Latest / Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten / New Fatherhood, Faith, and Finding Time to Train

Transcript

New Fatherhood, Faith, and Finding Time to Train · Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, Faithful, Welcome to the Faithful Fitness Podcast. In a moment,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: my dad, coach Alex van Houten, will help you honor
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: God by making the most out of the body God's
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: given you. Today you can expect truth from the Bible,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: tools from science, and guidance for everyday life. So listen closing,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Get ready, Let's get one percent better today.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Hey there, coach Alex. Here, grace in peace to you.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: This episode was a fun one. I had the opportunity
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: to sit down on the g's podcast and we covered
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  Speaker 2: a lot of ground fatherhood, fitness, motivation, faith, and why
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: so much of the fitness industry is built around what sells,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: not always around what actually works. But one of my
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: favorite parts of this conversation was right at the beginning,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: the host had just become a father, four weeks in
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: sleep deprived, stressed, trying to figure out where training fits
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: when life has suddenly been turned upside down. Man, I
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: remember that season when you become a parent, especially for
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: the first time, Your old rhythms get shattered. You don't
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: just find time anymore. You make use of what you got.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes that means a twelve minute workout in the living
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  Speaker 2: room while the baby sleeps. Sometimes it means walking with
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: the stroller, and sometimes it means choosing a better breakfast
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: when you're tired and running on fumes. In the world
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: of health and fitness, strengths and feats, it might not
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: sound impressive, but it matters because health and fitness are
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: not just about looking good. They're about becoming the kind
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  Speaker 2: of man, the kind of parent, kind of woman, the
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  Speaker 2: kind of spouse, the kind of friend, kind of servant
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  Speaker 2: that God has called you to be. In this conversation,
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  Speaker 2: I said something that I believe very deeply. If fitness
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  Speaker 2: is just about vanity, it becomes empty. But if fitness
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  Speaker 2: becomes stewardship, it changes everything. Stewardship says God gave me
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: this body. This is the only one I get, and
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  Speaker 2: I want to make.
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  Speaker 3: The most out of it.
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  Speaker 2: Not because I worship my body or because I'm chasing
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  Speaker 2: somebody else's physique, but because I may need this body
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  Speaker 2: for something meaningful. To love my wife, to raise my sons,
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  Speaker 2: to serve my church, to do the good work that
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: God's put in front of me. So, as you listen,
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  Speaker 2: I want you to wrestle with this question, where have
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I been treating my health? Like a side project instead
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  Speaker 2: of part of my calling. Because your body is not
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  Speaker 2: separate from your life. It's the vessel you live your
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: life through. And before we jump in, I just want
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: to say thank you. A listener recently left a review
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: that said, Hey, really great conversation, lots to think about.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: That means more than you. When you leave a review,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: share an episode, send a message, or tell someone about
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: the show. You help this mission reach people that I
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: may never get to meet. So thank you. And speaking
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: of things, I'm excited to share We've got new Faithful
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Fitness music in the show notes. The new running music
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: for the hit album just dropped and I'm pretty fired
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: up about it. The first album was metal, which is
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: my personal favorite for lifting, but this new project is
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: built to fuel running intervals and those moments where you
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: need to keep moving when your body wants to quit.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: So check out the music link in the show notes.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: And lastly, the Faithful five k is coming up. I'm
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: excited to share that five local churches have already stepped
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: up breaking down walls between denominations just here in Greenbrier,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: along with out of town running clubs and more people
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: getting involved every week. I cannot wait for you to
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: join us, whether your local virtual, running or walking, bring
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: in your family, just helping to support the event. There's
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: a place for you in this You can find a
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: link in the show notes. All right, guys, without further ado,
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  Speaker 2: let's dive into this awesome conversation on the G's podcast.
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  Speaker 4: All right, let's start with the coach as. First of all,
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  Speaker 4: thank you very much for being a part of this podcast.
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  Speaker 4: And I will start from with the questions from a
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  Speaker 4: personal nature. Recently I became a father like four weeks ago.
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  Speaker 3: Well, congratulations, man, you thank you very much.
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  Speaker 4: And I gotta tell you the court is all. You
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  Speaker 4: can smell it in the air. I mean you can
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  Speaker 4: smell it like the stress with my wife yelling, with
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  Speaker 4: me crying in the bedroom.
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  Speaker 3: Sometimes true true story. Man.
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  Speaker 4: How we I know you talked a lot about parenthote
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: and how do you find time to train? How do
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  Speaker 4: you find time to put your life in order? And
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  Speaker 4: just to make some sense of it because everything is
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  Speaker 4: I feel super disorganized at the moment. I feel super
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  Speaker 4: not in the right place.
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  Speaker 3: Is this this is your first child? Correct? And do
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  Speaker 3: you have a do you have a boy or a girl?
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  Speaker 3: A girl? Girl? Sweet.
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  Speaker 2: That's that's awesome, man. Congratulations. Yeah, it's a it's a
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  Speaker 2: tough question. It's a very tough question. In fact, I
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  Speaker 2: didn't actually struggle with my personal health and fitness until
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  Speaker 2: I became a father.
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  Speaker 3: As well.
