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#030_ Where Does He Get His Protein · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:24
  Speaker 1: What's up, guys, thanks for tuning into the podcast. This week,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: It's all about this guy, Memi Delgado. Check this dude out.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: We spent most of this podcast talking about his protein deficiency. Right,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: what do we talk about?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Oh? Man? We went through the whole story from start
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: to beginning, so if you want to learn more about
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: where I come from, my whole message, my bodybuilding and
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: nutrition strategies, we touched on everything and much.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: More too, right, I forgot to mention he's a vegan,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: professional bodybuilder, plant based athlete advocate, absolute be beautiful guy
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and we had a great conversation. So I hope you
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: guys enjoy it. Let's do this man all right, Nimai
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: in the house. Man, So nice to meet you, Delighted
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: to have you here today.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. Man, I'm actually
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: really really excited to be here.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Cool man, awesome. This is a long time coming. There's
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of people excited about this, and just to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: kind of kick it off, I want to just say
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: publicly like I'm just I'm such a huge fan of
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: who you are, what you're doing, the way that you're
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: carrying the message, and I think it's incredibly powerful and
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I've said this many times before, but it's one thing
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: for a guy like me who's a skinny endurance athlete
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: to go and you know, talk about the things that
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I care about, And it's another thing altogether when it's
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a guy like you, because you're I mean, for people
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: that are just listening on their iPhones or their mobile
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: devices and not watching this on YouTube, you should watch
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: it on YouTube to get a glimpse of what this
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: guy's all about, because you are absolutely jacked. One of
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the most incredible physiques I've ever seen. And when somebody
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: who's so strong, who is so ripped, is speaking about
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the things that I've been shouting from the mountaintops for
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a long time, I think it has the potential to
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: land in a very different way. And I think that
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: that that is a very potent way of spreading this message.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: And I applaud you for kind of taking that mantle
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: and running with it, so to speak.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Wow, that was like incredibly humbling to hear. So I
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: just want to say thank you for, I mean, the
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: super nice words and even considering me to have on
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: the show, because I've been listening to you for quite
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: some time now, so it's like like you said, it's
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: a long time coming, and I've been manifesting it for
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: quite a while, so it's awesome.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Here we are out and yeah, all in all in
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I always I've learned to like trust timing on these
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: things that happen when they're they're supposed to happen. And
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I think it's a good time. You know, here we are.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: You were recently on the cover of Muscle and Fitness. Yeah,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: so that's that's a huge, huge deal to be on
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the cover of that magazine, as you know, vegan or
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: not vegan. And also we're kind of, as far as
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I know, we're on the cusp of the game Changer
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: of movie coming out. When is that? Is there a
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: date yet for the release of that?
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: If I had a dollar for every time somebody asked me,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: I wish I knew the moment. I know everybody else
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: is going to know, because I'll be the first one
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: to be posting it all over social media. But yeah,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I can just say that it's worth the wait.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Right cool. So, yeah, I haven't seen the movie yet,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: but I know that you figure prominently in that for
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: good reason. So let's tell your story, dude. You have
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: a really interesting backstory about how all of this began. Yea,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: that goes back to Argentina.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it does. I guess it does. I'll
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: just go back to the beginning, from the very beginning.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: So my heritage is Argentinian. Both of my parents were
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: born and raised in Buenos Ayitis, Argentina came from you know,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: primarily Catholic families, went through the whole system. And my mom, actually,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: I guess she's the catalyst to this whole story coming about.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: When she was about I don't know, fifteen or so,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: she had a very public boyfriend. He was like, I
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: don't know, the vice president's son or I don't know
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: the exact story, but they owned a ranch and she
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: went over one day and basically he slaughtered pig in
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: front of her, and she was kind of traumatized by it,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: as a fifteen sixteen year old would be, and made
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: a decision right then that she wouldn't ever eat or
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: touch meat again. And yeah, she just kind of lived
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: her life from fifteen on and but.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: That was it, Like it wasn't like it wasn't just
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: in words only, Like she actually lived up to that.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, exactly, if you knew my mom. She's probably
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: the most compassionate person i've selfless person I've ever met
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: in my life. And I'm not just saying that because
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: I'm a mom's boy, Like I really do believe that.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: And yeah, so my grandpa, he was definitely apprehensive whenever
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: she decided to give up meat for many reasons that
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: you and I hear every single day.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Argentina is a big meat culture. Yeah, it's
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: a big part of culture and just being social, I
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: would imagine.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're very like vivacious people, Argentinians. You can
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: always I can always spot one from a crowd or
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: if it's a group of Latino people on a talk show,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: I know, you can always spot the Argentinian because they're
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: so loud, they're so full of energy, they talk with
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: their hand. They're all like bettal Gin, you know, like
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: my grandpa was a prime example of that. So, as
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: you can say, as you can see or probably expect, like,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: she got a lot of slack for it, a lot
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: of I guess, you know, feedback from her friend's family
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: and concern. But as luck would have it, somewhere along
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: the line, she was introduced to another lifestyle, and that
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: was to the form of Hinduism. So at that time,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: I guess it must have been my late seventies, these
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: early eighties, Hinduism was getting a little bit more westernized.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember that time or not.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I was born eighty nine, so yeah, yeah, I was
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: graduating college when you were born. Okay, yeah, well yeah,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: so I don't know what it was like in Argentina, but.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, me either. But apparently I think just.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Basically in a general sense, being more open to Eastern
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: perspectives about spirituality in general.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it was very small culture still
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: at the time back then, and she really resonated with
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: a lot of the kind of the core beliefs of Hinduism,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: and she still does. And one of those beliefs was that,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: you know, you don't eat meat. She basically Jimsha, yeah exactly,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: a hymns of the concept of do no harm, live
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: a life of not causing any suffering any harm. But
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: also she almost she basically renounced all material things as
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: well and devoted herself fully to service to God and
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: went to a Hindu temple and started living in the temple.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of, you know, the love story that
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: happened between her and my dad and they.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: So he was a renuncient also.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, for different reasons, like robes in the whole thing.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, like.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Literally no money, begging for your food kind of.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Thing, necessarily begging for you, relying.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: On the generosity of strangers.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, basically selling books. That was their way of making money.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: They were selling versions of the Block of a Gida
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: in the streets and they would have a stack of books.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: They'd go and sell them in the streets of Argentina.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Try to convince somebody, try to convince probably the most
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: steak heavy eating country to go vegetarian and can or
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: maybe switch over be open minded to another religion entirely.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: So kind of like how you see the Harry Krishna's.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Actually it is the Harry Christnas. Okay, that's that's essentially
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: the tribe that they went into.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so she.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Had the orange robes and yeah, she cut her hair
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: off and all that.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: She didn't my dad did. So the men do that. Wow,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: So that my men had.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: So your grandfather must have been really freaking out.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, my grandfather is a super conservative too, an
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: airline pilot, navy guy. So so I mean you could,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: you could you could just imagine what she had to
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: go through and what he thought whenever she told him
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: She's like, Hey, I'm leaving to go join this Hia
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Krishna movement, right and basically devote myself to God. And yeah,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: that's kind of the love story that happened between her
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: and my dad. They met, fell in love, had my
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: sister who was born in Argentina, and just kind of
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: lived that way for a certain number of years. But
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: then things in Argentina were a little bit tumultuous, so
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: they didn't feel like it was the best environment to
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: raise their children. And you know, as the universe would
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: have it, they went from a temple in Argentina to
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: a temple in Brazil in Florinopolis. Had my brother in Brazil,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: and we're all two years apart. So they lived there
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: for a few years, right on the beach. I see
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: pictures of it, and it was just a beautiful place.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: But yeah, like you were saying, all bald, my dad
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: was all bald. They'd go to the temple. They had
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: like a little vegetarian restaurant at the time that they
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: were trying to you know, keep you know, sustain their
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: lifestyle and everything. And then, as luck would have it,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: their spiritual guru mentioned an opportunity to provide them with
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: housing and a place to live in America. So my
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: dad was like, I'll do it. I'll go. We've you know,
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: the American dream is something that's known all around the world.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: And my dad basically went by himself, didn't know how
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: to speak any English, went to landed in Miami, started
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: working as a taxi driver to get enough money essentially
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: to move or to send back to my mom so
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: she could have a plane ticket to come. Then that
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: happened and my mom came with basically two and a
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: half kids, so she was pregnant with me, pregnant with you.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: You were born in the States.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm the Gringo of the family. That's what they
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: call me. Gringo, basically the only American born here and
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: ended up in Miami in the late eighties, wasn't there
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: was a lot going on in Miami at that time.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: So they ended up going to central Florida to another
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: temple in Alachua, and then right outside of Gainesville, then
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: went to New Orleans because they heard about another opportunity there.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: First day in New Orleans got their car stolen, so
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: they were like yeah, so they were like, yeah, maybe
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: New Orleans a little bit too crazy for us. So
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: they ended up having another so like.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Come on, we already gave away all our worldly possessions,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Like yes, I mean it's car.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: From their perspective, it wasn't too much of an issue
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: that they're inconvenience, right, They weren't too attached to anything
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: at that time, but they were trying to provide their kids,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: essentially with a better opportunity than they had. And there
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: was another temple in Mississippi, in South Mississippi, and I'm
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: gonna paint a picture for you. It's in the middle
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: of nowhere, the middle of the Bible Belt, and essentially
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: it was a dirt road and they had a big
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: like a big sign in the front that said welcome
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: to New Talivan basically International Society of Christian Consciousness. This
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: is one of their temples, one of their farms, and
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: that's where I was born and raised.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so was.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: It like a commune camm.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Not necessarily, but everybody that lived within the perimeter of
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: the farm. We're Hindu, right, So it's it's a pretty
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: well known establishment within the community.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: So this faith based community. Essentially Hari Krishna's this is
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: this is the this is the environment in which you're weird. Yeah,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: deep in the South, Yeah, yeah, exactly, that is wild Essentially,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I tell people all the time, it's just a bubble.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Like I lived in a bubble. Like you're talking about
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: being raised in a bubble and not being.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: A very unique different Yeah, yeah, think of.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: So that's that's where I grew up the first about
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: six years of my life. So every day I'd wake
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: up five am, go to the temple with my mom.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: I would be dressed head to toe in traditional clothing.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: I would wear the tea lock on my forehead, i'd
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: wear I still wear neck beads. We'd go to the temple,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: we'd chant mantras, and I lived in this like really
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: cool little environment. I mean it was it was essentially
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: it was a cow rescue sanctuary as well, so they
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: would rescue cows from different farm in the vicinity, and
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: it was like an hymns of farm. So they would
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: drink milk and have ghee and make yogurt and all
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: these different things, but from the cows that were treated
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: with love, respect and everything else. And we also had
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: like a garden, like a community garden that was like
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: almost self sustaining, so they would have like feasts every day.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: They would make food for the for the community members,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: and every Sunday they would have a Sunday feast and
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: it was welcome to everybody, just like most temples around
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: the world. Anybody can come and have food on Sundays.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: That's wild. It's almost like its own little blue zone.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, essentially, you know, essentially.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: And what was when you would venture outside the perimeter
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: of the farm into the local townships. I mean, how
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: are you guys received and treated by the normal people
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: that were living in the environment.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was always it was always like do you remember, Yeah,
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: always vividly, vividly, I mean the place where we were living.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: I mean we were well known within the outside community
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: of who we were, and we were weird and those
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: higher Christianas and their beliefs and you know, the the
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: rituals or whatever they would call it. I mean it's
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: very foreign to the culture down on our So we
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: would go out and we would venture out to the
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: to the to the real world essentially, and I mean
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: it was it was different receptions from people I mean
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: I remember vividly whenever I was a little kid that
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: waking up to a burning cross outside of one of
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: my friend's house, and essentially it was members of you
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: know that I get, I would assume the KKK, you know.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's unfortunately still live and real and racism
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: is a real things still to this day, you know,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: So it wasn't it was challenging, I'll say that.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's it's quite different for a community
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: like that to find a community like that, like in
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: let's say, like Big sur or you know, an environment
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: in which you kind of you're not that surprised, you know.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: But in the deep deep South, that's the whole thing.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh definitely. I mean, it's its own little bubble,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: like I was mentioning, But that was until I was
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: like six. So my parents, being the the kind of
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: free thinkers that they are, they wanted me to have
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: more opportunities. So they saw other kids that were being
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: raised in that environment that maybe they were living more
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: of a very humble, faith based life, and they wanted
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: us to get a proper education. So they assimilated me
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: into public school. And I went to public school at
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: a very young age. I remember like my first days
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: at school. I would go to school with the marketings,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: with the necklaces and this is this is the way
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: my parents think, like he'll be fine, but essentially tossed
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: me in the water and said sink or swim? Right.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: So, and how old were you?
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: It was kindergarten through through the rest of high school.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: So I was like, I'm a Southerner, Like, it doesn't.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Something you don't have an accent though, Oh I.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Fought it, I thought it. Yeah, I mean my parents
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: speak Spanish within the household, but I never felt like
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: I belonged essentially, like I was saying, I lived in
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: a bubble.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: So it was like, I don't be surprising that that's
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: how you felt. I mean, I would imagine, even in kindergarten,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: having some awareness of just being very different from everyone else.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was. It was made apparent to
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: me very quickly. Yeah, I was different than anybody else.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: So were you were you? What kind of kid were you?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Were you bullied as a kid? Were you a quiet kid?
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Were you an outcome kid? Did you play sports?
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Definitely a quiet kid. I was always an observer. My
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: grandpa used to call me the philosopher because I wouldn't
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: really talk that much. I was very observant, but when
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: I did speak, it was like something profound or something
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: with like some thought behind it.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: So we dontways need you to be the next guru.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, essentially, essentially, so I would always, you know, I would.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: I just kind of accepted from a very early start
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: that I was different and accepted the fact that not
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: everybody was raised the way I was raised because it
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: was made apparent to me. So I understood that kids
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: were going to have their judgements on me, they were
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: going to say things to me, and I, you know,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: to this day, I asked my parents. I was like,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: what did you teach me as a kid to not
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: be tempted to kind of rebel or you know, just
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: be one of the other kids and just like adopt
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: that lifestyle. And they were like, we just taught you
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: to to love yourself, love who you are, respect other
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: living beings, and we just kept reinforcing it, and we
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: trusted in you, and we knew that you had understood
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: from an early age that that was the way that
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: we lived, and you know, we don't need animals. And
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: I just kind of like, I was like Yeah, that
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: makes sense, right, Yeah, it.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Is wild that you didn't have that impulse to rebel
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: like it would have been very The predictable course would
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: have been to say, screw this man, like you know,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: I'm out of here. I want to be you know,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the peer pressure. I mean as a parent with I
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: got a fourteen year old daughter of two older boys, like,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I know how intense that can be to conform and
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: to fit into the flow of society and to be
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: able to have the emotional wherewithal to remain true to
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: what you felt was your north star instilled by your parents.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I mean that takes a certain level of self awareness
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: and self confidence.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's developed over time, like things test you.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Like just like anything in life, people will pick and
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: prod and kids can be really cruel. I'll just say
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: that kids can be really cruel. I don't know how
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: many times I've had even when I was growing up,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: I'd bring my lunch obviously, and you know, I'd opened
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: up my lunch box and here they are. I grew
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: up on Indian food too, right, both my parents are
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: really good chefs. Argent I don't know if I grew
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: up on Argentinian vegetarian food or Indian food, Argentinian fl
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: essentially essentially, yeah they still live there. No, no, no, we'll.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Get to that. Yeah. Sorry.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: So essentially, I'd opened up my lunch box and like,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, the flavors that Indian food contain human to
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: all of these things are curry. All these things are
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: very they have a strong odor to them. So I'd
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: open up my launch box and immediately the first thing
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: everybody would say would be like, like what is that?
