In this day of hard bodies and Instagram health celebrities, I thought I would share a story that's a little different, about an event that changed my view of health and fitness forever.
See all episode artwork, links and notes at:
https://blog.dirobi.com
This show is for informational purposes only.
None of the information in this podcast should be construed as dispensing medical advice.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Find episode links, notes and artwork at:
https://blog.dirobi.com
This show is for informational purposes only.
None of the information in this podcast should be construed as dispensing medical advice.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
In this day of hard bodies and Instagram health celebrities, I thought I would share a story that's a little different, about an event that changed my view of health and fitness forever.
See all episode artwork, links and notes at:
https://blog.dirobi.com
This show is for informational purposes only.
None of the information in this podcast should be construed as dispensing medical advice.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Find episode links, notes and artwork at:
https://blog.dirobi.com
This show is for informational purposes only.
None of the information in this podcast should be construed as dispensing medical advice.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Welcome to the dire ob health show covering the world of fitness, nutrition, and supplementation with world class guests. The latest clinical research and plenty of tips you can use right away to boost your health and wellness. Here's your host, Dave Sherwin
Dave:health show. Today I've got a personal story that I want to share with you now that we know each other so well. I've been doing so many episodes of the show. I got something personal I want to share and I call it the miracle by the lake and hopefully there'll be something in here that could make a difference in your life in this day of instagram and hot bodies and all these people who might look so much fitter than us and doing such amazing things and showing off their rock hard six pack abs. There's there's room for more stories than just those. I think, and health is not necessarily just a look at me kind of a thing. It can be a very rich thing that makes our life better and a lot of different ways and I really learned that a few years ago when I was doing triathlon. I have always loved a health and exercise and nutrition for as long as I can remember, but when I turned 40 I had been playing basketball three days a week and lifting weights three days a week, which kept me in pretty good shape and that was my fitness regimen, but by the time I turned 40 I couldn't jump as high. I wasn't as quick and I was looking for something else in. A friend of mine did a sprint distance triathlon. He told me it was a lot of fun and I thought he was lying because triathlon didn't sound very fun to me, but he had a great time and I thought about it and I thought, hmm, running, biking and swimming. Well if I. If I was to start doing that, I'd be in really good shape. It just sounded like something to be in really excellent shape with. Plus there was a chance there to compete and so I started running, biking and swimming and started doing mini triathlons. I wasn't very good. As a matter of fact, I had a deep fear of swimming in open water. I actually had a couple of minor panic attacks, uh, out in the water swimming, but I was able to overcome that with just time and effort and, and Grit I guess. And eventually I was able to swim and run and bike and do some triathlons and when they were over I'd often see the people going to the award ceremony and I think, man, they must be so fast and how could I do that? And then as I develop more skill and was able to swim better, I started to post better times and I thought maybe I could at least get a metal, you know, third place, you know, there's a gold, silver, bronze for each age group in triathlon. And I thought it'd be cool to get a metal in my age group. And so the next year I picked out a race in the summer up at the Echo Echo Reservoir here in Utah. Two big race, about 900 people. And I thought my goal is to get a medal in that race. I didn't realize at the time how that would be so highly competitive race in a qualifier for the national championships, so to trucks, really great racers in my age group from all over the place, but I didn't know that at the time and I worked very hard. I had a coach and I exercised a lot and I improved my skills and I worked for six months super hard to prepare for this race. And as the race approached, I told my kids, Hey, don't have anyone over on Friday night. I got to get to bed early. I got to get up at 4:30 in the morning, so let's keep the house quiet. I'm going to bed early. And they did that. And so here I'm all prepared to got all my stuff ready and uh, tomorrow's the big day and I get in bed and this has never happened before or since. But a guy pulled up with super loud music just booming out of his car and parked directly across the street from me, which was no big deal. I waited for him to turn the car off and get out. And for some inexplicable reason, on the worst possible night of that year, he sat there in his car listening to music so loud. There was no way I was going to get to sleep. My windows were shaking and I was like, this is incredible. Now I'm in bed. I'm all settled in, you know, and I don't want to get up, get dressed and go out there. But after about 15 or 20 minutes, I've just kinda wound up, I was ticked and I threw on some shorts and t shirt. I want to cross the street and as nicely as I could. I said, hey, I'm trying to sleep and your music is so loud, I can't get to sleep. Well, he was very