Latest / Age Like a Badass Mother / Ep. 90: From 400 Pounds to Plant-Based Athlete: Tim Kaufman’s Addiction Recovery & Health Transformation

Transcript

Ep. 90: From 400 Pounds to Plant-Based Athlete: Tim Kaufman’s Addiction Recovery & Health Transformation · Age Like a Badass Mother

• 0:00
  Hi friends.
• 0:00
  This week, Tim Kaufmann of Fat Man Rants shares his extraordinary transformation from drug and alcohol addiction.
• 0:08
  Morbid obesity at one point weighing over 400 pounds and barely being able to perform daily tasks like tying his own shoes to becoming a world class endurance athlete fueled by a whole food plant based diet.
• 0:22
  He exudes warmth and encouragement for anyone who thinks they can't make changes.
• 0:27
  Be sure to stay till the end to hear why Tim doesn't think it's good to focus on goals or motivation, and what you should do instead.
• 0:35
  This episode is filled with 100 lessons.
• 0:38
  I'm not even joking. He was incredible.
• 0:40
  You're going to love it.
• 0:42
  Okay, mark your calendars for Monday, March 16th at 9 a.m.
• 0:46
  Central Time.
• 0:47
  Age like a badass mother is going live from Austin during South by Southwest with a panel show live from Conscious Kitchen.
• 0:55
  Of course, you can catch the recording after, but you'll want to tune in for four women sharing their hot take of the moment.
• 1:02
  You won't want to miss this wild conversation.
• 1:04
  I'll be posting about it on social media and giving you more information and asking you to submit questions, so be sure you're following me up on Instagram and Facebook at age like a badass mother.
• 1:17
  Okay, here's Tim Kaufmann.
• 1:20
  I'm Lauren Bernick helping you make the rest of your life the best of your life.
• 1:26
  Welcome to age like a badass mother.
• 1:31
  Today I'm joined by Tim Kaufmann of Fat Man Rants.
• 1:35
  Tim story is nothing short of extraordinary.
• 1:38
  He went from drug, alcohol and fast food addiction nearly 400 pounds and barely able to handle simple daily tasks to a person who is free from addiction and now a world class athlete, a runner fueled by a whole foods plant based diet.
• 1:55
  His transformation has been featured in Runner's World.
• 1:58
  Good Morning America, Today, people, WebMD, ESPN, and other outlets.
• 2:05
  And he's the author of the powerful memoir Escape Breaking Free from a Self-made prison.
• 2:12
  Please welcome Tim Kaufman. Hello, Tim.
• 2:16
  Hey, thank you so much for having me, Lauren.
• 2:18
  And thank you for all the work you do to help people live their best life.
• 2:22
  I appreciate it.
• 2:24
  Back at you.
• 2:24
  Really.
• 2:25
  I mean, honestly, I've always known of you, but, I kind of, to surface level knew your story.
• 2:33
  But I read your memoir in preparation for for this interview.
• 2:38
  And, I mean, honestly, I kept telling my husband, like, I kept putting the book down and being like, oh, my God, now this is happening.
• 2:45
  Like, I can't believe, like, this man, you know, is doing doing a half Ironman.
• 2:50
  He couldn't even walk to the mailbox.
• 2:52
  I mean, your story is absolutely inspirational.
• 2:57
  So I appreciate that.
• 2:58
  But at the same time, my story is not, like, uncommon.
• 3:04
  And I guess my biggest message before we even get going here is this lifestyle's out there for anyone.
• 3:11
  You know, we we tend to look at these crazy stories, but there's there's so many of them and there's so many people.
• 3:18
  Like, a lot of times I almost feel guilty because, somebody will plant based and, like, you know, months later, you'll never believe it.
• 3:25
  Like, I was on insulin for 30 years, and I'm like, what?
• 3:30
  I almost feel guilty because I don't even get excited about it.
• 3:33
  But what did you think was going to happen?
• 3:34
  So I guess that's the first thing.
• 3:37
  That people need to know that this is out there for anyone.
• 3:40
  There's nothing special about me.
• 3:42
  I'm just a normal, you know, guy from all day.
• 3:46
  I didn't have willpower.
• 3:47
  I didn't have any magic, you know, prescription.
• 3:50
  I didn't do any of these crazy things.
• 3:52
  I just eat whole foods and went for a walk.
• 3:55
  You know?
• 3:56
  Oh, my gosh.
• 3:57
  Well, yeah.
• 3:57
  Let's, kind of back up. So you.
• 4:00
  I know you, you got married young to your high school sweetheart, Heather.
• 4:05
  I we also have that in common.
• 4:07
  I was also, like, got a child when I met my husband.
• 4:11
  And, just seems like she's been your your constant and your guiding light.
• 4:17
  Yeah, she's definitely more than my guiding light.
• 4:19
  You know, this sounds dramatic, and and I'm definitely not trying to be dramatic, but I would be dead without her, like, 100%.
• 4:27
  I would have been dead without her.
• 4:28
  So, she's she's walk beside me.
• 4:31
  She's walked in front of me to lead me, and she's walked behind me to support me.
• 4:35
  She's just like, she's always there.
• 4:37
  So, she's my everything. Really?
• 4:40
  Yeah, I can tell that. I could tell.
• 4:43
  So you have, a condition called EDS.
• 4:47
  Can you tell us about that?
• 4:48
  And that's kind of what kicked this.
• 4:49
  Your life. Getting off balance, right?
• 4:54
  Yeah, well, that and stupid mistakes I even made before that, but we didn't.
• 4:58
  We're not going back that far.
• 4:59
  So, so, yeah, I so I grew up on a farm.
• 5:04
  I kind of live in a very rural place here in old in New York.
• 5:08
  It's between, say, Rochester and Buffalo.
• 5:11
  So most people will know where that is.
• 5:13
  Are you a bills fan?
• 5:15
  Well, I try not to be, but I don't have a choice.
• 5:17
  Like the bills broke my heart back in the 90s.
• 5:20
  I had the Jim Crow era, for time for Jim Crow.
• 5:25
  I don't really watch too many sports, to be honest with, you know, that they're in the playoffs.
• 5:30
  I'll watch. I'm a fair weather fan, I guess, but yeah, so.
• 5:36
  So Aldine is a super rural place.
• 5:38
  I think the population is about 9000 today.
• 5:40
  I don't know what it was back then, but you you got a job on a farm and that's what you did, like, so I kind of grew up on a dairy farm.
• 5:50
  It was always getting hurt, always like twisting my ankles and and things like this.
• 5:54
  And, like you said, you know, and I started life really younger, and, you know, at the ripe age of 18, like, she was talking about getting married and, you know, I had to get a better job.
• 6:06
  So, when I went into the factory, which, you know, we got.
• 6:11
  So I think I was, I think I had turned 20 for less than three weeks, when we got married.
• 6:18
  So, but in any event, I got a job in a factory, and that was a whole different kind of labor.
• 6:24
  Like a lot of stuff over my head.
• 6:27
  My shoulders got really bad.
• 6:29
  They started dislocating.
• 6:31
  I wanted to get it fixed and the doctor's like, oh, this should be an easy fix.
• 6:36
  You're young. You'll snap back quick.
• 6:37
  And when they got in there to do surgery, they realized it was more than just a loose shoulder joint.
• 6:44
  But I had this disease called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and basically the college and or the glue that holds my body together is super, super stretchy.
• 6:52
  So everything kind of they call it hypermobile.
• 6:55
  So, you know, I'm, I was constantly spraining stuff, twisting stuff.
• 6:59
  You know, stuff would go way out of range and, you know, obviously it put little divots and things in the cartilage, a little nerve damage.
• 7:06
  And, you know, when you're young, it's not that big of a deal.
• 7:09
  But as I aged, it became a big deal, to the point where I had really chronic arthritis in my very early 20s.
• 7:17
  And of course, I didn't know this because I just thought this was normal life.
• 7:21
  So basically the prognosis was he literally gave me disability papers.
• 7:27
  I had a really good job with the UAW.
• 7:30
  I was really excited.
• 7:32
  Heather and I had our whole life mapped out, you know, the white picket fence, the, you know, the house and the job and the kids.
• 7:38
  And, all of a sudden this guy says, you're not going be able to work.
• 7:43
  And I'm like, I threw the disability papers out, by the way, on the way.
• 7:47
  I didn't even take them out of there because I was still working.
• 7:51
  And, they.
• 7:52
  UAW as auto auto workers, United Auto workers.
• 7:56
  Yeah.
• 7:57
  So, yeah, I mean, you know, skilled labor.
• 8:00
  I was a machinist.
• 8:01
  I loved what I did, but it was, definitely manual work.
• 8:06
  But in any event, they said especially that kind of work because it was manual work.
• 8:11
  They said that I wouldn't be doing that work anymore and that I should go home and move my body as little as possible.
• 8:19
  Any times.
• 8:20
  My arms shouldn't be hanging.
• 8:22
  They should always be supported.
• 8:23
  And, you know, and this whole thing started with, you know, braces and splints and immobilizer to try to keep my joints as quiet as they could because their idea was, well, you had limited use of those joints.
• 8:39
  You have limited time on them.
• 8:40
  Let's preserve them as long as possible.
• 8:44
  Another thing that happened with that surgery is, I was prescribed a bottle of lower tabs, which is kind of a standard issue.
• 8:51
  When you leave the hospital from, from an acute, injury or surgery.
• 8:56
  And I took these pills and I felt wonderful, like I had never taken medicine before.
• 9:03
  And, they made me feel really good.
• 9:06
  And I think I had been in chronic pain for so long that even realize I was in chronic pain because this was just part of my life.
• 9:13
  Everything ached, everything kind of throbbed.
• 9:15
  I had a lot of nerve pain, especially in my, shoulders, in my armpit.
• 9:19
  There's a lot of nerves down there, and they were always getting overstretched and tingly hands and all this.
• 9:25
  And boy, that lower tab just kind of muffled everything, and and it made me feel good.
