From Emotional Eating To Autonomy: Practical Tools For Lasting Weight Loss

What if the fastest way to stop bingeing is to stop banning foods? Coach Chris Terrell joins us to flip the script on weight loss by focusing on emotional eating, autonomy, and the basics that actually last. He works with people north of 300 pounds who feel written off, and his philosophy is refreshingly doable: master awareness and environment first, then let the numbers serve you—not rule you.

We unpack why “eat the chips” can break the binge cycle, how restriction fuels obsession, and why sugar isn’t your enemy so much as an easy escape when work, caregiving, or life steal your sense of control. Chris lays out three honest options for any stressor—change the conditions, end the situation, or accept and reframe—and shows how progress happens when you stop moralizing slips and start learning from them. Expect real tools: food-noise journaling via notes, voice, or private video; short walks without headphones to slow your mind; better sleep; and OSPs—only supportive people—to counter the crabs-in-a-bucket effect.

We also tackle physique inflation, the myth that a six pack equals health, and the pressure creators feel to keep a “brand body.” Chris explains why he makes clients “earn” calorie tracking, how to build habits for reasons unrelated to weight, and how community challenges—Tough Mudders, hikes, 5Ks, even city scavenger hunts—turn movement into play and belonging. If you’ve tried hacks and still feel stuck, this conversation will help you rebuild belief, trade shame for curiosity, and create a life where better choices are the easy ones to repeat.

If this episode resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a nudge, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find us. Your next win could be as simple as a ten-minute walk without earbuds—ready to try it?

Chapters

• 0:36 Banter, Cameras, And Creator Hooks
• 5:18 Meet Chris Terrell And His Mission
• 8:58 Basics Over Hacks: Weight Loss Philosophy
• 14:03 Eat The Chips: Ending Food Villains
• 19:48 Is Sugar Addiction Or Restriction?
• 26:18 Emotional Eating As Lost Autonomy
• 34:38 Three Ways To Tackle Stressors
• 41:38 Awareness, Shame, And Safer Self-Talk
• 49:18 Journaling That Works: Text, Audio, Video
• 56:48 Slow Down: Walks, Nature, And Presence
• 1:03:48 Community, OSPs, And Crabs In A Bucket
• 1:10:18 Stumbling Together: Why Group First
• 1:17:48 Earning The Right To Track Calories
• 1:24:48 Identity, Limits, And 5K Breakthroughs
• 1:31:18 Testing Limits: 4x4x48 And Failure

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:18

Hello, everybody. Welcome to your co-host Rob. And Liam has just left us. It's okay because we found Mike outside the studio begging for scraps. So we decided to adopt Mike.

SPEAKER_01: 0:30

Look, I'm on a cut right now. Any scraps are much appreciated.

SPEAKER_02: 0:36

I I am so glad I gave up all like the cutting and bulking things. I did that for a little while, and now I'm just like, nah, I just eat food and don't really worry about it too much. That's my favorite. That's what I like doing.

SPEAKER_01: 0:46

I am Mike needs a plan on all the socials. And um today we have a very special guest, somebody that I've spoken about here on the podcast plenty of times and my own.

SPEAKER_02: 0:56

Robert Downey Jr.

SPEAKER_01: 0:58

Hi.

SPEAKER_00: 0:58

What's going on, buddy? You guys keep talking about Tony Stark and stuff, but hear me out. You look like you could be Liam's brother.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10

No, no, no, no. I've gotten a few tags where, like, is this your brother? Really? And yeah, no, I've gotten I've gotten more than a couple, more than a couple that I remember. I'm like, yeah, I mean, I can see it a little bit. I can see it a little bit. But oh, I remember, no, no, no. I filmed a video. I filmed a whole video that I never think I got to like edit or post where I was like, if I look like Chris and Chris looks like Tony Stark, do I look like Tony Stark then? Because I'm gonna take that as a thing I think that's a yes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36

Dude, grow the stash or the uh grow the goatee and find out and see what happens.

SPEAKER_02: 1:41

My facial, I can only grow a neck beard.

SPEAKER_03: 1:43

See, that was what I told people. This is just how my I have random bald spots. Um this is the way to do it on my face. And if you're like, you do it on purpose. I'm like, it's this or splotchy. So I don't like splotchy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:56

Because it looks like you're leaning into the Tony Stark thing. That's what it looks like. You're like, I'm trying to get people to see this.

SPEAKER_03: 2:03

Oh yeah. No, it's it's yeah. This is just happens to happen. It just happens, yeah. It happens.

SPEAKER_01: 2:09

It just means my face so well for somebody else. Like, well, I guess I could take it.

SPEAKER_03: 2:14

Yeah, I'll take it. Well, what it is is I've asked people what it is in at times. I'm like, why? Because I assumed it was the facial hair. What a lot of people have even said it's the eyes and the way I talk.

SPEAKER_02: 2:24

No, no, there's a there's a cadence. Yeah. There is a cadence for sure. I'm sure people are listening right now, like, no, no, no, I hear it.

SPEAKER_03: 2:29

Yeah, and that's what's weird to me, because like to me, I don't it's my it's me. So I don't know, it's bizarre that find when someone identifies your doppelganger.

SPEAKER_02: 2:38

Before we started recording, we said it's good for social media. That's it. It is. You got your got your thing. People like pick up on it. Anything real quick that that's why I wear weird shirts and shit. So you're like, oh, I like that shirt. I don't know how many times people have told me I followed you for your shirts. That's why I started following you. I'm like, perfect.

SPEAKER_03: 2:52

You gotta stop the scroll content.

SPEAKER_02: 2:54

Wait, exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 2:56

Question on the shirts. So does that mean do you record it with the front-facing camera and flip it back so the shirts are the right way, or do you record with the back camera? How do you do it? Because my shirts are always mirrored, and I'm just too lazy to fix it.

SPEAKER_02: 3:08

I I record with that.

SPEAKER_03: 3:11

Oh, you use an actual camera camera.

SPEAKER_02: 3:13

Oh, you use it an actual camera on a stand, and I am so and I got the light now. You're like a light now.

SPEAKER_03: 3:21

I have the cameras, and I'm just too lazy. I'm just like, that's too much work.

SPEAKER_00: 3:25

After 100 episodes of you being backlit by a window, you finally have a light.

SPEAKER_02: 3:29

I have a light. And so, like, but with a camera, I've always like it's kind of a pain if you're working up uh like a a uh a mic, and this has always found this just to be a little bit easier, and then like you or storm. So I I I'm I'm fully in on the camera. I switched the camera pretty early on. I was glad it did, editing software, all that. Because like, mess with your phone. No, thank you. No, thank you.

SPEAKER_03: 3:49

That's so funny. You said that's the easy way, and I'm like, no, the phone's so much easier. You know, there's no right way to do anything, I think. I think it's just personal preference.

SPEAKER_02: 3:56

In social media, it doesn't matter. Like, people get caught up, like, oh, this or that. Like, what camera, what type of camera? Who like whatever, whatever works for you. It doesn't matter. Right post. What's just post what people right ahead? Hey, right here, what's going on? Like, you need something that gets people have no attention span, including myself. That's the this is why I think I do well, because I make videos for myself and I have no attention span.

SPEAKER_03: 4:19

Same. If I find myself boring, I'm like, I'm not posting that. I got bored in five seconds.

SPEAKER_02: 4:24

I have several videos. I've never posted it because I'm like, uh no. I just look back, I'm like, it was in my head, it worked out. It didn't.

SPEAKER_03: 4:30

I had 40 gigs of drafts in TikTok I had to go clear out the other day. I'm like, okay, this is ridiculous. I'm not posting them. Some went back years.

SPEAKER_02: 4:39

So damn, that's a long time.

SPEAKER_03: 4:41

That's too much. That's too much.

SPEAKER_02: 4:42

That's a lot. Speaking of what you post. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 4:45

We should tell everybody who you are and what it is that you post.

SPEAKER_03: 4:48

Oh, my name's Chris Terrell, and I post TikToks.

SPEAKER_02: 4:52

We all do that.

SPEAKER_00: 4:53

Well, episode over.

SPEAKER_03: 4:54

That was that would be what we need it. We got them. All right. I do um so my I do weight loss, but specific with a specific twist, I specifically focus with uh obesity. People, my my ideal person I'm trying to reach is those that are north of 300 pounds that like have given up. Society's written them off, doctors. I'm like, fuck, you're not gonna do nothing, and they've written them off because that's where I was. And it's I try to that's the audience that I'm trying to get to because I'm like, and and and so I post on TikToks, I have a podcast, got a YouTube channel, but and but it's it's all just trying to get people engaged and just help them just start working on their life. That's really what I'm trying to do, is just get people to do that by whatever channel I can get people on uh to do that. So it's um and yeah, that's that's that's what I post about, I guess. And it's and it's not dieting, right? Which is weird because it's like, hey, you gotta lose weight, but but you but you're not dieting. So uh and I have to help people make that connection, which is hard because as we all know, posting on TikTok, the concept of nuance is too complicated for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02: 6:01

So I've I've covered some of your videos, and normally like they're pretty uh you focus on the basics, right? Because that's what's I think for a lot of people is gonna get them there. And a lot of it is just mindset stuff, right? Just like shifting your focus from one thing and just keeping it mo keeping it simple for the most part, right? That's kind of what you stick towards.

SPEAKER_03: 6:18

Yeah, because the challenge I have is when I start talking about food, is we all know, if you see if you post about food, you you hear, you hear all the ways you're wrong and you hear all the ways you're right, and all the people in in between. And so it's like I I I do food some, but I don't, I don't I tend to do that more behind the paywall because it's like I have the time to flesh it out with the nuance. I'll do it on the podcast where I have or my YouTube where I have longer uh you know, I can have 30 minutes to explain the nuance behind like, hey, why calorie tracking actually works for everybody, but like why it might not be working. And and so I try to post on that, whereas on TikTok, it's more of all right, this is gonna sound weird to say it. The way I've been almost thinking of it because some people have asked me, like, what do you do? And I was like, it's really more of like weight loss philosophy. It's more of I try to stay in that space of like the philosophy of weight management and taking care of yourself and helping people master the basics because most people are rather than just learning to master the basics, they're looking for the trick and the hack. I'm like, just fuck off with the tricks and hacks and just do the basics and stop wasting 10 years looking for a shortcut when you could have just done it the slow way five years ago.

SPEAKER_02: 7:25

I remember a video I got tagged in a bunch of yours that I was like trying to figure out something to do with was yours, uh it was a philosophy thing. It was like a mindset because you were saying, Oh, if somebody says I shouldn't eat the chips, then I'm gonna tell you to eat the chips. You remember that video?

SPEAKER_03: 7:41

Uh I don't remember that one specifically, but I know I've said that a bunch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 7:45

You said that, but yeah, so like I kind of wanted to just ask you about that. Just like why if somebody says, like, oh, I shouldn't eat chips. Chips are they're bad food. Chips, bad food, shouldn't eat it. And you tell them, like, no, no, no, eat the chips. And here's why. I kind of want to give like that sort of stuff. I'd love to hear that hear that from you.