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  Speaker 2: I had struggles, but making it a part of my
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  Speaker 2: life on a consistent basis was not difficult for me
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  Speaker 2: until I became a father. And I have a distinct
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  Speaker 2: memory of my son. He was six weeks old at
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  Speaker 2: the time. He was laying on the on the couch
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  Speaker 2: and my wife had gone to take a nap, because,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: as you know, you're not sleeping very good right now,
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  Speaker 2: and so wherever you can get your sleep, you got
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  Speaker 2: to you gotta get it. And so I was taking
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: one for the team, man, even though I hadn't slept
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  Speaker 2: for a long time. I was letting her get a nap.
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  Speaker 2: And so he's laying on the couch and I'm like, man,
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  Speaker 2: I haven't worked out.
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  Speaker 3: I was a trainer.
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  Speaker 2: I was actively training people in the gym every day,
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  Speaker 2: at least five to six days a week, and I
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  Speaker 2: wasn't really exercising, And so he's laying on the couch
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  Speaker 2: and he's asleep, and so I pick up I've got
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: two dumb bells, and so I just start doing exercises.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I'm doing push ups and I'm doing like
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: whatever you can do with two dumbbells in a living room, right,
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  Speaker 2: And I get about twelve minutes in and I'm smoked.
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  Speaker 2: I haven't been eating right, I haven't been sleeping well.
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  Speaker 2: And he wakes up and starts crying. So I got
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: to put my dumb bells down and pick him up,
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: and you know, get a bottle of breast milk and stuff.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: But young parenthood is like that, Like that twelve minutes matters,
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  Speaker 2: That twelve minutes can do good things for your testosterone,
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  Speaker 2: that twelve minutes can do good things for your muscles
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  Speaker 2: and for your cardiovascular system, That twelve minutes can do
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  Speaker 2: amazing things for your cognition and your mental health, and
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  Speaker 2: so and so. What I would say to you, as
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  Speaker 2: a as a brand new dad, is your exercise in
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  Speaker 2: nutrition is wrapped up in your identity of father. What
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  Speaker 2: kind of father do you want to be? And when
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  Speaker 2: you got a I call it the crying hamster stage.
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  Speaker 2: That's not very nice to babies, but that's what it is.
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  Speaker 2: They just cry a lot, you know, when you're in
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  Speaker 2: the crying hamster stage. It's not apparent to you that
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  Speaker 2: you're starting to build rhythms into your parenthood and your
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: fatherhood right now. But even that small window of doing
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: some push ups or doing some squats, or doing some
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  Speaker 2: jumping jacks, or taking the baby on a walk right
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: or or lifting him in the air when he can
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  Speaker 2: support himself, is that a he or she?
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  Speaker 3: You said, little girl lifting her?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, lifting lifting your little girl in the air when
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  Speaker 2: when she's when she can support herself. Getting those things
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  Speaker 2: in is actually the foundation for creating an active fatherhood lifestyle.
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  Speaker 2: And don't worry, the tumult won't last forever.
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  Speaker 3: Man, hang in there.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm trying to cherish every moment.
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  Speaker 3: I know that.
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  Speaker 4: We have that discussion with my wife. I mean, we
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  Speaker 4: don't have a lot of help because we're both from
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  Speaker 4: foreign countries living in the UK. No grandmother, no grandfather
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  Speaker 4: at the moment helping us. But she was telling me like,
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  Speaker 4: cherish this moment. You need to enjoy because it's not
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  Speaker 4: going to happen again, and so on. But as long
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  Speaker 4: as the training, because you said, like, well, I use
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  Speaker 4: those fifteen minutes, use those ten minutes that you have.
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  Speaker 4: It's hard for me to release my mind and to
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  Speaker 4: be totally come and collected when I'm expecting that cry
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  Speaker 4: and I'm when expecting something to happen and to break it.
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  Speaker 4: And I have all city, a terrible old city, man.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, when I'm watching a movie, if it's theory
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  Speaker 4: third minute of the movie, I don't go to p
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  Speaker 4: I go to the fortieth minute.
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  Speaker 3: This is who I am.
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  Speaker 4: So it's terrible, I know. So it's hard for me
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  Speaker 4: to have that peace of mind to find those fifteen
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  Speaker 4: minutes knowing that I can be it can break that cycle,
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  Speaker 4: that routine, that I can break that push upon the
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  Speaker 4: ninth instead of the tent. And yeah, do you deal
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  Speaker 4: with people with ALCD, by the way, and people who
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: are yeah, who have that kind of issue.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, in exercise science, exercise is a positive therapeutic
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  Speaker 2: benefit to just about every mental health issue that we
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  Speaker 2: have a name for. So, whether it's OCD, ADHD, anxiety, depression,
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  Speaker 2: even neurocognitive dysfunction like Alzheimer's, any of those individuals will
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  Speaker 2: benefit from exercise, and I find myself working with them frequently.
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  Speaker 4: All right, So let me ask you this, what is
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  Speaker 4: the difference between Because we've listened to some of your
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  Speaker 4: other appearances in the podcasts, what is the difference between?