• 9:31
  And so I began down this cycle.
• 9:34
  I was blessed with a very addictive, genes.
• 9:38
  And my mother is also very, you know, gets can get addicted to anything.
• 9:42
  And, you know, everybody knows how the story goes.
• 9:45
  It's just started spiraling where, you know, the same dose you took the first time.
• 9:50
  You'll never get that back.
• 9:52
  So you have to add quantity.
• 9:53
  Then we added, more volume.
• 9:56
  And you know, before I knew it, you know, in the, in the next, say, two years, you know, my prescriptions went from, you know, 60 or, 120 tablets a month to, you know, I'm down in like four and 500 of these things.
• 10:12
  I won't get into all this because no one needs to know this and you can't do it anymore anyways.
• 10:15
  But back then, it was paper script, so I got really good at going to like, three two.
• 10:19
  I had a rheumatoid doctor, a general doctor, and then usually some kind of orthopedic doctor, and I learned how to get scripts from all of them.
• 10:27
  They were paper.
• 10:28
  I take one, to the pharmacy and have insurance pay it for, and then I paid cash for the other to it, and no one knew the wiser.
• 10:36
  Course, things are different these days, so I got really good at that stuff.
• 10:41
  I think at some point that physical pain that I was trying to escape from or, you know, muscle, very quickly turned into emotional.
• 10:51
  And I, and I would argue, even spiritual pain because I hated who I was becoming.
• 10:55
  I started catching myself lying to people, you know, I was I would go to a family members and kind of just like peek through their medicine cabinet like, and I started doing stuff that was like really out of character for me.
• 11:07
  And the big thing was, manipulating Heather, you know, having her, you know, call the doctor and say she, you know, she spilled my tablets.
• 11:15
  I needed more.
• 11:16
  But in any event, I think it became more than just a physical thing, and it certainly became probably more emotional than physical.
• 11:24
  And the truth was, I was still hurting through this stuff.
• 11:27
  Anyways, but we went from there to the Lord tab, to, to something called, Percocet.
• 11:34
  And then ultimately I ended up on Oxes, which at the time, I mean, they were giving them out, like, you know, Pez dispensers because they were guaranteeing that you wouldn't get addicted to.
• 11:45
  Let me tell you, they are very addictive.
• 11:48
  Yeah.
• 11:48
  So we've all seen all the, TV movies now on Netflix and all these that just go into there's just the deviance behind, you know, just like the, the, the criminality of how these families who own these drug companies, the Sacklers, I guess we're pushing out this medicine.
• 12:10
  It's it is criminal.
• 12:12
  I mean, it's so sad how they've upended and ruined so many lives.
• 12:17
  Yeah, it's it is like I sometimes I turn them up because I'm interested in them.
• 12:22
  I know there's a few documentaries on it, and it's awful because I think what they show is like, oh yeah, this is the business side of it.
• 12:30
  But like, you know, when when drug addiction touched me, it didn't just touch me, it touched everyone around me.
• 12:38
  You know, I I'm a teacher.
• 12:39
  So it affected my students.
• 12:41
  My colleagues, like every aspect of my life, was somehow touched with addiction, whether I want it to be or not.
• 12:49
  And, you know, looking back, I would have told, you know, but I can strongly tell you now that, yeah, everyone was affected by these choices that I made.
• 12:57
  Really.
• 12:57
  Do you and Heather, did you ever talk about, like, how much she knew, how much she tried to ignore, like that aspect?
• 13:06
  Yeah, a lot.
• 13:07
  Yeah a lot.
• 13:08
  You know, we've we've talked a lot about that.
• 13:10
  And you know how that was in an awful position because, you know, she felt like helpless, like so obviously a lot of sympathy for me.
• 13:21
  And it kind of just became a thing.
• 13:23
  Like even with my kids, my kids were much younger then, but it was just dad was sick.
• 13:28
  This is what you do with sick people.
• 13:30
  They take medicine.
• 13:32
  She knew I was taking too much.
• 13:33
  In fact, one time she tried to.
• 13:35
  I won't say she tried to get me in trouble.
• 13:36
  She mentioned it to the doctor, and I just about flipped.
• 13:39
  And my doctor said, like, you know, he's in pain, chronic pain.
• 13:45
  And you know that my my, my, I kind of would I knew how to blame my blood pressure on my pain level.
• 13:52
  And so the doctor's trying to get my blood pressure down like, well, I need more medicine.
• 13:56
  Like, this is the problem because I'm in pain.
• 13:59
  I was probably withdrawing it, which is why my heart was flipping out.
• 14:03
  But in any event, yeah, Heather knew.
• 14:05
  And I'll talk about alcohol in a minute.
• 14:08
  And I think she knew that too, but she didn't want to talk about it.
• 14:13
  But she knew I was, and she didn't know to the extent either.
• 14:17
  I hid a lot of it.
• 14:19
  I let her know enough that, it wasn't a yeah, I guess it was acceptable.
• 14:24
  But she didn't know the whole story.
• 14:26
  Like she knew I was drinking.
• 14:27
  She never knew how much.
• 14:30
  But in any event, I went from the boxes and then doctor says, hey, I want to try this new drug.
• 14:37
  No one had ever heard of it.
• 14:38
  This is this is back in the, you know, probably late 90s.
• 14:43
  He said, I want to try this drug called fentanyl.
• 14:45
  And I'm like, sounds like a plan.
• 14:47
  And and he gives me these little patches, and I'm like, these things look pretty harmless.
• 14:50
  I mean, they go on your skin, like, how bad can they be?
• 14:53
  And I remember the first time I put, fentanyl patch on, it was insane.
• 14:58
  It brought me back to the first time I did. Lord's have.
• 15:01
  But but times like 50 and, fentanyl is an awful drug.
• 15:06
  I don't have to get into it, but. So.
• 15:08
  But it did the same thing, like, kind of fast forward, it was the same cycle.
• 15:12
  It worked until it didn't work.
• 15:13
  Then, you know, I'd get creative.
• 15:15
  And, the thing that people don't realize about these drugs, especially the opioids, they make you really lethargic, they make you very tired, they make you very groggy.
• 15:26
  But you can't sleep like you just can't.
• 15:29
  You can't, like, fall asleep and get a good sleep and then mix that with the pain.
• 15:33
  You know, for somebody that's hypermobile when you lay down, all your joints kind of stretch out, which causes you more pain.
• 15:40
  Well, it had been like five days and I hadn't slept a wink.
• 15:43
  And I'm like, I just wanted to sleep.
• 15:45
  And, you know, I grew up in a house and no one drank in my house.
• 15:49
  Me and either got married so young we didn't have the party days and none of that stuff.
• 15:53
  So I thought it was a great idea.
• 15:55
  I'm going to go to the liquor store for the first time ever.
• 15:58
  I've never even been in a bar, to be honest with you.
• 16:01
  I went to a liquor store.
• 16:02
  I bought the cheapest bottle of vodka that I could get.
• 16:05
  It was 1.75l.
• 16:08
  I brought it home in that night.
• 16:09
  I took a handful of pills and I chased it down with just about a liter of vodka.
• 16:15
  And I wish I could say I woke up in my own vomit, my own urine.
• 16:21
  I had alcohol poisoning.
• 16:22
  I literally felt like death.
• 16:24
  And I wish I could say I learned my lesson and never did it again.
• 16:27
  But this would be my new normal.
• 16:29
  It was.
• 16:31
  I just I loved that feeling.
• 16:34
  This is so awful to talk about it now, but I love that feeling.
• 16:38
  Like right before bed, my eyes would literally roll in the back of my head and I was like, I would blackout every single night for years.
• 16:45
  I probably should have been dead from that first time, but my body just would, you know, end up getting a tolerance to this.
• 16:53
  And this would be my new normal.
• 16:56
  So one of the other things that's it's, it's almost embarrassing to talk about, but if people struggle with food addiction, hopefully they'll understand this.
• 17:06
  My my favorite addiction became food.
• 17:10
  And the thing about food is, like it was hard to get fentanyl.
• 17:14
  It was hard to get opioids.
• 17:14
  It was hard to get all this stuff.
• 17:16
  It's embarrassing to go get alcohol, but it's very easy to get food.
• 17:20
  It's I think I counted like over 40 stops on my way to work.
• 17:24
  I could get either fast food or processed food.
• 17:27
  My favorite thing was like breakfast sandwiches.
• 17:30
  Again, same thing there would turn into a routine.
• 17:33
  I went for fast food sometimes four times a day.
• 17:36
  We we ordered out almost nightly if if we weren't going out and my food was just fast food processed crap, you know, with donuts and Doritos and, and, you know, all the all the nasty stuff.
• 17:53
  But the odd thing is it, it really gave me that same dopamine hits that the drugs and alcohol I can remember at Burger King, especially, especially in the morning, I'm on a bad I'm kind of really kind of woozy from the night before, and I would pull in to Burger King and I literally would feel like happy, like like my heart would speed up a little bit when I ordered my, you know, sausage croissants, I'd pull up there.
• 18:18
  I would get, like, excited, like it's again, it's embarrassing.
• 18:22
  I can relate to that.
• 18:23
  I used to do that on my way to college.
• 18:25
  Pull up, get a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit.
• 18:27
  I would be smoking a cigaret just driving to school.
• 18:30
  I mean, this is where you're getting your health information from people, but that's important because we've been there, right?
• 18:37
  We've done. It. Yeah.
• 18:38
  I you know, it will be the same, I get it, I get my two minutes of happy and then I look down on the, on the floor and see these greasy wrappers and think, right, what am I doing?
• 18:48
  Like, I, you know, I at least wanted to cut back on this stuff, but it it made me feel good.
• 18:53
  It gave me that little escape.
• 18:54
  So drugs, alcohol and food, became my priority in life.
• 18:59
  And the faster I could get home to escape again, you know, the better.
• 19:04
  And that's.
• 19:05
  That took me to the worst.
• 19:08
  And I'll just.