SPEAKER_03: 7:58

Yeah. So on my I'm doing a I'm doing I'm doing a program. We're wrapping up next week. Uh it's an introduction to calorie tracking, which is funny. When we first we we do introduction counting calories, I don't even let them count calories for weeks. They got to earn the right. Um, but one of the things I do on week five is I ask everybody in the group, what foods are you not letting yourself have? And I make them all like, and they'll be like chips, ice cream. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Give me the exact brand, quantity, tell me what you are not letting yourself do. And they they then will give me the exact things that say, okay, now your assignment this week or next week in the next two weeks, have it. Just work it in. It's got to fit your calorie budget, right? You but just work it in. Because uh in trying to help shake, like it's not what you're eating, it's that you're looking for a way to have sugar-free cookies to solve your problems with cookies. No, no, stop solving your problems with cookies. Just have a good cookie in a reasonable portion and then stop emotional eating. And so another big part of what I deal with um that it's creeping more into the TikTok side, it's been heavily on my YouTube and podcast, is um, I'm big on emotional eating and working on that. I think if you're over 300 pounds, this is my personal opinion, and I have yet to have anybody show me why I'm wrong. Nobody gets above 300 pounds without emotional eating playing a major role in that. Um, I mean it is probably not the only thing, but it is there. And and I and I really focus on people don't have a weight loss problem, they have a weight gaining problem. And to just lose weight without dealing with the weight gaining problem, I think is the equivalent of getting a debt consolidation loan without ever dealing with your overspending problem. You're just gonna rack up your credit cards and find yourself in the exact same problem again. And so we got to get to that root core cause of it. So that's why, you know, when a person says, I don't have chips, I'm like, no, that's that's actually a part of your emotional eating problem. Like we have to stop vilifying foods and just go, chips are made of carbs, they're made of fats, they might have protein if they're quest chips, but they're just your body's gonna break them down into molecules. So stop judging the food so much. And if you want to have some chips, just have some chips. Just don't have the family-sized bag twice a week.

unknown: 10:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:14

A study I absolutely love, and I've mentioned it on this podcast a couple of times, is where they had two groups of children and there was a a table with just candy on it. One group of children were only allowed to go to the table when they were told they were allowed. They they could, you know, eat as much as they want. The other group of children was allowed to go to the table whenever they wanted. The group of children that were restricted when they were allowed to go to the table, they would go to the table and they would just chow down on candy. The group of children that were allowed to go to the table whenever they wanted would wander over, they'd take one piece, they'd eat it, they'd go back to playing. Because they knew that they could go over and have it whenever they wanted.

SPEAKER_02: 10:58

Yeah, that was very similar with what I was talking about recently in a video with like sugar. People who are like sugar's addictive. Sugar, sugar's addictive as cocaine. I've heard that a few times. And there's like studies in rats where they find sugar's addictive when they like re super restrict them. They don't give them like any food and they only give them sugar at certain periods. Then yeah, they're like they show addictive properties, like no fucking shit. It's just the restriction is the problem. So I'm totally with you on that. Well, and it's like the yeah, the biggest loser. I was just gonna say, like, when they they didn't teach them any of the things, they just basically just work them to death and then they gain all the weight back.

SPEAKER_03: 11:29

There's uh there's another study with the children. I got the notes for it right here. It was in 1939, actually. I mean, so this is an older one.

SPEAKER_02: 11:40

Right?

SPEAKER_03: 11:40

They had science in the 30s. I didn't even know that. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01: 11:44

But studies almost old enough to be president.

SPEAKER_03: 11:47

Same thing. And in here, this is um the notes are it's it's in this book that I'm reading. But this the author, when they were like looking at it, this says, um talking about children are taught to override their instincts. Like the the beginning of not listening to your body begins really young by parents over overriding a child's natural inclination of what to eat, what not to eat. I mean, it doesn't help the fact we have the hyperpalatable, calorie-dense foods. I mean, that's not helping anything. But, you know, we're we get so disconnected with our with the signals our body is telling us and hunger, and and and it that's a big part of what I really try to work with people on. And then we get the sugar addiction. And I have a hard I used to say that, but I I now try to be real careful with it because I have a hard time saying sugar is an addiction, because I I get what people say it, but it's it's not the same as like a nicotine addiction, because you don't develop a chemical dependency that's going to create withdrawal symptoms, physical withdrawal symptoms, if you don't get it. Like our body naturally runs off of sugar. So it's like I I think it I've started saying it more, it's like being addicted to shopping, like a shopaholic. You can be addicted to that, but there's no chemical dependency. You're you're addicted to the behavior and the emotional payoff that comes from the behavior, and it's something you want. And I think that's a lot easier too, because it's like we can't stop eating like an alcoholic, whereas a shopaholic can't stop shopping. Like you still got to buy food and clothes. But how do you know if it's emotional shopping or I need to shop? And I think that's a far closer comparison.

SPEAKER_02: 13:24

And a person who's addicted to gambling can't stop gambling. I mean, the eagles are going to win this weekend, they're totally gonna like I'm certain of it, and that's why I put a thousand dollars every week on because it's guaranteed.

SPEAKER_01: 13:35

I had place to bet on whether or not you mentioned gambling. The chemical is dopamine. Like that's it. If we're looking to find some kind of chemical dependence, it's dopamine. It's not coming from the thing that you're using or the thing that you're engaging in, it's coming from your brain's reaction to it.

SPEAKER_00: 13:52

Another thing with that uh rat study stuff is yes, the um the dopamine receptors are becoming active, but just because they are becoming active doesn't equal full-on addiction. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 14:08

Well, and I look, but part of I get where I again like I said, the weight loss. It's like, why do you have a weight loss problem? Why do you need to lose weight? It's because you have a weight gaining problem, right? So I look at it. If a person's chasing dopamine, I like to just go the step deeper of why you chasing the dopamine so much? Like, what's causing, like, not like, oh, I need the fix. I got that, but why are you chasing it? Like, what are you running from? What are you avoiding? What are you avoiding dealing with? Like, it's a a lot of when I work with people, a good chunk of what we do, what I really work with people on is I need you to identify the problems in your life, actually, actually admit they're problems, and then start working on them. Like, start working on it. If you're emotionally eating because you you hate your fucking job and you hate your boss and you don't want to be there and you don't feel like you can get another job, the answer is you need to get another job. It might take you two years to do that, but running and dealing with the food at the end of every day, so you can repeat the cycle week in and week out, that's not a recipe for peace and happiness long term. And that's where I look at the dopamine hit. It's like it's you're it's taking the place of something or it's causing it's a distraction from something.

SPEAKER_02: 15:13

So is that a common like that?

SPEAKER_00: 15:15

My emotional eating comes after the podcast because of having to deal with Liam.

SPEAKER_02: 15:19

Yeah, most people that's why everyone around me has has issues except me. I just the one who causes the issues. So were you saying like what are I'm kind of curious? Like, you work with a lot of people then. Like, what do you see as like a common sort of like triggers, I guess, for them? Like you see, like the job is the family stress, you know, like what do you see?

SPEAKER_03: 15:39

So emotional eating, what I've you know, if I again if you take 500 people, you're gonna get 500 unique circumstances. Even if they're all saying they're emotionally eating because of their job, it's gonna look different. They have different jobs, different economic statuses, different circumstances, situations in the job at home. So I've had to like try to look at because I do a lot of group stuff too, it's what are the commonalities that would fit with everybody? And I think that's what you're asking, right, Liam? Like, what are the common things? Yeah. So it really, I think emotional eating comes down to a few things. One of them is as humans, we have this deep-seated, probably biological need to belong. We're social critters. And I don't think that's a bug, I think it's a feature. But it can get out of whack where a person will sacrifice their needs, their personal needs, so they can belong to something. Because sometimes to change, you have to detach from a community so you can find the new community. Well, in that in-between point, you don't fit in anywhere, and that can be very jarring for people. The other thing that comes in with it is um, and and I've noticed this trend, and I've been really uh observing like intentionally monitoring this for now two years. Emotional eating seems to happen. And when I say emotional eating, I'm talking like very clearly, even the person can self-identify. Like they'll often use the word binge, but emotional eating is not always binging, um, like that typical over too much food in one single sitting. But it tends to happen when a person is feeling a loss of autonomy from something in their life. So let me give a couple of examples that'll illustrate this. I've I've had and I've seen, I'm gonna share some stories that I've heard many times. So I'm not talking about anybody specific, but one of them is a job that is continually making a person work long, constantly putting too much pressure on them, not giving them the tools to be successful, and then holding them accountable for not being successful. And the person doesn't believe they can leave. So they come home every day feeling this loss of control, and they're feeling this defiant energy. Okay. Well, I can't defy against my boss because I I need this job. I need to be able to pay the mortgage, I don't want to be rejected. There's social ramifications for pushing back. And so what do I do? I need to channel this defiant energy towards something with no social ramifications. My diet is a juicy line to cross, and it's super fun to cross. And chances are I have my eaten buddies. Sometimes I live with my eaten buddies, and it makes it very easy to cross that line. And so I feel a sense of control and empowerment again.

SPEAKER_02: 18:13

And it's and it's ubiquitous. It's everywhere and it's easy to control. So it's it only makes sense to turn to that.

SPEAKER_03: 18:18

Yeah. So they're balancing the scale internally of I feel a loss of control, a loss of autonomy. And so I'm balancing the scales to feel in control again. And and it's not like we always do this. It's when we feel that the loss of autonomy isn't fair. And that's totally subjective to the individual. So, like most of us stop at stoplights. That is, in a sense, a restriction on freedom, right? I want to drive through it anyway, but I'm stopping because I want to drive safely to work. It's helpful if we have rules, and for the most part, people stop at stoplights, right? So there's a fair exchange of my reduction of freedom. Whereas, like that work scenario, for example, well, I may not feel that way. Another example I've had, this one's happened many times, because a lot of my clients are between are in between 40s and 60s. So one of the common things for people in that age is aging parents. And so it is, I see two scenarios. A parent needs to go into a nursing home or hospice or something, and they're and so there's a tremendous loss of control feeling, or their parent has to move into their home. And when the parent comes into the home, from everything I've seen, parents don't tend to move in and be roommates. They tend to move in and be the parent to some extent, right? They want more control, they want more, even if they're not paying for anything and they're not controlling anything, right? They they forget they're moving into their child's home. But so this parent-child dynamic is there. And the child, who's the adult that I'm working with, feels this loss of control, this loss of autonomy. And so they push back, but they can't push back again against their mom or dad, so they push back against their diet, um, against these rules that society has imposed on them of good foods and bad foods and what I oh you can't tell me I can't have this. And I if I can't be happy, I might as well have what I want. And these are the common things I've really seen is when a person feels powerless, emotional eating tends to show up.

SPEAKER_02: 20:08

That makes I mean that makes total sense, right? Like you turn to something you can control. Like, you know, I I I totally get that. You know, in like stress, people uh um respond to stress differently, right? Like some people don't eat at all, some people you'll eat a lot. I think it just kind of depends on the person. I remember when I was like stressed out with like school or whatever, like tests coming up, I would eat a lot more. I was just like stressed. I'm like, let me just this is something that's can like kind of relaxes me and calms me down. Let me turn to this thing. So I I think that's I think that's totally fair. Do you think then that dealing with that is the only way to like move forward, or can they move forward while still being in that scenario, in that situation?