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  Speaker 4: You make a very clear distinction between physical science and
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  Speaker 4: marketing science. As the fitness goals and workout goals, How
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  Speaker 4: where is it you should there and what should be
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  Speaker 4: aware of?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's important to understand that that in the
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  Speaker 2: world we live in today, the fitness industry is a
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  Speaker 2: is a for profit, unregulated market. It doesn't it's not
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  Speaker 2: necessarily a bad thing. But what it means is whatever
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  Speaker 2: sells sticks around, which isn't necessarily the same thing as
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  Speaker 2: saying whatever sells.
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  Speaker 3: Works, right.
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  Speaker 2: So and so when when we understand this, when we
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: start looking at the science of exercise or the science
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: of nutrition, we we actually find things that we might
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: wonder like, why is nobody talking about this?
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  Speaker 3: Why is nobody doing this? Why? Why is this not
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  Speaker 3: common knowledge?
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  Speaker 2: And the reality is the fitness industry is not necessarily
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  Speaker 2: interested in what works. It's interested in what sells, and
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: those are those are not always the same thing, unfortunately. So,
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  Speaker 2: so I'll give you an example. We have known for
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  Speaker 2: a very long time that the uh, the supplement creatine
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  Speaker 2: monohydrate is extremely powerful for building muscle, Like we've known
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  Speaker 2: that it's actually the most well studied supplement in the
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: whole world.
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  Speaker 4: I used to take it when I was a teenager,
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  Speaker 4: which is not a good idea, I suppose, but.
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  Speaker 2: It's it's not the worst thing. In fact, the British
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Journal of Medicine showed us that five grams of creatine
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  Speaker 2: per day for two years, unless you have a contraindication
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: like kidney failure or liver disease, that that that's totally safe.
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  Speaker 2: There's no side effects associated in a negative negative.
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  Speaker 3: Vein with that.
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  Speaker 2: But but creatine is very cheap to make, Like it's
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: it's not a very expensive supplement. It's it's actually a
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: relatively inexpensive to create creatine monohydrate. And so there are
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: several offshoots and this is going to get me into
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  Speaker 2: some trouble with some people. There's several offshoots of creatine
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: supplementation that are different versions of creatine and they've added
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff to it to make it more
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  Speaker 2: effective in all this stuff, and it's just not like
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  Speaker 2: when you actually look at the research, there's not a
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: difference between taking creatine monohydrate for cognitive benefit for muscular
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: skeletal benefit. It actually helps with sleep deprivation. By the way,
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: pro tip dad, with my child number two, creating monohydrate
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: was a really helpful part of getting through that without
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: feeling subhuman on a regular basis. So creating monohydrate is
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: perfectly fine as a supplement. You don't need to add
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: all the bills and whistles to it. But there's an
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: entire market of extraneous creatine monohydrate supplements. And maybe they
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: taste good, maybe they got caffeine in them and make
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: people feel good, but it's as far as the actual
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: benefit of creating modehydrate, they're not getting any better benefits
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: when you look at the actual research. And that's how
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: so many things in the fitness world operate. Another example
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: would be fasting. It's free to fast, right, you don't
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: have to you don't have to eat anything.
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  Speaker 4: It's cheap.
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  Speaker 3: That's what that actually means.
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  Speaker 2: But there's an entire multimillion dollar industry around fasting shakes.
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  Speaker 2: So if I fast, but I have this shake I'm taking.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, technically you're not even fasting at that point,
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  Speaker 2: but it's marketed as a as a as a resource
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  Speaker 2: for people who are interested in fasting and so the
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  Speaker 2: fitness industry is not interested necessarily in what actually works.
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  Speaker 2: It's what sells that sticks around, and people should know that.
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  Speaker 4: What is the biggest misconception about some nutrition's nutrition? They
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: don't have nutrition of value, but a lot of people
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  Speaker 4: market it like they do, and they might if you like,
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: it's good for you. I remember in the sixth Okay,
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: I don't remember in the sixties, but I do know
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: that they were trying to market the cigarettes something good
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: for you and you can smoke in a hospital in
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: a plane. What what What are the biggest misconceptions in
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: your opinion about the products we have out there?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Man, the nutrition world in general is full of misconceptions.