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Like what are you eating them? I? And I'd be like,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know. My parents cooked it and I'm just
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: going to eat it. And they would always like put
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: burgers in my face, chicken nuggets, all this stuff they
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: serve it, you know in high school and elementary school,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: and then be like, oh, I'll give you a dollar
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: to eat it or just try it. And I never
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: really understood that, like why somebody would get so much
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: joy out of me doing what they wanted me to do,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: so almost like made a stance against it, and I
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: was like, no, I'm just I'm not going to do
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: it to almost prove a point right and just stay
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: true to who I was. And that kind of helped
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: me build up that strength and that confidence that like
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: I am who I am, take it or leave it,
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: and at the same time still wanting to be accepted.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: So I ended up becoming a chameleon, you know. I
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: learned how to deflect really easily and really early on.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: So when people would ask me at birthday parties, you know,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: why aren't you eating hot dogs? I would just say
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: I just don't like them, you know, And I would
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: just make make dorito sandwiches. So I get like two
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: pieces of bread, some like cheddar cheese and put some
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: doritos on it, and that would be my meal when
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: I go to like birthday parties and stuff, and even
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: in so other social situations where parents would come up
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: to me and they'd be like, Nima, are you hungry?
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Let me cook for you. And I just like I
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: hated that pressure of being different and being like a nuisance,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: so somebody had to like go the extra mile just
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: to provide for me. So I was just like, now,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm fine, Like I'm just okay, I'll have chips.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: But still maintaining that boundary, you know, I would think,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: like a small child, after a while, you're like fine,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: you know. And also this idea of you, like this
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: sense that you have of this is who I am,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: this is this is my set of core values. Did
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: you ever have a reckoning like a moment where you're like, well,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, are these my core values or are
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: these just the values that I've always known because my
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: parents were impressing them upon me, Like is this what
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I believe? Or is this just what I've been told
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: my whole.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Lif I think everybody goes to that at some point
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: in their life, at least those who do reflection find
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: themselves at that position and that crossroads is like am
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: I who I am? Or am I who I was
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: told to be? Right? But for me, I really did
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: believe that it made sense. Like I'm a logical person.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: It all made logical sense, you know, like when I
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: was younger, if I was presented with a few situations
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: in front of me, if I had an apple or
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: like a you know, a baby chicken, I wouldn't rip
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: his head open and start eating the baby chicken. I
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: would just reach for the apple. So that same concept
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: kind of can be extrapolated. And just because you're not
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: the one that's, you know, taking the animal's life, doesn't
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: mean the life isn't taken, so it just made sense,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: you know, I just kind of thought of it logically
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. I think a lot of people sort
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: of just think, well, you know that that chicken breast
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: is already has already been killed, and it's been boned,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and it's in the packaging at the grocery store. So
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: does it really matter whether I buy it or not
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: because it's already there and somebody's gonna buy it, like,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: and it's easier to kind of be in denial or not,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: you know, solve that mathematical equation about where you're what
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: your dollars are contributing to.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in a sense, but I mean not all life
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: is determined by dollars and cents. I mean, if luckily
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: I was raised from like a carmaic perspective too, So
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: that's kind of where I understood that I'm you know,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: I believe I'm not this body. You know, it's just
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: a vessel for me, and one day I might be
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: in that that chickens body. So I wouldn't like that
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: to happen to me. So why would I do it
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: to it when I'm completely fine living without it?
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: You've come this far Yeah, to go backwards. Yeah, that
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: cycle right.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. So I you know the concept of a
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: himsa karma, all these things they add up over time,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: and I figured if I can just refrain from contributing
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: to it, because even by buying a packaged chicken breast,
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: you basically pay someone that's sitting in an office that
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: is their job to think, how can we kill more
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: animals more efficiently? How can we extract from them more products?
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: And you're paying that person, So, yeah, you still contribute
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: to the you know, the suffering and everything else.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: So never eaten meat in your entire life, never, not
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: on on purpose. I've never have. The one time I
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: can recall where I ate it or I hadn't, like
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: in my mouth on accident, was I was in Taco
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Bell and got it. I used to get I used
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: to eat Taco bell a lot, right, like bean and cheese, burritos,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: cheesecase ideas. And I ordered a cheesecase idea bit into it,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: immediately noticed the texture difference. It was like chunky, and
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: I just spit it out immediately, and I just started
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: like getting like nauseous, and it's just like the thought
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: of that just like kind of reinforced that I wasn't
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: for me, you know. So that was that was probably
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: when I was in like ninth grade or so. So
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: you know, I've had moments where, uh, that's not the
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: only you know scenario where it's something like that's happened.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: But and I'm sure somewhere along the line maybe I've
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: accidentally consumed it and just completely unaware of it. But
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: I just don't think like I consider my body like
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: I try to keep it as pure as possible, and
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: just I just refrained from it.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Right, So high school rolls around, You're still living in
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the community, No, no, no, So so it's moved out
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: of that.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: When I was about seven years old and we moved
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: to a more traditional southern community.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Start wearing like normal clothes and stuff like that.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I wore normally like I went back home.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know what I said to my parents whenever
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: I was younger, but I was like this, just dressed
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: me normally, you know. And because my sister was, like
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: she was four years older than me, so she was
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: dealing with it on another level because because she was
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: also the white, Spanish speaking Hindu person with a weird name. So,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot of different things happening there
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: to stand out. So she was like, I just want
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: to blend in. Just put me in normal clothes. And
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: I was the same way. Just put me in normal
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: clothes and I'll assimilate.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Right, And you have it. And your brother's older than
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: you as well. Yeah, my brother's too, right, So they
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: were kind of like the canaries in the coal mine
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: out there, like you know, testing.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Like, and so by the time you become of age,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: like your parents sort of figure out like, okay, like
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: we can't do that.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah right, And my sister's very vocal too, so I'm
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: sure she let them know immediately, like you need to
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: stop this.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: What do they do now?
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: So my sister, ironically, she works for cardiologists as an
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: eco technician, so she'll do heart scans. My parents they
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: have their own businesses as well as my brother. And
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: I'm out here in California just kind of figuring out life. Yeah.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: So, so when when you're in high school, are you
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: playing sports? Are you athletic?
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've always been athletic, Like I grew up and
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: naturally I played soccer when I was younger. I was
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: like the young Argentina. I had long hair too, so
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: it's like the Argentinian dude. Like Argentinians are good at salt.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: And I played soccer for quite some time, and then
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: I was introduced to skating. And I got hooked on
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: skating when I was like eleven or twelve years old,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: and I'm talking about like skateboarding in skating like no, no, no,
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I figure skating like inline skating, so like aggressive inline skating.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: So at that time it was becoming really popular. Was
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: all over ESPN, all those the mobile skate parks that
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: would do these tours and whatnot. And I went to
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: the skate park on accident. I thought I was going
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: to a skating rink and ended up at this skate
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: park with these huge half pipes and bowls and all
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: this stuff. And I was just immediately hooked. And I'm
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: a bit of a daredevil too, so I got really
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: good at it really quick, and even I think by
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: the time I was thirteen or fourteen, I won some
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: competition to like tour the tour the country with like
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: a like an organization that did like mobile skate parks,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: and there was like professional skateboarders, professional rollerbladers, and professional bikers.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: And I was doing that at like thirteen, and then
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: skated all the way up into pretty much high school
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: and just kind of started like you know, venturing off
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: just living a little bit more normal because I was,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: like I do when I do things, I had like
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: go one hundred percent into it. It's just like my
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: my nature. So I like figuring out how something works,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: I like perfecting it or mastering the skill, and then
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: just doing it. And yeah, that was about until I
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: was eighteen. But I mean even like in high school,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: I kind of like would keep them, keep my life separate,
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Like I'd have my skating friends and then I have
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: my high school like normal friends, because it.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Was who what were the high school friends? Like, like
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: what kind of crowd did you fall into? Like were
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: you like with the jocks or with like the stoners
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: or the geeks Like I do.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: I'm a chameleon, man, I blend in with everybody. Yeah,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: I've always had friends.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: That's like a survival. It's a technique maybe, you know,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: coming from that environment and realizing like if I want
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: to make this work in the real world, like I
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: have to be adaptable.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like I was always like a little
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: bit more like on the intel inside. Loved in the
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: advanced classes. So I had friends with that were like
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: considered geeks and nerves and stuff, and like I love
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: those people. And then I always like have the more
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: socialite crowd where they were going to parties and all
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: this stuff, and then the jocks, the goths. At that time,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: there was a lot of goths my high school, and
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: like I blended in with everybody, you know. So I mean,
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: I'm sure if you'd ask, hopefully, if you'd ask, like
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: a lot of my high school friends, I was pretty
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: well liked throughout high school, but like many of them
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: didn't know like who I was. At the same time,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: they knew who who I portrayed.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: You know, but then they knew the guy that you
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: wanted them to know. Almost they didn't necessarily know, Like, yeah,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: a few people did, a few.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Of my close friends, you know, I had like a
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: really tight inner circle of friends, and they did, and
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: they accepted me, and that's what like I became more
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: comfortable being who I was with them. But then outside
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: of that, I never really talked about like my background
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: or being a vegetarian or anything like that.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Was there anybody else from the community in your high
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: school or any other vegetarians in your high school, not
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: that I remember.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Right, but the bodybuilding thing doesn't come until much later.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, so you almost you go to college?
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, almost there.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you become this engineer. Yeah, and do you
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: you start hitting the weights in college or what's what's
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: the college experience you go to? Are you you're in
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Louisiana or something like that.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so I actually started kind of. I went
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: to the gym for my first time ever, was in
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: I guess my sophomore or junior year of high school.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: And I was always a small kid too. I was
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: like a really like I was always the shortest kid
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: in my class. And it wasn't until like after high
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: school I hit like a growth spurt. And I mean
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: I might have graduated high school at five five, one
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: hundred and thirty pounds one hundred something like that. Yeah.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: No football career, Oh no, not at all.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: I love football, but I just knew I would get
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: destroyed and ate up if I if I played football.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: So I went. I went to the gym, but I
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: had no idea what I was doing. I'll just be honest,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: I'd go to go. It was like a social hour
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: for me. I'd see people. I'd like to think I
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: was working out at the time. And then I ended
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: up going to college at LSU and studying engineering, and
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: the majority of my time was spent studying for engineering
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: because it's a it's a difficult major to be in.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, I was enjoying college. I
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: was partying, you know, going to football games all that stuff.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: I'm a huge LSU fan college football fan. And then
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I started hitting the gym a little bit more because
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: I was like, hey, maybe I'll get a girlfriend or something,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: you know. Like I had a growth spurt too, so
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: I was like growing and it was nice, you know.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: And I remember my freshman year they say you gained
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: fifteen pounds your freshman year. I really did, but not
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: in the sense that you would like not in muscle.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: I came into your body a little bit, a little
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: bit more too. So I lived like on campus close
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: to a Taco bell, and I remember they had these
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: things called like points. It was like a point system
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: you bought with a meal plan, so you could use
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: it at different restaurants on campus. And I would go
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: every night and get like four. I might have been
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: five five being because I didn't know how to cook.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: And that was like my meal before I go to bed,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: like three ban burritos before I go to bed, and
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: wake up and eat two and take it with me
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: to class. So I was eating a lot of like
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: just a crack, yeah, a lot of crap essentially, and
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: I put on like fifteen pounds whenever I was like
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: a freshman, continue going to the gym, but still didn't
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: really get anywhere. You know, I had like a sort
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: of athletic body. And then it wasn't until my last
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: year of college that I went through a breakup. And
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: they say breakups make bodybuilders. That's essentially what happened.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: I've never heard that.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: You'd be surprised. If you do a poll, ask how
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: many bodybuilders started their career because of a breakup. It's
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: a pretty high number, a high percentage. So I broke
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: up with my ex and started it was. I gave
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: up alcohol at that time too, and I was like
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean, yeah, it it only lasted
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: for so long. I figured if I gave a alcohol
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: maybe I'd get her back or I don't know what
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: my process was. I just kind of want to take
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: a step back and really figure out who I was.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: And I made friends with personal trainers at a gym
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: because I was going to like the rec center on campus,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: and my ex worked there, so I was like, I'm
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: not going to go there anymore. And I went to
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: another gym, made friends with some personal trainers, and then
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: I really started understanding more concepts about training and I
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: made like a huge amount of progress within a year.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: And that was my last year of college. And then
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: I ended up accepting a job offer in California.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: So the idea is white sand beaches, warm water, palm trees,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: girls and bikinis, riding your bike on the beach.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, that was exactly what I was thinking.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: So in California, I'm going to callage like see you later, sucktown,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: like I'm going to California. And I accepted this job
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: offer with an oil and gas company. Mind you, So
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: I was I was a mechanical engineer and I got
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: this job offer to do. I didn't even know what
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: the hell the job offer was for exactly, but I
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: was like, I'm going to California and they pay well,
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: so I'm going to accept it and uh, because, mind you,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: I came from really humble beginnings as well, so money
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: was always like a topic of conversation.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: And I'm not going to be a renounce yet.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yeah, because I saw how I saw, you know,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: growing up in a humble household. You see how much
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: your parents talk about it and struggle and worry about it,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: and they did everything and they provided me with like
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: a beautiful childhood, and like, I'm still amazing how they
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: did it. But you know, I made it to my
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: I felt like I had a duty to them to
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: find a great paying job so that I would fulfill
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: their original plan of giving me better opportunity. So my
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: brother and sister had their own paths. There's you know,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: they're they're successful in their own ways, but they didn't
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: follow like a straight line like I did. And I
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: was just like, I'm going this way and this is
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: where the money's at, so I'm going there. And I
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: accepted this engineering job with the intention of working in
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Long Beach, California. I was like, well, it's not LA
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: but it's close. There's beach there, so it's got to
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: be like, you know, cool. In the hiring process, they
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: called me and they were like, yeah, the position in
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Long Beach has been you know, changed, and we need
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: you in Bakersfield.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: So all right, you don't quite know the difference.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Oh not at all. So I respond back, like what's
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Bakersfield And they're like, that's just another job offer. I
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: was like, all right, at this point, I'd already rejected
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: a bunch of other job offers, so I was like
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: committed at this point. So I google Bakersfield and I
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: find out it's like, you know, it's got terrible air pollution,
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: it's a big oil and gas town. Didn't know much
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: else about it, but I was like, okay, I'm going
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: and graduated college, packed up my jeep, didn't take anything
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: with me, and just moved to Bakersfield and started working
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: as an engineer.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Right and realizing that you're in sort of California's version
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: of the South, right, like a little bit like it's
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: you know, it's farm, it's agricultural, it's rural. Yeah, I
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: gos for sure too. But when you for somebody who's
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: never been the California, when you think of California, Bakersfield
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: is a very different vibe.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Oh definitely, And nothing and nothing against Bakersfield, Like I
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: loved Bakersfield. When I was there, it was very familiar
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: to me. But I had the dreams of like the California,
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: you know, like skateboarding alone on the boardwalk and stuff
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: like that. So I get there and basically come back
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: to the South. I think it's one of the only
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: it's like the most conservative county, Kerrent County in California,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: one of them at least, and start working for thee
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: and Gas company. Find out really quickly that there's not
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: much to do there other than like drink and I
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: don't know a farm, I guess.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: And you didn't know anybody there either.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Oh not a soul. Not a soul. But that's how
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: driven I was to get out of the South and
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: just like kind of find a place that was more
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: aligned with what I believed in. You know. I knew
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: that California is a little bit more open minded, and
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: I was like, hey, maybe I could thrive there find
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: more like minded people. I never had a problem making friends,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: but I did have this desire to kind of find
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: my tribe essentially, and so start working as an engineer.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: I didn't like it from the start. I never liked
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: it basically to not bore your listeners or to put
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: them to sleep. I was in charge of making sure pipelines, vessels,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: and tanks didn't blow up or leak. So it was
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: a lot of compliance, a lot of regulation, a lot
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: of oh very important job, yeah, very important, a lot
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: of non destructive testing, ultrasonic techniques. And I was the
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: guy that basically walked into the operations office, the operations team,
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: and said, hey, we need to shut down. We need
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: to make a ten million dollar repair. We're gonna have
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: to replace two miles worth of sixteen inch pipeline, which
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: is like their main feeder for their power plant and everything.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: No one wanted to hear from you. Oh no.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: It was like the most least like department in the
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: in the like in the company. Every as soon as
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: my team walked in, everybody like rolled their eyes and like,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: oh crap, here's these guys. Like we're the police, essentially
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: making sure that the oil company followed age in the
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: police department essentially, Yeah, essentially. So you could see, like
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: my frustration is like I feel like I'm doing a
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: good job, but then it's not well received, and I
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: just got bored. I got so bored about talking about
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: corroding pipe and inspections and replacing pipelines and tanks and
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: vessels and doing calculations all day. And I just knew
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: it wasn't for me. And at that time, I would
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: leave work, I'd work nine hours a day. I'd leave work,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: go home, change and just go to the gym. And
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: that's kind of where I didn't have anything else to do.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: I didn't have much friends. So I was like, I'll
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: just focus on working out like I liked it that
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: last year of college. I'll just continue to do this
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: because I make friends in the gym, maybe I'll meet
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: some gym buddies. I'll get to know the town a
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: little bit better. And that's exactly what happened. So I
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: just made some friends in the gym, started working out
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: with more like I guess you could say advanced you know, bodybuilders,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: or there was like the bodybuilding community in Bakersfield. Like
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: it's a unique place. I'll just put it that way.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: It's a unique place. A lot of big dudes with
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: big jacked up trucks, big muscles, and a lot of
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: money too because they work in the oil industry too,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: So uh so.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: These guys become like your bodybuilding mentors.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Essentially, Yeah, essentially. So I started hanging around.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Out a little bit of like training understanding from your
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: last year in college. But yeah, you're just I'm just
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: You're just going to the gym. I'm going to get jacked.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, same intention, same intention, And.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'll get a big truck.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well I have a big I have a big jeep,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: all right, So I almost fit into that crowd. Yeah,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: it just wasn't the size that I wanted to be. Yeah. Yeah,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: So so you can see like my chameleon at work
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: here because I fit in with like these big tatted up,
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: like like almost blue collar guys. But yet in like
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: the engineering world or the oil field world, like the
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: blue collar guys don't necessarily hang out with like the
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: engineers too much because there's like a you know, just
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: like a hierarchy or whatever you want to call it,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: like a social system within the the community as well.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: So I like blended in with those guys I had
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: got along with them. We go get drinks and all
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: this stuff, and we work out together, and you know,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: naturally you get bigger when you work out with guys
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: that push you. And that's what happened. And I remember distinctly.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: What happened was started getting more into shape. So I
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: started looking more into nutrition, and I was like, how
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: is nutrition affecting my gains? So that's when I started
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: trying to optimize my nutrition. And my way of optimizing
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: my nutrition as a vegetarian at that time was I'll
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: just take a lot more whey protein shakes because protein
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: equals muscle, right, or at least that's what I thought.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Right, I can't eat the chicken breast, Yeah, no chicken breast.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: You already eating eggs?
