, but you were doing roughly 12 hours of activity per month.

So essentially you were exercising about three hours a week or maybe 20 minutes a day. Right. By the end of last year, you were exercising for about 11 to 12 hours per week. And that was in the pursuit of a goal. you picked up triathlon, which I definitely want to double click on and talk about. Right. But I think the thing that's so remarkable is tell me about energy levels, going from doing nothing to all of a sudden you're training 10 hours a week.

Yeah. But I think the thing that's so surprising, right, is for those who maybe are sedentary, I don't know about you, but the days I'm most tired are the days when I'm trying to take a rest day. Yeah. Rest days are like really hard. Yeah. It was really easy for me to be sedentary before. Like when I weighed 300 pounds, like that was basically all I ever did.

I'm also a video editor and content creator, like as you said. So my job is to go out, film something and then sit down and edit for two weeks. Yeah. Right? Like that's my day to day. Yeah. Or go out and shoot a photo shoot and then come back and edit for like a day. So I'm at my desk a lot.

Yeah. There is no real reason for me to stand or get moving. And plus I can lock in for like 10 plus hours on an edit and be totally happy. happy as a clam. But yeah, it got to a point where I was just like, I'm not happy with this anymore. And then like the training going from three hours a week to 10 plus hours a week of training, it just became, it was like towards a goal, but it was like, this is an exciting goal. And I also like am so scatterbrained and I love like the diversity of different sports and so like that. So I really needed to find something to add to my training regimen.

Running was not just the only thing that I wanted to do. My dad was a pro-am cyclist as well. So I got into cycling. He just gave me his 90s trek, which is awesome. And still a classic to this day. But it was really like, oh man, I suck at cycling. I still suck at cycling. No, no.

But I'm like, yeah, like figuring out the cycling, in addition to that, made my brain just be like, yeah, this is good. Running, now makes sense because I don't hurt all the time. My knees don't feel like. So you're not more tired. You're not more tired now that you're training 40 hours and one? I am, I mean, I'm tired, but it's more of a, it's not an exhaustion. It's more of an exertion. Yeah. Like the exertion is there. And then I'm, when I'm done, I'm just like, okay, now I can sit down. Now I can like read for, for an hour and be happy. Yeah. Not like an earned culture, because I also think that's like kind of not the way to do it. either. You don't earn things, like cheat days and stuff like that. Those, for me, personally,

that just was never a good thing to have. I needed to be uber strict. And if I did make a mistake, I really wanted to make sure that I told myself every day when I woke up, don't beat yourself up. Don't suck at life. Don't beat yourself up. Yeah. Do better today. You have 24 hours to do the best you can with today. What are you going to do with that? And that was like a big motivator for me. just like not being sanitary. I just like getting outside. Once I got a taste of like what the outdoors is. Yeah.

For like extended periods of time. I would say once I got past like the 5K marker, which is a great mark to have. And like five the, my first two races were 5Ks and they were huge mile markers for me. Like running 3.1 miles. It's absolutely crazy. Yeah.

Especially when you weigh two nine to like two 90. Like I'm like, okay, let's let's cool. the jets here a bit. But I was just like, yeah, the 5K, once I got a taste for plus 5K, it was like, oh, this is nice. Yeah. Like I like being outside.

I like smelling the air, hearing the birds. Like I got open ear headphones just because it was like, I wanted to hear my surroundings and like be at present, like in the outdoors. And that was where I really started to connect with my body and started to connect with like the people around me more. And it became more of a social thing. Like, hey, do you want to go for a run? Hey, do you want to go for a bike ride?

Like, I could say yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Let's go do that. Like, let's go hang out for like six hours on a bike. Yeah. And so you went from 300 pounds, lacing up the shoes one day. My guess is they weren't really running shoes.

They were like Brooks trail running shoes. Okay, very good. But I wore them because I was like on a film set all the time. There you go. So they were worn in, you know, like, yeah. Yeah, you got the Rocky music on. You're doing a mile. And then not too long after that.

you have a tri-bike, you're doing triathlons. Yep. Someone must have recommended to you, or you found one signed up for it. Tell me a little bit about how you got into triathlons. This is a pretty crazy story. So, like, one of our elders at our church, he was like, we're just in the lobby, right? We're just chatting. And he was like, hey, I see that you're cycling and running.