SPEAKER_03: 20:49

What do you mean by moving forward? Like moving forward in the way losing.

SPEAKER_02: 20:52

Making progress in like dealing with their emotional eating. Do they have to take care of that? Do they have to take care of, let's say it's a work thing? Do they have to leave that job first? Can they still will they still make progress if they don't leave that job in terms of like their emotional eating, losing weight, and all those things?

SPEAKER_03: 21:06

So here's the hard part I've seen. You know, because we live in the real world, and the real world is not black and white. And and we usually are working on competing initiatives and needs. We have families, we have friends, we have economics uh pressures on us. And it's like even if you've identified you want to leave your job, well, that might take a year or two for some people uh to to make that happen, right? They may have to go acquire a skill, work on their resume, they have jobs families they're supporting, you know, like they have this job.

SPEAKER_02: 21:31

They need this what they need in the moment.

SPEAKER_03: 21:33

Right. Some people and so um the the answer is not there's a right answer. The answer is start working on it. And when we look at the stressor, is what I call that. That would be identified as a stressor. There's only three ways to deal with a stressor and that I've been able to identify. Number one is change the situation and circumstances if you can. Sometimes you can't.

SPEAKER_02: 21:54

Leave the job.

SPEAKER_03: 21:54

That's like No, no, I would say change it would be like um, let's say you're having a problem with your boss, going and seeing you can get transferred to work underneath somebody else, right? You still have the job, but you've changed the conditions. The second one is make the circumstance go away. That would be the quitting the job. Oh, okay. But let's use an example. I've I have many clients that deal with this. They have a special needs child, right? You can't change the circumstances and you can't make it go away. So this is going to be here. That really only leaves option three, which is moving to a place of acceptance and learning how to cognitive reframe what you're going through so that it actually doesn't stress you out. And is and the problem is that is that is the answer a lot of times, and it is a really hard answer uh to do, to just learn to accept the is-ness of a situation so you can begin to find peace in it. And so success when working with emotional eating, I tell again, I'm very transparent with people, like you are gonna be dealing with this for I'm seven years of, I tell myself I'm seven years sober of whatever that even means, right? And and I still feel like I'm working on it. So it's like, I'll let you know when I feel like I'm done. And seven years later, I don't feel like I'm done. But I haven't lost my shit in three years. So the success in the beginning looks like failure for a while. And so there has to be a lot of emotional work of learning how to have a good, healthy relationship with failure, having a good community that helps prop you up, learning how to not be critical of yourself when you mess up. Because most people, when they're working on emotional eating, a lot of people don't actually think they're emotional leaders, even though they're three, four hundred pounds like they don't think they are. Um and so a lot first we have to create an increase awareness to the concept of emotional eating. Then we have to create awareness to, are you doing it? But that is a form of awareness I call retroactive awareness. So I'm aware of something I did, but I already did it. So it's cool, I'm aware of it, but I can't change it. I already did it. And we have to become aware I'm emotional eating at the time I'm doing it. But what that what it what that almost always looks like is like, I think I'm emotionally eating this. And then we eat it anyway. And like all my clients when I do one-on-one, that happens 100% of the time. And they get real frustrated with themselves and we have to be like, no, no, no, no, no. You're on the right path, like you're doing the thing. Now that you're aware you're doing it, now in real time, now we can begin trying to work on adopting some new coping strategies. And we can also find your triggers that are triggering you to do it, and we can go and see one of the three solutions, and we need to start working on your proactive stress management techniques so that you're when the stressor shows up, you're you're not quite as compromised already.

SPEAKER_01: 24:38

It can be frustrating to try to deal with this thing. I refer to it as solving your solution because what we're doing when we're emotionally eating is ultimately taking care of something. It is self-care, it just has a bad result. It's like smoking. It is a form of self-care, it's a form of escaping your job for a little while, you've got an excuse to leave for a few minutes, get some fresh air. It just has a bad outcome. So to take that thing away without replacing whatever need or um problem that it was solving is is gonna leave you feeling empty. Every habit and action or inaction has reason. There's a reason for something happening or not happening.

SPEAKER_03: 25:19

Yeah, and it and it always makes sense. And one of the there's a I I usually can do this on one-on-one settings because a lot of people feel tremendous shame when they emotionally eat. Um, I it's a post-emotional eat shame that that happens, and and it's like they tend to kick themselves. I mean, I used to do this, like I'd kick myself when I was down. Like, what good does that do, right? Shaming myself. But I was the reality is I was taught to do that. I was taught to shame myself. So I did. And I would shame myself enough till I would finally get angry enough and do something about it. And and what's really difficult, I've realized, is people say I'm self-sabotaging, but if you really stop and think about that, you can't self-sabotage. That's not really the right word because you're wanting to do it. You chose to do it for a reason that probably you perceived benefited you. But if you're judging that side of yourself, like you know, like Rob, if you are you gonna open up to somebody that you think is gonna try to shame you when you tell them an answer. No, you're gonna call it. Right. You're gonna why would you why would you, right? So what I realize people will do is they won't be honest with themselves about why they're emotionally eating because the moment they're honest, they feel shame. And so we I have to really do some work with people to help create a neutral space of like, hey, it is okay that you did this. You don't need to feel bad. We're just trying to understand. One of the seven habits of highly effective people from Stephen Covey's book seek first to understand, then to be understood. And so rather than trying to make ourselves so bad and just for the fact that we even did it, let's just stop and go within and go, why did I do this? And let's assume it made sense and let's assume it's because I care about myself and find that reason, and maybe we can find a way to solve that that doesn't need food. But if we if we don't create a safe space to open up to ourselves, we won't.

SPEAKER_02: 27:14

So I'm kind of wondering you were talking about like the proactive things you can do. So I'm kind of curious like, what do you find with when you're working with people? Do you find anything that helps them in something before they know like a trigger is gonna happen? So they is there anything they do before that to set themselves up? So maybe in the future it has a smaller impact on them.

SPEAKER_03: 27:34

I think of it like how first responders train. You know, they train under controlled circumstances, under clear mind, so that when the shit hits the fan, the actions are automatic. That's not the time to be critically assessing, like you're gonna have to critically assess a situation, but the more you can be on autopilot, the better. So some of it is practicing things like listening to your own thinking. Um, this is where I I'm a it would not be an inaccurate way, a thing for me to say, so I lost 125 pounds. I was fat my whole life until when I was 34 and started working on it. It would not be unit would not be a lie if I said I journaled myself thin. I use written journaling, I used audio journaling and video journaling. I have terabytes of video journals. No one will ever see them but me. They're encrypted when I die, they'll go to the grave with me. Um, but I just because I realized some, don't ask me how, I don't know how. I just somehow I stumbled on it. And I realized I was censoring myself to myself. I I gotta find, I've been searching for it. It's somewhere in all these files. I was talking to my video journal and I pause and I go, wait a minute. I was about to tell this story censored, but nobody's gonna see this but me. Why am I censoring it? I was gonna re-present it in a way that made me look good or better. And and I sat with that and I was like, okay, do I do that a lot? Like, do I censor my own thoughts to myself? But this is where the journaling helped me to get really introspective. And why that's important is journaling regular life, journaling what I'm doing, so that when I'm getting completely stressed and overwhelmed, I'm sort of automatically listening to my own thoughts. That's one example. And so there's not like one time you do this, you just start practicing being more introspective. You practice being more mindful and listening to yourself. And that's why I think like walking is such a powerful thing. Walk without headphones for 10 minutes. Like it's amazing what you'll learn about yourself just walking for 10 minutes without headphones, just listening to your own thinking. But that dopamine hit that you were talking about, Mike, right? Like we go on a walk, it's like, oh, this isn't exciting enough. I need to, I need to have a juicy podcast in. I need to have a great TikTok. I need to be listened to an audiobook. It's like nothing wrong with your mental brain candy, but just listen to yourself sometimes. So that's one example. Um, some other things are like um uh my two biggest ones I tell people is sleep. Get enough quantity and quality sleep every day. And don't say, Oh, I don't only need five hours of sleep. I'm like, no, you you can't say that. You've been doing it for 10 years. Get eight, seven hours of sleep for a year, and then you can say it, you can compare. Uh, because Because you might just be doing as good as you are in spite of the fact you're not getting enough sleep.

SPEAKER_01: 30:23

Um and so like when I used to think I was just nauseous all the time. Like that was just a normal way of living. But no, I was just overeating and hadn't given myself a chance to not feel over full.

SPEAKER_03: 30:36

And the other one is uh connection with people. You know, in this technology era, we've become less and less and less and less connected with people, and we end up in our echo chambers. And a lot of people that struggle with weight, if you look around their social life, and this is not universal, but many will see that their immediate social network food is a major part of their life, and we have this need to belong. And so part of my services that I've done is actually to create community. I call them OSPs, like only supportive people. So if you're gonna be working on your health and your wellness, only talk to people that are supportive of you of doing this. Don't even talk to the others because um have you ever y'all ever heard the story of crabs? Put crabs in a bucket?

unknown: 31:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 31:19

Crabs in a bucket.

SPEAKER_03: 31:20

Okay, Rob, Rob knows what I'm about to say. So if you put one crab in a bucket, it'll just climb right out. But if you put two crabs in a bucket, the moment one starts climbing up, the other will grab it and pull it back down. And a lot of people got a bad case of crabs in their life. And so whenever the time they try, they're always trying to change, but they're telling all the dis the people about it that are just trying to pull them back. And it's like, no, no, no, just don't, just let your walking do the talking. Like, don't, don't tell people you're losing weight unless they're completely supportive of your goal. Because when you're struggling and you're down, you don't need people that are gonna be like, you're right, you've worked so hard, you deserve a chair. Like it could be a literal chair, but metaphorically speaking, a chair, like, oh, you know what? Yeah, just have some food. You've you've you've really earned this. It's like, no, no, you need people to be like, I'm really sorry you're going through this. Would you like me to walk beside you for a while? Because you're not quitting, right? Like, that's what people need. And it helps them when they fall to look up and have someone next to them that's like, I'm gonna be here with you as you get up, knock the dust off. We're gonna say, What'd you learn? And we're gonna keep going. And these things really help by and and learning that when you start working on your problems proactively, your stress levels go down because uh Tony Robbins says this progress equals happiness. So if you're not feeling happy, look at the thing that's causing the unhappiness and go do something that gives you a sense of progress, like you're working on it. So if you're struggling with your job, it's amazing what just working on your resume instead of eating, how that would make you feel better. Uh, just because you're like, I at least pulled it up and I started the process of working on it.

SPEAKER_02: 32:56

I do I like all that, but I just wanted to make sure before I forget it, I want to go back to the the journaling thing because I'm just gonna be like real with y'all. Like I love the I love the idea of like writing things down with like you know, stone and chisels and pen and paper, whatever it is. I don't do it. Like I don't, I don't when I have to take out a pen and with my hand like write things down. I don't want I don't I don't like to do that. I don't, I I don't I don't enjoy it, I don't do it. If I tell myself I'm gonna do it, I don't. I just don't. So I like the idea.