• 19:09
  Fast forward about 38 years old.
• 19:12
  I was over 400 pounds.
• 19:14
  We don't know how much.
• 19:15
  Over 400, because that couldn't weigh me anymore.
• 19:17
  The scale maxed out at 400.
• 19:19
  I was on most of the time around or over 20 prescription medicines a month.
• 19:27
  This is not counting my narcotics is not counting the painkillers.
• 19:32
  I was on, like, Anderson for inflammation.
• 19:36
  I was on two different kinds of blood pressure medicines.
• 19:38
  I was on, cholesterol drug, like, I anything you could be on, he would put me on just to just try to keep me alive.
• 19:47
  And I can remember every time I'd go in there, he'd look in the waiting room and later I was in this, movie, and they interview the doctor.
• 19:58
  And the reason why he looked out there is to see if I was in a wheelchair.
• 20:02
  So, I was in bad shape.
• 20:05
  My life had spiraled out of control.
• 20:06
  And I think that the best way to to to get people to understand is, like, look at 400 pounds.
• 20:13
  It's easy to understand physically what that is.
• 20:16
  Put the balance of my weight on your back.
• 20:18
  Go try to walk upstairs, drop your keys, pick them up.
• 20:22
  Just simple daily to put your shoes on.
• 20:25
  Right. Like it's hard.
• 20:26
  You couldn't tie your shoes, right?
• 20:28
  Heather had to tie your shoes. She did.
• 20:30
  And but to be honest with you, like, that was the least of my problems.
• 20:35
  Like the emotional weight of over 400 pounds is something like.
• 20:40
  Like I just thinking about it.
• 20:41
  I circuit and emotional because everything is harder.
• 20:44
  Like, I couldn't be a good dad no matter how bad I wanted to be.
• 20:49
  I remember my daughter playing basketball, a ball rolled out of bounce, literally over my toes, and I was the only dad in that gym that could not bend up, bend down to pick that ball and throw it back in.
• 21:00
  I felt awful, you know, my my daughter wanted to go kayaking.
• 21:03
  I couldn't get in the kayak.
• 21:05
  We'd go to, you know, amusement parks.
• 21:06
  I couldn't get on any of the radios.
• 21:08
  I had gotten to the point from the meds that I couldn't get in the car for more than 30 minutes, or I would just vomit everywhere because I was so nauseous all the time.
• 21:17
  And so motion sickness.
• 21:19
  So the things that really were bad were more the emotional things.
• 21:24
  And I think that the easiest way to explain it is I knew I was dying, like I knew it wasn't going to be long.
• 21:32
  I can remember laying the, the remote on my chest at night and it literally would get air.
• 21:38
  It would bounce off my chest, my heart would pound so hard it it bounce off my chest and you could see air under it and to be honest with you, you know, there were nights that I didn't know if I was going to wake up.
• 21:50
  And I don't like to say that I was suicidal, but I didn't really care.
• 21:54
  One way or another.
• 21:55
  I mean, I had a family that loved me, you know, a decent job, a roof over my head, but I if I didn't wake up like it was okay, I was just tired.
• 22:04
  I was sick and tired.
• 22:04
  I was I just felt hopeless.
• 22:07
  So there was no way out of this.
• 22:09
  And that's where I was at my worst.
• 22:13
  That is truly.
• 22:15
  It's so heartbreaking, to hear that.
• 22:19
  I mean, it really is.
• 22:20
  And, well, let's let's move to a happier part.
• 22:24
  So what what was the impetus that kind of drag you out of that?
• 22:30
  Yeah, probably gets more sad here.
• 22:33
  Oh, but, everyone knows me.
• 22:38
  Is you know, the the plant based guy and all that, but that's not really where my story started.
• 22:42
  And I wish I had this Hollywood moment.
• 22:44
  I could, you know, somebody flipped the switch and the light turned on and everything was fixed.
• 22:48
  But, for me, you know, I, I kind of when I do presentations, I talk about dominoes that tipped for me.
• 22:56
  And, probably the first domino that tipped, came with the greatest price.
• 23:01
  And, and and that was gratitude.
• 23:03
  Habits.
• 23:04
  Mom, you know, we we were together for so long, so young.
• 23:09
  Her mom was, like, a second mom to me, and, she had, like, a cold flu thing.
• 23:16
  We finally convinced her to go to the doctor when she went there, they did some tests, and she, was diagnosed with leukemia.
• 23:25
  So. I mean, that put our world in a tailspin really quick.
• 23:28
  It went from, who's going to get the kids from softball to who's staying with mom tonight?
• 23:32
  And so we have, you know, Roswell Cancer Park here is a is a huge cancer facility.
• 23:38
  And, I know one one of the, the I don't want to call it a highlighter.
• 23:43
  It's probably a low light, but I remember walking up to her bed one night.
• 23:49
  She was in between blood transfusions.
• 23:51
  She was wiped right out.
• 23:53
  Her immune system was shot, and she was so tired.
• 23:56
  And she was just there sleeping. And I walked up and she opened her eyes super slow.
• 24:01
  And she says, how's your knee?
• 24:04
  And like, that just crushed me, you know?
• 24:08
  Like, just it just, oh my gosh, I, I've told the story like a thousand times and it still hurts.
• 24:14
  You know, it tells you what kind of person she was.
• 24:16
  Right.
• 24:17
  But my whole life I had complained about everything.
• 24:22
  Why did I have this disease?
• 24:22
  Why didn't I get this?
• 24:25
  Why don't I have this?
• 24:25
  Why can't I do this?
• 24:27
  Why can't this not hurt?
• 24:28
  But I never really took time.
• 24:31
  It just got so washed out.
• 24:32
  The things that I did have.
• 24:35
  And that night, you know, I got to walk away from my room and I didn't have chemo in my veins.
• 24:42
  And I was walking out of that hospital with a really sore knee.
• 24:46
  But there were people in there that were getting their leg cut off because they had a tumor, you know, and I got to walk out of there on my own power, and there's a whole lot of people that will never walk out of that place.
• 24:59
  They just won't make it.
• 25:00
  And and then, you know, we were in the pediatric wing and seeing all these childhood leukemia, like, it's just like there's a whole world that you don't know exists in, in that world, any single person would give anything to trade you for your worst day.
• 25:17
  And like, that really hits because we all get our little pity parties going.
• 25:23
  And so I would say the first domino was gratitude.
• 25:27
  Well, we're dealing with that.
• 25:28
  My father, my best friend in the entire world, he has what we think is pneumonia.
• 25:34
  They did a chest x ray.
• 25:35
  Turns out he had stage four kidney cancer that had metastasized to his whole body.
• 25:40
  My dad was my best friend, and they gave him six months to live.
• 25:45
  And that would be my second domino.
• 25:49
  We kind of pay lip service to.
• 25:52
  Life is short.
• 25:53
  Life is precious. When I promise tomorrow.
• 25:56
  And it's fun to say.
• 25:57
  But when you're there and you see that with, you know, the person you who you love so much, struggling on to hang on to days, not weeks, days, you realize that life is indeed precious and we are not promised tomorrow.
• 26:13
  So, my father, he didn't make it six months.
• 26:17
  He made it six weeks to the day of his diagnosis, and he lost his battle with cancer.
• 26:23
  Shortly after that, Heather's mother would lose her battle to leukemia.
• 26:26
  That would turn to lymphoma and ultimately, a brain tumor would take her life.
• 26:31
  And I mean, you talk about, like, stunned.
• 26:34
  Like we were fairly young when this happened.
• 26:37
  You know, my dad's goal was to make it to 65 years old.
• 26:40
  And, he had a lot of issues before that as well.
• 26:44
  So I think those two things really kind of, kind of, if anything got me thinking, like I didn't change my behavior, but I did change my thought process.
• 26:57
  And I have searched and search especially was right in my book.
• 27:01
  I can't tell you what happened, why this day was special.
• 27:05
  I have no idea why.
• 27:08
  Sorry, I don't know why I'm so emotional today.
• 27:12
  Please.
• 27:13
  I mean, this is an emotional story. It's.
• 27:15
  Yeah, absolutely. I know, but, like, I'm.
• 27:17
  I tell so many times, like, I don't know why it still gets me.
• 27:22
  Because you're a human.
• 27:24
  It's a hard story.
• 27:25
  Yeah, it really is.
• 27:28
  It's hard, but it's beautiful.
• 27:30
  I mean, it really is, because, you know, it is.
• 27:33
  Not only does it just remind us, but, I mean, I love your, you know, you're saying in the book about perspective equals gratitude.
• 27:42
  And I think that's kind of what you're talking about.
• 27:44
  And, you know, you're always going to miss these people who are gone from your life now.
• 27:48
  And it's hard to talk about it.
• 27:50
  But, you know, they probably pushed you, inspired you, maybe even from the other side.
• 27:56
  I mean, honestly.
• 27:59
  Yeah.
• 28:00
  But so this day, yeah.
• 28:02
  I don't believe in coincidence, but for some reason, this day, Heather was doing, you know, it was like clockwork.
• 28:07
  Like I had my my socks in my hand.
• 28:10
  I'd set them on the table.
• 28:11
  She'd come over there and pull my socks and, socks and shoes on me, because I literally got to the point where I could hardly dress myself anymore.
• 28:20
  And when our eyes clicked, I didn't so much think about, like, dying and what life would look like.
• 28:27
  For some reason, I thought the weirdest thing, like, you know, there's so much planning that goes into a funeral that no one tells you about when you're young, right?
• 28:35
  Like, and Heather being the oldest, like, that was kind of on her shoulders.
• 28:39
  But, you know, you got to take an article out in the paper.
• 28:43
  You got to go pick the line or pick the casket, like all these things scheduled.
• 28:47
  Get this person.
• 28:49
  For some reason, all I could think of was when our eyes connected as like, she's going to have to do all this stuff for me and it's not going to be long.
• 28:56
  I was really, really sick and I knew I was sick.