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: No eggs, Yeah, no eggs. At that time, the only
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: like animal based products I was eating was Greek yogurt.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: I had a lot of Greek yogurt because I was
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: like pretty high in protein, not too bad of macros
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: and calories, a lot of wave protein shakes. I wasn't
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: too huge on cheese except for cheese, pizza being burritos,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing, and and what else I think
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: that was about it?
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like more protein, the more protein, the better, essentially. Yeah,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: And if I'm not gonna eat meat, I'm just gonna
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: be pounding these.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: Shakes exactly right, exactly. And I quickly found out that
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: my stomach didn't digest weigh protein. You wouldn't want to
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: be around me if I drank a protein shake because
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: it was just like a bloat. I'd be gas ye
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: all day. You know. I'd blame it on other people.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: I'll be like, yeah, that guys thinks, you know. But
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: the truth was, like I wasn't meant to digest weigh
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: protein shakes, just never sat well. And then I forget
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: exactly how the chain of events happened, but I remember
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: this part. I went to San Diego to visit a friend.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: I was driving back up the pch ended up stopping
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: in Huntington Beach because I always liked Huntington Beach for
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: some reason, and the vibes there. I just go along
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: the Huntington Beach pier and they have like a like
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: the beach boardwalk that goes underneath the pier. And I
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: was standing up there and I looked down and there's
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: a demonstration going on and happened to be Pita or
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: some kind of animal. I don't know if it was
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: Pita exactly, but it was some kind of animal rights
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: activist group. And they had a huge plate and on
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: the plate they had giant carrots, giant peas, and people
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: in like a nude bodysuit that they looked like chicken breasts.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: You know, if you like took a step back and
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: looked from a distance, it looked like a plate of chicken,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: peas and carrots. And they had this sign that said
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: like how does it look now? And you know, I
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: didn't eat meat. It wasn't It didn't affect me that much.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: And I was just like enjoying watching people's reaction to
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: that that demonstration. Oh yeah, yeah, they were yelling, people
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: were yelling. Everything was it just just wasn't a good scenario.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: They were handing out pamphlets and as I'm sitting there
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: leaning on the railing watching this, a woman comes up
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: to me and she hands me a pamphlet and she goes,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know what the hell she said, but I
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: was just like politely handed the pamphlet back to her
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: and I said, no thanks, I'm already vegetarian. I don't
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: eat meat. And she looked at me and I forget this,
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: and she goes with like just like a super conn
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: sending voice, and she goes, well, do you drink milk
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: or do you eat cheese? And I was like yeah,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: and she was like, well, do you know that that's
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: one of the most cruel industries and it's even more
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: cruel than the meat industry, and you're contributing to that,
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: And like I then at that point, I like handed
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: the pamble back to her. I was like, you know what,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: I don't really care. It's not for me. And I
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: left and I went home and I just thought it
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: was a weird scenario. And as the universe would have
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: it again, I was on Facebook and I think my
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: mom actually posted a video about some kind of slaughter
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: house of the dairy industry something like that, and I
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: like sat down and thought about it, and I saw
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: with my own eyes this video of what was going
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: on in like dairy farms, and how the cows were
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: just kind of like locked in a cage where they
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: couldn't move their head and they just had these mechanisms
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: hooked up to them and they were sucking the juices out.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: And I just thought to myself, I was like, wow,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: like I'm contributing to that by eating it. And I
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: made a decision like on the spot, and I was like,
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: I can't do this anymore, and I just decided to
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: give up dairy together. Too, like as ineffective as I
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: thought that, you know, whole scenario was it. It worked
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: because it planted the seed in my mind, and I
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: just happened to see another thing that reinforced it, and
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: I had just changed and I went I went plant
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: based at that moment.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Wow, And before that, you'd never flirted with the idea
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: of going vegan or you hadn't developed any awareness of
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: dairy industry practices or anything.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: I think, like I knew a little bit.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but like, come on, man, I've never eaten meat,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: like me alone.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was my argument. I was like, dude, I'm
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: doing less harm. You don't kill the cow. What's it? Like,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: what's the big deal?
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: But yeah, there is a big deal. So I ended
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: up I ended up giving that up. And I was
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: just like all right, like now what, like, I guess
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: I'll go vegan or I guess I'll go plant based.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: And I had known about year was this this was
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: I was twenty five, so I'm twenty eight now or
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: twenty was actually about to be twenty nine, twenty nine
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: in a few weeks, So yeah, almost four years ago.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: And I basically started looking up plant based nutrition because
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: at this time, I was still you know, very into
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: bodybuilding and whatnot. I knew you could build muscle. I
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: knew there's a lot of myths out there about not
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: eating meat because I was like doing it, you know,
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: I was building muscle without eating meat. But I really did,
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: you know, have my my doubts about building muscle without
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: any animal product, without my my Wave protein and my
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Greek yogurt, And yeah, I just kind of I was like, well,
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: now I'm in it. I can't go back. I'll just
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: make this work. And that's when I started figuring out, hey,
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of health benefits to not eating dairy
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: and Way protein and all this other stuff. And so
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: I switched over my Way shakes with plant based shakes.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: I started incorporating a lot more like lagoons and len
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: tools into my my my nutrition program at the time,
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I just went you know, dove head first.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: And what were the the resources that you were looking to,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Like was it YouTube videos or were you reading books
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: or like watching doctor Gregor's videos or like Robert Cheek
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: has his vegan bodybuilding site at the time. I don't
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: know how active he is on that now, but there
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: were there were some resources available.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there were some at that time. I think it
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: had to have been what it was like twenty fourteen,
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: the end of twenty fourteen, beginning of twenty fifteen when
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: that kind of transition happened, and I'd looked up vegan fitness,
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: vegan bodybuilding, that stuff, and I did come across Robert
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Cheek's website and there was a lot of great resources there.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: But I'm a much more like practical guy. I just
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: like to be my own kind of experiment and to
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: see what works, what doesn't work.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: You're going to engineer yourself engineer.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what happened. I like to figure out how
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: things work, optimize it, and maximize it. And I just
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: started eating more, learning that I could incorporate more carbs
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: a little bit less protein. I read a book I
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: wish I could remember the name of the book. It
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: was called like Vegetarian Sports Nutrition or something. And I
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: learned a lot about that book, and I just kind
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: of reassured that, you know, I can do this. I
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: can do this. And at the gym one day, I
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: was walking into the gym and there was a guy
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: that was selling supplements and I knew him. He was
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: doing like a little giveaway any type of thing, and
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: he goes, hey, man, you're looking pretty good. You should
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: do a bodybuilding show. I just laughed. I was like,
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: yeah right, I.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Mean did you look how did you look then? Versus
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: like what I'm looking at right now.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: So I was in good shape. I was definitely in
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: good shape, but I was about thirty pounds lighter so
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: I or maybe not thirty pounds. I was probably about
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: twenty pounds later. Sorry now about one I don't know,
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: one ninety somewhere around there. At that time, I was
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: like one sixty sixty five somewhere around there. And I
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: literally laughed in his face. I was like, yeah right, dude,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: Like you think I'm going to get on stage in
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: like a speedo in flex in front of like a
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: crowd of judges. Like, first of all, would my like
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: corporate job think of that, like if they saw pictures
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: floating around to me in a speedo?
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Verry Krishna community.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Oh. At that time, I had like at that time,
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: I had completely kind of like almost disassociated myself with
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: the Heart Christian movement because I didn't feel like I belonged.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: At the time, I had been spending so much time
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: in my life suppressing it and downplaying it that I
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: did become disconnected, like there was a disconnection there. So
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: I stopped going to the to the temple for a
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: long time. I would go back to the Temple when
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: i'd go visit my parents and whatnot, but I never
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: really went proactively on myself and learned more or did
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: more reading on it and kind of really understand the
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: entire thing. So I wasn't worried about the heart Christians
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: what they thought.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: I'm just like I can't escape like the juxtaposition, like
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: the contrast of those two worlds, like the bodybuilding world
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: and like the Harri Krishnak community.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'll get into that later. I'll get into
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: that later too. So so here I am at the
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: gym and this guy's like trying to convince me to
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: do this show. He's like, do you it's in Bakersfield,
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: Like come on, like it's it's in two months. You
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: got enough time, you look great. I know a guy
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: he can help get you stage ready. And I was like, oh, dude,
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: like that's just not for me, Like I could never
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: see myself doing that. And he connected me with the
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: guy either way, and I was like, well, maybe I
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: could learn something anyway. And the guy was like, hey,
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: should do the show. You look great, you have a
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: good chance of winning. And I was like, you know what,
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: Like can we curse on here? There go? Okay? I
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: was like, yeah, fuck it, Like why not I see
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: going on? Yeah exactly. I was like, I hate my job,
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: like I might as well find something that I'm passionate
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: about and maybe I like working out, maybe this will
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: give me a goal to strive for. And I picked
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: the date and I remember I trained for eight or
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: nine weeks. Somewhere around there. I contacted this coach and
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: he had no experience with vegetarianism, veganism especially, and he
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: was like, look, I can't help you with what to eat,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: but maybe I can give you some guidance on like
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: how much to eat.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: So I was like, and is the coach is it
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: is it? Is the focus really on the nutrition side
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: of it, or is it on the actual training aspect
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: of getting right for something like that?
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: So I thought it was on training, but you quickly
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: realize that it's all about nutrition. You know, if you
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: have a good foundation and you focus strictly on nutrition,
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: you don't even have to go to the gym, and
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: you can.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: It's like because if you can get lean enough, like
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: it overcomes the fitness because you looked more jocked than
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: you actually are.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly like, we all have muscle under here. It's just
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: about trying to expose it, right, So if you just
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: eat correctly, you can expose that muscle a lot greater
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: by reducing the amount of body fat you have on
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: your body. So he helped me with how much to eat,
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: and I was just kind of left in the lab,
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: you know, mad scientist style, like picking different foods and
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: experimenting and trying to see which foods work best to
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: yield the best results. So like as you could imagine,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: I'm a data driven person, so I would track everything
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: attract my workouts. I tracked how much I ate, how
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: many calories, how many micronutrients, micronutrients, everything was in the
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: nutritional program that I was following and doing like spreadsheets,
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: and oh yeah, I'm a spreadsheet guru, man.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: And where are you getting your your workout routines from
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: dudes at the gym?
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: A combination, A combination. So he gave me a workout
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: routine and I followed it and then I did my
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: own stuff, Like I always had my own routines, and
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: I would do because I knew what like worked best
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: for me. And you know, eight weeks later go by,
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: and you know, now we're here at the show day
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: and I'm like terrified. I'm like what am I doing?
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Like I didn't get up there on and like a
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: what do you call it? A speedo? I didn't get
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: up there on speedo. I did a different division called
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Men's Physique, and they wear the board shorts, so they had.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Like the beach shorts even though that they were different.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's a lot of different these lots you
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: don't know about bodybuilding, man, So this is a different subculture.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: This is not IFBB.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: No, no, So this was an organization called IMBA, which
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: is International Natural Bodybuilding Association.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: And hold on a second, because I like, this is
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: like a subculture I know nothing about. So do you
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: like shave your body do the fake tan thing and
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: put the oil all over you and like and are
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: you starving yourself for like a week to get as
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: lean as like? Is it like a wrestler protocol where
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: you're trying to literally lose as much not just fat
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: but water content, Like, what does that look like?