SPEAKER_03: 33:33

If you were to do it, what would you write? What's that? Well, if you were to do it, like you're picturing sitting down with a pen and paper, but what in you in this vision of what journaling is, what are you writing? Is it like dear diary or is it something else?

SPEAKER_02: 33:46

Um gosh, pretty much anything. I feel I don't like the idea of it, but even just like if I was yeah, Liam's just picturing not writing. I just whatever gets me to not write things with my fingers and you know, hands and that sort of thing is better because I just don't really like even like typing, like I'll just like at school, like I'd write something that I don't I don't really care for it. I'm just gonna be I'm just gonna be completely honest. So that's why I'm like, hey, I'm in the 21st century. We have phones, we have cameras, I can talk to it, and I can put emotion into that, and I just feel that a lot more. And that's why I started making videos, is because I have a lot like I like to be like wacky and weird and do all these things, and that comes through a lot easier for me in through through a camera and through talking to it.

SPEAKER_03: 34:37

Oh, I I agree completely. I mean, I I do think for certain types of things, pen and paper is gonna be ideal, but I don't but like you said, you you may just not be in one of those situations where it makes sense to do so. Like, I I don't, but like you're right, we live in the 21st century. Most of my journaling, that's I said I have a server in the other room, terabytes of video journaling, because of exactly what you said. I want to sit down and talk to a camera, and when I realized no one's gonna see it, I was actually willing to be far more open. Um like that. Like instead of going to a therapist, I just could open up and talk through what's going here. So I got a GoPro, a dedicated GoPro, and I got like a mount so I could clip it to my rear view mirror and I would just talk to it uh while I go. Um, but I also like on my phone, um I I keep what's uh what I call my food noise journal. So again, for me, I'm somebody that the emotional eating, you know, it really kind of got my it messed up my life. And hold on, I'm pulling it up here on my phone.

SPEAKER_02: 35:37

So like I'll just because even like audio, like talking, that's something different. Like it because I think journaling, people think journaling, okay, I sit down with a fucking composite, but whatever, what are those books? I don't know, man. Those like white the composition books. Composition, whatever it is. I don't know. Composite fucking, isn't that for your countertops? I don't. Whatever. You think about you sitting down with that and you're writing with a fucking pen that dies, and you're gonna get another one, you're like, I'll switch to pencil, like you know, that sort of shit. And like I I like the idea of like, well, I can just pull up my phone or a camera or like something that records, and I can just boom, there we go. And that'll be easier.

SPEAKER_03: 36:14

So here's this is this is my I keep a note in my phone. It's just called my food noise journal. So whenever I feel like the the voice, I call it the other voice, the other voice is showing up trying to get me to solve my problem with food. Um I I don't I'm I'm not an alcoholic, but I've heard alcoholics talk about things. I'm like, this sounds similar. You know, I've talked to gambling addicts, I'm like, this sounds similar, but it's just this urge that won't go away. And so I pull out what I do and it won't go away. One of the techniques I'll try is I just pull out my phone and I just type. So this is I'll just read this. This is from not this summer, but the summer before. I just grabbed to a random one. It says the desire to emotionally eat is strong. In a um, in a moment, I remember a technique I used to do where I would take care of my nails. I decided to go buy a pair of fingernail clippers, I was traveling, and a nail file to sit outside and take care of my nails. The food noise is overwhelming. My mind keeps flashing to memories of me saying, fuck it, and just grabbing whatever food I can get. But really, I'm wanting to turn to certain foods. It's not because they're off limits, it's because I like them. It's not because I think they're bad, it's because I like them. I don't really care. I just want to eat the food because it tastes good and I want to not think about what I'm mad about. I'm surprised how hard the noise is to combat. I'm very hot and wanted something to drink that didn't have caffeine in it, and I'm also hungry. And I'm here at a time where that I was otherwise going to be preparing to eat, and I wanted to find a zero sugar Gatorade, but I couldn't find one. So instead I got a protein shake. My protein intake has been behind for the day, so it fits my goals. I suppose I could say that this was an emotional desire to have something in my mouth, but the desire to drink something existed before the emotional. So again, you can just see where I'm just working out my thoughts. But I'll just sit and type this because it's slowing me down. It's slowing my thinking down in the moment when I am like about to lose it. And the answer is I gotta slow my thinking down. And that's where like writing is actually better than talking because the talking's too fast, and the objective is to slow myself down so I don't go do something I'm gonna regret and work myself into a frenzy.

SPEAKER_02: 38:15

Okay. So yeah, the idea is to well, you're feeling overwhelmed, so you need something that will bring you down to like a lower level, bring it down a couple notches.

SPEAKER_03: 38:25

Yeah, ground you to the present moment a little bit. I like that.

SPEAKER_02: 38:28

I get that.

SPEAKER_00: 38:29

But but but you're right the problems that can be solved by slowing down.

SPEAKER_03: 38:33

Oh, so many problems. Just do less. Like not as much is happening in a present moment as we think it is.

SPEAKER_02: 38:40

And I think that's a product of like what we've built for ourselves as a society. Everything's just as fast as possible. We're constantly building tools to do things faster, so we feel like we need to do things faster. And I think it's normal to feel that way, right? Like you're like to get things done as efficiently as possible. That's capitalism. Fucking everything has to be as efficient and go as fast as possible. So I think, yeah, bringing it like there's a lot of like we we cover like videos where people are like, you know, in the woo-woo stuff, right? And there's a lot of it, I'm like, yeah, this is nonsense. But there's some of it where I'm just like, hey, get outside and like be in nature, like you touch the ground and like touch a tree and breathe in air. And I'm like, yeah, I'm with that stuff. I like that. I think that can I think that can absolutely help a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03: 39:25

Yeah, I'm with you on the woo-woo stuff. There's some real hippie dippy woo-woo shit out there that people do with weight loss. And again, some it's it's layered with stuff that makes sense, it's real, but then it gets to this, I'm just gonna incant or I'm gonna have a mantra say every day and I'll lose weight. I'm like, well, it's not gonna matter if you don't change your behavior. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 39:43

But there's it again, it's grounded in things. Like if you just take like the very edges where it's kind of built on like of all the stuff in the middle, you take all these things on the side, you're like, all right, well, you know what? I could, you know, I could get out in nature a little more, I could go for walks, I could slow down, I could take these breaths when, you know, like all these things. Like, yeah, totally. I'm with that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_03: 40:02

Well, and like I I, you know, the last thing somebody should do is just trust me. Like, I say it's like, don't trust me, test me. Like, like what you said, Liam. I agree with you. There's something to that's why I love I'm trying I do trail running. I don't trail run for fitness. I trail run because I feel like a better person when I go and hang out in the woods and touch a tree. I don't know why it works. It works, so I keep doing it.

SPEAKER_00: 40:24

As Liam walks away from us again, right? I think you gotta do it. You're just like, yeah, no, I gotta go touch a tree now. But yeah, I love um getting out into the woods. It's uh one of the things that I personally have not been able to do as much as I like to, and it's a noticeable difference on my same. Nice to just especially, you know, you take a weekend, go camping, leave your devices at home, and just sit there in the nature with you know, like you said, no headphones. You can hear yourself think, relax around a fire, take it slow.

SPEAKER_03: 41:01

Yeah, I've gotten into um I'm training, I'm ramping up. I'm gonna do an ultra marathon next year, trail running, and it's like I love these things. Like I just go out, I'm just it's just me, myself, the trees, and my thoughts. I have my headphones if I get bored and I want to listen to something, but I I just feel so much better when I've been out there for 20, 30 minutes going on a or I could just be going on a walk. Um, and or gratitude, uh a habit and a practice of gratitude is a real big one. Um, I think you know, when we're talking about like these proactive stress management things, it's like practice just being grateful for what happens. So like I love like this time of year is one of my favorite times of year to go out in the woods because it's like in the mornings and the evenings, the sunsets and sunrises are just amazing. And I missed them for most of my life. And I love to stand in there and be like, I'm so glad I'm here looking at this. Best show in town.

SPEAKER_01: 41:51

There is, I have an opportunity here to say that I do not put my earbuds in on a walk without hearing your voice in my head telling me that I don't need it, and that I should just like be present in the moment. I should train my brain to be independent. It's I don't know how long it's been since I heard that from you, but it has been in my head for a long time. And it's been very beneficial as somebody who has now been putting this into practice, and again, I do bring them with me in case I you know it gets a little boring or whatever, but it it has been a good exercise in being present, and I have noticed a bit more calm. Well, if you think overtake me.

SPEAKER_03: 42:32

If you think back before, we didn't have constant media that was new media that we could just listen to all the time. We had radio, which had ads. We might have our CDs and our tapes or whatever, but a lot of us had a lot of sort of just built-in downtime to think. And the mind needs that to process what's what's happening. You know, I think part of why a lot of people struggle with things like their jobs or their relationships or their finances or their kids is they just don't really have time to just sit and process because we're always doing something with our mind. Instead of just letting it go, okay, I went through this. What do I think about it? What do I feel about it? How is this going on? Or just sitting there doing nothing, just existing, sitting in traffic, watching the lights change and just pondering what you're gonna do later. I I think there's tremendous value in that. Of and and we it now it seems like, at least for me, I have to purposely create that space a lot of times now. I don't just stumble upon that space like I did when I was younger.

SPEAKER_00: 43:32

I don't know, what about y'all? I'm so grateful that I was brought up um fishing. I've been fishing since I was knee-high to a duck. Um and you know, you you just go out there and you throw your line in the water and that's it. And you let your set your mind wander, and it's all about learning patience.

SPEAKER_03: 43:54

And I think and and also recognizing the difference experience between men and women. I mean, women speak on average thousands more words per day than men. Um it is normal. I mean, and so I think some of it is also if a person is someone they need to think by talking, it's again finding those because we don't do it as much as we used to, finding that supportive person that's not going to try to make you do it their way. And then if you are somebody that needs to talk out loud your thoughts, find someone that'll listen. Um, or that's again where I found like the video journaling or the audio journaling we were just talking about, like is really helpful. Yeah, because you're right, Rob. Just something just sitting there fishing and thinking, or like when I run, I'll I'll have conversations with myself like a crazy person in the woods. I do that regularly. Um, it's tremendously helpful for my mental health.

SPEAKER_00: 44:38

Yeah, the uh I've seen a couple instances, particularly lately, of people that they have a lot on their mind and they want somebody to talk to. And it's a problem where they'll try to talk to somebody and that person will dismiss them or won't listen properly, or that's uh it's unfortunately what they need is somebody that will listen.

SPEAKER_03: 45:03

Oh, you're you're right on, and and it's because you need someone that'll listen that gives you just the right amount of challenge that you need in the moment, right? Like they'll listen to you. They may, you know, they may gently challenge you for feeding yourself some bullshit. Um but I think that's where we're seeing with these large language models, you know, like Chat GPT and stuff, where people are using it as a replacement for that. I I have my opinions and where I think that can get very out of hand. It's too self-aggrandizing. But um I I agree with you completely, Rob. Like people will go try to talk to somebody, but they're not talking to a supportive person. And and you almost feel worse for talking to that person. And and unfortunately for some people, it's their parents. Like they go to talk to their parents. And um, Alex Ramosi said something that I think is great is don't get advice from people that aren't already doing what you want, right? So if you're trying to work on your money, don't go out to our talk to your broke parents. They're not gonna help you, they're gonna make you feel worse, right? And and you trying to win, they're gonna take that wrong. And and so I think sometimes when we're talking to people about our problems, yeah, sometimes we're also going to people that just have some stinking thinking and and they're not helping, they're making it worse to talk to them.