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  Speaker 2: And it's unfortunately nutrition takes on kind of like a
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: religious way about it, you know, because because I mean,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: we eat every day, multiple times a day, if you're
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: privileged to do so, right, and so so there's there's
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: a very deep visceral connection to what we eat, how
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: it tastes, even the vibe of the way you do
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: things at your house. Man, you really want to start
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: a fight with your wife, try to deal with your
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: nutrition right now while you're while you're also juggling babies,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: you know, you're like, we shouldn't buy that, that's not organic.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: We should buy that like whoa man? Watch out? And
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: so unfortunately, in the fitness world, the misconceptions around nutrition
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: become their own kind of religious idols, like this is
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: the hill I'm willing to die on. And one one
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: that just won't go away right now is this infatuation
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: with calories with regard to health and fitness. So calories,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: calorie counting, cutting calories, saving calories, being in a calorie deficit,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: being in a calorie surplus.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: This way of.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Thinking about nutrition came out of the bodybuilding community. Because
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: I'm going to grow muscle, how I'm going to grow muscle, Well,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be in a surplus of calories, okay,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: because you know, obviously if I don't eat enough, I
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: can't grow muscle, okay. And then and then I have
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: to get ready for my show. I've got to stand
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: on stage and the judges have to see all this
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: muscle that I've got on my body, and so I
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: have to decrease my body fat as far as I
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: can in order to show my work. Right, And that's
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: a sport, that's a thing people do for giggles and
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: even professionally right and so great, And we've taken that
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: way of doing nutrition, and we have put that on
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: the general population. And unfortunately, calories are a piece of nutrition.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: They're not the only piece of nutrition. If calories were
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: the only piece of nutrition that mattered your body would
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: be like a car, put fuel in, you get from
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: point A to point B, we're good to go. But
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: your body's not like a car. Your body's a living
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: organism that builds itself out of the fuel that you consume.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: So there's energy in your foot for sure, but there's
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: also nutrients. There's also messengers for your genetics that tell
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: your body about how to adapt. There's also polyphenols and
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: antioxidants and stuff we don't even understand how it works
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: yet that exist in our food. And so I work
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: with people on a regular basis, both elite operators and
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: just the general population who say I want to get
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: healthier or I want to get faster, I want to
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: get stronger, I want to lose body fat, and they're
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: because of the fitness industry, they're so focused on their
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: caloric intake that we're missing basic nutrients on a regular basis,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: and they're fascinated when we're like, we just shift shift
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: the way we eat, eat more nutrients, and all of
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: a sudden, so many things get better. And they're like,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: I didn't even change anything about my calories.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Well you did.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: You changed how many nutrients were inherent in the energy.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: And so that's one one giant miss canception that it's
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: been around for probably fifty years at this point, really
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: just needs to die. We need a much much deeper
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: understanding of what our food actually is beyond calories.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: Definitely true. And you talked about bodybuilding. I remember a
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: time when everybody wanted to be that was the perfect
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: image for a body that was that was the ideal,
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: like the Arnold Schwarzeneggers from the Predator movie, and and
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: most people don't want that kind of a body in
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: today's world. I think that that kind of a generation,
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: that generation, maybe maybe we shift our focus from watching
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: those fighters fighting UFC or MMA and we decided, okay,
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: like this is the body that we want. This is
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: the perfect body for bliometric exercises, Like I want to
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: be able to do that in order to get in shape.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: While you're a bodybuilder, I mean, I don't know if
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: bodybuilders do CARRYO at all, definitely you know better than me.
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: But it's like idea of a perfect body change through
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: the years to you.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Well and think, you know, once upon a time, the
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: idea of it's vanity is what it really is.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: I want to look like that.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: And unfortunately that that took root and it's still still
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: not quite out of the system yet. And this is
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: extremely important in my area of research, which is with
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: regard to how belief impacts our physiology, and what we're
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: starting to learn is that's an empty way to understand
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: our health and fitness. It's much more powerful to start
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: thinking about what what are the identities in my life
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: that really mattered to me, and how does my health
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: and fitness serve that?
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: So you're your father. Now it's a new identity. It's
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: it's new to you. It's hard on dad, you know mom.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Mom gets all the oxytocin when the baby's born and
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: she's instantly mom, those all those switches flip on in
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: her head. Dad's Dad takes time. It's a month long
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: process before you're like, I'm Dad and it's awesome.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: So hang in there, buddy.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: I think my my son was about eight months old
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: before I was like, I really like being a dad.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: This is pretty cool. So so hanging there, I gets better.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: A stupid question, by the way, but I'm never the
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: less I'm gonna ask it because, like they say in school,
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: there's a stupid questions, Right, is six pack a good thing?
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: Is it healthy to have a six pack? And is
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: it can you? Can you sustain that for let's say
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: a year?
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, fair, fair question. I'm about to answer this in general.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: But I've had a six pack since I was like,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know, nine, and I'm doing fine, So it's
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: nine healthy since.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: I was nine.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, my little I've got a seven year old
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: and a ten year old and they're both jacked and
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: it's not it's fun fact from tickling tickle, throw them.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Around, ride them on the shoulders.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: They just you know, build build all that core musculature
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: and stuff. They don't they don't do crunches, they don't
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: lift weights, like, they just exist that way, right, But
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: a six pack isn't necessarily an unhealthy thing, but it
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: does have a lot to do with how you're built
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: and your genetic heritage. If you're a thicker person, like
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: if you generally carry slightly more body fat than average,
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: which is a genetic thing. You can have slightly and
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: it's not bad. It's not unhealthy to have a sixteen
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: eighteen percent body fat. It's actually pretty healthy for a man, right.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: But if that's your genetic heritage, then you could have
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: a six pack if you would cut some fat. But
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: is that sustainable and healthy for you? That's suspect, right,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: because if you have to cut a bunch of your
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: essential fats to get there, if you have to eat
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: in a deficit all the time to get there, if
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: you're exercising two hours a day to get there, and
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: that's just not good for your family life and not
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: good for your work life, then that would be a
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: negative thing.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: What I say to people in general is if we
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: can get your body, your exercise, your nutrition, your rest,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: if we can get those all lined up, we'll create
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: the best optimal body composition for you. And for the
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: average guy that's somewhere between twelve and sixteen percent body fat,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: and they could train really hard athletically and have more
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: time and energy to train hard athletically. It might have
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: slightly less body fat than that on average, or they
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: might have slightly more body fat than that on average,
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: and that can.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: Be healthy for them.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: But maintaining five six seven percent body fat all the
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: time for most people, that's not that's not healthy training,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: that's very draining. Yes, something breaks down over time, for sure.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: We all love gladiators. You love gladiators. You see Spartacus. Yeah,
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: the image that we have of modern gladiators is very
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: different from how they look back in the days in
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: nation room actually had body fat, They had like significant
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: I'm a historian, so, uh, they had a significant body
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: fat just to preserve their vite wogns from from a
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: strike from a knife or gladius.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: Or spears or something like that.