• 28:59
  My kidneys had shut down a few times and I didn't tell anybody.
• 29:03
  I hadn't urinated for like, days, like.
• 29:05
  And I knew what was going on, but, you know, I didn't.
• 29:09
  I didn't know enough to stop.
• 29:11
  Right? Like, I just I just couldn't stop.
• 29:14
  I did quit a few times.
• 29:16
  I when my father passed away, I kind of relapsed, at least with the pills.
• 29:21
  But in any event, I thought I have to do something like.
• 29:25
  Like, even if I don't care if I wake up like, she can't have another funeral.
• 29:31
  And it's all I could think of is this funeral's too close.
• 29:33
  Like we just had to, So I decided I had to do something like, not to get healthy.
• 29:39
  Not to get well.
• 29:40
  I literally wanted to space some time out, like I wanted to die later, so she didn't have to do all this again.
• 29:48
  So, you know, I did what really smart people do.
• 29:51
  I went on YouTube to get some medical advice and insert some stuff.
• 29:55
  And, I, I will kind of speed up here.
• 29:57
  I found this guy.
• 29:59
  He was every bit as big as me.
• 30:01
  He had this thing called bariatric surgery.
• 30:03
  And within a year, you know, he's got these little highlight videos of him outrunning.
• 30:08
  And it's like, oh, my gosh, this is what I need.
• 30:11
  This was this was pre well, there was internet, but it wasn't as I guess it wasn't as digital is now, so I could we still have phone books.
• 30:20
  So I looked up in the phone book, the surgery, and there was a company right in Buffalo that that specialized.
• 30:26
  And I went to some meetings, and like, I went through the whole process and the screening and everything, and then all I had to do was go get my doctor to sign off on the surgery for, like, the pre-op.
• 30:38
  And when I went in there for physical, my blood pressure was 255 over 115.
• 30:45
  That's on a channel blocker and a calcium, a calcium channel blocker and a beta blocker.
• 30:50
  And he couldn't give me any more medicine for that.
• 30:53
  And, he just couldn't get my.
• 30:57
  And my heart rate was over 125.
• 30:58
  So he was threatening to call 901 and get an ambulance to take me to the hospital.
• 31:03
  He said, you're going to stroke out right in my office.
• 31:05
  So I, you know, got my manipulation hat on.
• 31:09
  And I talked him into like, so he let me rest on the table.
• 31:13
  He saw a few other patients came back and it was down a little bit.
• 31:16
  So we're having this conversation.
• 31:18
  He goes, no, like I can't sign off on this.
• 31:21
  He goes, I don't know if your heart's going to make it.
• 31:23
  He goes, you're on so many narcotics.
• 31:25
  I don't know what's going to happen with the anesthesia.
• 31:27
  And he goes, when you get all done with this, like your skeletal system, like you, if you lose a lot of weight and you lose a lot of muscle, he goes, you are not going to get out of wheelchair like you just won't.
• 31:40
  So I got to night and like, I was mad, I was frustrated, I was angry because I thought this was this was my hope.
• 31:48
  And I remember going home and I had like two thoughts in my head.
• 31:54
  I'm like, I was mad at him, but at the same time I was like, wait a minute, I'm off the hook.
• 31:59
  Like I did something.
• 32:00
  I tried and it's his fault now.
• 32:03
  Like it's the doctor's fault because he won't let me do this.
• 32:07
  But this is this is another tough one.
• 32:11
  I went I went to bed that night.
• 32:14
  And towards the end of Heather's mom's a journey through through cancer.
• 32:20
  For some reason, I don't know why they did this, and it's a whole nother show, but, she's got this visible brain tumor.
• 32:27
  Like, it was visible, like it was big and she was having trouble seeing.
• 32:31
  But for some reason, they want to, you know, they would keep administering radiation.
• 32:37
  So finally, her doctor, I don't, you know, I wouldn't say he felt guilty.
• 32:42
  I would imagine he felt guilty.
• 32:44
  But I don't know that he finally said to her, he said, Carol, why do you keep coming back for this radiation?
• 32:50
  And I'll never forget it.
• 32:52
  She said, I just want to be here another day with my family.
• 32:58
  And like, how can I how can I go to sleep at night knowing that she would do anything?
• 33:03
  Like she would do anything to be either one day and, I'm just throwing my life away, you know?
• 33:08
  And I'm just throwing my life away.
• 33:10
  And I'm going to excuse it with what a doctor said.
• 33:12
  So all that said, okay, we got through all that.
• 33:14
  So all that said, I had to do something.
• 33:18
  And at the time, Atkins was a big deal.
• 33:19
  And for me, Atkins was perfect.
• 33:22
  Chicken wings, G Sorella cheese sticks.
• 33:25
  Yeah.
• 33:25
  Lived my life on that thing.
• 33:28
  These are my favorite things.
• 33:30
  Yeah, my mother had me on that from the time I was a kid.
• 33:32
  She give me a bun.
• 33:32
  This burger for breakfast?
• 33:35
  Yes. I'd have, And then for lunch, she'd send me with baloney and cheese.
• 33:39
  I mean, can you have an amount. So. Yeah.
• 33:44
  Yeah.
• 33:44
  But I mean and it, it's and I did to be honest I did lose weight, I mean you're going in.
• 33:48
  Yeah.
• 33:49
  Ptosis and so okay so I did lose weight I don't remember how much weight it was.
• 33:54
  It was a, it was a fair amount of weight, probably 50 pounds.
• 33:58
  But I was still on all my meds.
• 33:59
  I still felt like crap.
• 34:01
  But this is the thing and I hope I hope listeners, you know, I hope you I don't use you stoplights, but this is a big deal.
• 34:12
  Everything I did at that point was wrong.
• 34:15
  But here's the thing.
• 34:15
  I did something and I think we get so stuck in this loop of we got to find the right program, we got to do this, we got to check this.
• 34:24
  We got a planet, we got you.
• 34:26
  You're getting nowhere I did something, I took a step, and that step was probably the most important step in my journey.
• 34:32
  Because what it did as it connected what was on my plate to what was in my mouth, it was all the wrong.
• 34:37
  So I did all the wrong stuff.
• 34:38
  But I did something.
• 34:40
  And I think there's going to be a lot of people that go to the grave because they didn't do something.
• 34:45
  So, you know, I'm not I'm not promoting purposely doing stuff wrong, but do something.
• 34:50
  And if you do it with the right heart, even if it's wrong, you'll figure it out because it's what?
• 34:55
  Yeah, it gets the momentum going right.
• 34:57
  That's a really good point.
• 34:59
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 35:02
  Like I used to hide from that.
• 35:03
  Right. Because I will be on the stage of plants talking.
• 35:05
  I didn't want to tell people, but like that was a big deal because I was excited about that.
• 35:10
  Like again, I didn't know was wrong, but I was excited.
• 35:14
  And you know, at the same time, I'm a very generally kind of person.
• 35:18
  I know that sounds weird after writing books, but, I, you know, I was more Harley guy than Dear Diary, right?
• 35:25
  Right.
• 35:27
  I for some reason, when I started this, I asked Heather for a, for a small notebook that, you know, the kids had written in the first three pages and then left it.
• 35:37
  I ripped those pages out, and I wrote down the date, and I wrote down, like, like, I had heard this song earlier in the day.
• 35:46
  This is the first day of the rest of your life.
• 35:49
  And I wrote down my food for that, and it was awful.
• 35:51
  It was like turkey burger, mozzarella cheese.
• 35:54
  It's like all the stuff.
• 35:55
  And I'm like, okay, all right.
• 35:58
  I got my food down.
• 35:59
  I know people do that, but I got to do exercise now.
• 36:03
  I was in immobilizer so I couldn't move.
• 36:06
  But I wrote down, I thought about this is very embarrassing.
• 36:09
  A couple weeks before this, in my office, I was trying to get out of my chair and I would use my arms to push myself up, and I broke.
• 36:17
  Both arms just split, like right off the chair and fell on the floor.
• 36:20
  And I was I was embarrassed.
• 36:22
  One of my colleagues says, oh, that chair's really old, you know, it's older than you. Let's here, use this chair.
• 36:27
  I'll get a new one.
• 36:29
  But that really bothered me.
• 36:30
  And for some reason I thought about that.
• 36:32
  And that night, as I'm doing this like diary or journal and I wrote down, I'm like, you know what?
• 36:37
  If I can get out of that chair one time, I can do it twice, and I just put chair times two.
• 36:43
  That's it.
• 36:44
  I'm looking back.
• 36:46
  Know, that sounds so ridiculous, but I was doubling my work.
• 36:49
  That was hard.
• 36:50
  Hard work to lift 400 pounds up with your legs.
• 36:53
  And so I went through the day and I doing the Atkins thing and I got home and I'm like, how do I close this out?
• 37:01
  You know, I also wrote a couple things I was thankful for every day, but all I put at the bottom.
• 37:09
  Sorry, I just put you did good.
• 37:12
  That's it. Oh.
• 37:13
  And, you know, I think like that was the first time that I had ever, like, celebrated victory because, like, I got so stuck into this is never going to work.
• 37:22
  This is never going to stick.
• 37:24
  Like, I can't do anything that I did something good.
• 37:28
  And I guess you could say it was like the first form of self-love that I had given myself in in decades or so.
• 37:36
  In any event, the days would go on, and like I say, I did lose weight.
• 37:41
  Metabolically.
• 37:42
  I probably, to be honest, probably I did see improvements in numbers if they would have tested, just the sheer fact of losing weight.
• 37:50
  But I'm sitting on the couch watching Netflix and, this film, fat, sick and Nearly Dead pops up on my screen, and I have no idea why I clicked it and I was just about to turn it off.
• 38:01
  But if you've ever seen it, the actual cartoonish trailer and for some reason that made me step on the way.
• 38:07
  How do we go from Joe Cross?
• 38:08
  That is cartoon of Joe Cross.
• 38:10
  And I watched you then if you haven't seen the movie, it's a great movie.