SPEAKER_00: 46:16

Yeah, I've had plenty of uh interactions with youth discussing how they want to lose weight and they've talked to their parents, and their parents have not been receptive to it. That's that's tough.

SPEAKER_01: 46:30

It's and I Chris, I know that's everything broke. Yeah, Liam just texted us and said everything's broken. It's okay. We've all got a plan B. We can handle it. Chris, you spend a lot of time with your clients, a lot of quality time with the people that you work with one-on-one. How many of them come to you ready to tell you the things that you know that they need to say? What I'm getting at is it how how much work do you need to do to show somebody that it is safe to start talking about this?

SPEAKER_03: 47:01

So it depends. Some people are so desperate to have somebody hear them and talk to them that the moment they have something they even perceive to be a safe space, they just open up. Um but those are more on the rare side. Um, I find most often they come they're sort of how I was. I had so much old toxic diet mentality stuff in my head, and so much internalized shame as a as a tool to get myself to change that it's not that they don't feel safe with me. There certainly is that. You know, I have to build rapport with them and things like that. But it's more they have to feel safe with themselves. And I mean, I've had to I've had it with clients where it's like I've had to be like they tell me they binge, and I'm like, it's totally okay. You did that. They're like, no, Chris, it's not. I'm like, it's fine. No, it isn't. And we'll get into a back and forth. And I'm like, no, really, it's okay. You don't need to feel bad. I'm not saying you should do it again. I'm not saying it was helpful, but let's not look at let's stop the moral judgment. And and so what I find a lot of it, it's it's not so much helping them feel safe with me, although there is that, it's helping them feel safe with themselves.

SPEAKER_01: 48:11

Um it's because they will show up a little guarded, they'll want to do that thing of getting ahead of what you think that they're gonna think or uh they want to be a good student.

SPEAKER_03: 48:22

Like I've had a lot of people, like I'll say, All right, I just want you to do my starting assignment with most people is hey, for one week, eat whatever you want. Just every time you eat. I mean, I mean every time, even if it is one bite, you ask yourself two questions. Why am I eating and why am I eating the thing I'm about to eat? That's it. You got if you eat, don't eat, don't care. Just ask those two questions. And it is so normal that a person will come back when we meet our second week and like, so I did that, but I also looked at my calories and I started tracking calories, and I also got an exercise program and I did this, and I'll say, Hey, you you paid me good money and you hired me as your coach. Why are you doing that when I didn't ask you to do any of that? And they're usually like, What? They're thinking they're being a good suit. I'm like, look, these are fine. It's just why are you doing that? Because you're doing too much. If I wanted you to do that, I would have asked you to do that. I only wanted you to do these two things because I don't, I wanted you to get a win. And I wanted you to do something that we could build on, and I wanted you to learn this. Like, help me understand. And this is where it they begin to realize it's like, okay, I have to trust the process a little bit. And something that's I think the harder part, Mike, actually, which you're kind of behind what you're describing, it's not so much that they feel safe. It's I need them to show up and take their metaphorical cup. And before they show up to the session, they need to empty it in their bucket outside the door and come with an empty cup. And then they can take what I did and add it to what they already know. Instead, sometimes they want to come up and tell me everything they already know, which is like, it's okay. It's just the more you're telling me what you already know, the less we're not getting to where we need to get to. And you're paying for this time. And I mean, I'm not a therapist, so I'm gonna push back on that if I think we're wasting your time here. But to a certain extent, some people that's some people want to spend a month just showing off what they know, what they've done. And but I some of it I think it's because people don't subconsciously want to get to what they're dealing with. And the other challenge I run into, they begin to open up, but what they're giving is um red herrings. They're bringing up real problems, but they're just wild goose chases. They're not the actual problem. And so I almost always, whatever a client brings up, I dismiss the first two or three problems. I'd say, yeah, yeah, that's great. Let's get behind that. Okay, cool. That yeah, let's get behind that. Why are you doing that? Like, because we got to get to something that makes them a little uncomfortable to talk about. Because to get new results, we have to work on the stuff you've never touched. If this feels like anything else you've ever done before, you're gonna get results like you've had before. This needs to feel completely different. I mean, you're 400 pounds. I mean, what you've been doing has not been working.

SPEAKER_01: 50:57

And so we're also we're dealing with a lot of people pleasers, which generally tends to be a factor in how we get to be so heavy. It's one of the only ways that we can satisfy the urge to ask for something and receive it. It's one of the only ways we can really do anything, is just getting food. So when you have somebody new come up to you uh for coaching, it's this is something I've noticed. That first show-off period before you kind of break them down and show them like it's we're good here. You don't have to be perfect, is just about getting ahead of their expectations of what you are.

SPEAKER_03: 51:32

Like, this is why I went to group though, uh as my first entry point now. I don't usually take on people one-on-one unless they've been in one of my group programs. Um, because some of it is we need to normalize uh stumbling, like just totally remove all the stigma. And when you and all your peers are stumbling too, it makes it not feel so bad. Uh because you're like, oh, this is normal. This is just what we do. We fall down and get back up. Like, cool. Like once I started making friends with fitness people, you know, and I started seeing like people that have been fit all their life, they just viewed it completely differently than I did. It just wasn't even the same. Like, you know, talking in terms of motivation, like, what's motivation got to do with it? They're like, sure, when it I'm motivated, I use it and I get more results, but like motivation not required. I mean, but and if I don't work out for two months, okay. I don't worry about it. I just start working out if I want to. Like it, there's just a certain sense of neutrality to it. And so in a group dynamic, I find that can really help kind of bring people back to this, like this stop judging and trying to do the right thing so much. Um and so that way by the time I'm working with them, they're more uh they're more just kind of ready to get down to work, is is usually what I found works a lot better. Because one-on-one, it's like we come and we meet, but then we don't talk again so for a week. Like, and then they're recounting everything from the week with imperfect memory and they're deceiving themselves, and unfortunately, by extension, deceiving me. Um, it's just not as productive. So, my one-on-one practice, I only take two people at a time and we talk every day for a while.

SPEAKER_01: 53:09

Yeah, it's sometimes people need that. I've had a couple of cases where I've spoken to people every day because they really do need that. And when you say the work, you're not talking about just stay on top of your calories and here's how to work out. Like what you're doing is markedly different from just the average personal training program.

SPEAKER_03: 53:28

Oh, you have to earn I tell people when you come to work with me, you have to earn the right to track calories. You have to demonstrate to me you even you even deserve to. Like most people, Mike, you got no business tracking calories. Like you're you're over here trying to jump to jump to physics and you haven't even figured out how to do basic math. Like, but it's humbling. I mean, it's gosh, me losing weight, I I still remember going to thin people that are all I for the first time in my life, I decided I'm gonna go ask people that have always been in shape and go, they gotta know something I don't know. But I've always I had all the answers, so I didn't go ask anybody. And I just remember the first time I'm sitting down with my brother, I'm like, how do you decide what to eat for lunch? Like that was a humbling thing to ask my younger brother. And then to say, like, what do you do if you notice your weight goes up? Like, how do you handle it? I'm not trying to tell him what I do, what I think, or nothing. I'm just an empty cup trying to get whatever he can give me. And it was very humbling, especially when the answers were really simple. The number of people that were thin that told me the way they manage their weight is by using their clothes shocked me. I was like, what do you mean? You just use your clothes? It's like, yeah, I got my fat pants. If I'm wearing my fat pants, I kind of cut out some lunches and snacks. And then when I'm getting back in my skinny pants, I don't worry about it. I'm like, that's I overcomplicate this. I don't know, Rob, what about you? I don't know. Uh what's your background? How do you, how do you, how do you uh, how do you how do you maintain your your physique? What do you do? Like, how do you monitor it?

SPEAKER_00: 54:52

I stress a lot and I don't I'm the person that doesn't eat when they're stressed. Right, but that's normal for a lot of people. Um I'm just an active person. I like to get up, I like to DIY, I like to um get out for walks, walk my pet cat, go kayaking, go camping. I like to do all these sorts of things. That's and that's where the um the myth of uh high metabolism, you know, people that have high metabolisms. Like those people are usually just more active.

SPEAKER_03: 55:23

Right. I um the the core kind of philosophy behind everything I do is your body is a byproduct of your lifestyle, habits, routines, environment, community, and belief systems. All six of these things create you. And it's like if you want to be thin, healthy, happy in shape, you need to change those six things. And we need to do it for reasons that have nothing to do with weight loss. Like, like I don't run to manage my weight. I'm aware that it helps me manage my weight, but I run because I like being in the woods. Like, I imagine you go camping, Rob, because you like camping. I imagine is why you do it. You're not doing it. I'm gonna be active, and this is gonna make me manage my weight. I imagine you don't think that way.

SPEAKER_00: 56:03

Uh no. No, I'm gonna go camping because I uh I want to lose weight. I'm up five pounds.

SPEAKER_01: 56:09

He goes fishing because he wants to hurt fish. That's what he likes. He goes out of the leg saying, screw you all specifically. You are beneath me, literally. Yeah, it's it I I always tell people if you don't enjoy what you're doing, if you're doing it as a means to an end, stop doing it. What benefit are you looking to get from the thing you're doing? Find the most enjoyable way to get that benefit and do that. Doesn't matter if it's the most optimal thing.

SPEAKER_03: 56:36

Yes, yes, add to your life, not take.

SPEAKER_00: 56:40

Going back to I'm an active person, um, I I started streaming on Twitch a lot this year, and it's not a case of I'm just sitting in front of the computer. If if chats hyping up and uh like a good song comes on the other week, um uh the dance remix of spooky scary skeletons came on. And I got up and I just started dancing. Like I didn't who cares? Right? I looked like a fool, but who cares? Who cares? Got a good laugh, I got some movement in. It was great.

SPEAKER_03: 57:13

Uh no, and it's it's interesting. Like so when I lost my weight, you know, so 26 months to do that, which where I was used to like dropping 10 pounds just by uttering the word diet and then cutting out all carbs and exercising to death and just melting the weight off, and then it'd come back, right? And of course I couldn't do that very long because it sucked. Um, it's like you gotta do all the things that create a thin, healthy, in-shaped body, but do it for reasons that have nothing to do with that. Like, don't make it about that. Or like say no to food, but not so that you'll lose weight. Like, do it for some other reason. Um, and it's yeah, it's it's uh it's interesting to like as I had to do that, and I started realizing activity can just be super fun if I make it fun. Because when I would be like, Oh, I have to go work out, and I would like to do it the most miserable way possible. It's like, well, what if I just found a form of exercise that I actually liked, even if it's not very effective, but I like it, so I'll keep doing it. Like, I'll do that one.