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: And we tend to forget that having a six pack
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: doesn't make you UFC champions, right right. You talk about
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: also and we we kind of discussed that and touched
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: on this about bio individuality. You wanna you wanna talk
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: about more why everybody is different? Way we have to
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: we have to take that in consideration.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: And uh, actually part of your your question there about
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: the six pack, right, So, so bioindividuality is the idea
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: that that we have a lot of genetics that are equivalent.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: So so you and I are both Homo sapiens, right,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: So we're both male homo sapiens. We both actually have
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: similar color hair, and we have similar color skin. So
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: but if, but if you boil it down to places
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: where we're different, because we definitely don't look the same,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: we don't have the same fingerprints. It's very likely that
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: you have several pieces of your genetic heritage that are
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: very different from my genetic heritage, that are part of
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: that point one percent or even point zero five percent
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: that were different, and those differences matter. Those differences can
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: change the way we process certain nutrients. Those differences could
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: change the way that our muscles adapt or don't adapt
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: to exercise. It could also change our predisposition to enjoy exercise.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: There are some people who genetically just hate working hard.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: It's not fun.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: I will give you an example that just came to
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: my mind about fast twiching muscles. Not everybody have fast
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: twitching muscles. Some people were just born with not much
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: of them, ye know. And I've always wondered why some
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: people who are great again, I'll go to the fighting here,
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: but greater jiujitsuo cannot do much about box even if
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: they train for ten years because the fast twitching muscle
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: is something that you're born, they.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Might correct, it's actually it's not necessarily that you're born
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: with the fast twitch muscle. Every person has a unique
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: genetic blueprint your DNA, right, and that's given to you
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: at conception. So your wife and you made your baby, right.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: And what's cool is if you guys had more babies,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: which don't think about that right now, one's plenty, But
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: if you guys had more babies, they wouldn't have the
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: same genetic heritage, two same parents, but they would still
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: have differences between the two of them that were significant, right.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: And so your genetic blueprint informs your body how to
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: build itself, kind of like if you're, I don't know,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: building a building a bookshelf from the store, it comes
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: with a set of instructions.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Right, put this plank here, put this one here. Right.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: If you bought the bookshelf with the cover, you got
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: to cover too. Some of us have the genetic predisposition
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: to have lots of type two muscle fibers, okay, and
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: some of us have the genetic predisposition in the blueprint
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: that say we're not going to have very many of those, right,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: we're gonna have muscle, but most of that muscle will
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: be type one versus type two, and there is a
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: genetic difference there, and we can we can see that
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: in world class olympians who hold records for powerlifting.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: That.
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: He's he's the world champion in the moment, in the world.
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: He breaks all the world red cards.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: H Yeah.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: And so what we're looking at is we'll take somebody
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: like that and we'll look at their genetic profile and say, okay,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: because because the human genome is vast, there's so many
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: alleles in the human genome, and go, okay, what's common
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: between him and the other world class Olympic powerlifters. And
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: then we can really boil down just a couple of
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: things that that are unique special about them, and we
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: can group these things together and say, wow, that seems
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: to code for type two muscle fibers. Let's look at
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: how that shows up in the general population, and you
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: can actually see that there's.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: I don't have it. Actually I don't.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: I don't have the the athletic gene that makes me
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: very explosive, which is which is you know, very painful
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: and frustrating sometimes when I would love to be really strong.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: My wife, on the other hand, has the gene. So
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: that's a joke in our house that that she's the
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: athletic one and I actually just have to train all
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: But but that's but that's important to understand. There's a
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: there's also a gene that controls for how much ammalase
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: is in your saliva. Ammalase is the enzyme that breaks
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: down carbohydrates starting in the mouth so when you chew, right,
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: So there are some people who have the genetic predisposition
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: to have four times the amount of amylase in their saliva.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: And what that means is they break down carbohydrate it's
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: very rapidly, right, Like that's crazy. What that means for
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: them is their blood sugar is fundamentally different in response
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: to let's say a slice of pizza than somebody who
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: has the genes to produce less amylase, where the slice
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: of pizza will make it all the way to the
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: stomach and have to work through some hydrochloric acid before
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: it starts to break down rapidly, right, And so in
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: one person, their responsiveness to carbohydrates, especially in our world
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: with lots of processed carbs around, is actually really hard
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: on them, whereas today's world of abundant process carbohydrates is
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: not very hard on those without the gene to break
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: down carbohydrates as rapidly. It doesn't create as much stress
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: in the system. And so in this way, biol visuality
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: is becoming more and more important for us to understand,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: because what's right for my body, what gets the most
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: out of me exercise, nutrition, sleep wise might be different
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: from you, and that's really important in the nutrition world.