Why don't you, you want to do a triathlon with me and my wife? And I'm like, there's a Colorado stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not a normal thing for somebody to be like, hey, do you want to do a sprint triathlon? And I'm like, sure. But I said yes, like immediately. I was like, yes, when and where? He was like, in South Carolina, they went you to Bojangles.

In Colorado, they're inviting you to do triathons. Very different lifestyle here. I mean, we still get asked to go to like a brewery. There you go. I mean, all of my social runs are all brewery runs. So it's like running to and from, you know. But yes, very Colorado of him. And he was just like, hey, do you want to do a triathlon?

And I was like, sure, that sounds awesome. Yeah. He did kind of sell me on it. He was like, you're already running, you're already cycling. You want to swim and then do some like triathlon? And I said, yeah, let's do it. So Littlefoot triathlon in Denver was my first sprint triathlon. And I had a month to prepare.

I had never swam before. Like never. I mean, not competitive. My mom was a collegiate swimmer. Yeah. But that does not. correlate to swimming for personal level. So it was like, yeah, let's figure out the swimming.

I think I started at like three and a half minute pace, basically walking the pool, which is fine. But then I started doing bubble drills and stuff like that. So I was not concerned about the cycling or the running, mostly because I had those under control. It was all swimming. That was the hardest part for me. Just mentally open water, crazy.

Fish, sharks. Probably not in color of. Not sharks in Colorado. pretty big fish though uh-huh but it's all like reservoir stuff so it's all still water or not still water but it's all like not waves you're not fighting anything really although people around you that first triathlon it was absolutely crazy windy and they almost canceled the swim but they still sent out the first wave of swimmers which was my wave because I was young and in that age group so they sent us out and then they had everybody else wait 20 minutes so it was like we'll see if they all make it back

Yeah, yeah. It was like, okay, go out there, die, come back if you can. So it was a really rough swim. But it just made me more eager to like keep going. I don't know, it was like a weird something clicked for me. It was like, oh, triathlon is kind of the thing that I needed to kind of keep motivated to keep going. Yeah. Yeah, you surrounded yourself by community. Right. Like-minded individuals interested in exercise and health and fitness and being outdoors. Yeah. I'm sure it stokes the thing. fire right i mean i also weighed like 2.45 or 240 at that time pretty big Clydesdale you know triathlet as well which is great like honestly i was faster on the bike then than i was than i am now just because

i was heavy and i could like push it you're not you're not climbing any mountains then but no no i'm not um but it was like it was just a the challenge of it yeah like i crossed that finish line at little foot and it was just like this is my sport Yeah. This is what I want to do. Yeah. And a sprint triathlon is the perfect way to get into the sport. Like if you go into 70.3 or an Ironman at my weight at my experience level, it would not be a pretty sight.

Yeah. It would have been absolutely detrimental to me, myself, my family. Like, it would have just been awful. Like, I probably could have done it, but it would have been like totally back. So that was 2024 when you signed up for the first try or was that? Yeah. Yeah. I think so.

Okay. Yep. And then so did a few more. rise. Yes. After that. Yep. And then... Did a full year of Olympic distance. Yep. And then at the end of 2024, you signed up for, or beginning of 2025. Yep. You signed up for your first half Iron Man. Yes. And so for those who aren't familiar with that, 70.3 miles. Yep. 1.2 miles swim. Yep. 56 mile bike. Mm-hmm. Half marathon or 13.1 mile run. Running 13 miles after biking,

56 miles. Yeah. And then the funny thing about that is, like, you know, I put my daughter in the car and we, like, drive 56 miles. And she's asking me, like, five times when we're going to be done. Yep. Biking 56 miles? On a hard seat. That's intimidating. Yeah.

So tell me a little bit about training for the half iron man. Yeah. How did that go? Yep. Like the utility of the boop when you were training for that. So I did everything as slow as possible. What got me into it and what sold me on it, this whole triathlon thing, was watching average rob. and his brother Arno, they have a series on YouTube,

they're Road to Iron Man. And they had like, how I knew I could do it was basically through Arno, his brother. He was about my size when he started the triathlon journey. And he like continued to push and push and push, and he finished as well. And so that kind of got me started. But I wanted to make sure that I wasn't just jumping in like they were.