SPEAKER_01: 58:15

I I don't eat two pints of Ben and Jerry's in a row because I genuinely don't like doing that anymore. If I want to have Ben and Jerry's, I can, but I typically just don't want it. Not, I'm not restricting myself. I'm not saying I can't have that. If I want to, I will, but I just don't want it. There are other things I want more.

SPEAKER_03: 58:35

You're not kidding yourself, right? Yeah, you know what you're signing up for. You're signing up for the feeling after, too.

SPEAKER_01: 58:40

Yeah, because it's I st I've started to associate that, ah shit, I feel awful feeling with eating a fuck ass amount of ice cream. So it's like now that being said, I love my ice cream. I just get it from other places, I get smaller amounts. Um, I make it with my ninja creamy, that thing's great. Uh there are plenty of ways to enjoy the thing that you're having.

SPEAKER_03: 59:02

Well, and I think some of it is is having the presence to know I am not in the right frame of mind to be engaging in ex behavior. So, like for me, like let's take cheeseburgers. I love cheeseburgers. Cheeseburgers are great, but I know that when I'm not in a good place emotionally, I should not go have a cheeseburger. Um, much like probably, you know, you know, because it's like I I I can't be sure that A, I'm gonna behave, but B, I may go layering in a bunch of stuff on this emotionally. So it's like I can have a cheeseburger tomorrow. Not today. Today's not a my this is not the right moment to do this. Um with alcohol. I have no problems with alcohol. Um, I don't drink it much because I just I find it affects my performance for running in ways I don't like. Um, but if I'm not in a good place emotionally, I tell myself I I can't have alcohol. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter the reason I can't have any, because I I can't be sure that I'm not just running from my feelings right now. And and that's you know, especially being a dude growing up, I was not taught to process my feelings. I was taught to just to take them, wad them up in a little bowl, and just bury them down deep and pretend they're not there. That's what I was taught to do. So I did that, and that, you know, didn't work. Didn't work.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:15

Also, I want to make non cheeseburger day. That's where you go and visit the journaling.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:20

Right. Or it's like chicken. It's like I love when people vilify fast food and chicken sandwich, like fried chicken sandwiches or cheeseburgers. I'm like, I have these things all the time. It's like, and I'm fine. I just don't have three of them anymore. What at a time when I'm not emotional?

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:35

You're uh your younger brother David, who you were just talking about a moment ago, did not have these same struggles with weight. He had the same upbringing, same parents. Uh and it still he didn't develop the same issue. Have you identified why that you would struggle with it, but he wouldn't?

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:52

Oh uh yeah, actually that's that's a recent thing. I figured that out uh this year. I've been trying to figure out like why did I start turning to food? Uh because I know approximately when it was when I was 15, 16, right around there. Because if I looked when I was younger, now don't get me wrong, like I definitely had thought I was a bigger kid um than I was. Like I had that thought in my head that I'd be fat when I wasn't, but I was I by and large, I was when as I was getting into high school, I was becoming more comfortable with my body. And so I was um, I'm not Mormon now, but like I was raised very Mormon and I moved a lot as a younger kid. Like I went to five elementary schools. Um and so I made it to Chicago and I went to middle school and started high school there. And for the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged. Nobody gave a shit that I was Mormon. Nobody cared. Um, whereas before I was living like in the Bible belt in the South, people very much cared and felt the need to tell me about it. Um, and I would be ostracized, right? So I didn't know how to handle it. And then I was the new kid that moved in, and you know, so I never really felt like I belonged. And for the first time in my life, I'm feeling like I belonged. And um I'm I'm in a great high school. I'm planning my future. So I'm not only am I liking where I'm at, I'm loving where I'm heading. And without warning, I found out we're moving from Chicago, where the town called Batavia in the suburbs, uh, to Jonesboro, Arkansas, which where I live now. And I was gonna lose all this. And it was gonna happen now, and there was nothing I could do. I was completely powerless to it. And I found myself back again in the Bible belt, the weird Mormon kid, uh that again, people very much cared. You know, I'd have people come to school. I could always tell them the local church of Christ is doing anti-Mormon day because my supposed friends would show up with their pamphlets to try to destroy my systems of belief against my will. Um so like this is the sort of I didn't really have any friends very well. Uh the church community I was in was really small. I was mad about the school by comparison I went into. I went came from an amazing school district to one that just sucks. I mean, just sucks. And it's I mean, sucks. Um and so I didn't have that sense of belonging anymore. I didn't have that sense of community. I didn't have that sense of certainty in my future, and it and so I started turning to food. And and this was also about the time video games, Xbox was coming out, and online gaming was not quite there yet. It was a few years away, I think probably, but I pro I got into that promptly. But I started losing myself in video games, movies, and food. And everything in my life started having lots of food, and but I was the only one doing it. Like my friends, the few I had, my family, like so, but this only made me feel more like an outsider. But it was always there for me. And and it's it really began then, and then more things in life happened as I kept getting older, and I just anytime life would get better, but when then life would get hard, you know, hello, my old friend. And I, you know, I remember one time in my early 20s, I was finally feeling like I was getting my life on a good path, and I got married for far too young for all the wrong reasons to the absolute not right person who a week after we got married looked me right in the eye and said, I don't, I don't think I love you. I don't feel butterflies when I look at you. I'm 24 and my wife's saying this to me. I have no concept of how to process this. I have no concept of how to do it. Um, and I remember later that week I was at the grocery store, end of the day, grocery store donuts, and I'm looking at them and I'm like, why do I even care? Why do I even care about taking care of myself? You know, this is supposed to be the good times right here, and and it sucks. So I'm gonna have this donut and I'm gonna get two of them. And I ate them both on the way home, threw away the receipt in the bag, and then I just kept doing it. Um, I kept doing stuff like that. I just I just kept turning to food and it was a lot of secret eating because I didn't let people know, but then I just I'm getting bigger, and that only made me then I was like, why am I hiding it? I'm a fat guy, fat guys eat, so I just kept eating. But I didn't think it was emotionally eating, you know. I I was no concept, nobody was talking to me about it. Uh so that's that's really that's the where I've been able to pick that it started. I I can't really identify any particularly bad food habits, other than I just was a picky eater um prior to about late 15, early 16 years old.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:13

It's interesting how these things develop because I I'm in a similar situation. My younger brother did not struggle with his weight, and I did. Same upbringing, same town. We didn't move either. So it was just where we were. And yeah, I I struggled with it. I still, like we were talking about before, there it's still kind of a battle. It's become an easier one, one that we have tools for and that we're more well equipped for, but it it's still a a conscious effort.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:39

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:39

Especially in difficult times.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:41

Yeah, and I, you know, I didn't I didn't get into fitness the same way. I didn't get into, you know, I wish I had discovered fitness when I was younger and could have built some muscle and fitness on those the I understand the phrase now, youth is wasted on the young. It was wasted on me. Uh trying to trying to get fit, you know, now as a 40-year-old. I mean, still very doable, but just I am aware that I am not 25. And I'm aware I neglected my body for 25 years. So um I feel it. But it's yeah, you know, the the beauty though is I've realized it's never too late to turn it around and start making your situation better. It's never too late. You can always just stop, turn around, and just say, I'm gonna start making it better from here. I'm gonna stop making this worse. And when I discovered how great you can make your body, the world became opened up to me. Like, you know, Rob, you're talking about camping and stuff. I would not have camped before. It was too miserable. Now I I'm camping. I love camping. I love going out in the world and an adventure.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:38

When are you doing a guild camping adventure?

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:40

I don't know. I've thought about it. I've thought about doing some camping adventures. I've thought about it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:45

You should talk about the guild real quick too. Let everybody know what it is.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:48

So I do a my I have a community um that's my group program, but one of the aspects that I've really layered into it is doing in real life experiences together. So we do tough mutters. I take, I take 300-pound 50-year-old women on Tough Mudders. It's awesome. Um, I mean, not just I mean, there's other, we have a whole spectrum of people, but um, we do those, we do hikes, we do um 5Ks together. Um, I'm going to Kansas City next weekend to do a scavenger hunt with people that I've lined up where we're, you know, people will come, they'll get 20,000, 30,000 steps, you know, per day for two days, and they're doing it with a bunch of people. It's kind of like what you're talking about, Rob. Like I figured I was like, how can I make movement fun? Just let's just make it fun. And the movement just is a byproduct, and it's and it's turning into such a wonderful thing and giving people this sense of belonging and doing it with people that look like them, right? They're on the same journey, and there's something empowering about being able to hang out with somebody that's you know, your age, your height. You know, let's say you're a 45-year-old woman or a 35-year-old dude, and you're 400, 300 pounds, but you're seeing someone your age and your height, and they're 150 pounds, and they've been in the program for a couple of years, and you're like, well, well, maybe I could do that. Like it's something about giving people a vision of what they could become. Because so many people I'll ask them. I don't know if you you all do this, but I'll ask people when I first meet with them, what's your goal weight? You know, and let's say a person's, you know, said 35-year-old male, uh, 325 pounds. You know, I'll ask them almost every time, let's say they're 5'10, they'll they'll say like, I don't know, maybe 210, 220. So I'll ask him, they're like, well, at 5'10, you know, I'm 5'10, I'm 170, just out of curiosity, why not 170? It's okay if you want to stop at 210, but why not 170? And they'll always say something along the lines of, well, I haven't been 170 since I was in middle school. They're like, they can't even comprehend what they look like. And so they don't even want to set their sights on it because it's like this doesn't seem feasible. I mean, I I crossed 200 at as a freshman, so never saw it again for until a while. Yeah, and that's the thing like I've realized when I started hanging out with people that are in the fitness world, I realized success is an expectation, you know, and they don't think in terms of weeks, they think in terms of half years, years. I mean, when I started learning how long people do bulking and cutting phases for, it's like, oh, I had no, I had no concept of it of what people would do for a for a fitness phase. Like, you know, I do a running block. I mean, I I'll do running things where I don't expect to make results for a year. I mean, or well, see the main result, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:34

I mean, obviously making progress along the way, but that's just how it is with muscle building, changing your body at all. And it's it that continues the the disbelief that something's going to change even after you lose all the weight. I just put on my 5K medal. I ran a 5K with you in Chicago and Chris. And I I don't know if I've told you this story or not, but it when I tell this story, I will tell people that I made the mistake of starting a 5K next to Chris Terrell.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:59

You did make that mistake because you were you were gonna walk it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:03

I was gonna walk it and you knew that. I don't know if you positioned yourself there because you knew that, or just because we were having a good conversation. But as soon as they fired the gun, or I don't think they even fired a gun, they might have just yelled at us to start going. Um you looked over at me and you said, So you're gonna run this thing, right? And I said, God damn it. I could have started 15 feet back and I would have walked the rest of it. But he said, just all you have to do is run, just run as much as you can. You don't have to run the whole thing. Just run as much as you can. And in that moment, I decided, okay, I'm going to try to run a mile uninterrupted. Now, to many people out there, that might not be a big deal. I've never done that. So I had already lost all the weight. I'd been in shape at that point. I had been making a living for a year or so at that point, helping people to lose weight with plenty of success under my belt and theirs. And I'd never run a mile, and I didn't believe that I could. And that day I pushed it. I really did. And it's it sucked the next day. We were uh still active the next day, and I was sore. But I ran that mile and then interspersed in between. I just tried to run as much as I could after that, taking little breaks in between.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:15

