Are you prepared to meet the extraordinary Aaron Lohman? This episode is a riveting conversation with him about his transformative journey of self-improvement, business growth, and resilience. We dive deep into his experiences with his personal transformation, and the importance of supporting local businesses.
We don't just talk business; we talk life. Aaron, who lost a staggering 175 pounds, shares his story of overcoming trauma, battling an alcoholic father, and finding motivation in the darkest times. We address the alcohol culture within law enforcement, the urgent need for a shift towards prioritizing self-care, and the significance of mental and physical wellness. But that's not all - we also tackle controversial topics like the rise of platforms like OnlyFans and the increasing role of technology in our lives.
In this candid and wide-ranging discussion, we don't shy away from the big issues. We explore modern dating culture, the implications of the OnlyFans culture on our values and beliefs, and even handle the sensitive topic of handling criticism on social media. Wrapping up the episode, we hope to leave you inspired to prioritize your health, maintain accountability, and continually strive for personal growth. There's a lot of ground covered, and we believe there's something for everyone. Join us for this enriching and engaging conversation. You won't want to miss it!
https://www.instagram.com/huge_fat_loser/
https://stan.store/Hugefatloser
Are you prepared to meet the extraordinary Aaron Lohman? This episode is a riveting conversation with him about his transformative journey of self-improvement, business growth, and resilience. We dive deep into his experiences with his personal transformation, and the importance of supporting local businesses.
We don't just talk business; we talk life. Aaron, who lost a staggering 175 pounds, shares his story of overcoming trauma, battling an alcoholic father, and finding motivation in the darkest times. We address the alcohol culture within law enforcement, the urgent need for a shift towards prioritizing self-care, and the significance of mental and physical wellness. But that's not all - we also tackle controversial topics like the rise of platforms like OnlyFans and the increasing role of technology in our lives.
In this candid and wide-ranging discussion, we don't shy away from the big issues. We explore modern dating culture, the implications of the OnlyFans culture on our values and beliefs, and even handle the sensitive topic of handling criticism on social media. Wrapping up the episode, we hope to leave you inspired to prioritize your health, maintain accountability, and continually strive for personal growth. There's a lot of ground covered, and we believe there's something for everyone. Join us for this enriching and engaging conversation. You won't want to miss it!
https://www.instagram.com/huge_fat_loser/
https://stan.store/Hugefatloser
What is going down everybody? On this episode of Resology I sat down with Aaron Lohman, huge fat loser. I still hate saying that because I feel like I'm being mean, but Aaron is the homie. He's been on the episodes before with John Panetti and I. I do want to just put a little disclaimer out there.
Speaker 1:In the recording of my microphone I did switch a few things around. I switched my mixer over here and unfortunately, by putting the power brick from this mixer on top of the wires, under the basket, under the table, there is a little bit of audio interference. Every now and then it may sound like a little bit of like an alien hum, electrical hum, here and there. I tried to take it out as best as possible in post but unfortunately, because it's line level, it seems like it's there to stay. So I apologize about the distraction if it is distracting. Aaron's microphone is clean so there should be no sounds on that. My microphone may have a little bit of a noise interference here and there, but I wanted to start the episode just to let everybody know. I apologize on that. I hope it doesn't distract you guys because the message and everything that Aaron and I spoke about was really truly A1. On that note, enjoy the episode.
Speaker 2:I don't know how to say it Tear.
Speaker 1:It's tear, yeah, yeah, it's like the God from Greek mythology.
Speaker 2:Oh, I had no idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was actually one of the prototype shirts that Matt gave me, and this is when he was still in my garage training with me hanging out and he's like yo, here I'm thinking about making some sport clothing and this. And that I said, oh sick bro, I love that. And then he blessed me with this shirt. But I was fat so I didn't like wearing compression. And now look at me, I look like a fucking dad out here. I got the compression type shirts on. I wear compression at Jiu Jitsu all the time now, and I got Jiu Jitsu Mu Fu pants on, where I look like I'm straight out of the 90s.
Speaker 2:I saw the picture you posted in your story about how you have changed a lot, like a lot Basically, yeah, no, it's awesome, it's good to see. But, like, as far as Tia is concerned, like I so, going to Beth's, I saw people wearing their stuff all the time. So when I went online to look at them up, this is like maybe a year ago. It was a swim company and I'm like I like to support local businesses. I guess this guy's a local business guy. I have no idea. I want to support but I don't swim and it's mostly swim stuff. And I saw that they had shoes and I'm like, oh, okay, I'll get a pair.
Speaker 2:I had no idea that Matt went to Beth's like none, and then I ran into him. It's actually through. Eric Eric was like, oh yeah, you know he, he works out here. I train him on Saturdays. I'm like really, I'm like, yeah, he's like he knows who you are. I'm like all right. So I said what's up to him? I told him that whole story. I just told you because I think it's, I think it's good to know and like I love to see. And then you know, obviously, like I got, I love seeing what people are into and like learning about how people started their businesses and where the business came from. So I really did a deep dive into what the business was and like how you know how it's expanded and I love learning and shit like that.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, well, it's cool to see how people progress through things. So you know they were. They were always a swimsuit oriented company and it was cool to see Matt bring this into a new light, because it's tough to sometimes pivot like that, so to be able to bring a company from one demographic and now like let's just totally go for another one. It could be a challenge and it was cool that Matt has like embraced that and gotten a lot of athletes and been able to get like that really going. And then seeing him at what was it? The? Where was I? I was in the Arnold, no.
Speaker 2:I think it was.
Speaker 1:Wisconsin. That's what it was. It was the CrossFit Games. So I got to see Matt out at the CrossFit Games and he had the Tier House and he had a bunch of different things. I'm like yo, this is fucking sick man. I love seeing that you're out here just getting it done.
Speaker 2:It's so cool. And even then, like I went to an NYPD CrossFit event and like I want to say, half the CrossFit team was wearing tier shoes, I was like, all right, I think this is pretty dope. You know what I mean. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I was cool that it's right here because it's you know, it's it's still so, like now OG, the where I go train. Now a lot of the people started wearing tier shoes because there's a girl there that works with with tier and a couple of she started giving it to a couple of the girls and now the girls are wearing it. So Kim is one of the trainers there and she comes up and she's wearing them. I said how do you like the tier shoes? And she goes yo, I like I got a code if you want. I said I was just at his wedding two weekends ago. I said plus, I said I got the prototypes on from day one. I said I got I'm wearing these bitches to the ground. He's like yo, we got to get you some new shoes. I go no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm R and D, I'm wearing these until the souls fall off.
Speaker 2:I was telling him to like, look, dude, I'm a big guy, I, I train in them and I even the trainers, the CXT ones, I walk out when I tell you like miles and miles a day, like, and I put miles on them. Number one, they're not uncomfortable to walk in, which a lot of these trainers are and I put miles on them and they still look like they're brand new man, like very, very heavy duty construction it's. I can't say enough good things about them.
Speaker 1:Before using actual like running shoes and whatnot. I mean, I used to go barefoot in the gym, like just with socks. I used to just do socks because I felt comfortable squatting, deadlifting, doing everything like that in terms of just lifting. And then for any type of any type of just like walking around, I would always just do supers, and then supers went under during COVID.
Speaker 2:I remember those, my old, they were the skateboard. Yeah, one of my old sergeants has a bunch of those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were super comfortable. And then obviously things changed and you have to start looking and I started wearing some flat footed Adidas and this and that, but they just were never comfortable and I got like weird souls. I feel weird if my, my foot isn't like totally flat but has cushion at the same time. I can't really explain it. It's like a very strange foot, I feel like I.