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's it's kind of similar to a wrestling
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: protocol or like an MMA protocol. But you want to
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: be as efficient as possible, So you want to reduce
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: as much body fat. You want to reduce as much
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: water retention as possible in the final week. Well, actually
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: the leaks the week's leading up to it, you want
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: to reduce as much body fat. The final week, you're
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: more focused on reducing the amount of water retention that
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: you have so you can appear as lean and crisp
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: as possible.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Right, And what are the techniques for doing that?
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Similar to similar to wrestling where you do water loading
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: and you do a lot of cardio.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Swear, like that suit that makes you sweat. Some people do,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: some people do.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: I'm not a big sweater, so I don't really sweat
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: that much water out of me. And it's not a
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: really good approach because you just reintroduce water and you
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: store it again. So the way it works is that,
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: like the week leading up to the show is called
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: peak week, and there's different strategies for it. At that time,
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: what I was doing was water loading at the beginning
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: of the week, so I'd drink, like, start off at
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: one gallon, then I'd go to two gallons a day,
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: then I go to three gallons a day, and then
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: towards the end of the week, I would I would
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: basically or sorry, I'll go back. I would drink. I
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: would waterload at the beginning of the week, and I
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: would reduce as much as possible the amount of carbs
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: I was eating, because the theory is that carbs attract water.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: You want to deplete all of your glycogen stores, so
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: all of this extra fluff and water that you have
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: in your system. You want to burn as many calories
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: and deplete yourself as much as possible. So you look
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: really like a raisin, like shriveled and flat, and you
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: can't get a pump in the gym. It's just miserable.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: You like you have carb head, like carb fog, so
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: what they call it. You can't think straight, you get angry.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: It's so ironic because you feel terrible, right, but then
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: your skin's like paper.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Thin, exactly exactly. So I tell people this all the time,
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Like the guys on stage, they look the best, but
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: they feel the worst.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you hear that all the time. Also you
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: you know, these guys will say, and I'm sure you
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: would mimic this, that you can only maintain whatever that
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: you know, you get that photograph on stage and then
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: literally like six hours later, you know, when you when
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: you finish and then you eat or you drink water,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: then it goes away. Yeah, you can only maintain it
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: for like the just tiniest finite amount of time.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly beautifully put. So, like I said, my grandpa was
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: an airline pilot, so I like to use this analogy.
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: It's like you're landing a plane. So you see your target,
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: you see your runway, and you choose that X amount
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: of weeks in advance. So you want to slow, lead, lower,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: or descend to that target. So if you go, you know,
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: twelve weeks out from a show, just cut out all
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: your food, do as much cardio as possible. You're gonna
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: kill yourself. You're gonna spin, you're gonna burn out, you know. Uh.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: So it's about kind of timing everything to the exact
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: hour of stepping on stage. So you're trying to land
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: this plane. The final week would be the landing gears
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: coming out, and then touchdown would be stepping on stage.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: So the final basically twenty four hours before the show
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: at that time, what I was doing, I still kind
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: of do it now. So you're water loading all week,
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: then towards the end of the week you taper off,
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: and then you completely stop drinking water the night before,
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: and what happens is that the theory is and I
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: talked with some doctor about the kind of more of
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: the metabolic process that goes on behind the theory, and
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: he confirmed some of it that you know, the more
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: water you drink, your body will release a hormone to
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: dispel more water to kind of keep things going. And
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: if you do water loading and then you cut it off,
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: then that hormone will still be there, so there's like
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: a lag period and you'll just kind of pee out
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: more water than you should. So it's like you're draining
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: yourself completely of water.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: And then the body thinks, well, water's common because it's
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: been common.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the gear is still going right, so the
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: wheels still turning, and then you reintroduce carbs the day
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: before and the day of the show, so you got
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: we can call it carbloating. So guys will pound thousand
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: grams of carbs Friday one thousand grams of carbs before
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: they step on stage, and what happens is is it?
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: It Basically the theory is that glycogen attracts water, so
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: it'll now that you're introducing glycogen to your muscles, it's
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: sucking all the water to your muscle, so it's giving
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: you this really good pump in this fullness.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Right, So I had no idea about any of this.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: That's crazy.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a really crazy concept to put
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: your body through this amount of torture too.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: To just basically appear a certain way for a short
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: period of time.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: You train ten weeks for ten seconds on stage, Like
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: that's how crazy bodybuilding is.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: And yeah, but by in fairness, you know, Usain Bolt
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: trains years for however long it takes, and to run
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: trail meters, it's not that different.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a very good point. It's just a funny
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: concept to me still to this day. It's a funny.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: It is comical when you really think about it.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then on top of that, on top of that,
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: you put yourself through so much effort and you end
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: up paying to do these contests. Then you pay somebody
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: who E've never meant to judge you on how you look,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: and there's a certain amount of self worth that you
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: get whenever people tell you that, hey, you don't look
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: as good as that guy. I'll just tell you right now,
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: So we're going to place you at the end of
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: the line.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: It's a weird thing. Yeah, and there's a weird you know,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: let's let's face it, there's a bizarre like strain of narcissism.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: Oh definitely.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: And it is a sport and I respect that and
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: I'm super interested in hearing what you have to say
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: about the world. But it's it's distinct from other sports
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: in a very unique way.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: So you have to be a little extreme to be
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: a bodybuilder, like in some sense, you have to be
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: extreme as a person's personality. There has to be something
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: there in order for you to go through that same
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: as all like elite level athletes. I feel like we
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: have this thing about us that.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: What is that thing like? Is there is there a
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: common like personality or emotional archetype that you see that
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: drives people into this world.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of it is the dream. I
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: think a lot of is that dream and that allure
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: of being the best bodybuilder in the world having this
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: like insanely attractive physique, and something happens through that whole
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: process to where that might be the goal initially, but
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: then a lot of people really do fall in love
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: with it and it becomes their meditation, their therapy to
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: go to the gym and just work on yourself. So
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: I respect to all bodybuilders in all types and forms,
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: but I feel like we all share that commonality amongst us.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: All right, so let's go back to this first competition.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: So you're learning all of this as you go. Right,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: first competition, you train for eight or nine weeks or
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. You get up on the board with
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: the board shorts on. Yeah, what happens.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we go through the whole process too. So
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: the tanning as the first time I ever got a
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: spray tan in my life, and I was just like,
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: not the last, Yeah, definitely not the last unfortunately. So
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: I get spray daan, I go on stage and I
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: do my my posing routine and I entered I think
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: two divisions at that time. It was like the novice
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: and then the open class. Because I was like, hey,
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: maybe I might win the novice, maybe I'll get destroyed
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: in the open. So I entered two physique or two categories,
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: ended up going on stage twice, so give me a
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: little bit more stage time, more experience, and I did
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: my posing routine. I had like my my girlfriend at
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: the time, a couple of friends in the front row,
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: so it was like a hometown show for me, so
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: they were all cheering me on. So I got like
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: a lot more confident when I was on stage, and
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Get you just skipped over the fact that you got
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: a girlfriend in Bakersfield.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: I did, Okay, go ahead, yeah, And so as a
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: show would have it, I ended up winning the novice
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: division and then won the overall for the Novice to vision,
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: and then in the open division, I won my class
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: in the Open and then won the overall for the Open.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: So I basically swept the entire show in my divisions.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: And I walked home that day with like six trophies,
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: Like it was weird. I had like six trophies, a plaque,
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: and this gigantic bodybuilder trophy that was like no, I
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: think he was like this like just both arms raised,
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: and I was like, this is so cool, Like this
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: is all the hard work that I've been working for
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: and this big gold plastic trophy.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: You know, and literally brand new to the sport. First
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: competition ever. Yeah, like that's crazy.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: So so a funny thing happened after that. Obviously I
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: was really happy, but the question that I avoided my
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: entire life was now the most common question that I
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: was getting, and that is what do you eat? So
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: I was forced to tell them that, you know, I
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: did it all vegan. I did it all plant based.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: So going into that, nobody knew that was just your thing.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: I didn't know.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: No one knew who you were or anyway.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: No, I mean amongst the gym members, some of people
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: may have known who I was. But baker Fields a
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: pretty small town where it gets around really quick there,
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: and you know, they were really shocked. I had two
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: impressions whenever I tell people that I did it without
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: eating this standard typical proto or the prototypical bodybuilding diet,
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: which is like chicken and rice egg whites in the morning,
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: wash it down with a protein shake, then you drink,
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: or you're eating your salmon and asparagus. So all of
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: these things are very heavily animal based, and they're consuming
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: a large amount of it too. So the fact that
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: somebody just want a bodybuilding competition without eating any of
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: that is a little bit like concerning or just like
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: disbelieving to people.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: So on top of that, it's worth noting that you know,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: a common thing that you also hear with people that
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: are with vegan athletes or vegetarian athletes for that matter,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: is yeah, that's fine, but he only stopped eating me
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: like a year ago or two years ago or five
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: years ago. He made all his he got big when
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: he was playing football in college when he was eating
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: meat all the time. You've never had meat in your
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: whole life. Yeah, but the vegan thing didn't come in
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: until the lead up to this competition. So you trained
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: for this specific event totally vegan for the first time.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So basically ten weeks before that, I went vegan,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: and I basically made it really challenging for myself. I
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: was like, I'm going to train for my first bodybuilding show.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna train is a vegan. I have no idea
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: what to do for both, but I'm gonna figure it out.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: And so I started telling people. I was like, look,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: you're not gonna like it, but I did it all vegan.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: I did it eating like at that time, I was
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: like I was relying on like alternative meats, so I'd
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: have like veggie chicken and what else was I having
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: Just like a lot of lentils like high carb foods,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: which was kind of going against the grain two. And
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: people were just kind of like immediately turned off and
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: they were like, yeah, that's cool whatever, and then they
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: just go about their day. But then I've I found
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: out that I shared it on social media. Like I
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: never once made like an announcement like hey, I'm going
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: vegan like a lot of people do. Now. I just
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: kind of did it behind the scenes, and then I
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: just kind of came on the scene as like a
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: vegan and I shared like pictures and I was like,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: you know, I just want this bodybuilding competition and people
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: say you can't build muscle without meat, and I did it,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: you know. So I got a lot of like positive
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: feedback from that from people, and a lot of people
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: ask me questions online, not necessarily in real life. Some
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: people were interested in real life, but online I figured
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: I could probably reach some people that were like me
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: and didn't believe it was possible, So maybe I can
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: inspire somebody. And I started sharing my journey a little
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: bit more. And that's kind of where this whole thing began.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Right, and we're going to get into that, But just
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: sort of back in this lead up to this competition,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: I'm interested in your experience training for the first time vegan,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Like when you made that switch, Okay, I'm not doing
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: the dairy anymore. What was the experience in the gym,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: Like did you you know, were your gains truncated by that?
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Did it help your training? Did it hinder it? Like
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: how did you kind of navigate figuring out how to
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: make it work.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: So the first thing I noticed whenever I cut out
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: the dairy products was how much better I felt, Like
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: from a digestion point of view, I didn't experience the bloat,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: the gas, the discomfort that I felt quite often whenever
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: I would eat dairy products. And I just figured that
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: I was probably lactose intolerant. Never got tested for it.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: I just figured I wasn't really digesting it that well.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: So that was the reason behind it. So as soon
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: as I cut that out, I realized that I had
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: this like new sense of clarity, a new sense of
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: energy in the gym, and I wasn't like I wasn't
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: getting as sore anymore. So what happened was is that
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: I could train more frequently because I wasn't as sore.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: The next day, I was like, well, I guess I'm
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: going to train again, Like my I feel good, like
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: I'm just gonna do it. And I immediately noticed that
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: I could train more and that therefore you train more frequently,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: you see better results quicker. So it was immediate the feeling.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: And I was already eating really clean, mind you, so
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: it was just that next level of cleaning up the
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: diet even more.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what you hear all the time. It's not
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: that going plant based inherently makes you a better athlete.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: But my experience, and it sounds like your experience and
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: the experience that you hear from so many people who
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: have made this switch, is that it expedites the recovery process.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: You know, the fact that you weren't sore means the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: body is repairing itself more expeditiously than what you were
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: accustomed to. So in turn, you can push yourself a
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: little bit harder, you can train a little bit more frequently,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: you can go a little bit longer. You're less likely
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: to get injured or have to take a rest day
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: or to get sick because you overtrained, and when you
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: protract that over the course of a season or a
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: number of months or even years, you're going to have
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: serious performance gains as a result.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: So yeah, basically, when you train for a bodybuilding show,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: you experience all those things like cumulatively, right. So I
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: noticed the difference, and I feel like, touching on what
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: you talked about earlier, is that people they don't know
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: they feel a certain way because it's just their normal, right.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: So I never knew that there was another approach that
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: I could feel sore less which could allow me to
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: train more because I just knew that I worked out,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: I would get sore, it would take me x amount
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: of days to recover. I just figured that's how it was,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: And that was as a vegetarian, mind you. So I
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: always feel like everybody has their own sense of like
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: homeostasis and their own normality that they kind of always
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: linger around, right. So imagine all the people that are
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: out there listening and they are consuming this diet that
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: they've been eating their entire life, and it's just normal.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: It's normal to feel like lethargic after eating a heavy meal.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: It's normal to feel this way the entire day, to
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: have to take a nap, or that you get headaches
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: every day, or that you know, you just have this
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: irritable bowel syndrome or whatever the case is. It's just normal.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: And then you cut something out and there's like a
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: new sense of normal and you're like, whoa, I feel great,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: Like this is what it's like. This is what it's
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: like to feel this way. I never knew there was possible.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: So essentially that's kind of the transition that most people
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: experience when they go a plant based because it's like
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: they're experiencing this new energy, this new sense of thriving,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: and the performance comes after, like you know, you have
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: better mental clarity, you can think better, you're happier, you're
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: more likely to be more productive, you know, go longer
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: than the gym.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all good man.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: So after that first competition, are you thinking like, hey,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: maybe I have a career here, Like the universe is,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: you know, loud and clear, like, hey man, you're pretty
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: good at this. No, so what comes next?
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: No, I would never say that I thought I had
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: a career in it. At that point. I thought, you
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: know what, I won a local show. There wasn't that
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: many people. What did I really win? You know, like
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: there was no there wasn't like a serious amount of
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: competition there. So that's when I looked at other competitions
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: like coming up, and I found one in Fresno, and
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, this is a bigger show, bigger city,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: a lot like more established competition. So I was like,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go for that one. The difference was that
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: it was non tested, so I knew going into it
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: that I'd be going against guys that were probably taking
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: stuff or so.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: It's a different it wasn't it's a different This isn't
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: the board Shorts organization.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: This is like a different No, still still still board Shorts,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: but different federation.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: Uh huh.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: So it's like just different organizers, different set of contest rules, regulations, and.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Non testing just means they're not drug tests. Yeah, so
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: you know these guys are going to be jacked up
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: on whatever. Yeah.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: I mean that's not to say everybody, but I knew
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: that that was a very strong possibility that I'd be
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: going up against guys that were probably at a big
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: advantage compared to me. And I entered that show. I
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: don't know how many weeks later it was, but I
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: answered that one and ended up winning the overall there
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: and at that point, right then I was like, Okay,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: there is no limitation to this. I'm not restricted by
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: this diet. I can compete against guys, doesn't matter what
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: their diet or their lifestyle is. I can compete. And
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: that's what really.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: They're still brand new. Yeah, yeah, so I have so
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: much potential out there waiting for you. Yeah.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: I think when you win at anything, it makes you
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: a little bit more inspired, of course, to work harder
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: and see what else you could do. And that's kind
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: of where I was at when I won that second competition.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: And how does it work.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: Does somebody come up to you after the competition and go, hey, like,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: let me take you to the next level, or you
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: should do this now, or let me guide you, or
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: what are the mechanics of how it unfolds?