Well, it's our our limited 5k in Texas next month.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:19

Yeah, we're gonna do another 5k in Texas. Uh Rob's coming out here to Texas. Oh, sweet.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:23

We're doing a you know, the our limit, our physical limit I've seen is usually far further than we think it is. I mean, it's usually way further out. Most people don't actually go find their limits. Like they're they're actual, real, like you dropped, cannot move anymore limit. Um, and when you feel that feeling, it's like, oh, that's what that feels like. So I'm I'm training, I'm ramping up to do another thing next year. I did it not this year, but the year before. Um, I know Mike, you're familiar with it. Rob, I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's called the four by four by 48. Oh, yeah. So it's you run four miles every four hours for 48 hours. And by the time you're done, you will have run 48 miles. Um do one. And so I'm doing it next uh next year in um March. And it uh it's one of those things. It's like I the first time I did it, I was like, I don't know if I can do this. Like, I I don't I don't know if I can. And there were so many times like I'd wake up and it, you know, it's like four in the morning, and I'm about to do another run, and I'm like in a daze. And I go outside and I remember one run. I took my first step and it felt like electricity, painful electricity was shooting from my foot all the way to the top of my head and back down to my foot again. And I took my next step and it did it, and it did it that way for like half a mile. I could I literally physically could not run. And I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I mean, I'm gonna keep moving for 45 minutes at least. Like, I'll get as far as I can. And I remember I'm walking and I made it to a mile, and I'm like, I can jog a little bit. And then I ended up running the rest of the dang thing. And I was just like, I didn't think I could do this. And then, like, same thing that happened several times where I'm starting a run, and I'm like, I can't do it. I I can't. I can't do it. And and I'm like, but let's just let's go fail. And then I did it. And I was like, what? This is crazy. Um, you know, I mean, I have done other things where I failed. I did an ultra marathon on I a 50 miler and I failed at mile 36. But it's like, go find your limits, and it's it's such a rewarding thing to just go go test yourself and see what you can do. And when you just keep testing your limits, you the body is amazing how well it responds to that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:27

We will always be challenging our beliefs no matter what. It's you can it the number doesn't fix anything, you fix the things. It's everything. It's if you are trying to work on your willpower, which is one of the reasons that a lot of people turn to the three of us, is they feel like they don't have willpower. You're still gonna have to build the belief that you are in control of it. It's gonna take a while, you're gonna need some smart coping mechanisms and strategic coping mechanisms, but you are gonna be the one in power. So likewise, you can't rely on a number to fix your problems. You're gonna get to that number and have your problems fixed by doing things to fix it along the way. Yeah, it's it's gotta be that way. You are in control of all of it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:08

Yeah. Now, Rob, what uh what what's your stumble along the way too? Totally. A lot. I want to go back to that. You uh you have people do the group thing first so that they can, you know, stumble together, see each other, see it, all that. Um that's one thing we we highlight here on the podcast, which uh conveniently another incident happened today where Liam Liam's computer just blew up. You know, things happen.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:34

Things happen.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:35

And we love to just leave that stuff in so people can see that, yeah, even on a professional ish-ish, in quotes, podcast, um, things are gonna go wrong. And we just laugh about it and move along.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:51

Totally. I am I have uh dysgraphia, so it's words come, it's like reverse dyslexia, right? Stuff comes out jumbled. Um, so as a result, writing and spelling for me is actually tremendously I'll misspell something. I just have no concept that I've misspelled. I just can't, I literally can't see it. Um, it's weird. But at first, I just have tremendous feelings about it in the past, but like now doing what I do, I do presentations all the time and whatnot, and a lot of visuals, and I'll like I'll catch the typo or whatever. I'm like, don't care. And it's even gone so far that I started putting typos in on purpose. Uh just to be like, you know what? No, we're not gonna let things be perfect because perfect is stupid. Perfect is pointless. I don't do perfect. I I I do I do like close enough for a lot. Like I'll do perfect and I won't quit, but uh you gotta be careful where you throw the perfect word down on. I mean, I don't do perfect, I do progress. Exactly. Exactly. The um just get back and part of it I've realized too is a willingness just to get back up. Like you said when you stumble, just get back up, just keep going, it'll be fine. I mean, I I used to do uh woodworking as a hobby. I liquidated that many years ago. But I remember I was watching a video from a really talented woodworker, and uh his name's Mark Spagnolo, the wood whisperer on YouTube. But he was talking about he said the the difference between like great woodworkers and and those that aren't, he goes, it's not that the great woodworkers don't make mistakes. He goes, they make lots of mistakes. The difference is they know how to adapt. They know how to make the to incorporate the mistake, they know how to repair the mistake, they know how to finish the project. Whereas then I'm sitting here watching, it's like when I would make a mistake, I'd put the project away, wouldn't come back to it for six months. So, Rob, what what kind of fitness do you do? Like what's your what's your what's your thing, you know, that you do for fitness? Like, are you a lifter? Are you uh uh endurance? You just an active guy. What do you do?

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:41

He used to be 600 pounds.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:43

You used to be 600 pounds?

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:45

No. Oh I have no idea where Mike pulled that from. He's like, what? No, he's never struggled with his weight. Motherfucker.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:53

I was I was I struggled with my weight in the other direction. I was severely underweight.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:58

Oh. Was that um I mean, are you comfortable with asking a couple questions? Of course. Um, I mean when you say underweight, like what like what does that mean? Like, like size-wise.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:10

Umis was uh six foot and 120 pounds.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:15

Oh wow, yeah, that that definitely fits the bill. Underweight. How did how did you um how hard is it to come come out of that? Like, was that a long journey?

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:24

Um It was I I don't want to say a long journey. It was just very much finding the right education. Particularly, um that was I was starting to work on it during the height of um production of uh body types, and so I got fed all this uh urine ectomorph or endomorph, which one is it? Ectomorph. No endomorph v-shred stuff. I don't remember. Anyway, I got fed all that bullshit, and um they were like, oh, you have to exercise in this manner, and you have to eat in this manner, and none of that actually worked. Um I was not getting enough protein, I was not pushing myself hard enough. It wasn't until I actually learned a lot more about how um muscle growth works and importance of protein and all this stuff that I actually started to put on muscle and weight.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:21

Was that what kind of what was that motivator that I mean to go to I mean to get from there to a much healthier weight? I mean, you know, you that that's some eating and some lifting, right? I mean, what what what pulls you through that journey?

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:32

Um well, it was kind of in the background for the longest while and then went through a a rough breakup, because everything always has to start with a breakup, right? Went through a rough breakup and a very rough uh series of depression, bad things happening. And at that moment of looking at my life and being like, I'm just laying around right now, I don't feel healthy, I don't have energy, I want to change that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:05

And so just so for you it was really about that quality of life, then like I don't like this feeling and I want to feel some other way. Yeah, yeah. So I imagine it was how quickly like when you started coming back, like how quickly did you start feeling the positive effects of eating enough protein and working and moving, challenging your body hard enough? Was it pretty fast? Pretty quickly. I imagine. Yeah. Was that a did you get hooked on that feeling?

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:28

Oh yeah. Yeah. Uh for a while there. Um Jim was my uh my personality for like three hours a day. Got pretty damn big at one point. Yeah? How big did you get? I got uh I don't really really took any measurements. I've seen photos and my you know, the delts are just blown up and fair size bicep and all that. But then I hit the the point of okay, well, I've done this and I'm not happy about all this effort that I'm putting in. I like the exercise, but I took it too far. Like I said, I made it my personality. Yeah. So at that point I dialed it back, and now I'm usually at this point hitting the gym three times a week for an hour and keeping active with everything else.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:19

Yeah. Yeah, I um I felt that when I was losing weight. Um, I I I felt myself doing that. I was making fitness and taking care of my body like my entire identity. And then when I started doing it for a living, I don't know if y'all have ever have y'all ever run into this like because there's such crossover with the professional, like sometimes you feel like you're not it's it's bleed, it's it's bleeding into your entire identity. Do y'all ever feel that? I know I sometimes do. I'm like, am I taking care of my body for myself or am I taking care of it for my brand in the audience?

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:49

Yeah. Oh yeah. It's it's something I'm actually getting reached on. Yeah. Yeah. I I it's I've had to work. Oh, go ahead, Mike. I was just gonna say it's been tough. It's something I've been dealing with recently. It's funny that you mentioned it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:00

Yeah, it's hard. It it's hard to do that that separation, I think, you know, with people that do what do what we do posting about it. Because our I I remember talking to a friend uh when I first started doing this, I was like, I'm really struggling that my body is a part of my brand. Like I'm yeah, I'm struggling with this because it's like sometimes I just want to like I remember the first time I was lean and I just you know, I was like the first time I'd like kept a six-pack for a year, and I was like, this is awesome. And then after a year, I'm like, there's a price of keeping a six-pack all year. And I'm I don't know that I want to pay the price. I don't mind a four-pack, but I remember having tremendous internal resistance of like, what will people think of me if I put on a few pounds? You know, like I had to really sit with that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:44

I know when I uh dialed it back and started to put some of the fat on. And obviously, I'm not calling myself fat, but put some back on. There were comments about how I was had put on weight and had gotten fat, and every response to that was always I was like, I am six foot and I am 180 pounds, I'm happy with my life, my blood work is pristine, and you're trying to tell me I'm unhealthy.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:10

Isn't that crazy how people do that?

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:12

Just because I don't have a six pack, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:14

And a six pack doesn't mean you're healthy. No, absolutely not. What really helped wake me up to that, do y'all do y'all ever watch Dr. Mike on YouTube or see his stuff?