Like they went to the full Iron Man distance, and they did that in like eight months or something like that, which is crazy. Zero to Hero. essentially. I didn't want to do that. So I knew that I was unhealthy still. Even though I weighed 245, I knew I was unhealthy. So whoop helped me realize I am not capable of doing a full Iron Man yet, which is both a little discouraging and encouraging. Like, you just have to be honest with yourself. Like, can you do a full Iron Man right now? Probably not. Even to this day, I'm like still terrified

of the full Iron Man. You know, that is the goal. It's next year doing a full Iron Man. But I did do like the progression. I went to sprint, I did a sprint, fell in love with the sport, was like, okay, it's only like 100 bucks to sign up for a sprint. So I signed up for that, you know. It's not a thousand dollars, you know. And so I did that. And then the next year was I did two Olympic distance just to feel what maybe like in a month span, what does a half Iron Man feel like? And then the next year, and I also did a sprint then too, but we don't, it's all cumulative, like whatever. And then the next year, I did the half Iron Man. in Cordelaine.

And it was awesome, exhausting, and I just wanted to finish. Yeah. That's my goal. It's just finishing. I don't really care about the time. I mean, now I do, but... It was a respectable time. It was like six and a half hours about.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is middle of your age group, I would say. Yeah, about middle, low middle. If we're being honest, it's still pretty slow. But, what do you consider again, though, three years ago, this is a guy who was weighing 300 pounds.

Right. By this point, you had lost over 100 pounds. You were under 200 pounds. Yes, I was 184 or something like that at this point. Yeah. And like it was just like... So from 300 pounds to two and a half years later, yeah, three years later,

you're finishing in the middle of your age group for 70.3 mile half Iron Man. 70.3 miles under all under my own power. Yeah. Which is crazy. Yeah. Like I just remember crossing that Iron Man finish line and feeling the amount of accomplishment

that I've never felt before in my entire life of just like this is something that I am like almost addicted to. Like I just love the sport and I love how it makes me feel. I love the community that it is. I've really felt that at Iron Man. Like all the other races are great.

Don't get me wrong, but they're local and people are competing against their own times. You know, like especially in Denver, we just keep pushing ourselves to like keep going. Yeah, which is great. but at Ironman, that community really stood out to me as like, everybody's helping each other. Everybody's like asking, are you okay? Like, how you doing?

Let's push, push, push. It was really fun. Cordillane was also extremely hard. I know it's not the hardest 70.3 in the world, but that bike is brutal. There are hills that seem like mountains and they're never ending. And so that's what really crushed me on that one. But once I got in the run, you know, it's hot, it's middle of the day. I'm four something hours into this race at this point.

I'm kind of just want to be done, you know? I started going slow. I fast off the rip because it's race day, race brain. I got the Lycra on. There's no thoughts happening at this point. I'm like, where's the next bathroom? I started running, and then I started fatiguing really, really hard. Not cramping, just feeling, like, extremely fatigued.

I made the first loop, and then the second loop, something massive shifted for me. It was, I just, like, stopped and asked myself, like, what are you doing? Why are you holding back? Like, you have this engine in you that is not able or is able to do more. Why are you, like, holding back? Yeah. Like, I think I was running, like, a 10, 45 pace, which is respectable.

I mean, after especially everything you've just done, Iron Man distances are crazy anyway. But it's like, why are you holding back? So I picked it up. I got more like invested into it. I was just like, okay, okay. I now know the strategy. Walk through the aid stations, send it. Walk through the aid stations, send it.

And that like kind of like helped me guide me on like, okay, now I know the program and now I know what to do. So I sped it up to like where I finished was like 7.30. So going from a 1045 face to a 7.30 pace at the finish line. Yeah. They say like walk the red carpet. it, but I'm like, now screw that. I want to be done.

Yeah, time to get across the finish line. I just want to be done. Yeah, the beers aren't far off. Exactly. Exactly. So it was like, yeah, let's just let's finish it. So it was like a progression of like, oh, this is, this is how I want to, like, keep going. Yeah.

That was also really addicting. Yeah. Like that negative split interval, whatever, it was just like, whatever you want to call it, race brain, just motivated me to just keep going. And I said, shut up legs. You're fine. Just keep going. You're almost done.