Speaker 2:I get a hundred percent what you're saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's been dude, it's been cool getting to see him do his thing and over Don't you look at my nose?
Speaker 2:I'm not looking at no, no, I just want. But so you were looking at your notes. But before you did that, I wanted to go into, like you talked about OG man, like I see those photos and I see that stuff, like I've always like I'm like man, I really want to go there. Why'd you come? Because when he had, when you had them on the pockets, he said there's like a waiting list to go there now.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yes, it's pretty good man. Just let me know if you want to what days you want to go. Tyler and I, we go random times.
Speaker 2:Am I going to die if I go there, though?
Speaker 1:It's different. So it's not CrossFit and it's not weight training, it's kind of like in between. So you know yesterday was a pretty tough workout. He's doing the 12 days of conditioning now going into Christmas, so yesterday's workout was pretty tough. It was five stations of eight or nine minutes each something like that.
Speaker 1:I think it was eight minutes On the station that Tyler and I started on first. It was every minute on the minute switch it was on a bench, it was flutter kicks holding a plate over, so for a minute straight. Then you go right into a hollow hold. So you hold the plate, you just hold your legs out and that's eight minutes Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And then the next one was running 10 calories on the treadmill. While you're running 10 calories in the treadmill your partner is doing that move where they hold the plate over their head and you squat down and put your knees on the ground and then stand, but you don't ever fully come up. So it's back and forth. Eight minutes, so 10 calories.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Then the next one was elevated, jumping lunges, so like switching feet back and forth, and that's for one minute. Then the next one was when you have your back foot up on the elevated plate or the elevated platform and you kick your front leg up Like the athletic, that athletic move back and forth, back and forth. And then the last set. What was the last set? Oh, it was the bike, the assault bike. It was. Oh, my God, what was it? It was.
Speaker 1:See, you feel like, if you fucking black out, you're like it's totally. It was a half a, it was a mile, I think. No, no, I'm sorry, it was a half a mile. And while I'm doing a half a mile, my partner is doing squat thrusts with dumbbells. And then, once I'm done with my half mile, they go on there and then we just back and forth for eight minutes. And it's tough, man, it's just different. It's just different training. It's nice because it's nice, because you get your ass kicked for an hour straight and then you're fucking done, I'm done, I don't have to do anything else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's good.
Speaker 1:And it's just. It's a good way to just get your shit in. I love Bev's. I've said it a million and one times I can't go, I can't go anymore. Even when I tried filming the other day, everybody wanted to talk to me. I'm flat. No, no, like I'm flattered, I really am. I really appreciate everybody that wants to hit me, talk to me and this and that, but it's like I was just trying to do a quick shoot and it was like a quick shoot turned into two and a half hours and I'm just like, oh my God, I got to get out of here.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you having the platform that you do and being as good at what you do. Like everybody wants some shit from you. Dude, I couldn't. I deal with that a little bit. But like I can only imagine being in the space where you know this space of fitness, everybody wants shit for free. So I can only imagine what it's like to be you.
Speaker 1:And everyone's got a question. Everybody wants to pick your brain and it's like I'm cool with Tyler yells at me. Truth be told, tyler yells me all the time. He's like I'll start hitting these people up and sending them invoices.
Speaker 1:He's like, if you want like they hit you up too much, like more than once, after you say like one or two times, like I'll tell you this, but like after that I got a there's a consultation fee or something like that. Like this is how I make my money. I can't. You know, I've taken years to learn how to do a lot of this and it becomes very difficult because people just they just don't YouTube, you know, they think it's like YouTube university. They think that oh, just because the information is out there for free, nick should just give it to me for free because he knows it already. It's like I've had to cull through all of this information over years to get to where I'm at. So I was like but, like I said, everybody just says oh, I just want to pick your brain.
Speaker 1:I'm so tired of hearing that there's no picking my brain. My brain's picked. It's been picked for years. There's nothing to pick anymore. There's nothing. It's it's. I actually had to put it in a lock box. There's no way you access it. I can barely access it.
Speaker 2:And your time is valuable. Man Like your time is valuable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, just holding yourself to that, that standard of like yo, it's cool to help people out and give information and this and that, but at what point is it a nuisance now?
Speaker 1:And it's like man, come on, bro, there was a kid who hit me up. I mean there's been a lot of them, but there's a kid who hit me up and he was just asking questions and I said yo, dude, I'll give you some free game, I'll tell you a couple of things. I said, but after XYZ, I have to. You have to, like talk to your people, get a consultation done, something like that, and I'll give you all the information you want in the world. But I got to get paid at least something, for my time to talk to you and sit here and baby through a lot of this information that is very minuscule and tiny and he's just like oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. But then, like every couple of days, he was hitting me up with another question, so I stopped answering him. And it's no offense, like I don't, I hate to come across like that, but at some point I have to like put the brakes on it and just be like yo, dude, I can't fucking do it right now.
Speaker 2:I just can't do it. And good on, you was setting that boundary, because a lot of people get so burnt out on whatever they're doing because they don't set any boundaries with the people who are constantly around them, and then they can't go on their own self-improvement journey because they're so busy working on helping everybody else. Can I open this? Yeah, please Fuck you Open that Hell. Yeah, dude, I didn't know if it was going to mess up your thing.
Speaker 1:No, I know I'm not worried about it. It's fucking fridge though that thing is. So I got to figure out what I got to do with that. I got to block that off or something. Maybe I got to move it to the closet?
Speaker 2:I don't want to but it's going to be hot in there.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I just I got to. I'm still figuring shit out. We're still figuring things out. The sound panels above us, those are cool. These behind us, as I mentioned when you walked in, these were supposed to have hangers on them. They don't. I got that from Dr Scott, so I kind of just I had a screw in the wall already and I was just like I'll just hang it there for a second and I went to Home Depot yesterday. I'm very proud of myself, by the way. I went to Home Depot yesterday, not because of my thumb that was a second trip but but I went to Home Depot because I realized I don't own any power tools. Man, I felt less manly, I was like man, I'm over here, I just don't know how to do shit. The world really does fall apart. I don't even know how to fucking do anything.
Speaker 2:That was one of the first things I did when I got a house is I went out and I bought that, like the wall, like five piece.
Speaker 1:But I got it at the house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, and it honestly what a life saver to know how to do things, and nowadays you can YouTube anything besides like electrical I mean minor electrical I could do, but like I can do almost anything man, and it's so great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm excited because I wanted to be able to hang these up and then, of course, these shipped without hangers, so we wait now for that. But yeah, I was like you know what man I should be able to. What am I going to do? I'll pay somebody $150 to come through, hang these fucking things for me and then that's it. Or I could pay $200, have the tools and I can use them whenever the hell I want, because there's other things I want to do. I want to mount this right here and I have to be able to drill through the table. There's a lot of things. I want to become more self-sustaining, especially if I'm going to move off the grid one day and I'm just going to podcast in my basement. I want to be able to just like do all everything I need to do around the house. Yes, yeah. Well, listen, aaron Lohman, welcome to the show, thank you. Second round.
Speaker 2:I know Second or third, this is my still only tell. The time I was on here was when I was with you, with John.
Speaker 1:Oh, I miss Panetti. Yeah, yeah, that was good. Yeah, we had a good little run. I told him he's got to come through and chop it up and just hang out and talk and you know, just like the good old days, he's a homeowner. Now he's out doing like things I know real stuff yeah.
Speaker 1:Talking to his microphone at Bev's now I see him. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like yo, doug, I'll give John free game. I said yo, doug, lower that game, bro. You're clipping the mic with your deep ass voice and he goes. Thank you, brother.