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: No, so they have like different It's like a qualification series.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: So if you compete at like a national level show
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: or sorry, a national qualifier, you have to place in
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: a certain rank to be able to compete at the
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: next level, which is all the winners. So that's the
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: national show and then in the national show, if you
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: win a certain rank normally it's first or second in
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: your class, then you get awarded a pro card. So
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: that's kind of like the progression there. It's almost like
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: going from like the high school to college to the pros.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: And after I won that second show, I was like, man,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: I'm qualified. There's a national show next year. I think
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: I can. I think I can compete.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: So that was my new goal, right, So then what
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: happens there?
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: So I think like maybe a year and a half later,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: I did a couple other shows and I won some,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: I got second in some, and I was still qualified
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: for the national show. And then that's when I was like, okay,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: if what's my goal here? I was like, if I
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: can prove Because it goes in stages, right. First, people
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: say you can't build muscle without meat. Then people say
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: you can't win a bodybuilding show without meat. I did
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: both of those. Then people say, well, you can't compete
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: against the pros. And then it is like the bar
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: keeps getting set a little bit further, like, okay, well
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: on this far.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: Well, because the cognitive dissonance is so it's so deep
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: that no matter how many times you continue to defy
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: it that the goalpost just keep moving rightly. They've got
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: a point to some other reason that that affirms their
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: worldview exactly.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: So I'm like, to this point, I was so kind
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: of like watch me, just watch me.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: Right, So that was the drive. That was the drive
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: I was coming from.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in a sense.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: And you start sharing this stuff on social media, so
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: now this is becoming like a public thing.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So then I started like waving this flag and
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: I was like, hey, I'm doing it this way. Like
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: there's a different approach that I didn't know existed, Like
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: I found the the secret sauce. So those who were
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: interested and want to learn more about it, you know,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: come follow because I'll be posting about it a lot
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: more and follow my journey. And that's where the whole
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: social media aspect started kind of snowballing and getting a
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: little bit more well known within that community. And you know,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: it's like I said, a year and a half later,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: here I am going into my first national show and
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: it's the biggest show of them all in Las Vegas,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: and I don't know how many guys there are per class,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: but essentially each there was like six or seven height classes.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: Each one of the heighth classes is larger than most
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: of the local cumulative amount of people, So there's more
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: people in a high class, and there isn't a total competition,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: right and a local level.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: So and you're in the speedo now no.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: No, still in the board short really yeah, same same division,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: just different federation and to see the quads they don't
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: they don't judge on this one. So there's different there's
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: different levels of bodybuilding. It goes like super heavyweight than
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: like heavyweight, and then like different weight classes, and then
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: they go like classic physique, which is like kind of
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: like there's height and weight limitations. Then they go men's physique,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: which is the one that I'm in, and it's more
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: like more the cover model aesthetic kind of not so
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: massive guys, not like mister Olympia. No, there is a
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: I mean you can't compete to be mister Olympia, but
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: in that division, but not like guys like Phil Heath
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: that are just just huge, like two hundred and fifty
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: pounds on stage dry. And so there I am going
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: to my first contest and I ended up winning my class,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: so that meant I was a I was going to
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: be awarded my pro card, and I walked off stage
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: at that point and I got like super just like emotional,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: like I had reached my goal. I became a professional athlete,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: and it was it was just like overwhelming. So I
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: stepped off stage and I was just like, Wow, I
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: did it, Like I really did it. And I was
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: just thinking in my head, I was like, this is
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: going to do so much good for everything I represent,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: because now people can point to somebody and say, hey,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: you can be a pro because that guy did it.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: You know, you can compete against elite level bodybuilders because
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: that guy did it. And that was kind of my
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: like one of my reasons for doing it. I love
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: bodybuilding and everything else, but it becomes much easier to
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: immerse yourself in work and sacrifice whenever you're doing it
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: for something beyond yourself. Because bodybuilding is a very very
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: vain sport. You have to be you have to be selfish,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: you have to be vain because the only way you
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: can get to that level is by only focusing on
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: one thing, you know, and that's building up your physique.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: So the fact that I was doing it or I
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: had this kind of like team behind me, and I
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: was representing them, so I felt like I couldn't let
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: them down now, so I had to work hard. I
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: had to stick to everything. And now that I went pro,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: I was like, we made it, guys. It wasn't just
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: me making it, it was everybody making it. And that's
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: kind of where I like, I decided like, yeah, now
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: I'm really going to be vocal about it because now
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: you can't tell me shit because now I'm a pro.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: So what's your excuse now? Like what more do I
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: have to prove? And then now the argument is that
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: what's coming? Yeah, Now the argument is like, yeah, but
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: you can't make it to Olympia, Like all right, watch me,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: just watch me, give me some time.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: That's what's next.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: That's what's next.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: And how big is that leap from what you've accomplished
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: to Olympia.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: Not much, not much. So they changed up the qualification
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: for Olympia now, but it was previously if you won
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: an overall at an Olympia qualifier, which is normally like
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: a big pro show, then you automatically get to go
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: to Olympia, like you won first. If you on that, no,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: I haven't done that yet. But if you get second, third,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: or fourth, or fifth. You get a series of points,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: and at the end of the year, the guys are
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: the most points get invited. So now since there's so
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: many guys that are competing again, they went it to
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: a point system. So you have to compete year round
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: now and place in the top five consistently to get
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: the most points by the end of the year, and
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: they invite the top thirty guys, top forty guys to Olympia.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: So you're now training for various events and trying to
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: accumulate those points.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, essentially, so how far close are you to that?
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: So this year wasn't what I wanted to be. There
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: was a couple of things happened between twenty seventeen and
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, so I moved from Bakersville to Long Beach, California.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: Basically I went through this self awakening and I was like,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: I can't live here anymore, Like it's I'm capping out.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: I'm like limiting. I was in a bad relationship and
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: I need to get out. So I went on a
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: trip to Bali and just had this like kind of
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: like self aligning moment where I was like what am
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: I doing? Like I only live once? Why am I
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: wasting my time slaving away for something that I'm just
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: not bringing me any happiness or joy. So I went
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: back home went to my boss's office. At first hand,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: I was like, look, you need to find another place
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: for me in this company, or I need some time
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: off to go interview for other companies elsewhere, because I
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: just can't do it anymore. He was like, don't quit.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: There's a spot for you in Long Beach. So I
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: ended up transferring to Long Beach, which thought that would
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: solve my problems as far as being unhappy with a
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: job because it was a new location, it was close
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: to La, all my friends, a lot more to do.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: I worked there for five months and I was more
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: miserable than ever because now I was garnering a lot
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: more attention on social media and seeing firsthand the impact
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: that I was making to the people that I was
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: trying to reach. And I remember I went to an
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: event in London and I gave a speech in front
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: of I don't know how many five hundred people something
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: like that, and afterwards a guy came up to me
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: and said that I helped save his mom's life. And
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: I was like, how's that? And he goes, well, you
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: were the reason that I went vegan. And my mom
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: was a type two diabetic. She couldn't get out of
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: the bed, and she saw how I was surviving and
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: thriving on a vegan diet, so she was willing to
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: try it. And since she went plant based, she's able
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: to move around. She cured a lot of her illnesses.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: And I completely think that you helped save your life.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: And it like brought me to tears, and I was
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: just like still gives me, like going now, and I
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: was like what am I doing? Like why am I
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: wasting nine ten hours a day for something that I hate?
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: Like and technically you're a professional athlete.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And like I didn't tell anybody at work. Like
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: in Bakersfield, people knew. At in Long Beach, I didn't
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: tell anybody because I didn't want them to know. And
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: I was like, so I was kind of like going
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: to this what happened? So I was like go to
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: events and like London and give speeches about evolution. No,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: that one was London Vegfest. That one was London Vegfest.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: So like here I am going to London, traveling with
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: different countries, giving speeches about something I'm so passionate about
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: and then coming I'm talking about happiness and talking about
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: living your dream and I come home and living a nightmare.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: So I went to the office that Monday. It was
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: a six point thirty meeting, and we start talking about
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: the same shit corroding pipe compliance projects, and I felt this,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: like I've never felt this before, like such a state
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: of a claustrophobia that everything was like closing in around
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: me and I had to like get up and leave
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: the room. And I knew that as soon as yeah,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: panic attack. Yeah, I started like hyperventilating, and as soon
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: as the meeting was done, I didn't go back into
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: the meeting. As soon as the meeting was over, I
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: went to my boss's office, closed the door, and I
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: was like, I'm putting in my resignation, like this is
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: my last two weeks or a week or something. And
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: he was like whoa, well, like where is this coming from?
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: So so he was like, you know, what are you
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: going to do? And I'll never forget this conversation. Like
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: he's a pretty levelheaded guy. I tried to explain to
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: him that I have, like, you know, this passion for
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: spreading awareness about veganism on the Bodybuilder. He's like, yeah,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: I figured you were like something and I explained it
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: to him and he goes. He goes, so you're quitting
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: to become a vegan and I go, I go, I'm
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: already like in a sense, yes, a professional vegan, a
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: professional vegan. Yeah, to talk about van professionally and yeah,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: I didn't expect him to understand. And he was like, well,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: you know, congrats to you. You know, he was really
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 2: receptive of it. And I'd only been working there a
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: couple of months, and he was like, you got bigger
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: balls than I do, because you know, I got like
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: a family defeed and all this stuff. So I can't
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: make that jump, but props to you for following your
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: heart and following your dream.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: Then like, yeah, set you off with well wishes.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah we have. We had a great relationship and
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: great guy and everything, and I really appreciate that conversation too.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: But then it's like, all right, well, like now, how
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: am I going to make this work?
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, exactly So. So I mean, going back to
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: the London thing, I felt like I was doing a
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: disservice to the community and to so many other things
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: by not fully investing myself into like my purpose that
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: I felt like I had to, and that was the
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: main reason why I quit my job. You know. I
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: was like, you know what, I'll figure it out. Uh yeah,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: I'm giving up like a really well paying job, like
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: six figures at twenty three, you know, so I'll make
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: it work because money's not everything. You know. I have
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: a ton of money in the bank account, or I
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: did whenever I was like working there, I was like,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: I have a lot of money in the bank account.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: What happiness has brung me nothing? So but when I'm
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: truly happy, money doesn't matter because it's like I'm having
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: a sense of fulfillment and I'm helping people and that's
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: what I really It's.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: Your version of renunciation in the modern world. Yeah, you know,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: like that that's whatever compelled your mom. It's almost like
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: that same trigger came up for you.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: I came full circle, is what happened. I thought that
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: all these things would bring me happiness, you know, having
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: a title, having a well paying job, having a condo
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: on the beach, you know, all the material things. I
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: thought it would bring me happiness. But you know, the
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: more you work for it, where you become a slave
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: to it. And after I kind of renounced it and
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: just kind of sat back, and I was like I
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: immediately had like regret. I was like, what the hell
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: did I just do? Right?
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: Like I just fucked this up. That's gonna happen now. Yeah,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: Well that and there's that like projection that perhaps some
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: people have that they're placing on you, like oh, well
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: he's a pro, Like he's getting paid and like well,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: like there's sponsors and there's all this there's the reality
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: versus the imagined reality that perhaps your social media following
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: might have projected upon you.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, people have this idea that when you could become
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: a professional bodybuild of the opportunity just come reining in
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 2: and you get paychecks left and right, Like you don't
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: get paid like pay you pay them, you pay them
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: like they I'll put it this way, if you win
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: a bodybuilding show in my division, you might get two
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: to three thousand dollars to win first place. How much
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: does it cost you to go to Denver? Pay for
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: a hotel, room, pay for a flight, pay for all
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: the meals, Like you break even, Like even though you
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: might win a small purse, you break even. So people
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: thinking that they're going to become super rich from being
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: a pro bodybuilder. It's like you're going in it for
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: the wrong reasons. I'll tell you right now. You got
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: to find something else to go in it for, like
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: maybe self satisfaction or whatever. But uh, yeah, I think
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: I did have some sponsors at that point, and that
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: was kind of what was like sustaining me economically. And
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: I just knew that whatever I did, I was going
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: to do it fully one hundred percent. And now I
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: wasn't jumping like playing this Teeter Totter game where I
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: was like half in, half out, and I was just
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: going to see where where it would take me. And
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: that's kind of where I'm at now.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So now you got you started the Generation V
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: podcast and you do like online coaching programs, right, is
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: that like the main source of revenue for you at
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: the moment or how are you how are you making
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: it work?
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: So it's I mean, you know you're like you're in
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: social media as well. There's many different ways to make
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: money as a social media influencer. You can do it
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: by endorsement deals. You can do it by sponsorships, you
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: can do it by one off posts. You can do it.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: There's a million different ways. I had some money in
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: the bank, and I knew I wanted to start something
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: and something that was my own, be my own boss,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: because I never really sat well with having a boss
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: telling me something to do. So I decided that, you know,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: I can train people because I'm a you know, I
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: know the process and the system on how to make
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: it work because I'm like, I've trained other people before,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: but I never had time to train somebody when I
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: was working as an engineer. So now I'm at this
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: crossroads and I'm like, Okay, do I want to become
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: a personal trainer? Like no, because like you can train
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: maybe nine ten people a day and then you're you're
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: capped out. And I was like, it doesn't make much sense.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: So I figured that I wanted to Like my goal
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: has always been big, like I want to reach a
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: lot of people and have the biggest impact possible. So
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: as a universe would have it, I got connected with
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: another guy and he's like a software engineer, and we
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: put together a system to where we could scale coaching
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: and help a lot of people at once become vegan
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: or try to you know, go plant base and research
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: fitness goals, and we were trying to come up with
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: a name for it. We didn't like any of the names,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: and we have all these names on a piece of
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: paper and he's like into web design and SEO, search
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: engine everything, so he's like, what about what about this one?