Andy Glaze has like a saying like, just a 5K left. Your mom can do a 5K. So honestly, I was just repeating that to myself. I was like, my mom can do a 5K. My mom can do a 5K. Come on, you got this. So it was really fun to like get across that finish line. That's a heck of a way to finish off the 2020-25 race season for sure.

And then something you and I were actually chatting about on the run this morning and that you've integrated into your training and it's kind of transformed, I think, from your perspective, from what you are telling me, how you're feeling when you're doing your swim bike and run, is that this year you've really picked up weightlifting. Yep. And specifically using woo.

Do you want to talk a little bit about that for me? Yes. Yeah. Weightlifting has always been a tricky thing for me. It's been like, okay, I'll weightlift. Again, high school, my dad's a weightlifting coach. coach, like weightlifting has always been there for me. Yeah.

But it was also how I gained a lot of weight. So it's always kind of had this negative backbone to it. Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of people have that connotation. It's like, oh, if I weightlift, I'm going to get bulky. Right. And that couldn't be less true. Right. I had to get over that hurdle this year.

The new strength trainer is what I use to help with the progression of my weight training. All of my training is based around cardio. And so my two times a week that I do weightlifting, it's like an hour to an hour and a half of weightlifting. And I do it real slow. I know that you want me to do it faster, but it's also like I do it real slow just because it's like, it's my one time that I can like kind of just take my own pace and just do it myself.

Yeah. That really helped motivate me to like see what's happening with my body. The strength trainer app part of the WOOP app is just, it's pretty incredible the way it like integrates into the AI features where I can just ask it, hey, I'm at a, I'm at a gym. how I'm at this gym today. Can you tell me like, can you modify this to help me? Yeah.

You know, with the program. And it would, it would just spit out this amazing plan for me. And I'm like, okay, this is sick. Yeah. But yeah, weightlifting, besides the negative connotations now, now it's like really positive because I can see myself getting stronger. I may be heavier.

Like, so there is some truth to like you are bulking, like for sure, especially with the amount of protein I'm having with the amount of, Yeah. Like, you know, just the amount of creatine I'm taking in, you know, very helpful. So I am bulking, but it's more, like, I can see it on the bike. I can see it on the swim. Like, my swim time is from like two-minute pace down to like 130. For a, for 100.

For 100. Just for people. For context, yeah. Right. And then my bike split is like, my FTP before was like maybe 145, maybe 150. And now we're like up in the 175, 180 range, which is pretty incredible. Yeah. So weightlifting is definitely one thing that I've added to this year's training regimen for Ironman

to just make sure that I'm actually performing. Yeah. So I may be heavier than I was last year on the scale, but mentally, physically and everything else, like, I am way better. You're feeling faster when you go out. I'm feeling way faster. Yeah. Like, honestly, the scale at this point doesn't really matter.

It does to some level. Like, I still need to make sure that I'm not eating a crazy ton. I'm making sure that there's still limits. Like, even though I'm training for. like two plus hours a day. It's still like, I'm kind of limiting myself on like how I'm, how I'm eating. But yeah, weightlifting is, besides all the negative connotations that I came into it with, it's now an extremely positive thing for me. Yeah. And something that I enjoy seeing, and I think probably our members will be able to resonate with, is that they're actually getting

credit for the strain that they're doing when they're doing strength training. Yes. Right. It's like kind of unfortunate previously until recently that you go do a really vigorous and intense weight lifting session, you get a strain of like four from it, and the next day you're beaten up and you're not feeling recovered and you're trying to figure out why. But now we can actually visualize like what the strain was and how much weight you lifted. It's kind of cool that it'll be able to quantify that. Yeah. Put that into some perspective. So it's like, oh, well, this is why I feel like I was run over by a truck yesterday. I mean, I still feel like I'm running over by a truck a lot. It was 60,000 pounds I lifted yesterday was. I mean, it was just like, yeah, I think before

this strength trainer part of the app, you know, I would just like track it and then just like it would be like a four. Yeah. I would just be like, okay, well, the heart rate doesn't really matter as much as the actual tonnage that you're moving. Yeah. Or like whatever else you're doing. It doesn't have to be tonnage. But I feel like it does a really good job of actually expressing how I'm feeling now. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, the WOOP app as a whole has gotten better. Like expressing like how I truly feel today. Like today, you know, I'm on a time different. We're in Boston. And so I woke up with like a 35 today, which is pretty good.