Speaker 2:People ask me when I was in that podcast, like is that his real voice? I'm like yeah, no, that's how he's telling me. That's exactly how he's telling me.
Speaker 1:I feel like I've asked him to and he's told me all the time I mean every single time he's around me.
Speaker 1:He's always had the same voice, so it's not like he's ever broken character, and I've been like yeah yeah, no, and I feel like that would be way too much on a voice box to keep something like that up. Oh my God, I couldn't even imagine trying to talk like that all the time. We got a lot of topics, man. We got a lot of things to cover. I'm starting with like a welcome to the show. Now I'm trying to be a little bit more professional and not as just like yeah, fuck it, we'll just cut the mics on and start ripping, even though that's what we did anyway. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Honestly, that's one of the things that, like it, makes your show so different than a lot of others is that you just start talking right away, and it's just such a natural rapport that you know, that I enjoy so.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that. Well, listen, generally, I just I have people come through that I want to talk to. So this is this would have been a phone call with us. You know, like there's no, there's no difference of. It just happens to be cameras and microphones in front of us versus like where we would have I could talk to you on the phone for an hour. I mean, I've done many times, I've done phone calls with Jamal. We've been talking for like two hours I could imagine that One and a half two hours. And I look at the phone and I'm just like bro, go, I'm taking up your time, bro, and he's like no man, I love talking to you and I'm just like this could have been a podcast, the shit that we talked about, and that's just what it's supposed to be. Man, I don't know People, people take it too seriously and that's something that I'm trying to do a little bit less Like.
Speaker 1:Even when I fuck my thumb up last night, I normally, young Nick, would have raged. I would have been so mad, it would have ruined my night. I literally just like grabbed my thumb. Kenji got up and looked at me and I just went oh well, that sucked. I was like what am I going to do? Am I going to get mad? Like fuck it, I got to start. I'm trying to take life less seriously. I'm trying to just enjoy and just chill and be a lot more relaxed about everything. I don't know if it's like the amount of times I've gotten choked out at Sarah's now. Maybe it's like it's formed some type of chemical bond in my brain to just relax.
Speaker 2:It has. Honestly, like people don't realize that what happens is when we get stressed. If we're not used to that reaction that our body goes through chemically, we don't know how to control it. So that's why, going to jujitsu or training any type of way, if you learn how to manage that fight-or-flight-response system, which is what kicks in and what you're doing when you work out under a controlled environment, you'll be much less stressed out in regular life. And that's what I teach people now, not only with the police department but every day and everyday life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I mean you guys go through a lot of stressful situations. I mean just even small interactions can turn into something that's super stressful, where, if someone's not used to that, I don't know if it's that's because I see a lot of the older cops are just like I don't give a fuck, they just have that, I don't give a fuck face on all the time because they've just been through it all and it doesn't phase them anymore, unless it's like something crazy. But that seems to be like that situation. I mean it was like the first time that I had someone take my back at jujitsu. I said this a bunch of times on episodes that first time someone wraps their arm around your neck.
Speaker 1:Now I've gotten into little tussles here and there, like when I was younger. It's been like 10 years since I've gotten into like an actual fight. But I mean I've never grappled somebody like that. So I've never had somebody like oh, no, we're going to choke the air out of you, like this is it's over for you if you don't get out of this. So when you have that first wrap around your neck and you're just like oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're like reaching for their elbow and they're like no, no, no, we're just we're sinking this in even tighter and I'm like, okay, but it's cool, because so you gotta do, let me just tap and they let go and you go, oh okay, so the second time isn't as bad as the third time. And now I actually, if somebody starts sinking it in and they stop no, no, no, no, no, no, no, keep going, keep going.
Speaker 2:I gotta figure out how to get the fuck out of this.
Speaker 1:Keep going, Don't stop. So it's like it's just a crazy experience when you start seeing how these things affect you in regular day life. I've definitely become more chill. I definitely have to work on my road rage a little bit because I get very irritated.
Speaker 2:Well, my wife is always like you're like Buddha in the real world, but the second you get behind the wheel of a car you turn into a maniac. I don't know what it is about. Traffic and people out.
Speaker 1:I don't like county behavior. That's what dictates it for me, when someone's doing 20 in the fast lane, it's like dog come on, man Do you know what it's really about.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I've really tried to dissect this. It's selfishness. You really realize how selfish a person is when they're behind the wheel of a car, when they think they're alone and they don't realize that the actions that they're taking behind that wheel of a car, how it affects everybody else around them and they don't give a fuck. Yeah, that's why it's so selfish.
Speaker 1:It's like NPC behavior too. It's like they're the only ones that exist in the planet. They have no idea anybody else exists in this planet. You're like dude. You can't feel that. You can't honestly be looking around and just thinking that you're the center of the universe. Right? The second? It's insane. Get the fuck out of the way. Just go do something else. Open your maps on the side of the road instead of in the middle of the road.
Speaker 1:I've seen people do fucking crossword puzzles. I'm like but what are you doing? And listen, I'm no saint man. I'm definitely not guilt-free. When it comes to texting and driving distraction-free driving, I'm bad, especially when I had the S5. The S5 was stick and I used to be like so I need to focus on my shifts and my clutching in and this and that after like a year and a half, bro, I was driving with my fucking knees. I was clutching in, I was still texting and driving on the side. I was like, oh my God, it was like I could have been deep frying shit on the seat next to me. But you have to bring yourself back and just be like yo. I got to focus, I got to just chill and that was the point of carplay. You know, I want to use my phone anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and imagine the stress level when you're trying to shift and you're trying to be on the phone and text at the same time and also trying to drive, like your stress level is so much higher than if you're just like doing one thing at a time.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah. That's why this car has been like a blessing. It's like I just got to hit the accelerator and that's it. That's all I got to do. I do miss driving stick, though, and I think everybody should learn how to drive stick, because it would create better drivers, because you have to be able to actually operate the motor vehicle instead of push the D button, push the P button, that's it. That's all I got to do, and the car just moves when you hit your gas. I think things have become technologically, things have become a little bit too easy for us and, in turn, have reset our monkey brains.
Speaker 2:Oh, big time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they've made us actually fucking lazier and stupider in a lot of ways. Oh for sure, we talked about it at the first time that you came down, but I did want to just like recap the original weight loss journey. Sure, you know, I know you had brought me some gifts, which I really appreciate. I know you came out with a journal recently which is amazing and we're going to talk about that. And then you have a gratitude book and Starting over how I learned to stop being an asshole and lost 175 pounds in the process. No small feat. That's amazing, I mean, that is. Some people can't even lose 20 pounds in their life, so to be able to lose 50, 100, 150, and then add more on top of that, that's quite the challenge and quite the feat. So you know, I've always been a supporter and I think that's your journey's been amazing.
Speaker 2:You wrote your little thing in there man.
Speaker 1:Oh, did you? I appreciate you, bro. You're the fucking man. I love you. Yeah, you're the man. I'm gonna read that off camera. I appreciate you. Yeah, yeah, but I'm excited to dive into these as well. But you described your first time on the podcast. You described a dream that you had I just wanna get into. Before you had the dream that kind of changed your thought process and mentality. What was life like for you? What did you feel? What was it like every day? Was it just the same thing? You know? Take me through.
Speaker 2:Mentally or physically. I mean, I'll give you the both of them. Both please. Up until that point where I decided I was gonna change and make a change for better my whole life. Up until that point, like I suffered trauma.