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:23

Yep. One.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:25

Do what? Which one? Oh, uh the like Isratel? Yeah. Isretel? No, oh right. No, not Isratel. Uh the medical doctor. Um okay. Yeah, the the the the the cute one of the two. But definitely not mine. This is in his earlier days. Um, and I was watching him when I was on my journey, and at the time he had just this incredible physique and he was showing everything. And I'm so glad he made this video. He's and he came and made this video how his health markers were actually really out of whack. Like he had his checkup and his blood work done. He's like, No, my cholesterol's out of this. And I remember there was a few other things. And he talked about like, and this kind of was, you know, look, you know, people would look at me and think that I'm this model of health. And but no, like just because you have muscles and you're lean, that doesn't make you healthy. Just like being a little bigger doesn't necessarily mean you're unhealthy. And and seeing that, like, that was such an eye-opener to me. I was like, okay, losing weight is not getting healthy, even if it does help being healthy. But getting healthy and losing weight are two completely separate initiatives that you have to approach independently, but they're interdependent because they help each other. But like, yeah, so I'm with you. Yeah, having a six-pack is not, I mean, I'm ramping up running, so I know all naturally lean down anyway because of it, but it's like, you know, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be burning a shit ton of energy all the time. But it's yeah, it it it's interesting the comment section what people say. Um, and I've had people sometimes like, have you seen they'll come to me, like, have you seen so-and-so creator? They've gained a little weight. And I'm like, who cares? Stop judging them. Like, they're a person too, and so they're living their life. You don't know what their goals are.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:07

When I started posting content, my goal was to gain weight. I'd already lost all the weight I wanted to. I'm I'm 6'3, I was 155 pounds, which is also not healthy, you know, comparatively to Rob's same thing. So I have gained weight since then because I've wanted to, I've needed to. I am not as lean as I used to be because I needed to not be that lean. I didn't feel good when I was that lean. I I hit a weight, I realized it weight loss is not gonna bring me happiness. I have to create happiness.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:38

And part of that was gonna be that health meant the number was higher.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:43

I I hope that everybody loses all the weight and gets the physique of their dreams so they can see that it's not gonna make them happy and they'll finally get to working on what actually makes a person happy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:54

That's a quote from the I can't scary enough GYM that um all these Instagram models and fitness people that um they're always every every video they put out, they're super lean. A lot of them they will do a cut to get to that point, they will film all of their content within like a month, and then they will, you know, s spread out posting that content. So it looks like they're leaning, but really they were just did they did it just for a month.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:25

That's how I like um y'all watch Jeff Nippard's stuff. Yeah, that's yeah, that's why I like how he just shows us it's live. You can see him bulking up, you can see him cutting down, and he talks about the information behind it. Like, I wish more content creators would do stuff like that and just let it be real, like show like because yeah, you're right, this polished stuff. I mean, look, they do it because it works, because it gets them the views, but it's just people don't realize when they're doing it, like they're br they're they're messing up their own minds by just constantly curating their feeds to show them these unrealistic expectations. Like we all know, I can throw on certain lighting, eat a certain way for a couple of days, and have an amazing look, and then just a day later it's gone. I mean, it's not hard.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:11

It's crazy that um, you know, actors that we would have said were jacked and stuff in the 90s are now considered to be chubby. Right?

SPEAKER_04: 1:26:21

Right? It's still the physical.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:23

I have a serious problem. Um like it's gotten so bad. And I have a serious problem with um Marvel rivals. We got Tony Stark here. I've got a serious problem with it because they've they turned everybody into these huge, jacked up bodybuilders. Um, Wolverine is out to here, and it's like, no, why are we pushing this image that all the superheroes need to be these giant guys walking around?

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:55

And as a man, too, you know, I know look, first, before I say what I'm about to say, I know that women got it 10,000 times worse. Um, but as a dude, like, like so I'm 40. Um, and it said I'm I'm behind, right? I missed out on 20 years of foundation building that I could have had. And like I look around and sometimes and I feel this pressure inside. And I have to constantly work through it. It's like, I don't have to be some big jack dude. Like, I don't, I like to run. I'm an endurance runner. I like it. I'm not like it's hard to bulk and be an endurance runner. You can do it, but like Nick Bear, he does it, but like he's very transparent. Like, it's not easy, and you got to have the food, the nutrition behind it to support it. And and so I think that like they set these unrealistic at Hollywood level, they show these massive transformations and look how great he got in it for the thing. They don't talk about they're probably using gear, they do it for their full-time job for nine months straight, you know, six, eight hours a day. It's all they have to do is become jacked. And then, like, you see, like Batista, who's slimming down, and then he gets all this flack for it. And I'm like, Yep, come on, or the rock slimmed down something recently. I was about to say, but but it's not like the rock ever talks about look, the rock, I don't, you know, the rock, they ain't natural. So God no, but they don't talk about it. So they don't at least like look, if you're gonna use gear, just normalize it, just say you're doing it. That's why I do like Mike Isrtel. He's just totally straightforward with it. I'd prefer that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:27

He'll talk about how much it sucks, too. That's what I think is really important. It a lot of the people who are now being transparent about it are treating it like it's a like a luxury drug, like it's something that equates to a great lifestyle. And Dr. Mike Isretel, he'll say, Well, I'm angry all the time. I feel awful. It's it like there's fire in my veins. And it's it's just not disgust enough. Uh plus it everybody if if somebody's job is fitness, there's a solid chance that they've got a needle in their ass. And they're not talking about it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:59

Well, I made the conscious choice now about through two and a half, almost three years ago, that I said I am I I could, because of the nature of the line of work that I do, same with y'all, like I could justify spending an abnormal amount of time in the gym for most people. Like, I could justify that if I wanted. Um, in my mind, probably even logistically, to my accountants, like I could do that. But I was like, but that's not what my people I'm working with do. They don't, they don't live lives like that. They live a regular life with a desk job. So I'm like, I'm gonna try to figure out how to do this the way a normal person does it. Because what if this all goes away, right? Like we're we're so I I consider myself blessed I get to do what I do for a living. But like I'm under like I could just lose this one day. Who knows? Right. And so it's like I don't want to make it where the only way I can take care of myself is when I made taking care of myself part of my profession. Because that's not realistic for most of life.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:56

It's normal, like just average everyday people are are what comprises of my audience, really. It's like I'm I'm not pushing a physique so much as I am like, hey, you can lose the weight that you've got, and it can be reasonable. You know, because there are a lot of people that they they see these picture perfect models and they think, well, I can't be that. Even if I lose the 150 pounds I've got to lose, I'm gonna be rot with loose skin. So it's I I I can't have that kind of uh tone about me or that kind of pose or whatever. And and they may not even be all that interested. They just want less pain on their joints. They just want a slimmer face.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:35

Y'all ever watch Obese to Beast? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:37

We've had him on.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:38

Oh, you have? Oh, I love his stuff. And I love that he's, you know, because I've watched him my whole my whole journey, I remember discovering him, and I just love that he just normalized that like the loose skin and everything. But what I still find just so dis not discouraging. It's just it's just it I don't know how to describe how I feel about it. It's it's i i uh something. But when people just come and they just hate on him for the loose skin or whatever this, I'm like, what a weird thing to just go into a comment section of somebody else and just give them beef for this. Like, I mean, I guess that's almost like how Gary V talks about it, like pity. It's like, you know, I almost pity this person that they feel the need to do this in the comment section because we know like not everybody leaves comments. So it felt some reason they needed to do it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:23

It's it's a shame. And now, especially with the physique inflation. Well, I've I get people to come into my comments all the time and call me small, and uh I'm not big enough, I'm not jacked enough, and I'm like, yeah, I'm I'm not on drugs.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:36

I will say my audience demographics about 20 years higher than yours. I don't get it as much directed at me. I see it more in other people's stuff. There they're definitely it definitely seems to have a drop-off once the demographic hits 40 plus. Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:48

I'm I'm in the 18 to 34 demo. That kind of imagery is being shoved at them all the time. And um, I I I just it's it's strange to see how quickly that's happened too, because when I got here a couple of years ago, that wasn't the case. It it was satisfactory enough that I had lost the weight, but it's it it has shifted.

SPEAKER_03: 1:32:09

I have had men come into my comment section and give me flack about how I'm not they're like, you did it all wrong, you should be big and jacked by the time we got to the end. And I'm like, why? And I mean, and I know why I didn't, because I watched uh it was a Jeff Nippert video when I was losing weight, and he talked about like, should you bulk or should you cut? And I remember in one of his videos, I don't remember which one, it's years and years and years ago, he said, Look, man, you probably aren't gonna like this, but if you're greater than 25% body fat, you probably should not be worrying about bulking. You should just cut. And I was just in like, well, I think my plan's gonna be I'm gonna cut down to the body fat percentage I want, and now I have my blank canvas that I can build upon, and I can make it whatever I want to make it. And I totally stand by that. You know, I'm I'm glad I did it that way. I kind of I mean sometimes I wish I'd have bulked a little bit along the way, but you know, 26 months is a long time. I don't know that I would have wanted it to take any longer. And bulking is more fun on this end. I did eventually you didn't like it. No, no, I didn't like it either. I I don't I don't know that weightlifting and getting big is my thing. I don't think I like it. Nothing against it. I just me as an individual, I just don't think I like it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:20

Different people have different goals.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:21

Yeah, I I get off being able to run 20 miles. Like that's my thing. Like I like being able to do that. Like uh Ben Carpenter, uh, who just you know he got into running recently, and I just remember watching that, and I loved how he talked about like it was terrible when as soon as he did it. But I'm like looking at Ben and I'm like, I mean, his physique is phenomenal, and he's been doing it for a long time. I mean, I can't hold a candle to him, and I just remember it was very it was interesting. Someone that honestly I looked up to, or look up to, current present tense, but he talks about something that I do that I started way later in life, and I'm like, oh, I'm I'm better at that. But it's just because that was my thing. That was the thing I got into, and there's nothing wrong with it. Like it's totally okay, but my physique's gonna look like a runner because that's what I do.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:05

It's and Ben's physique is gonna look like somebody with Crohn's because he has Crohn's.

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:10

Right. Right. Gosh, that's a that's a that's a I've had a friend have Crohn's. That's a tough, that's a tough one to have.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:16

Chris, where can we find you? I've I've got to pop out of here in just a couple of minutes. Uh otherwise, I'm gonna be going long. This may be is this the longest one that's you guys have ever done? No. Well then we gotta go for another hour.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:28

Scotty's was nearly two hours. That makes sense. Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:33

Uh yeah. Chris, have you I think I introduced you to Scotty, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:38

Yeah, we've yeah, we've texted.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:39

We've texted some. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, cool. It's gotta I gotta make sure you know everybody. Everybody's gotta know you. Where can everybody find you?

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:46

Uh easiest thing is just becoming thin.com. Uh, that'll, you know, person can find my podcast, they can um just learn a little bit more about who I am. Uh on on TikTok, Chris Terrell, more becoming thin. You can search for those. Um and then on YouTube, Becoming Thin. So you can just search for those on any of the things. Facebook group, I have one there. Uh man, that's a fun journey when I did the rebrand of that to becoming thin. Uh, he wanted to talk about a fun journey sometime. It causes people to have to think, have to face a mirror. I switched to that one. But they can find me that on any pretty much any platform, except Instagram. I don't, that's my I don't give a shit about Instagram. So maybe one day I will.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:25

We'll get you over to Instagram one day. Everybody write in. Right into the P.O. box, the inmoderation P.O. box, which we don't have yet, um, telling Chris that he needs to get on to Instagram.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:34

Come tell me about him on TikTok and tell me to get on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:37

Yeah. Go on to go on to Twitter.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:40

Well, right? That'll help my algorithm.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:43

Call him phony Stark until he does it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:46

I don't know if I've heard that one. My favorite one is a person got in my comment section and said, It's aluminum, dude. And I was like, that's funny. I've never heard it ever since, but that was my favorite one that I ever heard. You know, I don't like when people call me wish.com Tony Stark. I don't like that one. Target brand, at least.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36:06

Well, Chris, thank you for joining us. Mike, I Mike. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:10

Talking beside your microphone. It's very quiet.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36:12

Chris, thank you for joining us. That's better.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:15

Yes, talk on the other side. You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36:19

I yeah, I know I appreciate it. I'm sure if Liam were alive today, he would appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:24

Unfortunately, the Roomba got him. God rest the soul.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36:27

Rest of Peter, the Roomba finally did get him.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:30

We'll have a moment of silence for Liam at the end of this episode. Pour one out for our brother.