Not bad, considering air travel yesterday, flying. Yep. I mean, there's just a lot of factors there. And it knows it. And it's like, hey, you're at 35. Yeah. Maybe keep it chill today. Light exercise, little podcast action.

Yes. Yeah. It's Red Sox game later. That's exactly. Yeah. No, for sure. You know, I love this story, three-year cardiometabolic health transformation, 30% reduction in body weight, which is equivalent to what we're seeing on these new generation anti-obesity

medications, which is crazy. We've seen increase in training, obviously, from a couple hours a week to 10 hours a week, improvements in resting heart rate variability, increases in strain. I think the million dollar question, and so if you can solve it, I think everyone would be happy here. Let's go. is how do we take your story and package it in such a way that it can be used more broadly? Because just like as we said, if exercising and restricting calories were easy, we wouldn't have this worldwide obesity crisis, where now it's about 50% of U.S. adults have overweight or obesity, which is tragic. and so we're being very intentional about trying to build out this health ecosystem and platform

to give people tools to improve their health but we all haven't gone through something like this and most of the people who have tried to have not had the level of success you have so if you were just to give some simple and actionable like take-home words or strategies for other people who may be motivated to try to endeavor to, you know, lose the weight like you did. Keeping in mind that most people probably aren't going to be doing Iron Manterathlons. Yeah. What would you say? Find your why.

Mine was heart, soul, strength. That was by far my biggest why. My second would be, don't beat yourself up. You wake up every day feeling like the biggest, piece of crap in the world. And then one day you realize, why is that? And it's just because you're beating yourself up mentally all the time. You're censoring yourself.

You're not making yourself known. Your inner artist is not being expressed. Like, there's just ways that you're just beating yourself up that you don't even realize, especially when you're overweight, especially when you just see yourself in the mirror as a totally different person the way you think you are. My third one is just don't suck a lie. Simply enough. I mean, not sucking your life for me is just not beating yourself up, finding your why, and finding the bridges that make it all happen.

And then just know that you're building a foundation for the future. You're not building the house overnight. Like apartment buildings are not built overnight. Boston was not built overnight. It is truly a, you have to lay the foundation. And to do that, you have to do the mental side. You have to do the heart side and you have to do the strength side. Once you have all three, and there's pushing. pulls every which way. But once you have all three, that really makes the difference. Yeah. Yeah. And I can see the last one in particular that, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day, being the thing that is most challenging for people because you can't lose 100 pounds overnight. I mean, it took me, what, 1,1146 days. 1146 days is what we have on metric, you know, and now it's been, like, add more

numbers to it every single day. That's a lot of time. Yeah. That's a lot of years. That's a lot of work. To do it all natural was also incredibly challenging, you know, because there were easy options out there. Those are all valid and definitely people need them for certain things. But for me, I was so broke that I couldn't afford it. So I just laced up the shoes and just went out and did it. Yeah. Yeah. And I like to think that, you know, if we're pursuing some sort of of like health journey that rather than focusing on seeing under 200 pounds on the scale. Yep. Waking up every day, looking at the app and just hoping to see green.

Right. Could potentially be a near-term goal. Yep. And knowing that the continual stacking of these green days. Yep. Kind of provides a window into where you're moving towards. Yes. nice, I think. Absolutely. So obviously you've told us about this remarkable three-year journey,

1146 days, the loop data. If you were to go back and look at yourself, probably purchase poop on the computer back then, maybe on the phone. What would you tell yourself now, having been through this? Yeah. First off, get the annual subscription. It'll save you a lot of money. It'll save you a lot of money. Better yet. Just do it. You can even buy like two-year subscriptions? Yes. Yes. Yes. If I were to go back and actually tell myself what to do, it would just be like, use the data. Don't just let it sit there. Don't not wear it.

Like, everything that matters with whoop is about consistent, like consistency. And I really needed that accountability. And so what I would tell myself is like, one, don't beat yourself up. Don't take it life. Find your why. But it would be more about like, no, let's actually commit to doing stuff. don't just like do the three hours a week. Try to find a rhythm that works for you.

Yeah. That's awesome. Well, Daniel, this is a blast. Thanks so much for flying out here. Yeah, thanks for having me. Coming on the podcast, it's a pleasure to meet you in person. Yes, sir. And look forward to continuing to follow your journey.

Come on, let's go. Thank you, Daniel.