• 38:14
  Joe Cross comes to the US from Australia.
• 38:17
  He's got a crazy cool accent.
• 38:19
  He, basically consumes nothing but vegetables and fruit juice out of this machine.
• 38:24
  And along the way, he's traveling around the US.
• 38:27
  He inspires a whole bunch of people, and it's a brilliant, movie.
• 38:33
  And I thought, man, if he could do 60 days, I could do 30 days, 100%.
• 38:38
  I can do 30 days.
• 38:39
  So I had no clue what I was doing.
• 38:41
  Like, I didn't really pay attention to what was going on in there, but I wanted the results that Joe had.
• 38:46
  So I ordered a juicer.
• 38:48
  It would, it was January 1st, was around the corner, and, that was that was, a little over 13 years ago.
• 38:54
  So January 1st, it's 13.
• 38:57
  It's 13 years. And 13 days ago I started off on this juice fast.
• 39:02
  And I won't get into all the details first three days.
• 39:06
  As you can imagine, they were pure hell.
• 39:08
  I was starving, and I remember Joe when he really struggled.
• 39:11
  He just went to bed and that's what I did for, say, hunger subsides.
• 39:17
  And by the fifth day.
• 39:22
  It like a miracle happened.
• 39:24
  Like I like this.
• 39:26
  This is sounds so trivial, but I woke up in the morning in the same exact place that I had fallen asleep.
• 39:34
  The same position.
• 39:34
  I never moved all night.
• 39:37
  And like, that was like, wow.
• 39:39
  Like five days, like, It was amazing.
• 39:44
  Like, that was what I wanted.
• 39:45
  Like, I just wanted to sleep through the night in five days, and, you know, I can act like I'm really smart now.
• 39:50
  But looking back, I wasn't just flooding my body with nutrients from these fruits and vegetables and the antioxidants and the the phyto nutrient and all that stuff is great.
• 40:01
  But I was also eliminating all the stuff that was giving me all the inflammation.
• 40:06
  That was really the cause of my problems.
• 40:09
  The animal products, the oils, the sugars, the salsa, all these things are so inflammatory.
• 40:13
  No one had ever talked to me about my diet.
• 40:16
  Never.
• 40:17
  Never.
• 40:18
  Any time. You way all the times you went to the doctor.
• 40:20
  Nobody ever said anything about your diet. Wow.
• 40:23
  So I think my doctor gave me, like, a paper diet one time.
• 40:26
  He goes, stop eating so much cheese or something.
• 40:29
  You're triglyceride like.
• 40:30
  They literally couldn't measure them anymore.
• 40:32
  But no one ever said that.
• 40:35
  Hey, you know, maybe all this inflammation from your EDS, you know, it's not just EDS.
• 40:39
  Like, I was like, cause like my pictures, like my eyes were almost, like, swollen shut.
• 40:44
  I got a little like it was awful.
• 40:47
  I mean, they look just completely different.
• 40:49
  Completely. Yeah.
• 40:50
  Even I look at some of them now, I'm like, damn that, that can't be me.
• 40:54
  I mean, not even just cold.
• 40:55
  Oh, but like you said, just everything.
• 40:58
  Yeah, just squishing my eyes.
• 41:00
  My eyes were super bad.
• 41:03
  But day five I wake up in the same, like it was crazy.
• 41:08
  And then, you know, day six and seven and eight, like, all of a sudden, my eczema starts going away, my sleep apnea gets better.
• 41:14
  My skin was starting to go from like this white pale grayish tone or beige tone to like I was getting color in my skin.
• 41:22
  And, you know, as you can make these colors and the vegetables end up, you know, and you're skinny.
• 41:27
  Too many carrots.
• 41:28
  And in fact, at one point I did turn a little orange.
• 41:31
  Get a little orange.
• 41:32
  Oh my.
• 41:33
  My hands.
• 41:34
  And like, the bottoms of my feet turned a little orange.
• 41:37
  But these pigments in and and fruits and vegetables are so important.
• 41:41
  You know, every color is a different cool thing.
• 41:44
  And so I think out of the juice fast, I think probably the best thing that came out of is we started to learn how to shop.
• 41:52
  And, you know, when we went food shopping, it was Totino's Pizza Rolls.
• 41:57
  You know, the 39 cent.
• 41:59
  We can't now.
• 42:00
  They're not but 39 cent frozen burritos.
• 42:02
  Like anything that was fast, easy.
• 42:02
  We had kids.
• 42:05
  We had a lot to do, boxes of fried chicken.
• 42:07
  But now, you know, I'm at a produce company and I'm literally taking kale and waving it across the heather.
• 42:13
  This is $0.99.
• 42:14
  Like, look at this as like, I was excited and I, I think about it sometimes looking back, like if I was standing in a produce company and saw somebody that was like over 300 pounds, like jumping up and down with a thing of kale, I'm like, really, dude, that's not what you're eating.
• 42:29
  So it's probably another lesson in there.
• 42:31
  Not to judge people for. That's right.
• 42:33
  And that's amazing that you made it 30 days on a like.
• 42:37
  I don't think I could do that.
• 42:39
  Like that in itself is such an accomplishment.
• 42:42
  It's incredible that you did that.
• 42:44
  Yeah. And I don't have willpower. Right.
• 42:46
  Like I and I believe the reason why that happened and I, you know, I talked to Doctor Doug Leo about this a lot.
• 42:53
  What's the best way to do this?
• 42:55
  All in or. He's in, he goes. Both.
• 42:57
  Both are good.
• 42:58
  I think for me, I'm an all in kind of guy.
• 43:01
  Yeah.
• 43:01
  And I think what that all in did is it gave me the most dramatic immediate results.
• 43:08
  And those results fed the momentum like why the heck what I quit when I feel like this. Yeah.
• 43:15
  And I think for me that working that is not how everybody goes.
• 43:19
  And that's fine.
• 43:20
  But, you know, as long as you're making progress to get closer to that whole plant food, good for you.
• 43:27
  So I'm coming to the end of the fast here, and I know, like, I cannot juice the rest of my life, but because I watched that on Netflix, suggested I watch Forks Over Knives.
• 43:37
  Then, I tell, you know, people all the time, especially Brian went down the forks overnight.
• 43:44
  Did it just saved my life.
• 43:45
  It literally gave me a completely new life.
• 43:48
  And I'm so grateful for that film.
• 43:50
  And I know that I'm not alone.
• 43:51
  That film has like, no tens and tens and tens of thousands of people.
• 43:56
  That's the entry way, a lot of it. Yeah.
• 43:58
  You know, and you're a dairy farmer, just like Doctor Campbell.
• 44:02
  And Doctor Russell Stone. Isn't that amazing?
• 44:04
  Yeah, it's wild, isn't it? Yeah.
• 44:06
  I mean, we used to drink the raw milk right out of the tank, and I used to process all my own meat.
• 44:11
  We used to raise our own animals.
• 44:12
  I mean, that's what we did.
• 44:12
  And I was five years later.
• 44:16
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, in the end.
• 44:18
  Yeah.
• 44:18
  But what we thought that was the healthy way, right?
• 44:21
  Like we didn't buy meat at the store.
• 44:21
  We raised it ourselves.
• 44:24
  So we thought that was the healthy way to do it.
• 44:26
  Yeah.
• 44:27
  Well yeah. You're right about forks over knives.
• 44:29
  That's the entryway for so many people.
• 44:31
  So what did that.
• 44:32
  So that started you thinking, okay, I'm going to do a whole food plant based diet.
• 44:36
  Well, it just sounded so easy, right?
• 44:38
  It's like I can have everything.
• 44:40
  I can consume everything.
• 44:41
  I'm putting in a juicer, and I add whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds and like, I could do this, like, I totally can do this.
• 44:50
  And I think looking back and this is another, you know, for your listeners, this is I think this is a very important point for me.
• 44:58
  It was by default, like I never asked to be honest with this is crazy.
• 45:03
  I never heard the word vegan like grow.
• 45:06
  I never I didn't know we live in Oldham.
• 45:08
  Like we have more like ten times more cows than people.
• 45:11
  But I didn't know what a vegan was like when someone called me a vegan.
• 45:15
  I'm like, no, I'm not like who you are.
• 45:17
  You are. Right.
• 45:18
  But I didn't even know what that was. Right.
• 45:21
  But there was they didn't have like maybe Morningstar, maybe Morningstar, but I didn't know what that was.
• 45:28
  I didn't know what tofu was.
• 45:30
  I didn't know what tempeh was.
• 45:31
  I didn't know any of that stuff.
• 45:33
  What I knew is what they did on Fox and I knew I could eat rice, beans, potatoes, veggies, fruit.
• 45:37
  That's what I knew.
• 45:40
  And I think that alone is what held me in so long, because I didn't know all the other stuff.
• 45:48
  And I think had I gotten into the processed food and all the junk, you know, the labeled plant based food that is far from whole food, this would have been a whole different story.
• 45:59
  So I guess the point I'm trying to make is keep it simple on purpose.
• 46:03
  I did it by accident, but keep that like find something you like.
• 46:07
  It's easy to prep and then put it on repeat because that is gold.
• 46:12
  Consistency is everything in this like intensity doesn't matter.
• 46:18
  Nothing matters except how consistent you stay with this.
• 46:22
  And you know, then instead of relying on willpower, you know you're relying on your environment, like what's in your house to eat?
• 46:29
  Are you preparing your meals?
• 46:30
  And we can get into that in a little bit.
• 46:32
  But so from there, I started feeling really good.
• 46:37
  You know, maybe, I don't know, I honestly don't even like talking about the movement part of this, but, because I do have Aids and a lot of people struggle with movement, I, I went for a walk, my wife wanted me to go for a walk.
• 46:52
  And, I was at the time, I was still in a mobilizer.
• 46:54
  So my knees were, like, locked out, like a lock or like I was walking on sticks almost.
• 47:00
  And she asked me to go for a walk, and I was always really sarcastic and a jerk to her about it.