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, right, we'll never get that. And
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: it was called Veganfitness dot com. And I was like, well,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: that'd beautiful, but that's got to be thirty forty k
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: at least. And turns out he did a little search
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 2: and shows who owns it and it was one of
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: our good friends.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: Oh really that owned the domain name and anything.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: Wasn't He was just sitting on it, just redirecting it
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: to something else, and we told him what we wanted
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: to do. He's also very philanthropic and all about the
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: movement and progressing the movement, had big plans for it
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: and just gave it to us at a very the
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: homy discount and that's amazing, And we ended up with
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: Veganfitness dot com. And so now we're doing online coaching
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: where we have really big plans for it as well.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: We we want it to be basically nutrition facts dot org,
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: meats Bodybuilding dot com, and we want to reach the
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: younger demographic because that's the generation that's going to make
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: the biggest impact moving forward. And if we can convince
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: young guys, especially that being vegan is cool. You know,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: you can build muscle, you can get the girls, you
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: can look a certain way, you can perform as an
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: athlete even better, then we've really tapped into the change, right.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: So it's about making vegan cool and approachable. And doctors
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: do such a good job of breaking down the science
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: and the evidence behind it, but let's face it, a
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: twenty year old doesn't give a shit about heart disease. Like, dude,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: I'm twenty, I'm invincible. I could jump off this building
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: and punch you in the face and like, nothing's going
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: to happen to me, right, So we want to appeal
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: to that generation and say, hey, you know, yeah, you
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: get all these extra long term benefits, but right now,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: you can be a better athlete, you can look better,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: perform better, and yeah, we're just we're trying to tap
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: into that demographic and make it cool.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: That's the keys to the kingdom. And what is your
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: sense of like where we're at right now in terms
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: of influencing that demographic.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: We're getting close. We're getting close. I think with enough,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: particularly athletes, I feel like they have a lot more
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: influence than other people. Doesn't matter if a doctor's saying
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: it to you, you know, you eat this way, you
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: become healthier. But if Kobe Bryant walks up to you,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: he's like, you know you're a basketball player. You love him,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: you want to be the next Kobe Bryant. He's like, hey,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: you know, if you do this, you could you could
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: beat me. That dude is going to change that day. Right.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: So we kind of have that mentality, that approach to
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: convincing the younger generation to give it a try. Not
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: not to go fully plant based, just give it a try.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: You know, I'll convince you to try it. The diet
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: will convince you to stick with it. Give it two weeks,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: give it three weeks. You know, learn from the experts,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: learn the reasons how to do it, or learn the
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: process how to do it, and then the rest will
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: just work itself out.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: Oh. Like I said, at the outside, I mean, you're
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: the perfect You're the perfect person to be doing this.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: You know, you have the physique, you have the understanding,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: you have the accolades. You're a handsome dude, you're jacked,
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: you know, your your photogenic, like you've got you have
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: all the qualities to be able to penetrate that sector
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: of the population and really shift culture in a huge way.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: Like I think it's exciting.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: It's it's really exciting. And that's kind of where it's
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: a big responsibility to help to kind of be that
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: link or that bridge between mainstream and subculture. But I'm
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: willing to give it a try and to take it on.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: And you know it's something you mentioned muscle and Fitness.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how did how did that cover come together for you? Man?
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: I don't even know. I don't even know. Like I
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: had shot for muscling fitness before after I became pro,
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: and I was like fuck yeah, like I'm gonna be
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: in musclim fitness. Like it was right after I went pro,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: like the week after, and I did this like eight
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: hour shoot and with one of the best fitness photographers
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: in the game. And it was like an agency that
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: contacted me to do the shoot and they were like, yeah,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: we like your look. Would you be interested? I was like, hell, yeah,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: I will be. So I did the shoot like three months,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: four months later, the issue comes out and I'm like, dude,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna be in it, Like there's gonna be pictures
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: of me in Muslim Fitness and you know, maybe they'll
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: talk about me being vegan or something. I open up
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: the article, not even my name was mentioned, like they
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: didn't even give me credit for for my name, and
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: I was like, damn, they just.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: Used you for a time.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: I was just like a stock photo, like it was
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: like a whole program. Like it was like it was
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: like a seven page spread. So I was like all
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: over this this edition and not even like one mention
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: of my name at le they gave they gave the
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: hairdresser credit, but they didn't give me credit. And I
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: was like happy. But like I had people messaging me
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: like hey, they don't mention your name or anything, and
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: I was like, well, it's me. You know you can
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: see me. It's me, and uh So that happened in
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, and then ironically some but he contacted me
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: from Muscle and Fitness again and we're like, hey, we
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 2: know you did a shoot with this guy to sixteen,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: wondering if you'd be interested in doing another shoot, like
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 2: as a model for a program. That was, you know,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: they designed, and I was like, yeah, of course, I'd
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 2: love to. I was like talking with the editor and
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: I was like, you know, I would also like to
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: talk about this thing that I have going on here,
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 2: and you know, I'm like one of the only I'm
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: the only male IFBB professional bodybuilder in my division and
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of helping carry the torch to show people
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: what's possible without eating meat. I'd love to talk about that.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: And he was like, ah, yeah, let me let me
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: see what my editor in chief says. Turns out the
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: editor in chief or somebody up there was vegan and
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: they're like, run it really a fitness Yeah, they were
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: like run it. So the guy calls me and we
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: do like a pretty long interview over the phone. Didn't
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: think anything of it. I thought I was gonna be
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: like a little sub article or something. And then the
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: day comes with a photo shoot and again we shoot
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: for like nine ten hours. It's grueling to do one
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: of those photo shoots. I don't know how many you've done,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: but I'm like, oh man, it's.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: Not I've done. I've done. Let me count zero bodybuilding.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you this. It's it's exactly.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: But here's one thing I will I will tell a
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: funny story like I have. I have shot with photographers
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: that have shot bodybuilders, like that have shot for muscle
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: and fitness, and I've said to so, so tell me
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: how that works, you know, and they go through the
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: whole thing like here you got to like, you know,
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: flex your stomach and like exhale all your ara and
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: then like you know, there's a whole thing to like
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: make you look super epic, right.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean we spent we spent an hour
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: at least setting up lighting. Right, He's like, stand there, shadows, Yeah,
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: just stand there. And then he's like, you know, hold
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: the weight. He's like, stop when you get down and
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: really show me some effort. Cool takes like ten photos.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: You do it again and he looks at the he
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: looks at the screen. He's like, nah, I got to
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: do it again. Your hair's your hairs off. So you
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: do it again, do it again, do it again and again.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: Next thing, you know, fifty pounds feels like three hundred pounds.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: And you're like and then on top of that, you
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: have to keep like a you know, somewhat of a
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: decent face and contract muscles and be very conscious of
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: everything that's.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: Making sure that every muscle you have is flexing.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so do that for eight hours, for ten
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: different exercises, of fifteen different exercises. And at the shoot,
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: he was like, oh, we're going to do a cover
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: try and I was like what's that and he's like, Oh,
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: we're going to try and shoot, like maybe they'll take
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: it for a cover. I was like, okay, but we'll
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 2: go ahead and do it. So we shot for the
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 2: cover and that was that. That was that. It was
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 2: like a week before I did the Armored Classic in March,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: and I was really happy with the photo shoot because
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: I was seeing the pictures and I was like, oh,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: it's awesome, it looks great. And that was the last
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: thing I heard, and he was like, yeah, the addition
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: will probably come out, like, you know, a couple of
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: months later, and you know, his luck would have it.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: I was just sitting on the couch one morning and
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: a friend of mine, another pro bodybuilder, sends me a
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: DM and it's a it's the cover of this Muscle
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 2: and Fitness is It's me on the cover and I'm like,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: where did you get this? And he's like dude, I
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: just got an email from them talking about how musclim
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: Fitness is merging with another magazine company, and you were
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: on the cover. And I was like again that sense
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: of like holy crap, like what just happened. I had
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: no notification whatsoever. They didn't tell me, never eve And
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: after that I was just like completely awestruck and didn't
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 2: believe it was real, Like it's still surreal to me
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: to and and on the front page it says something
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: about Mimi Delgado Vegan bodybuilding tips or something like that.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: So even mentioned veganism on the.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: Cover of Yeah, that's a paradigm shift. That's like a
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: cultural moment.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: It's a huge, man, And like, I don't know, I
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 2: didn't do the research and go back to all their
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: covers and and everything, and I don't know if there's
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: been a vegan athlete on it before, but just for
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: them to even mention the fact that you know the
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: word vegan on the cover is a huge win for
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: the entire vegan movement. And then I get I finally
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: get my hands on a copy. I open it up.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 2: There's a ten page spread. First page says Meatless muscle,
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 2: and it's got like a cow with like an X
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: through it. I talked about my whole story and how
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 2: I've never eaten meat and how you don't need meat
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: to build muscle and I'm a pro bodybuilder, and just
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: go through my whole story what we just talked about.
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: And it was just such a yeah, such a like
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: a fork in the world, like a shift, like man
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: if if musclim fitness is catching on, this is huge.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: Did it change things for you or what was the
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: reaction to that article?
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: So the reaction was really positive online. I asked all
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 2: my followers to like, go buy a copy first, because
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: I understand how capitalism works. You know, if that copy
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: sells more than the arrest of the copies, chances are
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 2: they'll feature another vegan on the cover in the future,
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: or if we request more information on vegan athletes, then
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: they'll feature them because there's a demand for it. So
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: I convinced all my followers, say, go buy a copy,
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: take a picture with it, tag me, tag musclim fitness,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: let them know that we as a movement support each
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: other and we want it. And it was it was overwhelming,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: how many photos, dms everything I got from that cool
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: and and since then they translated it into different languages
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: as well, So it's been like I think right now,
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: it's in Germany as the cover, it's in France, it's
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: in Turkey, it's in Japan, all these different countries, and
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: it's the same article just translated. So like the whole
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: world got exposure to the possibilities of a vegan diet.
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: That's amazing, man, super cool. Well, let's uh, let's bust
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: a few myths here, Like I'm interested in how your
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: nutrition has evolved and how it stands in contrast to
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: kind of conventional wisdom about what a bodybuilder should eat, right,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: and kind of where you started and how it's morphed
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: over time into whatever it is now.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So the nutrition program that I originally started on
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: was really reliant on kind of processed alternative meats, yeah,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 2: alternative meats, and over the last like year, maybe year
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: and a half, I kind of started, you know, eliminating
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: those and introducing more whole foods, more less processed, high
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: protein foods like tofu and tempe at ammy some I
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: don't do satan just because I don't know it gives
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: me heartburn, and then plant based protein shakes a lot
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 2: of beans, a lot of.
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: Less specific type that you like or for what for
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: the protein powders.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sponsored by a brand right now and I
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: like it, And yeah there's many out there, Like I
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: don't want this to be a plug, but like there's
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: just many other plant based alternatives out there. For I
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: mean that you can up to too easily and has
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 2: just as much protein, probably got a little bit better
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: digestibility from like a comfort level. So a lot of
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: people deal with that same discomfort that I had when
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: they drink wigh protein shakes, and a lot of people
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: don't experience that when they go to a plant based shake.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: Right, And what is the relationship to protein in general?
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: And how has that kind of evolved for you? Like
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: what is what's the conventional wisdom? Where did you start
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: with it? Where are you at with it now? Like
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: really specifically, because this is I mean it's like number
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: one the protein question, right, Like we got to answer
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: this question.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I'd be glad to. So Originally I
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: was one of those sheeple thinking that, you know, you
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 2: had to consume more protein and that would equate to
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: more muscle, more gains. Then I realized that you know,
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: everything I read from like a clinical study point of view,
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: not necessarily bodybuilding dot Com. Nothing against them, they have
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: a lot of great information read from. Like a lot
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 2: of other influencers or bodybuilders, they go with like the
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: more is better approach. So you know, two grams two
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: to three grams sometime every pound for every pound of weight.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: So if I was one hundred and eighty pounds, I
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 2: would need three hundred and sixty grams of protein, you know,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: at least, So that's a lot for a vegan. That's
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: a that's a lot, a lot, because you know, to
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: get that much protein through plants, you gotta eat a
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 2: lot of volume. So I started looking at it and
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: just like it didn't make sense to me. I was
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 2: like everything I read said like there was like an
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: optimal point and anything above that didn't really work to
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: your benefit. You know, you might have extra calories, but
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: your body kind of just like urinates the extra nitrogen
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: and you can't really use it. Like there's a limiting
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: factor there. So I go buy lean body mass. So
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: just because somebody's two hundred pounds doesn't need to you
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 2: don't need to consider them two hundred pounds of muscle.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 2: You know, we have body fat, so you don't need
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: to feed the body fat. You need to feed the muscle.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: So I always go by I calculate my bean body mass,
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 2: which is your total mass minus your body fat percentage.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 2: So if I weighed two hundred pounds and I was
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 2: ten percent body fat, then I would my lean body
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 2: mass would be one hundred and eighty one hundred eighty grams.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 2: So then there's even another fraction that is like zero
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 2: point eight two point nine times that, And that's the
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 2: number that I go by.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: Right, which is that's really the USDA recommendation, right or
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: it's like point seven grams per kilogram I think is
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: what they recommend.
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so I'm not sure exactly what it translates
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: to in kilograms. I always go buy pounds, right, me too.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately we're American. I get this asking this question asks
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: so much online and I give them the answer in
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: pounds and they're like, well, okay, I guess I'll go
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: convert it. But all right, so so so I'll just
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: put it like flat out, like I weigh one hundred
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 2: and eighty pounds right now, I keep my protein at
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 2: like one hundred and fifty grams. Whether I'm bulking treading
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty still maybe yeah, maybe one hundred
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: and like sixty, like somewhere around there.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: So that's a typical bodybuilder is taking in about twice that.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no more than twice that, because I go by
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 2: lean body mass, right, So a lot of people calculated
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: by just total mass.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: And how did you arrive at that? And why have
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: you decided that that's what's optimal for you?
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 2: So there's a clinical study out there that references I
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: don't know the reference, the exact reference, but there's quite
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: a few out there that show that, you know, after
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: a certain point, it doesn't benefit you anymore. So I
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: figured why not like find out where that Like, I'll
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 2: use that as a reference and just kind of find
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 2: out what works best for me. So, like I said,
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 2: IDD like a lot of data analysis, tracking and optimization.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: So there's like certain body scans you can do to
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: track like how much your total mass is and how
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 2: much of that is muscle mass. So when you're in
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 2: a deficit, like a chloric deficit, trying to lead up
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: to a show means you have to eat less than
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: what your maintenance calories are, So you're going to lose weight,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: So you want to do that as optimal as possible
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 2: because you don't want to sacrifice the hard earned muscle
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: that you just spent the off season trying to gain.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: So it doesn't make sense to build up two pounds
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: of muscle just to lose two pounds of muscle before
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: a show. So there's there's a balance point there that
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: you have to kind of hover around. And like different
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 2: scans like DEXA scans will tell you how much muscle
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: mass you have in body scans measures like resistance muscle
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: impedance or impedance, and will translate that to how much
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: muscle mass you have on your body, what your bone
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: density is. So I track that and basically, if I'm
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 2: losing more muscle than what I want as I'm cutting
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: down for a show, I'll kind of like increase my
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: protein a little bit because that's not the goal, Like
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 2: I want to maintain that muscle and like hold onto
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 2: it and lose the body fat. So I just kind
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: of use that as kind of like nutrition is different
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 2: for everybody. I can tell you exactly my number, somebody
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: out there can go follow it. They won't see the
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: same results because everybody responds differently. So that's kind of
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 2: where I just use, you know, trial and error.
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: Right, gotcha? And what is the relationship between sourcing your
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: protein from whole foods versus supplements.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 2: Supplements are always going to be a little bit more processed,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: so different doctors out there, to Colin Campbell for one
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 2: of them, will tell you that, you know, when it's
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: more processed and isolated. In its isolated form, your body
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily absorb it as efficiently. So it's always better
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 2: to get the whole food source because it contains other
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 2: chemicals that will help your body absorb that vitamin or
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: mineral or whatever. So that's kind of where it led
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 2: me to, maybe I'll just go more whole food plant
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 2: based and see if I see a difference, and it's
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 2: the same. So I just kind of shifted all my
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: like like more alternative meat style of nutrition to more
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 2: whole food plant based. So that just means that I
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 2: have to eat more carbs, more beans, more lentils, all
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 2: this stuff that I love, eating a little bit more
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 2: tofu and tempe which I love as well, and I
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 2: see the same results.