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: So we're not really equal. Awe, We're all born with different,
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: different traits, different genetics. Oh, you went through a genetic
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: disorder called account it's called ed S. If I'm not
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: if I'm not mistaken right and.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Or yeah elers dan lows is what I say, although
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: there's there's a couple of different ways others have pronounced it.
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, can you can you tell me more about the
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: struggle with it? And how do your professional party is
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: quite interesting. You wanted to become an orthopedic surgeon and
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: how what what c d S and how did you
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: conquer that?
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't say I've it's it's still a thing
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: I'm wrestling with every day. So I don't want to
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: claim conquering it yet, although I have made some significant
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: strides toward that. And I say that specifically because anybody
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: who wrestles with anything chronic you with o c D,
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: you you, you have probably made some significant strides in
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: living with it well. But the idea of like conquering
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: and eliminating is like, Oh, I don't know, man.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: Does that feel right to you?
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: I needn't know. I have it, Like I think my
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: wife told me that you probably have LCD, and I said, like,
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: maybe you're right. I thought everybody is like that. It
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: was a relation to me.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you're right here. So with with eelers danlos.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Elers dan loos is is a genetic disorder that changes
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: the way my body synthesizes collagen. And there's a small
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: portion of the population for whom this is true, And
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: there's different types of eelers danlos for the different tissues
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: in the body that it affects. For me, the tissues
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: that it affects are are the connective tissues, my tendons,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: my ligaments, and also affects my digestive tract and my
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: skin right for some For some individuals, it's the cardiac
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: tissue that it affec most and so that carries with
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: it a whole host of other issues. But that said,
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: I didn't know I had ealers daan lost until my
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: late twenties, when my mom was diagnosed, and about the
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: same time I was wrestling with some things that brought
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: me symptomatically under that same diagnosis. But really, what the
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: struggle looked like for me in my life was doing
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: the same things that exercise science says I should do
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: athletically and getting drastically different results from my peers, getting
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: injured on a regular basis, not being able to progress
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: in the same ways, and wrestling with a lot of pain.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: So I love being active, and I particularly I'd say
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: stubborn and hard headed would be the negative version, but
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: maybe you could say I'm gritty. I'm not sure either way.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Oh it hurts, That's fine, I'll keep running, you know,
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: and with with eelers dwnloads. Learning the limits of my
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: body was a very hard thing for me to learn,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: learning when strain was good but pain was bad, and
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: when to when to push the envelope there and so
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: and so fast forwarding, you know, to post diagnosis, understanding, hey,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: my body is fundamentally different and so I shouldn't expect
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: it to respond and react the way let's say my
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: clients have or the way that people without this disorder respond,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: and learning how to treat myself like an outlier, how
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: to feed myself well, how to exercise well, how to
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: recover well. It's it's been an extremely useful part of
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: my work to help individuals learn how to feed themselves well.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Not everybody's an outlier in the same way, but we
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: all definitely have our very unique makeup and it's it's
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: a journey to learn how to make the most of it.
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: You also work with to navy c CEO operators, a
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: lot of people who are putting their life on the
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: line in the army and police force. Is it what's
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: the difference between treating a person with chronic pain or
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: treating a person who owned who wants to get in
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: shape them and then you're going to treat like help
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: with advice or workout schedule for somebody who is a
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: Navy c let's say, or build a force operator m hm.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: In many ways they're the same because we're all human,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: but an operator has a fundamentally different mindset. So somebody
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: in the general population who's just trying to get healthier
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: or reduce pain or be a good grandmother. I just
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: I just had a client here in my studio who
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: her primary goal is to keep up with her grandkids
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: and to take good care of everybody. To do that
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: despite the injuries and past history of ALM that she's
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: wrestled with. Right, And So the major difference between between
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: those two, if we're going to draw a distinction, is
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: that an operator has a mission mindset. They understand that
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: I am training for the mission, I'm on mission, or
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: I'm recovering from the mission. They understand that, whereas in
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: the general population there's not really an understanding of those
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: kind of seasons of training, those seasons of preparation or
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: mission mindedness in recovery. Most of the people that I
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: work with in the general population, those are kind of
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: all just wrapped up in living same stuff, different day.
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: Those people already with a mental discipline in their head.
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: They come with.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right, yes. And an operator, if I say hey,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: I need you to do this, they go, okay, yes, sir.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: They might have some questions, but but they're ready to go.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: In the general population, if I say hey, here's your program,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: let's do this. They might not do any of it
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: this week at all, and and they'll say, well, I
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: just didn't have time, And like an operator doesn't say that,
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: you know, because because the mission is the mission, I'm
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: preparing for the mission, I'm on mission, or I'm recovering
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: from the mission, Whereas in the general population, it's like,
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: I what mission to get six pack? That's not very motivating.