• 47:05
  Like, yeah, I'm going to go for a walk right?
• 47:08
  But I decided to go for a walk, and, we were supposed to walk three quarters of a mile out and then turn around and come back to the car, and I didn't make it.
• 47:18
  I couldn't make it to the other road.
• 47:19
  I sat down on a rock, and, you know, I was in awful pain.
• 47:23
  I was crying, I was embarrassed, and my kids were younger at the time, and had a maze, like, come on, kids, let's go run as fast as we can of the car so we can go get down and we're going to rescue them.
• 47:33
  And it's like, okay, mom.
• 47:35
  And they came back and, you know, I think I was in so much pain.
• 47:39
  It was it was humiliating.
• 47:39
  But I didn't think about it.
• 47:41
  Then came home ice down my knees.
• 47:44
  I was a mess.
• 47:45
  And something kind of clicked.
• 47:47
  I wanted to go that walk pissed me off.
• 47:49
  I wanted to go finish that walk, so I.
• 47:53
  The next weekend I went and walked out and walked back and oh man, I felt like a million bucks and from there I started hiking.
• 48:01
  Basically everything the doctors told me, like they said, you know, stay off uneven ground.
• 48:07
  I loved the woods. I was an outdoorsman.
• 48:10
  So I started hiking and then, you know, one mile turned into two and then three, and then, you know, you know, within a year, I was I was hiking, you know, 15 and 20 miles on a weekend.
• 48:20
  And when the hiking and my, my brain wanted to go a little faster than my legs, I got into some, like, jogging and then from there, I gotta I gotta kind of tell this because it's it's fun.
• 48:34
  I came home and I know it's the kid's school had this five k.
• 48:39
  Now, I don't know what A5K is.
• 48:41
  I don't know anything about this, but I said, I think we should try this.
• 48:44
  Heather and our, my daughter, she was probably in about fifth grade.
• 48:49
  She looks at me. She was dead.
• 48:51
  Do you know real people run five K's and I'm like, what does that mean?
• 48:56
  She goes, like, real people run them like, you don't do that.
• 48:59
  And I'm like, all right.
• 49:00
  So Heather and I, like Heather, thought it was like a marathon.
• 49:04
  I'm like, yeah.
• 49:05
  So we started training.
• 49:06
  It's so funny because we put a water bottle like every 50ft, like, so no clue what we're doing.
• 49:12
  But the day came to do that, and, we had today and I've crossed a lot of finish lines.
• 49:18
  This is my favorite one.
• 49:20
  We came to that finish line, and I'm telling you, I broke down, so I was, like, ugly crying, and somebody came over, said, oh, my gosh, what happened?
• 49:31
  Did you guys get bad news out there?
• 49:33
  It's like, no, man, this is like, I'm wearing a race bib.
• 49:36
  Like, this is so cool. So we get in the car and I'm like, Heather, we should do a ten K and she goes, you're nuts.
• 49:43
  You almost puked on my new sneakers.
• 49:44
  I'm not doing a ten K.
• 49:46
  And so about a month later we did our first ten K together.
• 49:50
  And, I'll just tell you this real quick.
• 49:52
  On the way home from that one, I gave her another 19.
• 49:54
  I'm a hey, what about a half marathon?
• 49:57
  And she goes, I'm out. Like, you're crazy.
• 50:00
  And funny thing is, in September I forgot the year.
• 50:04
  But in September, our big race for Niagara Falls is here.
• 50:08
  It's called the Mighty Niagara.
• 50:10
  And, I still had a valid handicapped parking pass, and I think it was like my second.
• 50:15
  I took that thing everywhere because I was always afraid I had to walk, you know, in a parking lot.
• 50:20
  And I was in college before that, and I was afraid I couldn't get to my classes.
• 50:25
  That thing was going to expire at the end of the month on September.
• 50:28
  I'm like, how cool would it be to run my first half marathon parked legally in a handicapped spot?
• 50:36
  I didn't park in the spot, but I did punch a hole in that, parking permit.
• 50:42
  I put a picture of Heather's mom and my dad on there, and, geez, I ran my first 13.1 miles for that thing, like, flapping around my waist.
• 50:54
  So it was a great day.
• 50:56
  From there, I got into marathons, and then I got into cycling and I started cycling 100 mile races and then, you know, I say a few years ago, it's more than a few years ago, I learned how to swim.
• 51:09
  I put all together and, and started doing, Iron Man's and, and some crazy stuff.
• 51:16
  But probably, one of the coolest things that happen is people love those stories and they love all that.
• 51:23
  But, some of the things that people miss, you know, the really cool stuff is I remember, Heather, I told you that Heather put my socks and shoes on me and, you know, it's the little things.
• 51:37
  Like she needed help with her backpack, and I got to pay her back because she couldn't get her arm in a backpack.
• 51:44
  And I was able to help her get this backpack on.
• 51:46
  But we were, 60 700ft in the air because we just somebody mount Washington together, and it's like.
• 51:54
  Like that is cool.
• 51:56
  Like to think that on our anniversary, we'd be on the peak of a mountain.
• 52:00
  It's just it's it's mind blowing.
• 52:02
  And, you know, my kids had to come rescue me from that trail the next time that all four of us got on a trail, they were my pace crew.
• 52:10
  For my first 50 mile ultramarathon, I was supposed to be in a wheelchair when I'm 25. Right?
• 52:16
  It's like, you know.
• 52:17
  It's it's it's been a crazy ride.
• 52:19
  But again, it's out there for anybody.
• 52:21
  It really is out there for anybody.
• 52:23
  It's it's so I just can't I mean, I sound like an idiot.
• 52:28
  I just keep saying the same thing like that.
• 52:29
  So incredible.
• 52:30
  But it really is. And then you.
• 52:34
  Well when did you wean yourself off drugs?
• 52:36
  Was that before you did your juice cleanse or your juice?
• 52:41
  That was.
• 52:42
  That was hard.
• 52:42
  That day I usually I usually try to like, skate around it, but.
• 52:48
  So the pills, there's this this sounds awful, but the pills were the first thing to go.
• 52:56
  Only because it wasn't logical to be on them anymore.
• 52:59
  Because what would happen is I was withdrawing.
• 53:02
  Like withdrawing from opioids is is it's god awful.
• 53:05
  Like, is the like the worst thing in the world.
• 53:08
  And so what would happen is I would get these strips filled and they started getting more strict with the laws too, in time and I would take a month's worth of pills.
• 53:16
  I had 240 tablets for the month.
• 53:18
  They'd be gone in like five days.
• 53:20
  So again, I would try to ration them.
• 53:22
  I would give pieces to Heather.
• 53:24
  I would, you know, I'd hide them.
• 53:26
  And for some reason I always had a way to get them.
• 53:28
  And then what would happen is I'd end up having to wait because I just couldn't get anymore.
• 53:33
  And so I was withdrawing more than I was enjoying them, and it just didn't make sense.
• 53:38
  So I had, stopped them.
• 53:41
  And then, like I say, when my when my father, passed away, I called my doctor, and it was a very short time, you know, I would say like less than a month I was back on then I was off the alcohol.
• 53:55
  I, I hung on to that for a while.
• 53:57
  I did that cold turkey. That was awful.
• 54:00
  You know, shakes and sweats and flu for, like, it seemed like forever, but it was certainly a few days.
• 54:08
  Fentanyl was a different story.
• 54:10
  Fentanyl is awful. It's technology. So awful. Awful thing.
• 54:16
  That was super hard to get off.
• 54:17
  I wanted to so badly.
• 54:19
  I wanted to go to rehab, I wanted to I work in the public sector.
• 54:22
  I was I was embarrassed, I would say things were a little different than what?
• 54:28
  You know, addiction was not that it's accepted now, but people thought of it differently.
• 54:32
  And I thought of myself differently.
• 54:34
  We even talked about, going to Canada to try to get into rehab, but the fentanyl was awful.
• 54:41
  And, I, I should have went, but I didn't.
• 54:45
  And if people struggle with addiction, get help.
• 54:47
  There's so much help other get help.
• 54:49
  But what I did, I'm like, I got to get out of this the same way I got into this kind of healthier living.
• 54:58
  Is it little pieces at a time?
• 54:59
  And literally that's what I did.
• 55:00
  I would get my patch and, I'm like, I get from machinist to an engineer.
• 55:07
  So so I had these, dial calipers and I would just take, you know, about a 16 to will say a 16th of an inch off the patch.
• 55:14
  I would cut it off and I'll put that on.
• 55:18
  And then three days later, I changed the patch out again.
• 55:20
  I'd take another six.
• 55:21
  And I kept this little template to have the template upstairs, just so I remember.
• 55:26
  And you just kept cutting it down over time.
• 55:29
  And eventually it got small enough that it just wasn't, you know, it wasn't worth putting on anymore.
• 55:34
  So Tim that's incredible. Yeah.
• 55:36
  So that was right.
• 55:37
  So the drugs and alcohol went before the food before the juice fest.
• 55:41
  Well it kind of all was so, so what happened was I'll never forget it.
• 55:46
  If you've seen Joe Process movie I love to mean green.
• 55:49
  Like that was my favorite juice and that was his too.
• 55:51
  And I can remember standing over my juicer and I used that you Copenhagen stuff.
• 55:55
  I used to smoke.
• 55:56
  I was, anything you could do, I would do.
• 55:59
  And I had this big lip just stuffed with Copenhagen snuff.
• 56:02
  And I remember I told Heather, I said, you know, the taste of this meat green with a fresh chew of Copenhagen.
• 56:09
  Like, I don't know what happened the day the flavors meld together as the most wonderful flavor in the world.
• 56:14
  And I started just thinking, Molly, you are an idiot.
• 56:18
  Like, what are you doing?
• 56:19
  Like, you're literally putting yourself at risk for for mouth cancer.
• 56:24
  Well, you're juicing kale.
• 56:26
  And you say that kale in Copenhagen tastes good.