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: Right, And you're in a sport that is terrified of carbs,
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: so what's the what's the relationship to carbs and how
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: do you you know, think about the low carb, no
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: carb craze and you know how there's a lot of
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: talk about ketogenic diets and all different kinds of new
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: ways of avoiding carbohydrates in your diet as a means
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: of optimizing performance.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean just from like a basic nutrition point
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 2: of view, Like carbs are our energy source, right, so
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 2: it doesn't really make sense to cut those all out.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 2: There are times when you can manipulate carbs to your advantage,
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: but you don't have to, Like you don't have to
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 2: cut out carbs like very much. So people in the
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 2: finis industry are carbophobic, so they refuse it like anything
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: else has carbs in it, They're like, ah, I can't
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 2: touch it. And anything has protein in it, they're like, oh,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: I give me more. So my approach is like, first,
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: like optimize how much protein you need? Right, figure that
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 2: out first. And most people don't even have any clue.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 2: They say, you're vegan, but what about like where do
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 2: you get your protein? How do you get enough protein?
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: And I ask them like how much do I need?
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 2: And they're like how do you find out how much?
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: You need protein.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how would you optimize that for yourself? Like, if
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: someone's listening to this, they're fit, they go to the gym, whatever, Like,
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: how would they figure that out?
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I just kind of explained it. So, like the
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 2: figure out your total mass, figure out your body fat
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: percentage or an estimated body fat percentage, calculate your lean
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 2: body mass, and then get about point eight to point
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 2: nine times that. So if you weigh you know, if
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 2: you have one hundred pounds of lean body mass, get
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: about eighty to ninety grams of protein, and just kind
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: of use that as like a reference. Like it's the
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: it's not the perfect solution, but you just.
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: Replay around like within that scale and see what works
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: best for you.
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And then the next thing you can do
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 2: is calculate your fat percentage. So normally I get about
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe twenty twenty five percent of calories
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: from fat, and then the rest I just leave to carbs.
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: So that leaves me with like fifty to sixty percent
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 2: of my diet comes from carbs.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: And when you say car I mean carbs can be anything, right.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: Carbs can be coca cola and potato chips, right, so
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: when you say carbs, you're talking about what specifically I'm
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: talking about.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: Like whole food carbs, not highly processed in sugary white
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: bread or like I stay away from all that. I
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: don't even include oil into my diet. Eat a pretty
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: clean dieat, a lot of potatoes, a lot of beans, lentils, legomes, rice, oatmeal, cereals, granola,
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: all those things contain carbs. I a lot a lot
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: of green veggies, like a lot like people like you
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: can only see my fridge. I go through like a
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 2: ten ounce bag of shredded cabbage, Like I eat like
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 2: three or four of those a day, just because like
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 2: I use that as like a foundation for like my
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 2: big boota bowles that I make. So I eat quite
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 2: a bit of like green veggies too. So you're getting
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: a lot of micro nutrients which help your body recover quicker.
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: So the carbs that you're consuming your whole food plant based,
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: and they contain other additional properties that help you perform better. Right,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: And what about supplements other than protein? So my supplement
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 2: protocol is pretty straightforward. I'm a skeptic when it comes
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 2: to a lot of supplements. I don't believe that people
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: put too much trust in marketing and not enough investigation
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 2: in the evidence.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a multi billion dollar industry that is completely unregulated. Yeah,
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: and praise on people's fears and lack of understanding and knowledge.
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: I think that's kind of how we came to this point,
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 2: right of like the protein myth and the carbophobia and
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 2: all these things. So it's like the more they can
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: push something for you to consume or to buy, then
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 2: the better it is for them. But they're not necessarily
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 2: looking out for your health. They're looking out for their pockets.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 2: So I'm a big skeptic when it comes to anything.
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 2: I'll just like you tell me something, I'll take it
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 2: at face value. Then I'll go take a look and
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 2: see what I can find for myself. Like trust but
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 2: verify essentially, And so that it was like a huge
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: engineering thing that everybody used to say, trust but verify,
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 2: like measure twice and cut one on right, that kind
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: of thing. So same thing goes with supplements. There are
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 2: certain supplements out there that work, some that are complete
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: phony bullshit. You're just buying expensive urine. As a doctor
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 2: con would say, you know, you ingest all the supplements
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 2: and all you're doing is pissing it out. And so
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 2: I take protein, I'll take bcas, I'll take vitamin.
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: D three bcas in addition to protein. Yeah, and alone,
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: what are those doing for you?
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 2: So basically, bcas, for those that are listening, are like
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 2: essential amino acids. So some of them we get from
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 2: our diet, some of them we have to consume through food.
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 2: And if you take bcas during your workout, you can
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 2: prevent like if you completely deplete yourself from your energy source.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 2: So normally it happens like I don't know different, depends
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 2: on your intensity, but if you run out of fuel,
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: you'll start pulling energy from elsewhere. So most of the
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 2: time that comes from muscle. So if you have bcas
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 2: in your system when you work out or when you
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 2: do something that requires a lot of endurance, then it
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: can prevent that a little bit. So that's why I
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 2: take bcas, not necessarily because I'm trying to buid muscle.
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: I'm just trying to maintain what I already have with that.
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 2: And I'll take D three, which I think everybody should
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: take D three. If you go get a blood test,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 2: you're probably a little bit deficient in D three.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: People probably the majority of people are vitamin D deficient.
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, same thing with B twelve, So I take B
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 2: twelve as well, which we can't really get in a
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 2: lot of large quantity from plant foods. And then I
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 2: take D H A and E P A. So that's
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 2: more of your long long chain fatty acids.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: Right, And are those from like an algae source?
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're They're derived from algae. So those are
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 2: like my four or five main things. I take creatine
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: like every now and then. Creatines another like synthesized supplement
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: doesn't come from animals. It's very easily available as cheap,
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: and the science backs up its claims. I mean, don't
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: expect to be mister Olympia by taking creatine, but it
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 2: does work, so it'll help with performance, help with endurance, strength, explosiveness,
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 2: that type of thing. So I'll take it occasionally creatine.
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's there a harm to taking that long term.
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 2: Honestly, I don't know. I think everything in moderation. That's
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 2: like the key when you do anything, it's like you
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: don't want to rely on anything. It's like even like
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: I'll go up, like I'll go like a week or
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 2: so without taking any protein shakes. I'll take a look
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 2: at my diet and see what I can include that
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 2: I have been eating that I've been getting from, like
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: a multi vitamin, you know. So it's like it's it's
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 2: about balance.
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: Right are you doing? Do you do regular blood work? Yeah?
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do. I do. So I think that's another
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: thing that most people don't do. They they say that,
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: you know, they feel crappy, and they blame it on
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 2: all these other factors, but they don't necessarily know why
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 2: they're feeling crappy, and getting blood work is one of
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: the most easy ways to identify what's wrong, what's going on?
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So we referenced earlier that the more successful
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: you get in every kind of hurdle that you overcome,
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: you know, in your mind, makes you makes you more
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: bulletproof to you know, the voice of dissent. But also
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: there's going to be the people who are like, yeah,
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: but yeah, but yeah, but right. So I can't let
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: you go without asking about the steroids because you're in
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: a culture in which that is that's look, it's ubiquitous, right,
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: So I'm sure there are people out there like, well,
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: he's not eating animal products, but he's but he's doing steroids? Right,
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: So where do you come down on all of this?
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's a lot of people say that, there's
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 2: videos about it, There's like I mean, you name it,
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 2: there's articles, there's like it's the internet, right, remember that?
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 2: So just remember that everything on the internet isn't true.
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: You're right, and you don't know who wrote it. So
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 2: it's it's a sad truth that society has set the
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 2: bar so low about what's possible and what's not So
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: I get accused of it daily, you know. I even
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: I think I blocked the word on my Instagram because
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 2: it's just like every other comment was that, and I
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 2: was like, I'm sick of hearing it. You know, I'm
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: not here to defend myself to anybody. I'm here to
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 2: talk about the benefits of this diet, you know what
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: I mean. Like, if you don't believe me, it's not
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 2: my job to convince to then I'll just keep on
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: living my life and talking about what I want to
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 2: talk about. But the issue there is that people have
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 2: set the bar so low about what's possible and what's
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 2: not possible naturally, and they think that they are doing
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 2: like justice by accusing somebody of taking steroids, And don't
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 2: get me wrong, a lot of guys do a lot
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: of guys that are listening probably don't know that a
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: lot of guys they know are doing steroids, because just
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 2: because you do steroids doesn't mean that you're going to
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 2: blow up. It's always about the hard work, it's always
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 2: about the diet, it's always about sacrifice and effort, right, supplementation,
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: all this other crap, it accounts for this much. If
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 2: you don't have this huge pyramid, you can't get like,
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: this is the amount that supplements accounts for. So that
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: bar has been set so low, and people are so
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 2: easily accusing other people of doing it that it perpetuates
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 2: that thought. And the person below that reading saying like, oh, yeah,
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: you only got this way because of steroid's Like now on,
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 2: that person thinks that that is the only way that
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: you can get that way, but they've never tried it.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 2: They don't know their limitations. Like how could you possibly
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 2: know your limitations if you never pushed yourself to your
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 2: limitations and know how far that bar really is. And
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 2: I'm the type of guy that, like, I pride myself
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: on work. I pride myself on work ethic I pride
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: myself on optimizing things. It's like, I'm very analytical, data driven,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 2: So I find out what works and I apply it.
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 2: And there's so much room for growth when you optimize
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 2: your nutrition and you optimize your your exercise proto like
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 2: your exercise programs. So many people don't do that. They
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 2: think that they're going to take a magic pill, take
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 2: a magic juice or whatever, and they can get there
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 2: without doing all the hard work that comes before it.
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: So my answer is like, it's really easy to judge
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 2: somebody based off of a photo or one picture. You
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: don't know me. You know, you don't know where I
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 2: come from. You could look at me and never ever
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 2: assume that I'm a white Argentinian Hindu, right Like, you
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 2: don't know my story. So how could somebody possibly know
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 2: someone from one photo or one video when ninety nine
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: percent of the time that person doesn't even know who
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: they are. Right. So it's like I've accepted it, like
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: I've just come to terms with it. The argument will
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 2: never win. Doesn't matter what I do, I'll never convince anybody.
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 2: But it's just a sad reality that these people think
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: it's impossible, but they've already exposed the limitations of their
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 2: own mindset because they don't believe it's possible for them,
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 2: so it definitely can't be possible for anybody else.
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: Well, it's certainly more comfortable to dismiss someone like yourself
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: as a cheater, because then it makes it easier for
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: you to feel okay about not putting yourself out there,
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, and that's unfortunately a
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: human quality.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: It is, Yeah, And you know, I think it's it's
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: a weird thing because you are in a sport where
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: like it's rife with that, and you see these guys
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: that have these physiques that you just know it's just
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: it's perhaps not physically possible for them to look that
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: way without some kind of enhancement. I see pictures of you,
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: and you look unbelievable, but it's not like otherworldly, Like
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: it looks like it's within the realm of possibility, you
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like it's different from some of
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: those other guys. So you know, I believe you. I
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: take you with face value with that, and I trust
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: that you're telling me the truth. And I appreciate your
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: willingness to talk about it because it's got to be
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: a sensitive thing for you, especially when you make this
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: decision to put yourself out on social media and you
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: have this cause that you believe in and you're trying
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: to kind of expand people's consciousness and awareness, and then
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: you know you have to be on the receiving end
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: of that. But I guess that's Look, it just goes
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: with the territory, Like you're part of this world and
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: that's just part of it as well.
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 2: It's understandable too, Like I don't get mad. I used
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: to get mad because I was like, hey, come on,
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 2: like I did it the right way, Like you're trying
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 2: to detract or slander my name or say that it's
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 2: like I'm a cheater or whatever else. And like nothing
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 2: against guys who do it. I know so many guys
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 2: who do it and the great people. And it's just
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 2: like me and my personal values is like I don't
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: want to sacrifice my long term health for short term goals,
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 2: short term benefits, Like that's logically one of the reasons
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 2: why I'm vegan, you know, because I'm looking ahead to
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 2: the future, like I want to live a long, healthy life,
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 2: but then spend time with my grandchildren, have like be
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: able to be active when I'm that age and not
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 2: be relying on all kind of prescriptions and everything.
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, who's that guy? The bodybuilder YouTuber guy that
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: then you just pass away? Rich Piana Piano, Like, I
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: don't know much about that story, but he died of
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: a heart attack or something like that or heartfelt was
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: it drugs or was it I don't know.
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I met him a couple of times
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 2: and he was actually like a really cool guy, like
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 2: nothing against anything his personal choices or his personal choices.
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know exactly what happened there, but you can't
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 2: help but wonder if that played a part, you know,
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 2: to it. So, like I said, if there's any guys
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 2: out there that are considering do it, just know that
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 2: there's so much more room for you to optimize and
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 2: different avenues like and approaches you haven't tried yet, So
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 2: that just don't go resort to that, you know, because
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 2: you've worked out for a week and you didn't see
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 2: any results, like I've been working out for like ten years,
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 2: you know, and you only see you only have met
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 2: me in my path in life at this moment, but
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 2: you didn't see me like way back when when I
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 2: was just like you, you know, it takes time. But
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 2: anything that's like worth it takes time. And if you're
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 2: passionate about it, you can sustain it. You know, you
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 2: can get there. Just take it's how bad do you
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 2: want it? Most people want it, but they don't want
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 2: to give up drinking. You know, they say, oh, I
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 2: work out, I go to the gym, I eat right,
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 2: But then you take a diet of like a deeper look,
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 2: and they're out partying every weekend.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 2: They they're not willing to put into work. So, right,
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 2: how are your parents doing with all this?
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: Like where are they? They're not a part they're not
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: on the commune.
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 2: Anymore, right, No, they don't live. Actually they're going back.
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 2: So so they they live in New Orleans, right across
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 2: the street from the Temple in New Orleans. Yeah, and
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 2: they actually bought land back in Mississippi.
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: So they're going back.
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 2: They're going back.
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they went They went full circle too, because
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 2: then they like left it and now they're like getting older,
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 2: they want to go back and just live like a
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 2: peaceful life, minimalistic and just yeah.
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: Just and what do they think of this? This whole world?
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 2: That you're in They they they all they're like my
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 2: number one fan. You know. They don't understand it, as
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 2: I don't expect them to. I try to keep my
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 2: mom in the loop as much as possible, and she's
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 2: all like, oh, it's so great, honey, Like you're doing
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 2: so many amazing things, and I love her for it,
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 2: Like she doesn't have to know, like I'll I just
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 2: need her support and that's the only thing I need.
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 2: But they embrace it, and they're very proud of who
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 2: I am. And especially now the fact that I'm like
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 2: being more vocal about my background, because that's something that
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 2: they really wanted to instill in me. So now the
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: fact that I'm talking about it more openly on the
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 2: show like this, they're just going to eat it up.
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: And it's cool how you've taken what you into it.