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: I want to talk about also about motivation. How do
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: you find motivation in UH to go every day to
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: the gym or maybe not every day, maybe every other day.
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: I used to train five days a week. I will
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: go to Mwaiteai work out at five back in Sofia
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: in my in my home country, and it's seven day
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: was jiu jitsu, and then I can do that. And
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: I was like, after true or four days, I thought like, okay,
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: maybe I need a maybe I need a rest and
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: a backwup.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: Asked in a background with no joke, man, And.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: It's it's it's hard for me. It's you know, like
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: dedication and inconsistency is quite important, and it's it's for
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: me at least, it's it's very hard to to build
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: that in the long term while passion and oh let's
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: go to the gym now and we're gonna hit the
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: gym with all we can and all it's it's it's
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: it's more easy to do like short term goal second
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: survival week like intensive very intensive training of a week,
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: you know, but doing this for a year or doing
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: this for a longer period and having the motivation and
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: the work kitt to go every day to the gym,
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: it's it's hard. How do you how how where do
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: you find string to do that?
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: Mm hmm. There's there's a number of answers here.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: But but as you're talking, uh, it's gonna sound morbid,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: but but it has to It really has to come
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: down to this, if today was your last day, would
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: you do it?
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: Yes or no?
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: And for me and what I what I work to
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: help build into my clients is to understand that their
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: fitness pursuit isn't isn't a vanity thing. Like if this
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: was your last day, would you still go for a run?
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: I would.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Now that might not make any sense to you, or
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: it might not make any sense to somebody who's listening.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: That's like stupid that why would why would you go
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: for a run?
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: On your last day, and I wouldn't. For me, It's
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: part of for me.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: It's part of my identity. For me, it's part of
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: what I do in my life. It's part of how
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: I take care of myself. It's part of how I
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: live out what I believe. It's part of how I
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: spend enjoyable time by myself and appreciate nature. And it's
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: part of how I I take care of my mindset
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: so that when I am around the people that I
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: love and I am spending time with clients and other individuals,
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: that I can be my best self. And so I
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: would and most people who struggle with motivation would say,
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: that's that's crazy, Like I don't. I don't understand that mindset,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: and so and so what I would say is when
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: you build nutrition and exercise into your identity, you have
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: to do it little pieces at a time. You're not
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: going to become a weird fitness person overnight. But but
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: when you understand what place that has in the wider
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: world of the best version of you, When you understand that,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: then it's not really about motivation so much as it
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: is about just who you are on a regular basis.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: So so I would say, I would say that that
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: finding motivation is important, but expecting to be motivated all
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: the time to get done what's important to you is
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: not going to happen.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: It's not going to happen. I'll relate it to being
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: a dad.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: So you got a little baby, right, and sometimes you're
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: holding her and you're like, Wow.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: You're so beautiful.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: I can't believe that we made you, like you're mine, Like,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I love you.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: You're so cool.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: I can't wait for you to grow up and for
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: me to teach you all the things that I want
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: to teach you. Right, And sometimes that little punk is
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: crying in your face and you're like shut up, like
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: ah wait, but and don't like that doesn't fix it.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: But you are motivated to be a good father when
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: everything's good. But identity of good father doesn't mean it's
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: always going to feel good. When your baby's crying, you're
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: gonna change your diaper, you're gonna feed her, you're gonna
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: try to show her things and comfort her. You're going
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: to give her to mom because maybe Mom's just better it.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: And and and that's not a motivation thing. It doesn't
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: always feel good to be a dad, But it's important
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: to be a good dad and so and so. In
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: the same way, from an exercise and nutrition perspective, it's
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: not always going to feel good. It's not always going
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: to be something you're all jazzed that to do. But
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: if if in your life it's the right thing for
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: you to be up to, you're going to do it,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: whether you feel motivated or not.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: I know that you are.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: You're a Christian, right and you took inspiration, take inspiration
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: from from your fate. How does that help you try
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: like transpond that or transcend that into the to the
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: to the to the your workout regime, to taking care
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: of your body and so on. Isn't that vanity if
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: you're reading the Bible and like in Christianity, everything is
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: about the soul and very lidable out of the body,
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: which is kind of like a shell, a sinfull share even.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Hmm, that's a that's a fair question. Actually, there's there's
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: a number of things we can say about this. First,
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: I was so fascinated with this. I wasn't a Christian originally.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: I was actually an atheist for most of my young adulthood,
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: and so in coming to Christianity, it was important for
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: me to wrestle through why would I why would I
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: spend time and energy exercising anyway? Right, So so that
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: that whole process actually led me to write a devotional.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: So I've written a forty day devotional to help people
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: work through this, as well on meditations that have come
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: about in the last decade of my life on this subject.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: But you said something there I think is important, and
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: I'm not a theologian, so I might, I might mess this.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: Up a little bit.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: But from a faith perspective, this idea that the spirit
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: and the body are separate is not actually a Christian idea.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: There's actually a whole line of thinking called gnosticism that
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: started around the two or three one hundred AD, which
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: as a historian youal appreciation.