• 56:28
  So I was not, you know, I, I didn't do this the right way, but what happens. Is.
• 56:34
  We can't, you know, I think and this is goes a little bit deeper, but we can't just fix one part of our life.
• 56:42
  Right.
• 56:42
  And so so these are both physical things.
• 56:44
  But, you know, you can't be trying to get yourself healthy where you're trying to kill yourself at the same time.
• 56:49
  And so it just made sense, like if I'm going to be healthy, like this stuff can't be part of my life, I can't I can't put this poison into my body when I'm trying to get myself healthy.
• 56:57
  And I, I would say I probably learned more later on when I and I'm saying ten years into my journey, it's probably one more learning.
• 57:06
  And even today, I learned more than I did ten years ago, because I think we try to fix ourselves if we try to fix the physical self, but we leave out the emotions.
• 57:16
  We don't work through the problems.
• 57:18
  Like there's a reason why someone needs to be 400 pounds, and it's not because they like food.
• 57:22
  There's a reason why someone wants to do opioids, and it's not just because they have pain.
• 57:27
  It could be pain, but it's not the physical pain.
• 57:31
  So I personally, I believe unless you can work on your physical, emotional and spiritual being, you know, you people kind of tend to go away from the spiritual part.
• 57:41
  But I'll just leave it at, you know, without a purpose, like without a purpose.
• 57:45
  It's a pretty hopeless life.
• 57:47
  And for me, once I found like a purpose, I found a passion.
• 57:52
  And I found a reason, you know, to to work on my emotional stuff in, you know, a big, a big guy like me.
• 58:00
  I'll tell you, like, one of the hardest things for me was to look in a mirror and love myself.
• 58:05
  Like, hands down, like that was the worst.
• 58:08
  And I still struggle with it.
• 58:09
  Like it's never.
• 58:09
  It's never enough. It's never perfect.
• 58:13
  But yeah, these are things that that we need to work on.
• 58:15
  We can't just fix one thing because we leave the other things hanging.
• 58:19
  Yeah, you.
• 58:20
  I remember you said, instead of focusing on eliminating or avoiding the escape tools, you have to focus on why we need them.
• 58:29
  Yeah, and I think that that was so spot on, like, you know, why do we lean on the food and the drugs and the alcohol and the shopping in the porn or whatever?
• 58:40
  We're, you know, whatever we're addicted to?
• 58:43
  What the the escapism.
• 58:45
  Why are we leaning on that? For what?
• 58:48
  Yeah.
• 58:48
  I once heard someone say that, like the addiction is the solution, right?
• 58:54
  Like we're doing what's natural.
• 58:56
  Like, let's, you know, we're we're this is the solution to our problem.
• 59:01
  We just have the wrong solution when we, you know, we really got to look for the problem.
• 59:04
  And it sounds so woowoo, but it's so stinking true.
• 59:07
  Like you're not just you're not just like, you know, hitting those dopamine centers because you want to like, there's a reason why you have to do that.
• 59:16
  And, and, sometimes you got to dig deep and sometimes that's where the road, it's easy, you know, it's a lot easier to eat on a meal plan than it is to dig deep and find out, like, what's going on here.
• 59:27
  Like, why do you feel like this?
• 59:29
  I mean, it, it's really true.
• 59:31
  And, you know, I mean, life, life can be rough.
• 59:34
  And I think we all have to.
• 59:37
  We all lean on things, but sometimes you can lean on some healthier crutches, you know, and maybe that's it.
• 59:46
  Like like the running.
• 59:47
  Like maybe that's a new crutch, but you know.
• 59:51
  Oh, it was a crutch.
• 59:52
  It's a healthy it is.
• 59:54
  And sometimes I would argue it's maybe not the healthiest thing, but I don't I don't know if you know Charlie Engle.
• 59:59
  But I just saw him say yesterday, and it was pretty deep. He.
• 1:00:05
  Because people always say, well, you just traded your addictions, which I've treated my addictions my whole life.
• 1:00:10
  But, you know, Charlie said he goes, all right, you want to say I traded my addictions?
• 1:00:15
  He goes, I've never once sold my car for to sign up for a race.
• 1:00:20
  But he goes, I have sold my car so I could get dope.
• 1:00:23
  Exactly.
• 1:00:24
  You know, I've never sold my car for a race entry, so, you know, say what you hope people will say.
• 1:00:31
  But for me, I know I have to be focused on something.
• 1:00:35
  I think there is a problem that I ran into with identifying with that hardware behind me.
• 1:00:42
  And I think your identity should not come from a medal.
• 1:00:45
  I also, I do a whole talk on goals for high school kids.
• 1:00:49
  And, you know, a lot of times we get so hellbent and focused on a goal that it actually jacks us up.
• 1:00:56
  Because if your goal is to lose 20 pounds, what do you do when you lose 20 pounds?
• 1:00:59
  You stop.
• 1:01:01
  So I think what we have to do is goals are important to keep us on the right path, but we have to remember that it's the process that we need to stay consistent with.
• 1:01:09
  Not so much the goal. It's what we learn.
• 1:01:11
  And if the goal is cool to make you feel good and until it's over and then what do you do?
• 1:01:17
  So I think we really need to focus on the on the process of how we get to the goal.
• 1:01:22
  I agree with that.
• 1:01:23
  And for those who are just listening and not watching, Tim has like, 500 medals behind him from all from his races, which, are you still there?
• 1:01:33
  You so you think the first one still the best.
• 1:01:36
  The first five K yeah.
• 1:01:39
  There is another.
• 1:01:40
  My first well, would be my second, 70.3 Ironman was was pretty special too, because I had my coach was telling me, you got to focus on the finish line because you're going to want to quit.
• 1:01:52
  It's in the mountains.
• 1:01:52
  So it's a very hard race.
• 1:01:54
  And, I focused on the finish line, but it was different than everyone else's.
• 1:02:00
  How the was on the other side of that finish line and that like Lake Placid, like a can't like Lake Placid.
• 1:02:05
  I'll put that up there with forks over knives and saving my life because I started I skipped a bunch of stuff we don't have time to get into.
• 1:02:12
  But I started climbing mountains and I did it embraces.
• 1:02:16
  They made me these really cool braces.
• 1:02:18
  And it was super neat, but.
• 1:02:21
  So I fell in love with the mountains.
• 1:02:23
  And to be able to do, triathlon in the mountains.
• 1:02:27
  And, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen the miracle, the Disney, the miracle, the the hockey. Game. Okay. Yep.
• 1:02:34
  So right next to there is this oval, the Olympic oval that, and that's where you finish an Ironman and it's like, it's it's magic.
• 1:02:43
  Like miracles happen there.
• 1:02:44
  And you, and you're out there with these elite athletes.
• 1:02:46
  And here's little old me, like, you know, trail limping through this thing, trying to finish.
• 1:02:51
  And when Heather's on the other side of the finish line and man, when our eyes met, you know, I was so used to seeing sympathy, helplessness, hopelessness.
• 1:03:03
  But, man, she was so freakin proud of me.
• 1:03:06
  And it was just like somebody captured the image of us just hugging so hard at the end.
• 1:03:11
  It's like, oh my gosh, it was.
• 1:03:11
  It was a beautiful day.
• 1:03:14
  Not as good as the first one, but it was up there.
• 1:03:15
  That's beautiful.
• 1:03:16
  And that was that, an Ironman or.
• 1:03:19
  I was an Ironman 70.3.
• 1:03:21
  So it's like a half of an Ironman. Yeah.
• 1:03:23
  Have you done a full Ironman?
• 1:03:25
  You have multiple.
• 1:03:26
  In fact, I swore last year was going to be my last Ironman full Ironman, because they do take a lot of time and a lot of toll on me.
• 1:03:34
  But I went and signed up.
• 1:03:35
  I signed up last week, so I'm back.
• 1:03:38
  Oh my gosh.
• 1:03:38
  And that's what a full marathon.
• 1:03:41
  Oh how many miles swim.
• 1:03:43
  And yeah it's two and a half mile 2.4 mile swim 112 miles on the bike.
• 1:03:48
  Placid. It is 10,000ft a climb.
• 1:03:50
  So it's a it's a brutal bike ride.
• 1:03:52
  And then you run a full marathon through the mountains afterwards.
• 1:03:55
  So it's a long day.
• 1:03:58
  It's a long day.
• 1:03:59
  I mean, that sounds like you went shopping.
• 1:04:01
  We went to Home Depot, then we went to Bed Bath and Beyond.
• 1:04:04
  It was, you know what? It's I. Miss the crazy.
• 1:04:06
  Thing about it, because I got to tell you, like, the first time I got out of that chair twice was was probably just as much of a commitment.
• 1:04:15
  Like, this stuff is all relative people see, like someone running A5K and that might be out of reach, but you know, it's not out of reach.
• 1:04:24
  Like putting your clothes out, you know, do what you can do with what you have available right now, like with the tools you've been given.
• 1:04:31
  And I think as long as we're consistent and we show up to do the things we have, you have to remember something.
• 1:04:37
  Everybody wants to be inspired.
• 1:04:40
  They want to be motivated.
• 1:04:41
  What's really weird? I'm sorry.
• 1:04:43
  You're going to know why they call me Fat Man Ranch.
• 1:04:44
  No, no, You go as long as you want. But we all look for motivation.
• 1:04:51
  How do I stay motivated in a plant based on how do I stay motivated with fitness?
• 1:04:55
  What, like we don't need motivation.
• 1:04:57
  What area of your life do you need to be motivated for?
• 1:05:00
  Like, no one motivates you to go to work every day?
• 1:05:03
  Like, frankly, I'm quite not motivated in the morning to go to work.
• 1:05:06
  No one is.
• 1:05:07
  You know, I'm not motivated to pay my taxes, to pay my mortgage or, you know, and if your kids came home and said, I'm not going to do the homework, I'm just not feeling inspired today, what would you tell them?
• 1:05:20
  Like you'd say, get your butt to work, that you responded like, yeah.