apologetic. He wasn't like a jerk or anything. I don't think he realized it wasn't that late at night. And so he apologized, turned off the car. And that was the end of that problem is by the time I got in bed, I was just mentally wound up. I wasn't tired anymore. And I lay awake for a long time. I might've got two hours of sleep and my friend Perry picked me up and we start driving to this race and mentally I'm thinking on the one hand, Dang it, I didn't sleep. There is no way I can go and get a metal in this race. And on the other hand I was trying to be positive and think thoughts like who needs sleep? Uh, I got six months of preparation behind me. One night of bad sleep won't hurt me. I'm just going to get up there and grind it out and still go for this metal. So I was getting up there with a kind of a conflicted attitude of being tired but trying to have a good attitude about it. And when the race started, I got in the water. I felt pretty good. I swam well when I got out of the water, I looked at my watch and I thought, oh, this is good. I can do well. And I got on my bike and I started writing and, and uh, I was doing fairly well on the bike and feeling really good till about three quarters of the way in and with about a quarter of the race to go. The fatigue just hit me like a wall. Like I, I was, I was literally going up a hill where I just ran out of juice. People were passing me like I was standing still. And um, one lady really pissed me off because she passed me all friendly and everything and hardly breathing hard and kind of smiled and waved and said Hi. And she was big, Super Nice, but ticked me off because I was dead and I was working as hard as I could and people just flying by me when I hit that wall. So I said a prayer and it was a very simple prayer. It wasn't a, a God helped me win this race. Help me reach my goal. I just didn't think that was the right thing to do, but it was one of these, hey, a little help here. I'm dying. Just help me finish this thing the best I can and I'm throwing these thoughts like this up to heaven. Right. Well, I hadn't thought that for very long when all of a sudden my whole body was filled with this overwhelming feeling of gratitude. I've never really had anything like that before. Of course, I know what the sense of gratitude is and all of us have felt that, but this was intense. This is an experience I'd never had before from my head to my feet. I could feel the sense of gratitude. I could feel my hands on my bike, and I was thinking, wow, I have two hands. Some people don't have two hands. Same with my feet, my feet. Although I was working really hard to pedal. I was sitting on a bike in a race peddling 900 people. A lot of them ahead of me. A lot of them behind me, out on a beautiful Saturday morning. The other thing that happened that was quite unusual, I've never had that this other experience before, since either it was like my eyes were opened. I looked out to the, to the lake. On the right and the boats and the water skiers and the colors and the glitter off of the waves just looked amazing. It was like my eyes could see it a whole new level I'd never seen before. The mountains on the left looked more beautiful than they had. I was still working really hard. I wasn't. Nothing was easier about riding my bike, but this sense of, wow, I am so blessed. This is incredible. I thought about the bike I was riding, which I really loved. It was one of my favorite possessions. I loved riding my bike. It was always something that was something I just love to do in all of my training on Saturday training rides with other cyclists. And it just was an overwhelming feeling of how lucky I was, how blessed I was. And that feeling literally filled me up and as it did my concerned about winning diminished. And I, although I was still very tired and I hit that wall, I just kept on going and it was, it was easier with a better attitude. Uh, but by the time I got off my bike and started running, my legs were like noodles and I did the best I could. And when I was done I thought, well, there's probably no way I want a metal. But that experience was tremendous. I mean it was, it was a life changing experience to feel such a deep and meaningful and profound sense of gratitude like I had never felt before and to feel how lucky how blessed, how great it was to have a body that was in really great shape and to be able to do an activity like that on a Saturday morning where so many people are not even able to do something like that. And that was how I felt as I finished the race. Even though again, it was a grind. It was hard. That run was one of the hardest runs I've done from that day to this. And I've done some hard runs and I've done spartan races and eventually went on to do the national championships and Olympic distance triathlon and it, all of that training and all those races. I've done a lot of hard races. That was one of the hardest ever. Well, eventually they posted the results and I hit my goal. I won the bronze medal in my age group. It was the first time I as I actually the first time in my life I ever won a metal of any kind. And so I was excited about that for the first time. I got to hang around and go to the award ceremony. So I go to the award ceremony and, and uh, don't get me wrong, I realize those of you listening, that winning third place in your age group in a small regional triathlon is not exactly stuff that makes it on sports center. But to me it was so awesome because it'd been so hard and because I had set a goal six months earlier to do it and I had achieved my goal. So I was really excited about it. But before they gave out the regular age group awards, they had a special needs award and they announced that a woman had done the entire race and she was completely blind, not