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: It like what you learned as a young person, you know,
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: as part of that community, and made it your own
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: in a different way, and now you're translating it or
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: sort of conveying the ethos, like the spirit of all
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: of those values are being channeled in a modern way
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: that can connect with a young audience. It's not couched
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: in Hinduism or Hymsa or any of these things. It's
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: couched in things that are relatable to you. An eighteen
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: year old kid who just wants to go to the
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: gym and get stronger and didn't realize when he clicked
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: on your video or looked at your Instagram that he's
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: also going to get plasted with the spiritual message, you
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. But you do it in a
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: very graceful, like roundabout way where it doesn't it doesn't
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: feel like that that's what's happening. But you're kind of
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: elevating awareness while you're providing these people with what they
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: think they want on a surface level.
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 2: If that makes sense, you are one hundred percent right.
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 2: Like I'm very I guess mindful of how I talk
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 2: about certain things, especially when it comes to spirituality, comes
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 2: to any ethical conversation, anything about politics. I mean, they're
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 2: all very touchy subjects for people. So I wanted to
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 2: appeal to the younger generation and to develop a new
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 2: sense of consciousness because I feel like certain things come
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 2: in different phases.
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 2: If you develop the consciousness first, like I had, then
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 2: it's very easy to follow this lifestyle. But if you
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 2: come into it for another reason, maybe the more vanity perspective.
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 2: Then eventually those thoughts kind of come over time.
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: So what do you mean, like we're we're all we're
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: doing this well, we're.
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 2: All connected with our actions and our thoughts, right, one
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 2: directly affects the other. So initially people might think that, hey,
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 2: I need meat. I need it to look good. That's
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 2: just the way it is, right, I need to I
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 2: don't like killing animals and stuff like that, but it's
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 2: just the way it is. So then I keep living
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 2: that life. But if you come into it and just say, hey,
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 2: I'll just change my actions. I will just stop eating
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 2: meat just to look good, then the thoughts start to
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 2: develop because they're directly related to each other and say
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 2: maybe I didn't need it, and wait a minute, why
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 2: is it this way? And they they develop a new
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 2: sense of consciousness. And then like the I got funny stories,
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 2: like some of these guys that you would never ever,
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 2: ever in a million years consider them to be, like ever,
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 2: try going vegan. Some of those guys are like posting
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 2: like animal rights videos and stuff nowadays.
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: So it's like like guys back in from the gym
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: and Bakersfield.
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a couple of them, A couple of them. Yeah,
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 2: so it's like wow, Like I never pushed that on anybody,
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 2: you know, I just pushed the health message just because
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's the foot in the door that's
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 2: most like a Calmon denominator across the board that people
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 2: want to look better and feel better. This is your way, Like,
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 2: this is an approach. You know, may becoming trendy now
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 2: it's been around for a while, but uh or it
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: may become more mainstream now, but it's been around for
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 2: a long time. So if you try it, you know,
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 2: maybe the consciousness will develop over time. And I'm not
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 2: saying that people aren't conscious. I'm just saying they don't
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 2: know what they don't know.
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: What do you think is the biggest myth or or
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: or misunderstanding about you and about bodybuilding in general based
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: upon what you've learned?
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 2: Oh man, I can. I can be a pretty misunderstood
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 2: person from like.
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: The correct Well, we talked about the steroid thing, but yeah,
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: there's other things.
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, like I still expect that after this episode,
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 2: and I mean, as I've done many interviews and stuff,
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 2: and like I'll expect it till the day I stop
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 2: doing this. But I don't know. I mean, it goes
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 2: by anything. Just maybe just don't judge a book by
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 2: its cover, you know, like I may come across as
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 2: a person that's vain or post shirtless photos and whatever whatever,
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 2: But it's all a strategy to get here, to read
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 2: a caption to maybe change your life, to help you,
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 2: you know. So it's like if you know, there's so
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 2: many people out there that are willing to judge other people,
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 2: and it's just like I come from a big place
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 2: of judgment, so it's really easy for me to look
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 2: past it and deflect it and just kind of understand
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 2: that that's how people are.
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: They like, you have a lifetime of the yeah, being judged. Yeah,
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: so this is nothing new.
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's almost like I was groomed for this,
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 2: you know, to be like stand strong and my beliefs
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 2: and everything and be a beacon of light for people
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 2: and just be willing to take the shots. You know.
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 2: But it's about understanding people as well, and just understanding
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 2: that people judge something they don't know, same way that
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 2: I was judge when I was a little kid and
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 2: the way I was raised. And it's okay, you know,
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 2: you just have to approach them and help them understand.
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 2: So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 2: to convince anybody to go vegan, like because I want
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 2: them to go vegan or anything like that. It's like,
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 2: I'm just trying to help you, Like I just want
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 2: you to feel as good as I feel, you know,
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 2: and if you know, if you put all this stuff
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 2: aside as ego and these like paradigms, then maybe you
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 2: can experience a different version of life that you never anticipated.
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 2: So it's just where I'm at.
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: Yeahfully said man, I think that's a good place to
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: wrap it up. How much are you how much are
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: you training right now?
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 2: I trained daily, like I said, that's my meditation.
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: But I heard you say somewhere like, oh, it's forty
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: five minutes in the gym right, Like I have this decision.
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: Like I used to live on Marine Street around the
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: corner from gold Shym and I would go to gold
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: Shim and then you know, over I've lived in Los
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: Angeles twenty years and every blue moon all pop in
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: over there, and it's like the same guys from nine
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: to five. It is the same people. They've been going
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: there for thirty years. And they look the same and
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: they're literally it's like they check in in the morning
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: and they're they're they're there like all day long. Yeah,
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: the same like sort of Asian bodybuilder crew, female bodybuilders
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: and the like. I always say, it's like a mix
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: between like a prison yard and a porn set. Yeah,
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: it's weird, you know. But then when I heard you say, like, look,
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: if you can't get it done in forty five minutes,
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: like you're not focused.
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 2: Essentially, It's what it is. Like even when I was
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 2: working as an engineer, people thought I was a professional
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 2: bodybuilder full time. They had no idea, you know, Like
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 2: I talk about that for that reason. Is that like yeah,
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 2: but it's easy because you have all the time in
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 2: the world. Has been three hours in the gym. I
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 2: don't have that because I have a job and all
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 2: this stuff. And I was like, wait, wait a minute,
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 2: Like I was an engineer for you know, five years,
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 2: and I lived that same lifestyle and all you need
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 2: is an hour a day, you know, Like that is
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 2: about like it's not like like endurance training. I guess
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 2: like where you have to go, Like like more time
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 2: equals so much better, you know what I'm saying like
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 2: there's a certain limit there where you can't break down anymore.
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 2: You just you become useless at that point. So there's
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 2: no point in working out two hours when you know
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 2: an hour and a half of it you're on your phone, bullshitting,
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 2: talking to people and just kind of spinning your wheels.
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 2: Like that's the reason why you're not seeing results, bro,
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 2: Like cause you talk all day. You know, if you
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 2: go in there with forty five minutes to an hour
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 2: and really put in the work, you will walk out
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 2: of there, like crawl out of there. Like that's why.
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 2: Like spend a day with like your gym buddy and
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 2: then spend a day with me, or spend a day
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 2: with another professional bodybuilder, and you'll understand why they look
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 2: that way. You know, people think that just by being
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 2: in the gym you're going to get results.
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: There's a whole industry built upon that idea.
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 2: Very much so, very much so. So you only need
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 2: an hour max. Yeah, you know, but then think about this,
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 2: is that you're outside of the gym twenty three hours.
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 2: Which one do you think holds more weight for building muscle?
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 2: You know, like, yeah, you break down in the gym,
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 2: but you build outside of the gym. Your daily habits
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 2: outside of the gym hold way more value than what
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 2: you do inside of the gym. So if you can
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 2: get your diet right, you get your daily habits right,
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 2: get everything kind of just your ducts in a row,
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 2: then the results will really start to come in. So
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 2: that's when I'm talking about the extra growth and different
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 2: aspects of people's lives.
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: And where are you on the whole, like low weight,
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: high rep, low rep high weight, Like are you like
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 1: a how does all that work? Like I don't know
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: anything about that stuff.
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 2: Oh man, there's so many different there's different theories, right, Like,
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, you talk to one person, it's one thing.
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 2: You talk to another person it's another thing. I'm a
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 2: big believer in periodization training. So you follow something for
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 2: an extended amount of time, eventually you'll plateau because your
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 2: body's so adaptive and it responds like more efficiently next time.
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: You do it, diminishing returns. So you gotta shake it up.
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 2: You got to shake it up. So I follow the
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: for about four weeks at a time, and sometimes I'll
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 2: go in and do a completely new set of training
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 2: routines just to kind of help create that shock value
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: to my body, so it'll help stimulate it to grow
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 2: in another area. Because the more you work out, the
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 2: harder it is to figure out these new ways to
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 2: stimulate your body. So sometimes I'll do high rep low weight,
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 2: sometimes I do low weight high rep or did I
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 2: say that right? Yeah, the opposite right, So heavier with
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 2: lower reps or lighter with higher reps. There's many different
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 2: people that will tell you that works. You can do
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 2: a traditional bro split, a bro splits, like a five
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 2: day workout split where you.
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: Go like chess out where you get mad at your buddy.
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 2: That's a different kind of bro split. That's a bro breakup.
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 2: That's a pro breakup, which does create bodybuilders too. So
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 2: you know your five day split would be like chest
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 2: on Monday, back on Tuesday, take a rest day, legs
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 2: on Thursday, arms on Friday. So it's like an isolation
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 2: style workout. Then you have like your upper lower crowd,
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 2: which likes to do upper body one day, lower body
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 2: the next day, take a rest date, upper body, lower body,
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 2: take a rest day. Then you have people that do
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 2: push pull, where's like you do all pushing movements, you
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 2: do chest, tricips, shoulder, it's very effect. All of them work,
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 2: all of them have their own uses. It's like I
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 2: tell people, like, same thing with nutrition. You have a toolbox,
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 2: and you have different tools for different purposes. If you
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 2: use the wrong tool for the job, you're not going
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 2: to get the right result. So same thing with keto,
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 2: Same thing with you know, the low carb thing or
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 2: a high carb thing. Like it's all like relative to
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 2: what that specific point and time is in your fitness journey, Right.
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: I like it? Man, all right, parting words. Somebody's listening
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: to this. They're like, all right, I'm motivated. I'm going
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: to the gym. Nyma, tell me what to do. What's
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: the one thing I should do? What's the one thing
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: I should eat. Everybody wants to distill it down into
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: that you know, little box that you can check. But
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: if you could impart like some sense of wisdom or
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: empowerment for somebody who's just trying to like get a
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: little bit fitter, eat a little bit healthier, perhaps believe
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: in themselves a little bit more.
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 2: So, it's a few different nuggets I got for these
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 2: this crowd. First thing is that you can't outwork a
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 2: bad diet. Remember that, get your diet in check first,
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 2: then worry about working out when you go to the gym.
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 2: Go with intention and go with a plan, have a checklist.
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 2: Just by doing the checklist, you're doing more than what
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 2: you would have done if you're just wandering around. Number
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 2: three be intentional, Yeah, exactly, walking to the gym with
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 2: intention and like you're clocking into a you're clocking into work,
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 2: Like get the work done and then worry about your
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 2: other stuff later. Number three would be focus on the
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 2: bigger picture. So many I get so many questions about
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 2: what about meal timing? What about if I eat this
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 2: in breakfast instead of lunch, or eat too many carbs
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 2: at dinner, Like, think about the big picture, Like first,
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 2: worry about how much you should be eating and just
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 2: choose a twenty four hour period and make sure you
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 2: eat that much in the day. Then break it down
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 2: and say like how Like then your next target would
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 2: be like how many grams of protein you're needing? And
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 2: they just focus on the big things, like it's like
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 2: the eighty twenty rule, Like if twenty percent of your
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 2: effort gives you eighty percent of the results, focus on that.
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 2: Don't worry about the extra the extra detail that's not
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 2: going to give you or yield the most results with
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 2: the amount of effort that you're putting in. So the
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 2: twenty percent that's going to give you the biggest results
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 2: is like I said, pix your diet. Second thing, going
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 2: to the gym with intention. Third thing would be consistency.
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 2: Just be consistent, Just be consistent. There's no secret formula.
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 2: It's not sexy though it's not, and people don't want
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 2: to hear it, but it's the reality. And you know,
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 2: there's a reason why the guy in the gym that
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 2: has been going to the gym for years, like you say,
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 2: and they look the exact same is because they've been
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 2: going to the gym and doing the same bullshit exercise
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 2: they've been doing the last ten years, and they've been
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 2: eating the same exact way they've been eating the last
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 2: ten years. You know, like they're consistent, but they're consistent
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 2: in the wrong approach. So like, fix certain problems first
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 2: and then you start to see results.
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: Climb Neimi was awesome, man, Yeah, thanks for talking to me. Beautiful,
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: super inspiring. I'm really excited for the next chapter that's
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: soon going to be unfolding. I think when Game Changers
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 1: comes out, you know it's going it's going to strike
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: a major chord and it's gonna put you in another
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: stratosphere in terms of public awareness. And it's beautiful that
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: you're carrying this mantle and trying to help people. Man,
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 1: So anything I can do to help you, I think
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: it's fantastic.
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you, man, I really do appreciate that. And I'm
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 2: ready ready for the next chapter.
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And is there a competition coming up?
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 2: There was a few this year that I kind of
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 2: started prepping for. I did three this year, back to
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 2: back to back and just kind of got I needed
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 2: to focus more on my business and everything else. So
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 2: it's like it's really tough to juggle bodybuilding prep and
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 2: traveling and speaking at events and then trying to start
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 2: up a business and do that. So decided to take
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 2: a little break.
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: Are you you have any speaking things coming up? Like
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: is that on the Vegan Fitness website or on your
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: Instagram or where ship people go to? Yeah?
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 2: Definitely my Instagram. I'm probably the most active, so you
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 2: just find it. Ne my underscore Delgado, So it's an
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 2: idea of the underscore.
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: Did somebody take your name?
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 2: No, I feel like I have a unique name. So
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 2: people always botch it. So before it was just Nemi Delgatto,
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 2: but the people were like, what am I looking at? Like,
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 2: they couldn't distinguish the first and last name started, and
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 2: so I had to put the underscore in there. And
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 2: then Veganfitness dot Com is going to be a really
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 2: exciting website for people to go. It's going to essentially
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 2: be like an online resource for anybody that is interested
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 2: in the plant based lifestyle from an evidence based perspective.
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exciting. That's very cool. Yeah, and you got
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: the Generation V podcast recently launched. Yeah, check that out. Yeah.
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 2: Generation V has been an exciting, exciting project. I like
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 2: it a lot better than YouTube and that whole platform.
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's cool. It's a you know, you can breathe,
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you get to know people, You get to really
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 2: share a story, beautiful thing.
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 2: Like, and Instagram is really instant instant gratification. Right, podcasts,
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 2: you're in their ear, you're talking. They get to know
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 2: you as a person, and I feel like that's more
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 2: convincing than a picture for sure.
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: All right, man, piece and plants, we did it. How
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: do you feel?
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 2: I feel good?
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: Man, You're good?
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I could go for another two hours.
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: All right. Yeah, we went two ten man, we rocked
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: it awesome. Thank you so much. Come back anytime and
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: talk to me Man.
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 2: Thanks Mane, appreciate you.
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 1: All right, Peace,