• 1:05:23
  So I think what we need to do is flip this whole script, stop looking for motivation, and realize that when you know better, you do better because you have a responsibility to the people that you love.
• 1:05:33
  And not only you know to yourself, but to people you love.
• 1:05:35
  So then it becomes like, no, I know this is what I should be doing and this is what I need to do.
• 1:05:43
  And then you don't have to.
• 1:05:44
  Motivation is fun, but it's it leaves like it's emotions and it's gone.
• 1:05:48
  So, you know, if you want motivation, put your running shorts out the night before, get some patterns going and stay consistent in the littles.
• 1:05:57
  It's you know what this whole lifestyle is about?
• 1:05:59
  The non sexy little stuff that we do.
• 1:06:03
  That's where the magic is.
• 1:06:04
  It's not these big, you know, you know, new programs or any of this stuff.
• 1:06:08
  It's just the not sexy stuff that we do over and over.
• 1:06:13
  Yeah.
• 1:06:13
  Eating your rice and beans and grains and tofu and.
• 1:06:16
  Yeah, fruits and vegetables. Yeah.
• 1:06:19
  And getting out the door and moving.
• 1:06:21
  Simple. It's that simple. Moving.
• 1:06:24
  Yeah I, I love that and I love I realize you don't want to focus on running all the Ironman because that's that's beyond most people's, you know, even running A5K or a ten K.
• 1:06:36
  But like you said, you could get out of the chair twice.
• 1:06:38
  You can walk to the end of the block.
• 1:06:40
  You can whatever you can do to just keep doing that.
• 1:06:43
  I love that.
• 1:06:45
  And I started so as I'm aging here, I'm starting to focus more on strength training.
• 1:06:51
  And of course, I overdo that as well.
• 1:06:53
  But, you know, as we get older, we get to the Sacra pedia and, you know, you get a little muscle wasting.
• 1:07:00
  And, you know, people think like, oh, do resistance training or strength training, you know, so you look buff on the beat.
• 1:07:06
  So that's not this at at like when you get over 50 like what you're trying to do is stay functional.
• 1:07:12
  You people go to the nursing home not because they're sick.
• 1:07:15
  They go because they can't get off the toilet.
• 1:07:17
  They go because if they fall, they can't get up.
• 1:07:19
  And we need to put ourselves in these situations where we can, you know, get on the floor a couple times a day and get up, you know, use your use your quads to get off the toilet, walk your stairs up and down like we need to stay strong as we get older because we want to be independent.
• 1:07:34
  I would assume most people want to be independent, right?
• 1:07:37
  Yes. You're absolutely right about that. Yes.
• 1:07:40
  Thank you for that reminder.
• 1:07:42
  So it's not a matter of a medal.
• 1:07:43
  It's a matter of how well do you want to live, you know.
• 1:07:47
  Yeah, I know it's incredible.
• 1:07:50
  I mean, already ready to sound like an idiot.
• 1:07:52
  I just keep talking, saying that same thing.
• 1:07:55
  I want to ask you a couple of questions that I ask everybody at the end.
• 1:07:59
  They they're completely not related to anything you just said.
• 1:08:02
  What's your what's your favorite concert you've ever been to?
• 1:08:07
  Who comes to upstate New York?
• 1:08:09
  Who have you seen?
• 1:08:10
  Well, so we have Darien Lake.
• 1:08:12
  And so a lot of people come to dinner.
• 1:08:15
  Oh, yes. So this is going to sound weird.
• 1:08:18
  I am not a it's weird because I love loud music when I'm training and stuff, but I do not like concerts.
• 1:08:25
  But I love seeing Heather happy.
• 1:08:27
  And one of her favorite bands she runs to is called skillet.
• 1:08:30
  So every time they come, even near us, we have to go to a skillet.
• 1:08:33
  We have to get the VIP tickets and get right up front.
• 1:08:37
  And it's loud and there's smoke and fire and it's crazy metal.
• 1:08:41
  And so I like going to that concert could just because I like to see her happy down.
• 1:08:46
  And yeah. I've never heard of skillet.
• 1:08:48
  Thank you.
• 1:08:49
  Yeah I mean I go see so much music and I've heard of like so many bands but I've never heard of skillet I don't know.
• 1:08:56
  Look, I'm more of an old, 80s, 80s rock, 80s hairband, AcDc, Bon Jovi, like that kind of thing.
• 1:09:03
  Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure.
• 1:09:05
  Those are some good concerts.
• 1:09:06
  What?
• 1:09:08
  Do you have a favorite health or beauty product?
• 1:09:13
  No, really?
• 1:09:15
  Not really. No.
• 1:09:16
  Do you moisturize? What do you do?
• 1:09:19
  Well, when I swim, I mentioned before I had eczema, so my skin gets gets pretty dry.
• 1:09:25
  So for a while this season, coconut oil after I get out of the pool because it would cause the chlorine.
• 1:09:31
  Just like getting it up.
• 1:09:33
  Yeah. So I guess coconut oil.
• 1:09:36
  Coconut oil. That's good.
• 1:09:37
  Do you do you have somebody that you admire for the way they're aging?
• 1:09:44
  My, I hate to keep saying as I sound like a like like I'm.
• 1:09:48
  I'm trash.
• 1:09:48
  She'll never watch this.
• 1:09:49
  I sound like I'm trying to impress her, but my wife, like she, you know, we're both.
• 1:09:55
  I guess we're aging well, Yes, ma'am.
• 1:09:59
  That's good.
• 1:10:00
  Oh, that's.
• 1:10:01
  I yeah. I can just. I mean, she's out.
• 1:10:04
  That was so.
• 1:10:05
  Heather has her own, so.
• 1:10:05
  I mean, I have a last name.
• 1:10:07
  So Heather was plant based when I went to Plant Base about two years.
• 1:10:11
  After I went plant based, she had some medical issues.
• 1:10:14
  She went into the hospital, and, it flashback to everything she went through with her mom, and she walked out of there.
• 1:10:21
  She goes.
• 1:10:22
  I can't control a lot of things in my life, but I can control how I eat.
• 1:10:25
  I'm going hopeful. Plant based instantly.
• 1:10:27
  And so she hopped on about two years ago.
• 1:10:31
  So she's 11 years about.
• 1:10:34
  And, she is just he she was the kid that always skips gym when it was running days and stuff.
• 1:10:41
  And now she's like, she runs every morning and, you know, she's fit.
• 1:10:45
  And we had a plant based restaurant.
• 1:10:48
  We had a very good exit from it.
• 1:10:50
  So she retired at 50 years old, and she's 53 now.
• 1:10:53
  So she volunteers a lot.
• 1:10:55
  She helps a lot of people.
• 1:10:57
  And, she's living her best life, so that's amazing.
• 1:11:00
  That's what's your best piece of advice for aging? Well.
• 1:11:04
  Aging well is fight.
• 1:11:08
  We don't, we don't.
• 1:11:09
  I mean, we can age.
• 1:11:10
  Well, now.
• 1:11:13
  Okay, this is going to sound counterintuitive, but, but from my experience, the best way to age well, is to put ourself in stress situations.
• 1:11:21
  Yeah, we I feel like when we age, we want to we.
• 1:11:25
  And I do this too. I get caught in this.
• 1:11:27
  I want to retire.
• 1:11:28
  I want to have my little place on the couch or watch TV by the fireplace.
• 1:11:31
  It's.
• 1:11:32
  But but the reality is, that's a good way to age fast.
• 1:11:35
  And if you want to slow that aging process down, put yourself in situations.
• 1:11:39
  When I say stress, I'm not talking about mental stress.
• 1:11:41
  I'm talking about putting your body in in a stressful situation, like go for a walk at a lake.
• 1:11:47
  Let your heart remember that you're alive, and I feel like the best way to age well is to, you know, push yourself a little harder.
• 1:11:54
  You know, I'm not saying do crazy stuff, but I'm saying you remind your heart that you're still alive.
• 1:12:01
  That's really good advice.
• 1:12:03
  Well. Thank you.
• 1:12:04
  Well, Tim, where can people find you as a fat man?
• 1:12:06
  Rants. Yeah.
• 1:12:07
  Anything. Fat man rants.
• 1:12:09
  Anything.
• 1:12:09
  Fat man rants.
• 1:12:10
  Yeah. Find you there I love it.
• 1:12:13
  Oh I love it.
• 1:12:14
  And it's fat man rants because.
• 1:12:17
  Oh that's just because it was on a post-it and I had a colleague pick one of the three I wanted, like, former fat man or like former fat Guy.
• 1:12:26
  Everything was taken.
• 1:12:28
  Fat man ranches came up.
• 1:12:30
  I love it when I, when I first adopted this lifestyle, like, I literally ranted all the time, like, I, like I was the food police, you know, I found out since then the best way we can get people to live like this is be a good example and, and make people come to you and say, what is you?
• 1:12:48
  What do you got that I'm missing out on, right?
• 1:12:50
  Like, what am I missing here?
• 1:12:51
  Because your life is amazing.
• 1:12:53
  That's the best way.
• 1:12:53
  It's not being a food police.
• 1:12:55
  So I was ranting all the time and I wanted former fat man and and the two kind of melded together.
• 1:13:02
  I love it.
• 1:13:03
  Well, I am so honored to talk to you today.
• 1:13:06
  And, I know you will inspire a lot of people.
• 1:13:11
  I know that that might not be your goal.
• 1:13:13
  I know that you just want everybody to be healthy like I do.
• 1:13:16
  But thank you for talking to me.
• 1:13:18
  Well, I'll have to have you back and.
• 1:13:21
  Yeah, so we can continue.
• 1:13:23
  But thank you so much, Tim. All right.
• 1:13:25
  And thank you so much. Bye, guys.
• 1:13:27
  Take care. Bye bye.
• 1:13:28
  Thanks for listening, friend.
• 1:13:30
  From my heart to yours.
• 1:13:32
  Be well until we meet again.