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: Actually, I'm going to tell you a little secret. I
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: believe myself as I considered myself agnostic, and I know
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: a lot about not not agnostic. Now agnostic agnostis.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: Which is noticed agnostic. Okay, okay, gotcha? And okay.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: So so this this was a thing that Christianity had
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: to wrestle with in two and three hundred a d.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: And that was the idea that the body and the
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: soul were separate, and and we actually yeah, right, and
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: and so and so in Christianity this this was put
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: to rest then, but it's actually come back. It's come
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: back in a way that people don't really know how
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: to articulate this, but they are they are one and
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: and in the Christian world it was an important thing
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: because the question was was Jesus God? And if he was?
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Was he just a body with a spirit? Was his
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: body and spirit? Was he one hundred percent man and
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: one hundred percent God?
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: And so so to separate the too would actually be
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: making Jesus something less than he actually was, which was
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: God and man, or at least in my belief, that's
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: what the Bible teaches us, right. And so that said
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: what I've learned in my faith, And it didn't start
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: with this. I had to make a decision with my
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: disease whether it was better to keep on living or
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: to go ahead and die. That's really what I had
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: to decide, because it was painful and difficult in depressing,
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: and when you wrestle with things like that, eventually you
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: come to the end of your rope. And so I
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: had to decide do I want to live or would
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: it be better not to?
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: And it was.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: It was coming to terms with that that really taught
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: me that faith had a place in my life and
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: it was very important because I wouldn't be here without it.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: And so in.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Working that out, Yeah, to your point, if the body
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: and soul are separate things, then exercise is a waste
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: of my time because I got other more spiritual things
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: to do.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: You know, why why do I need byseps?
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: You know, and and and and In Christianity and that's
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: that's real, that's real. And in in Christianity our understanding
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: of the body is very elementary. The church at large,
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: I would say, is has a very shallow understanding of
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: the body and has let that vanity of influence in
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: in culture influence it. But but what I would what
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: I would challenge that with is is there are sins
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: in fitness. If you'll, if you'll pardon the faith word,
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: sin just means things you do wrong that have ultimate consequences.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: There are sins in fitness. On one end of the
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: spectrum is uh is gluttony and sloth. Gluttony is I
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: eat for my own pleasure, I'm never satisfied, I I
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: I'm always always trying to take something in to make
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: me feel good. Right, Uh, you have a you have
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: a little baby right now. Sometimes the only way to
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: get her to stop crying is to feed her something.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: It's built right into us, right, the only right. But
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: as an adult, that's a terrible way to handle your emotions.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm mad I should eat
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: pizza like.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: That's a terrible way to handle your emotions. That's not
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: very mature at all. Right, And so that's gluttony.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: And then sloth is is I desire comfort, I'm unwilling
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: to go be uncomfortable, which is which is a sin?
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: Because how are you gonna learn? How are you going
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: to grow? Like to do a podcast? I'm sure your
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: first podcast was terrible. Mine was too, so so how
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: how am I ever going to become a cast from it? Was?
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: Pretty? Okay? Oh, that's nice of you. That's that's We'll
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: talk about pride in a second. I'm just kidding.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: So, so there's gluttony and sloth on one end, right,
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: and and those, in my mind, those are sins of fitness.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Those are things that keep us from making the most
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: out of the body we have, and On the other
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: end of the spectrum are of the other extremes.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: This is this is pride and envy.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: This is looking at Arnold Swarzenegger and going I need
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: to have that body like that's the envy part, right,
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: or pride. I want to look good naked, you know,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: because that would make me way more confident all the
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: time about everything right, And and that's pride too. These
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: are vanity. These are things that will pass away. I mean,
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: one day your body will be food for worms, right,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: So these things don't have an ultimate purpose. But in
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: the middle of that road is stewardship. It's the attitude
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: of saying God's given me this body, It's the only
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: one I got, and I would like to make the
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: most out of it. That would be that would be
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: faithful to Him, that would be faithful to my family.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: And someday I might need to.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: Use it for Steph that if I didn't take care
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: of it, I can't use it for those things, and
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: that's on me. So that's stewardship. Stewardship is is what
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: removes vanity from fitness, and and for me, that that
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: was something I had to come to in my life,
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: and that was something that that kept me from going
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: down a path in my heart, in my mind where
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: i'd much rather just not be here to deal with
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: the difficulty.
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: Well, we made the correct choice. You're here. We're doing
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: this podcast. Otherwise we're not. We're not going to be here.
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: But Coach Alex man Holton, thank you very much for
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: being a part of this podcast. It was a pleasure.
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: We laughed, we were serious, We talked about different subjects.
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: We talk about religion, and I hope we see you again.
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: Let's let's do this again sometimes same.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: We love it man, Appreciate your time and keep up
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: the good work as a dad.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: It's not easier, but it's worth It's up.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Faithful. This episode helped you share it with someone who
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: needs to hear it, and don't forget to subscribe and
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: need a review. Some of our people can find Faithful Fitness.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: My dad's devotional Faithful Fitness is available now and you
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: can join our Faithful Fitness community by clicking the links
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: in the show notes. We all have a cross to carry,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: but it's lighter when you do it together. See how
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: lay it are Alligator. But until then, train hard and
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: pray even harder.