Speaker 2:When I was a kid I was abused by my step-parents my step-father, sorry and you know I never really dealt with it and a lot of people, you know they never deal with it, they just cope with it with something else. And at that point, when I became a cop, I was coping with it through work. I was addicted to work. So all I did was work constantly, nonstop, nonstop, nonstop, until eventually came a point where I got in trouble at work and now my whole identity was wrapped up in what I did for a living. Now, when that was cut short, I had this like realization not realization, really it was. I became super depressed. I was over 425 pounds, I was miserable, I was out of shape, I was waking up exhausted every single day. And then it cut short and now I got to the point where I was so depressed that I was gonna kill myself because I could not imagine what it would be like to not be a cop and to not have a shield and to not have a gun anymore, that I couldn't. I had no idea what I was gonna do with my life. I was so wrapped up and so many of us get so wrapped up in whatever we do for a living, being our identity that happens a lot. And I just had this realization that, all right, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna take the shotgun out of my closet, I'm gonna blow my brains out. And I just had this last minute realization that that's not something that I wanna do. I don't wanna die in this moment. I just wanna get better. I want the pain to end. And how am I gonna do that? I'm just gonna take one step at a time, every decision that I make from now on. Is this decision gonna make me better or is it gonna make me worse? And then I just went from there and then, right almost the same time, I had that same nightmare maybe because it was something that was always thinking about on my mind about dying at work, the nightmare that I had.
Speaker 2:I got thrown off of a building by a criminal and I had to watch my daughter. My son wasn't born yet. I had to watch my daughter grow up without me. And then I woke up the very next day. How do I take that next step to make myself better?
Speaker 2:And I started with my mind. I started a police charity at first Titlet cops know that people still cared about them and then I don't do that anymore because of all the reasons. The same reason I started is the same reason I stopped because it just got too much, too stressful. And then I started fixing my mind. I also ran into somebody. This is one of the craziest things that somebody can go through and you have to pay attention as a person to people around you. So when I went back to a command after getting in trouble at work, I ran into somebody who was exactly like I was. It was a mirror reflection of me. They were completely miserable, they were an asshole and I was like I had this realization like oh my God, is that me? Am I acting like that? This is not the person I wanna be.
Speaker 1:And then it was like an out of body without an out of body experience just seeing somebody else.
Speaker 2:It was just so crazy and I just realized that I couldn't be that person and I just started riding a bike to and from work, to and from the train station and work. And then I slowly started building on that, creating better habits every day.
Speaker 1:Let me go back to the suicidal thoughts, if you don't mind, of course. Do you find that there's a lot of officers that go through that mental angst?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, you know, one thing that separates us from a lot of other people obviously is the post-traumatic stress. I think everybody this is law enforcement, non-law enforcement, everybody's listening Everybody has some type of post-traumatic stress and they don't even realize that they have it. It's normal to have post-traumatic stress okay For anybody who goes through anything. And I'm gonna tell you this right now.
Speaker 2:Let's say you were in a car accident, or let's say something sad happened or whatever. When you pass that intersection, when you had that car accident, you're gonna think about that car accident. That's what post-traumatic stress is, and it happens to everybody. Even to something bad happening in your life, whatever it is, everybody has that initial reaction. But when it becomes a disorder is when you can't stop thinking about it. You're constantly ruminating on that thing and it's affecting your day-to-day life. So a lot of cops have both of those things and unless they learn how to deal with that, whether it be through therapy or some other type of things, it's always going to be on the forefront. So we have those stress, the traumatic incidents that we see. But what really separates us as far as suicide is concerned is we have the access to something that can end it immediately, and that's why it's a large reason why the numbers are what they offer us.
Speaker 1:Do you know the numbers by chance? You don't need to be accurate.
Speaker 2:I just all I do know, Roughly All I do know about suicide is more officers die from suicide than they do from line of duty, and it's like an astounding number.
Speaker 1:And it's hard to hear because I have a lot of friends that are officers, I have family members that are officers and I hear about it man, my boy Brandon Stahl. He came on a long time ago. He's actually in town. We're going to do another episode before he leaves. He's an army sergeant and he told a very eerily similar story, a little different More alcohol, it was alcohol induced and he just he woke up with his gun loaded and ready to go, in his hand and in his kitchen floor and he, just he was like in shock that he was like ready to just do it and he had he, he, it was like he was driving but he couldn't control it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I believe in that. Alcohol is one of, like, the biggest factors, and I know you've been sober for eight months, right, yeah, congratulations, thank you. And alcohol is one of the biggest factors because it's against our nature as humans to want to kill ourselves. It's just, it's something that we can't do, you know Like, or it's very difficult for us to do so. When we add in that alcohol, that's a catalyst that usually, if an officer or somebody is develops an alcohol problem as part of a coping mechanism, that suicide is not too far off, because that's like literally putting pushing their foot down on the gas battle.
Speaker 1:And, ironically, a lot of maybe unironically, honestly a lot of the cops that I'm friends with, I wouldn't say that they're alcoholics, but they, they drink a lot Like they, they, they booze and it's and it's tough to watch because it's like what are you pushing down? Because that's what it feels like when you start watching from the outside in. You look and you're just like all right, yeah, like okay, you want to have one or two. I have no judgment, since I've been stopping alcohol, like I really don't. The judgment that I have for people is the people that want to get better, the people that want to do better, and they just keep leaning into the vices and the same behavior that they've been doing. And it's like, bro, nothing's going to change, man, like that's unless you change. Like you have to take the first step. Listen, would it be easy for me to just say, ah, it's been eight months, that's good, you know? Like, oh, it's new year's coming up, let me go have a couple of drinks. Oh, it was, it was Thanksgiving, it was, it was, it's going to be Christmas next week. I'm going to have a couple of drinks at the dinner with my family. We're having it in Huntington Villa, like I could just walk back home, like I don't have to worry about anything. It just, it doesn't serve me. I'm just, I'm, I'm.
Speaker 1:I'm at a point in my life where I just I see the destructive behavior of others and I watch the drunk driving, the, the fights. I live next to a bar. I hear it all night, every now and then I walk outside, I'm like yo guys, take it somewhere else, bro, anywhere else. Get the fuck off my lawn. Like I'm not playing with you guys. You're arguing about nothing. It's three in the morning, go somewhere else. And that's the point. It's like you're arguing about nothing. Your brain is just in this spiral of just like over over, amplified emotions, and then you come down, and it's like you're, you're, high, and then you come down, and now you're just angry and miserable and this and that it's just, it's a catalyst for fucking horrible behaviors and, I think, the reason that I never really got into drinking, as even as a cop I mean, listen, I'll have a couple beers every once in a while and that's fine.
Speaker 1:I want to emphasize that I don't mean to cut you off.
Speaker 1:I want to emphasize that it's cool if you drink and like not I know you're not, I know you don't think I'm preaching to you, hell, no, I'm talking to the listeners like yo, it's cool if you drink and you want and that's what you want or that's you enjoy that by all means like, be good, but just understand the risks health, wise mentality and mental issues that come with it along, you know along, as a byproduct of consumption, and then just understand that it really doesn't serve you.
Speaker 1:And the more you listen to doctors and the more you listen to like Huberman I know he's the buzzword now it's like he's just made information like that super accessible to everybody else you start looking at the carcinogens and all this other stuff that happens the shrinking of the pituitary and your brain having actual atrophy and this and that it's like yo, do I really want? I work so hard in the gym, I work so hard to eat organic. I spend a lot of money $160 on two bags of groceries. I eat a lot of really good shit. I'm just gonna fuck it up because I wanted to relax and have a drink. I just can't do it.
Speaker 2:It doesn't even really relax you because you know, yeah, it might relax you in that moment, it might help you fall asleep, but it actually fucked up your sleep cycle. You don't get as restful sleep. People don't realize that. And when it comes to law enforcement, the reason that we drink so much is because of the internal culture. Inside law enforcement, we're the biggest.