just legally blind, where she had some eyesight and was able to function with some level of vision. This woman lived in complete darkness. Neither of her eyes worked at all, and her guide had tied a strap to both of their waists and swam in front of her during the swim. And then on the bike, they'd written a tandem bicycle and her guide had tried to not pedal too much, but to take up, you know, let the person do the work they would have done on their own. And then on the run they each grabbed onto a strap with their hands. And uh, the one woman ran in front guiding her blind friend through this race. And as I looked at her, go up and get this award again, all those feelings of gratitude and as I compared what I had done to which she had done, it was a feeling of humility, a feeling of huge respect for her. And again, a reminder of this feeling of, of gratitude and being grateful for what I had and that's other people have it a lot worse in a lot of ways. And uh, then uh, I finally got my award and, and that, that bronze medal, I've won some pretty cool events since then, but that award, it means so much because it's, it's more than just an achievement and it's not a hey liquid. I did kind of a thing that it might have been if I hadn't had this profound an and more meaningful experience than just winning a medal. And so it's, it's one of the reasons I'm so passionate still to this day about health and fitness. There is so much more to all of this then what we're seeing on instagram, not to put anyone down, is doing their stuff on instagram. I know a lot of these hardbody athletes are inspirational and that's great. But I also know that a lot of the health and wellness scene, so to speak, is kind of, um, you know, driven by vanity, right? Like a lot of it is, is look at me, look how look how ripped I am, and for the vast majority of people, that's not going to be the case. That's not what they're going to get out of having a good fitness, nutrition and supplementation strategy. What all of us can get out of this whole thing is so much more meaningful than that, uh, and it has to do with avoiding disease. It has to do with living at our best all the time. It has to do with that joy of being in shape to compete, if that's the type of thing, uh, that, that interests you to be the best you can be, even if that's third place in your age group, not an Olympic gold medal, right? Because the Olympic gold medals don't go to very many people, but, but whatever our own personal goal is, uh, is what matters the most, right? Not so much what others are doing on our facebook feeds and instagram posts. But what we can do and the level of gratitude we have for what we have. This is the other thing. We've sold weight loss products for, uh, eight years coming on nine years here, uh, at the end of November. And in that time we've seen plenty of success stories which are phenomenal people losing weight that they haven't been lose in a long time. That's really exciting. When people share those stories with you at the same time in the weight loss realm, a lot of times people, you just get the sense they're not grateful for their body. They look at their body and they look in the mirror and they have thoughts of they have these negative fat thoughts. They look at their body and just see someone who's out of shape and, um, who has maybe fallen off the bandwagon, who isn't eating how they should do, as an exercising, how they should. But every one of us, if you're alive and listening to this, I hope the story has had some meaning for you in terms of having gratitude for your body, for the miracle of it. And for whatever level of health you have. Maybe, maybe you could look in the mirror next time and if you've been having those negative thoughts, instead of comparing yourself to anyone else, think about this. Are you able to see yourself in the mirror? Uh, your, your body may not be perfect, but you know what, uh, how many people on this planet are worse off than you are? Are you disease-free? You know, you get the idea. Right? And that was the experience I had. It took me from wanting things to be different and being in a situation of being mad about having a six month goal that I thought was going to be ruined because of not sleeping that night to being kind of gently reminded that I was a pretty lucky guy. And uh, so anyways, I thought I'd share this story with you for whatever is worth to you in your life. Um, and, and to share with you also that, this is part of why I do this show is I just love this, this whole arena of health, nutrition, fitness, supplements. The whole thing is just, it's fun for me and, and it's fun. Not because I think it's gonna make me better than anybody else, but just because it helps me be the best that I can be. I hope that's how you feel as well. By the way, I've put down a lot of my best thinking and thoughts and research on on a lot of these topics in my book, formula seven, which we give away for free at our website,[inaudible] dot com. D I r o b dot[inaudible] dot com. If you haven't got that yet, go ahead and download that. It's a free download and I'd love to hear your feedback on it. So this podcast is one that's just from my heart. I hope that you've picked up something in here that works for you, helps you to either have a better attitude or maybe a inspires you in some way. And if so, I would also love to hear back from you. You can write us at support at[inaudible] dot com. This is Dave Sherwin wishing you health and success.
Miranda:Thanks for listening to the dire health show. Make sure and check[inaudible] dot com for a free copy of Dave's excellent health book formula seven and enter to win and our free bottle Friday contest. If you're enjoying the show, leave a review on itunes. See you next time.