Speaker 2:First of all, we pretend that we're victims a lot and we enable each other, we enable the shit out of each other. So the culture is like, yeah, whatever, it's no big deal, it's okay, we have a stressful job. We do also listen. A lot of people have stressful jobs, okay, a lot of people manage not to let it get out of control. But the thing that we do that other cultures don't do is we constantly enable each other to participate in this bad behavior because of whether it be trauma or whatever. Blah, blah, blah, and we steer away from actually doing things that are helpful for us when they're actually hurtful. There's this meme that I always do during my presentations when I teach resilience to cops is it's the grow up Peter Pan one. It's like when cops are told to do yoga instead of getting blackout drunk and it says grow up, peter Pan. And that's exactly what the police in law enforcement, first responder culture in general is like when it comes to self care.
Speaker 1:You would say it's non-existent or it's very low on the totem pole.
Speaker 2:It's very low, like there's certain pockets. Obviously I'm preaching it all the time, I'm trying to teach it all the time there's a bunch of us that do it. They do exercise self care and they try to spread that word. But amongst the negative, toxic coping mechanism culture it's so high and because right most of the people that when it comes to normal people, what normal people in society would consider signs of anxiety, suicide and depression cops do every single day, whether it be being completely angry all the time and isolating themselves and be like nobody knows what it's like to be me, I'm a cop. Or drinking a lot, cheating on our spouses all the reckless behavior. Right People, cops will be reckless and do reckless behavior. They see that as completely normal because it's normalized by our culture. But if you saw that in somebody else outside that wasn't in law enforcement, it wasn't a first responder, you'd be like, oh my God, this guy needs help, this guy needs therapy. But we just enable each other so much into doing these bad things that just becomes this constant repetitive cycle.
Speaker 1:Alcohol is big in the army. There's a huge alcohol culture in the army that I've heard from numerous people that I know that served. What I can even say is the army in general. I just think most branches. I mean DeKwan. When he was on he was talking about them going out in South Korea and drinking soju and all the crazy shit and this and that I believe DeKwan gave up booze as well. I think from when he was on the podcast he had said that he gave up booze.
Speaker 1:And listen, anybody that gives up anything that just doesn't serve them and doesn't do well for them and helps them to create a better environment for themselves doesn't matter what that thing is. It could be fucking sugar, it could be. I don't wanna go and this route from work on my way home because I know I'm gonna stop at this cookie shop. It takes a lot of fucking balls, man. It's tough to just make the change and kinda segueing into you with waking up from that dream and waking up from being killed in the line of duty, and your daughter wasn't gonna have you. You decided in that moment going forward. I wasn't gonna allow this to be a destiny thing. Yeah, do you think it was more so, just like divine intervention. Do you think it was just? It was overdue? What are you?
Speaker 2:Oh, it was definitely overdue. So I worked in every unit in the NYPD that no longer exists anymore, like the anti-crime units, was plain clothes units. I was in the gang squad for a long time and there were times where we would execute our own search warrants. Fourth floor woke up in Harlem somewhere. Kick in the door. By the time I got to the fourth floor I'd be completely out of breath. Good thing nothing happened, because I couldn't even tell you what happened, because I was just so out of breath and so out of it. But did I fix it then? Did I have scares? Yeah, but did I fix it? No, I would go out celebrate hey, good job, guys, let's go have pizza and ice cream. And it wasn't until that moment that I realized that it affected my personal life. And I think that as long people cope with work and they use the, oh yeah, work is great, everything is great. It hasn't affected my work life. But as soon as you have that realization that what you're doing is affecting your personal life, I think that's the real wake up call and that's the wake up call that I had.
Speaker 2:Yeah, were you always heavy? I went through cycles. So, my, like, I said I've wooden alcohol. I didn't say this before, but my dad was an alcoholic and then I was a bouncer for a long time before I was a cop. So I saw how alcohol affected people's behavior and it's crazy Like you really wanna have get a doctorate in human behavior, become a bouncer, be sober and watch how people interact with each other it is especially men and women. It is like it's just crazy. But my mother was always overweight, my grandmother was always overweight. Everybody in my family was overweight. So me, growing up, I thought it was normal. So I went through cycles.
Speaker 2:I, when I was in high school, I lost a lot of weight. I actually played soccer in high school. That I was yeah. And then I, immediately, going through the abuse that I went through, I coped with food. So food became my best friend, became my coping mechanism, and then I blew up to where I was really, really heavy and then it wasn't until I decided that I was gonna be a cop, that I was gonna lose weight, as by any means necessary, which was a hundred, was a huge mistake. So I just did. I literally starved myself and I just did cardio, so much cardio every single day that I dropped a hundred pounds in seven months, damn, before I went to the academy. But the side effect of that was I had zero, zero energy. I couldn't stay awake, man and you know. And then obviously I went back up and wait after that, after being on the force for a long time.
Speaker 1:How long did it take to kind of get to your heaviest point at that point? It was about, I wanna say like maybe nine years or so, but it wasn't just like a year and it was a crash right back in. It was a slow. We're putting it on pack by pack.
Speaker 2:But I will say this it was because I did what most people do is they set a short term goal, right. So my short term goal was making it through the police academy and that's it. And then I abandoned my physical fitness. I abandoned all of it because I reached that one short term goal. And people do that. Oh, I got a wedding. I wanna lose 50 pounds for the wedding. Then after the wedding, they put that shit right back on and that's exactly what happened. I split my first pair of uniform pants, I wanna say two months after the academy, because I had already gained back so much weight.
Speaker 1:How did that feel? Like what did in the moment? Was it a funny thing or was it something?
Speaker 2:I was embarrassed, completely embarrassed, but I had to like, play it off, like, oh yeah, it's no big deal, whatever, just went out and got a bigger pair of pants. It's just it sucked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I tell people I don't think I've ever told people on the podcast, but it's a funny thing. It was right before I got my blood test where they said you're gonna be pre-diabetic if you continue down this route. And I was about 270, I was heavy, about 5'8" man. I was in 10th grade, like I was big, but I held it well, like my body's always held weight well. So the photo smile man. It's weird. Like I held it well for what it was, like I didn't look 270. I looked fat and out of shape but I didn't look 270. Almost 300. It's crazy thing. Like 400, 40 pounds off of 300. That's crazy, man.
Speaker 1:And it sneaks up on you so quick if you just don't, because you're sedentary, you're not doing anything, you're just eating, you don't have any type of stability, you don't have any type of routine to break the cycle, so anyway, so I'm driving home from my aunt's house with my mom, I'm in the passenger seat and we're coming up to this one spot on Round Swamp Road that has like dips and it goes like it like, and I just remember my titties jiggling and I just like I went, whoa, something's gotta change. That was as stupid as that is, before I even got the blood test results, cause that was like a couple of weeks later that I went in for blood work and they said yo, it's time, dude. That was like the first. That was the first mental check box where I just went yeah, my boobs are bouncing like a woman's, like this is crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's a good realization, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll never forget that feeling of just like the bounce and I went like oh, I felt like George Costanza.
Speaker 2:Look at his father.
Speaker 1:Was he a big chested man? Like what is that? It was just it's crazy man. And I was always this. I was a skinny little kid man. I was skinny, I was in shape and this and that and it was just. It was the divorce, not so much. Not so much the divorce, the stress of them splitting up.
Speaker 2:What people don't realize is that, yeah, you were so mature as a little kid, and so was I, because we had to be an adult at that time and we were rounding up our child to do it essentially.
Speaker 1:I felt bad to you. I used to have to ride on my dad. Like I used to have to ride on my dad cause as his MS got worse he would use his hands to pick his legs up, to break in the car. Oh, no, no, no, like that I used to tell my mom like I think something's wrong. You know, I was little. I didn't realize that his disease was progressing horribly. I just I saw a dad always had MS. So to me it was just like oh, he's just having an episode or he just doesn't feel well, whatever it might be, and it was like no, no, no, like he's getting bad and he really shouldn't be driving anymore.
Speaker 1:But it's crazy to think about traumas and it's crazy to think about things that you've gone through in your life. Like my relationship with my father has always been a very shaky one. We're very my dad, my mom, tells me that he was an alcoholic. I mean, did he put him back when I was a kid and like beat me? No, by any stretch of the measure, it wasn't like that. But his family was an abusive family to me and he just allowed it. He just kind of like threw his hands up type of situation. And then I don't know if you heard the story I told about me having the interaction with my dad, cause he was like trying to throw shade at my mom recently and this, and that I haven't spoken to him since and, truth be told, I blocked him on everything and I don't want to talk to him anymore. I'm good on it. I just I need to cut shit like that out like a cancer, because every time I call if there's like a comment, if there's like some type of a nudge or this, and that I just I can't be around it anymore.
Speaker 1:I'm a grown, I'm 32 years old. Like we've always been like friends, not father and son. Exactly same here. Man, it's cool, bro. Like just you tried, I guess, just do your thing, dude, you know, whatever and it may, some people may understand it. Like you definitely get it. Other people may look at that and just go wow, like that's supposed to be your father. It's like, well, you didn't have the interactions that I've had with my dad, Like your interaction was good with your dad. I have friends that tell me they wished that their relationship with their mother was like me and Karen, my mom.
Speaker 1:Oh I do too, man Listen. I appreciate when people say that Like I was very fortunate, because if my mom was fucked too, like so that's the situation that I'm in, man, me and my dad don't have really.
Speaker 2:We have a relationship like that. So essentially when I was seven, he called me up and was like, well, he called my mom and my mom was like yelling at him on the phone. Well, you tell him, I pick up the phone. And he's like, yeah, listen, I just wanna let you know I don't wanna see you anymore. I hung up the phone, yeah, and I was fucked up, bro. So like I still remember that feeling to this day.
Speaker 2:And then years later I was like he was always a volunteer fire chief in my town, so I knew where to find if I wanted to. So one day I'm walking home from middle school and I went to Fireman's Park where they practiced like the fire department drills, and I just walked up there and everybody knew who I was, because my dad was like not only was he the fire chief in the town, he was the mailman in the town, he was very whatever. So I went up to some guy that I knew and I'm like, yeah, where's my dad? And he just looked at me like weird. Like he's like what do you mean? I'm like my dad doesn't see me in like years.
Speaker 2:My dad was lying at the time to all these people like saying that he saw he was fucked up. So I tried to like rekindle this relationship and it was almost like forced. And then, like from that point on, we became like I don't even wanna say friends, because not even friends, but just acquaintances, and like, yeah, like we would go travel to see my grandparents together down south and like do things together, but it was never like a real parental relationship. And then my mother she let people who abused me and my brother into our life consistently, so like I had a bad relationship with her. And then, even then, even her own relationship with me is completely narcissistic, like abusive, like trying to take advantage, always like trying to run like shit over on me, and it's like really fucked up, like I have to distance myself between both my parents and so I am jealous of you.
Speaker 1:It's tough man, I'll be your host. You can borrow Karen anytime you want. Karen's good people.
Speaker 2:She was awesome on the pockets too. She always tells everybody.
Speaker 1:She always tells everybody she's like any friend. In Niki she used to say I'd be on the phone with Max Charles. At the I had to be shooting Max and I'd be on the phone with her. She called me. I'd be like hey, mom, with Max she goes. Oh, my other son. Like he'd be like hey mama, where is this?
Speaker 1:Like you know, like this big ass dude, just fucking saying hi to my mom Like she was just. I was very fortunate that my mom was always like that and that my grandfather, her father, was always the bright energy, happy this and that. Because I'm not always like that. A lot of people think that I'm always like this over the top excited energy, but like I'm not gonna say I put it on. But I like to vibrate higher when I'm around other people because nobody wants to hear my sad, my sob stories, nobody wants to hear bullshit from me. They got their own shit to deal with. It's like I'm always gonna try to be in a good mood, especially when I'm around other people, even if I'm not in the best mood. It's something that we have to practice. Happiness is a personal responsibility. I forget who I heard that from.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I have a shirt that says happiness is an inside job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, happiness is a personal responsibility. Like your personal responsibility would be happy. And then when you're a father, which you could speak on even more obviously, kenji's my kid. Like that's all I. I gotta get a text back before I have any kids. Everybody loves that.
Speaker 2:Whenever I say that, everybody loves that I feel bad for me and my wife talk about it all the time Like what do people even do now? And I see the culture of dating and like it's so fucked. I'll stay alone, I will, I will. I agree with you 100%.
Speaker 1:I will happily stay alone. It's just so fucked. Yeah, listen, man, it's kind of like weird. Whenever I put myself out there and I'm really excited to hang out with somebody or like go out to dinner or this and that Perfect example. It's a year ago as a girl I was very excited to go out with. We had a lot of common interest through the gym. She was super cool, worked in the hospital scene, like good job, like responsible, it seemed like this and that whatever. And I said yo, I wanna take you out, I wanna go have a good time. She was more than willing. She's like I would love to Great excited. I don't get excited.
Speaker 1:I talk to people all fucking day. I get so tired of talking to people that it's like when I get excited to talk, converse with somebody and like actually potentially build something, it's an exciting moment for me because it's so rare. So we go out to dinner. I pick her up, drive, I drive out to Queens. We go to a Chinese hot pot like authentic Chinese hop. I never been, she never been. So I said let's have fun. We go out there.
Speaker 1:Good conversation the entire dinner talking about how our parents are immigrants and they instill hard work and blah, blah, blah. And like this is fucking awesome, like this is great, drop her off, kiss me on the cheek, cool, whatever. And then she's like, hey, I'll text you. Beautiful, don't hear from her that night. I'm like, okay, whatever, like I had 45 minute drive home. I was like, okay, whatever, no big deal, I get home, I go to sleep. I wake up the next morning no text. I'm like, okay, whatever, I'm not gonna text her. So like this is bulls in your court. Now, sweetheart, midday, she hits me up. I'm so sorry I passed out last night. I had to get up super early for work. Blah, blah, blah. And she's like I wanna thank you so much. I had so much fun last night. This and that it sends me a heart and a smiley face. I was like beautiful.
Speaker 1:I said I had a great time. I said, listen, I gotta be. I said I have to go to work. Oh, no, no, this is before Thanksgiving. So I just said you know, I hope you have a great time.
Speaker 1:Then Thanksgiving comes through. She said she was going home. I didn't wanna bother her. Like she's going home with her family, do your thing, whatever. I said, listen, I gotta be in Miami for work this weekend. Any chance you wanna go? I don't know planetarium, or you wanna go somewhere? I haven't been in years. I'd love to go? No answer. I was like, okay, hit her up the following week. Hey, I just wanted to see if you wanted to get together again this and that. No answer. I gave her another week. I unfollowed her. She unfollowed me. Okay, month, two months later I'm just like, maybe she got back with an ex. She went home. She saw him. They started hanging out, whatever. Okay, cool, I look at her page. She's doing only fans. I'm like, okay, we're good on that, don't worry about it. How would your immigrant parents feel about you spreading your asshole on camera for $4 a month? I don't know. I feel like they probably wouldn't like that, but I could be wrong. I'm second generation. Maybe the new generation don't care.
Speaker 2:Oh, the evolution of that is just crazy. But what's even crazier than only fans to me is this new thing, and I've wanted to make a video on this for so long. I just haven't done it yet. I'm sure you've seen it. It's fucking women that aren't even real dude, it's AI.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the AI generally, ai videos AI.
Speaker 2:Bro, and they write books and shit under some fake name and people are bought. You see the comments. They're like yeah, baby, you look great. Dude, this person's not even a real person, doesn't matter. What are you talking?
Speaker 1:about. It's creepy. People Listen, man, we have different brains. So people that are gonna subscribe to a random girl on OnlyFace, even a girl in their town let's say, there's a girl at their local gym that does OnlyFans a dude that's gonna sit there and pay her $5 a month to see her in her underwear, which is no different than her normal content on Instagram. Let's be completely clear yeah, and then to be naked and play with it's weird, it's just creepy.
Speaker 2:It's weird and super creepy and what's fucked up? Onlyfans exist and this content exists because, dude, the internet are fucking creepy as fuck. They're funding it, they're losers, they're losers, they're the ones funding it and that's why I always get pissed off, like when OnlyFans, like when we talk about OnlyFans or whatever. I'm not nearly listen. The girls, whatever. I'm not nearly as pissed at them as I am for guys who are supporting this shit Like dude. How much of a loser are you?
Speaker 1:It's bitch shit. That's what it is.
Speaker 1:It's bitch shit To be paying a girl that just like even the dudes that are just like hey girls up there, like hey, I'll give you $1,000 a month as your sugar down. Like that, bro, go to the gym, go eat a fucking steak, because you're actually insane, you're actually you're gonna pay this random girl just because you have so much money, just to fuck you. Here's your allowance of 10,000. But then it breeds this into a lot of these girls' minds that they can get away with shit like this and because they see that 1% of girls that this actually happens, actually I would argue it's more. To be honest with you, I wouldn't even say it's 1%, I would say because women see all of these other girls getting this type of attention OnlyFans, sugar daddy behaviors and that they get this twisted, distorted viewpoint in their minds that this is normal and it's not.
Speaker 1:That is so bizarre. A normal ass dude is not gonna do that Me. I hold myself to a different standard. I'm not gonna sit here and pander and give you money when you put your fucking cash app or Venmo in your bio. What are you?
Speaker 2:doing it blows my mind dude. My wife one day asked me like why do people put cash apps in their bio? And I'm like yo, I don't know man, because they're fucking moochies, let's just call it.
Speaker 1:Let's call it spade of spade. It's your fucking mooch. It's because you have no st you just believe that you should just be paid for existing on this planet. It's weird. You're a weirdo. Go do some self development. Buy Aaron's book. Okay, go buy Aaron's books. Do some journaling, some self reflection, because you fucking need it, along with some church.
Speaker 2:Yo, because listen, that's shitting and for everybody out there who's doing anything like this, you know that's listen. It's not gonna last forever, but the implications of whatever behavior that you're engaging in at this moment in time that you think feels good and is working for you will last forever and you have to really really take that into account.
Speaker 1:Yes, and those things are going to live on the internet forever. I like these bullshit little captions that they post Like I do not subscribe to allow anybody only fans, or it's not like to use my content. It's like oh, you really think this stupid half ass legal, not even jargon is gonna stop this mega corporation from taking your information, your photos and maybe putting it on Pornhub one day or this, and that Yo, you know what you're doing. You're not giving cooking tutorials on only fans, like we know what you're doing. You know you may have cooking utensils in the bedroom with you, but they're not. You're not making a cake, all right, you're doing other things with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and not only that.
Speaker 2:like listen, every phone has a screen record button and a screenshot button, so anybody who does it just gonna take that shit throw it on Reddit or throw it wherever they throw these things, and then it's just, you know it's gonna be there forever, you know, and like my daughter is 10. My daughter is 10 and I have to have this conversation with her. Like she doesn't have access to the internet at all. She doesn't even have a phone. Wow, she doesn't have. Listen, don't get me wrong. She watches videos on YouTube I'm not saying that that but she does not have a YouTube account. I monitor her when she's on her on, you know, watching YouTube or whatever it is, but she does not have any social media accounts. She does not have her own phone. She has an Apple watch that she's able to call me and my wife and her grandparents.
Speaker 1:That's actually a genius to just do the watch. Yeah, she has her own phone.
Speaker 2:And the watch has its own phone line hooked up so this way, like if she gets out of school, she can call whatever. I have to have this conversation with her because I know how quickly it happens and I see her friends with phones. I see her friends with phones. Her friends have Snapchat, her friends have TikTok all that stuff. They're doing dances. I was at a birthday party the other day at United Skates and these girls, these young girls 10 years old, 10, 11 years old are doing dances on TikTok and I'm like it's a pedophile's playground.
Speaker 2:It's so creepy and I have to remind her like, listen, these things that are on the internet will last forever. Okay, you have to be conscious in making these. And she's very smart, she understands it, She's-.
Speaker 1:Well, because you talk to her like an intelligent human being. You don't talk to her like you know. Hey, sweetie, don't do that. No, no, no, you're just like hey, let's talk about some real shit, real quick.
Speaker 2:And like I don't try to rattle her. You know, scare her, I mean I do, but not in a way, even when I talk to her about drugs, like especially nowadays, I gotta be like you listen, you do drugs one time, you can die. And she just like looks at me and I'm like, yeah, drugs can have anything in it and it's 100% true. Like back, you know, 20, 30 years ago that wasn't true, but now anything can have fentanyl in it, doing your fucking dead one time You're dead. That's it, it's over for you, just cause you'd want to do it one time. Bro, that's honestly I've always been. It's crazy as I get pushed back in my own like law enforcement community because I've always been pro the legalization of weed and that's only because it's government controlled and you actually know somewhat what you're getting from these people, as opposed to getting some shit off the street. And we know the guys who own strengths are those work up bums and they're fucking good dudes. You know what I mean. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's Ricky.
Speaker 2:Ricky, and then there's like four.
Speaker 1:The high school Ricky.
Speaker 2:Ricky was one of my good friends back then. And then there's like four or five like Indian guys. Oh, okay, yeah, all good people. They own the gas station right next to Bev's too. Yeah, which is the best gas station on earth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank God they operated that cause. It was a piece of shit before. I hated getting gas there and now it looks like I'm having to do Bev's. I went for the photo shoot, but like it looks like a nice little destination. Go in, get a drink, go out, get some gas.
Speaker 2:They sell supplements in there, bro. Oh, do they really? I know that that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, dude, it's just. I think it's just. The continual downfall of society is really what I'm trying to, like, say it's just these little implementations, these little things that they're allowing, these. You know, what really bothers me is the gambling bothers me to no extent, and then we'll get back to the police force, we'll get back to no, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying well, in general, dude, we could fucking talk for hours Like I love just chopping it up with you, because not only we like-minded individuals, we see things in a different light than a lot of people see. I mean, I think most of my friends Tyler doesn't gamble. Most of my friends, actually, tyler does gamble. What the fuck am I talking about? He has put a couple of but like $10 parlays. Here's the issue, though I see that as a cascading effect. I see that, as you do a parlay once oh my God, I just made $1,000. And then you start getting that like fucking crack hit. You start, oh shit, oh shit, dude, I have friends that have gambled on horse racing in Australia at 11 o'clock at night. I'm like what are you doing, bro? Like you really got that much loot that you could just drop. You could just drop and you could just don't have to worry about anything.
Speaker 1:I work hard for my fucking money. I work hard for my money, my shoots, my edits, this like I work very hard to make sure that I make enough money. Kenji's expensive to live now. It's just expensive in general. So it's like you guys just have hundreds of weeks to just blow on gambling and then, oh, I lost $1,000, whatever it's like, bro, that's not.
Speaker 1:I made good money. That's not small chump change. That's a lot of money, dude. That's a lot of money to just be blowing on like a bunch of grown ass men playing a sport. To me it's ridiculous. And then the and I wanna let you go. But then what drives me nuts is gambling used to be something that was taboo, like you would call your bookie in the corner cause it was illegal and you didn't wanna be looked at as a degenerate. Nowadays, every other fucking ad is a gambling ad. Hey, you could start a new MGM sports book and this and that and get a $100 in free bets and this and that, but then at the end they all go. If you have a gambling addiction, please seek help by calling this number. It's like dude, in the same ad did you just try to hook me into gambling and then help my addiction? It's ridiculous that they allow that.
Speaker 2:Yep, nothing is free, nothing. If they're willing to give you $100 to do it, or they're willing to give you any amount of money to do something, then they're you know it's definitely not, you know it's gonna work against you. They're gonna win. The house always wins.
Speaker 1:Always wins man. Why do you think?
Speaker 2:Vegas exists and they trick you into thinking that you're gonna win. So like, especially like, if you get that $300 and you win off that $300, that's it. I guarantee you, everybody I know who's done that has been hooked and they think that it's not real. So back in the day we used to take a break and we used to go to this gas station and I used to watch cops, dude cops my old Sergeant they used to go and they used to play $30 scratch off tickets like one after the other after the other, dude, every night man, and like they'd win one. They'd win like $60 off one and they'd be like oh look, I won, you know, like dude.
Speaker 2:no, you didn't you just lost $100,000 to like You're in the hole, bro. You know, it is just another coping mechanism where, especially with sports, sports gambling is so bad and like even I love the Jets right, I love the Jets, I love football. I used to be way more into it before I started on my fitness and mental transformation, but then I realized what I was doing by getting dude. I used to go to games and like get in fights with people. I used to like argue with people over stuff. When it's so stupid. You are literally fighting over something that you have absolute, zero, zero control over.
Speaker 1:And that's scripted. Yeah, yeah, that's scripted. That's what it feels like.
Speaker 2:But zero control over and you're letting something that you can't control control your life. And it's the same thing with gambling double fold Cause now you're betting on that thing that you can't control and now you have actually something physical wrapped up in that thing that you can't control and it just it will fuck you over man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've known people that have gotten married and the spouse, the husband, has gambled all of the wedding money away. And I'm just like, bro, what are you doing, man, like I, just it's a different brain, so I can't expect them to think the same way I think and that was a Karen quote, that's what she's taught me since I was little. You can't expect everybody to believe and think the same way that you do. But at what point do you sit there and you go, yo, bro, like, at what point did you think this was a good idea? Is it like, is this Darwinism? Is this, like you know, like survival of the fittest? Is this you're just supposed to get off? Like what is? You can't be that fucking stupid that you just gambled all the money away from a wedding that you guys supposed to use to start your life together.
Speaker 2:It's sad because and this is something when we talk about mental health, right Is there's so much stigma around mental health that we look at addiction as a disease a lot, and it's not always a disease in itself. Okay, it will become eventually a disease. But what happens is people suffer from anxiety or depression or whatever it is, and they're coping with that through alcohol, through gambling, through these other things and instead of a lot of times saying, oh, this person's depressed or this person has anxiety, there's so much stigma around saying that that they're just that, we're just like. Oh, we're gonna treat the disease of that. But if you don't treat the underlying depression or anxiety that caused that gambling addiction, that caused that alcohol addiction, it's never gonna get fixed. Man.
Speaker 1:Well, nobody wants to get to the root cause of things anymore. They just want band-aid fixes, like this ozempic thing. They just want band-aid fixes. They just want things that are just gonna work and they don't have to actually put work and effort into it. Same thing with doctors. Man, doctors are some of the laziest motherfuckers ever. When I was having some, I came across it's not mental health issues I was having just like I felt fucking off. I couldn't explain it recently I just couldn't explain it. Like I felt like there was a bubble around my head. I'm like what is going on? All my holistic guys yo, your iron's too high. You have to go donate. You have to go donate your blood. We've told you this for fucking, they're like yelling at me. I just don't like needles. So, like we told you this for years, you have to go donate. I go to a doctor. She's just like. I just think you need to talk to a therapist. I'm like without question, I need to talk to a therapist, without question.
Speaker 1:I need to talk to. I got a lot of shit with dad and mom. I gotta talk about all that. I was like that's without question, I said. But I said there's something going on and I don't know what it is. It almost felt like my brain was just like there was a blocker on the front of my head, couldn't deep think, couldn't focus, couldn't. I couldn't figure it out. She's just like yeah, I just think you need to go to talk to somebody about the buzz and that, okay, so a couple of days late, like it was like four days later, I just I was still feeling shitty man. I just said you know what, what's the worst that happens? I donate and I feel the same. Or I donate and I feel better. I donated within a week, I felt great.
Speaker 2:It's so funny. I heard you talk about that on one of the other podcasts and my wife has the opposite problem, so I had a whole conversation with her about it. She has low iron or had low iron. She essentially was just like losing blood. She was like hemorrhaging, like she just had to have surgery or whatever. It's fine now, but it was at the point where she had to have like literal transfusions, blood transfusions, and I was like it's crazy how high iron and low iron like both fuck you up.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it fucks you up and the crazy thing is that a lot of people don't realize is that the hemochromatosis, which is what I have technically undiagnosed, but diagnosed from the people that actually know what the fuck's going on. Basically what happens is if you let it go untreated, a couple of things happen. The first thing is iron starts depositing in your brain and liver excess iron and then there's also been studies that have said that ALS and other diseases could be formed by stuff like that, with high deposits and whatnot. You know nobody I don't think anybody knows, but they start seeing coincidences. And the other thing that happens is if you don't get it rectified and you drink even a little bit which is ironic that I gave up alcohol if you start drinking a little bit while these are getting deposited in your liver, you could get cirrhosis of the liver like that, like super easy cause. It's already getting damaged from the iron in your liver.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you when you had the iron done with your liver? Liver enzymes elevated too, or no? No, no, that's good.
Speaker 1:I don't believe so I don't know if that was on my blood work, but everything else came back perfect. I got a pretty in depth panel. I'm gonna go again soon. I'm gonna go donate one more time. Took me a while to get back like feeling good physically to train. I was really fucked up from the lack of red blood cells, from a full donation. I've never donated before.
Speaker 1:I was trying to do OG later that week. I actually couldn't. I was having trouble. There was like 10 minutes left in one of the classes. I couldn't catch my breath and every time I stood up I was getting super dizzy. I'm like, holy shit, went, got food, this and that felt fine and I was trying to roll and I was like I can't beat these dudes off, like I don't have the stamina right now. So it's pretty crazy how it affects you. But then after about a week and a half I was fine. I was totally good. So now it's time to donate again soon and I'll probably do it before the new year.
Speaker 1:But it's crazy, man. How are you just? Nobody wants to treat the root cause. They just wanna. Whatever they think the symptoms yeah, whatever they believe, they know the symptoms. They just wanna just look at it at face value and just be like, yeah, it's probably what you need. It's like why don't you do an actual like genetic test on me? Why don't you check my levels for everything and just see if maybe something's off, you know if I'm depressed or I have anything going on with me. Why don't we check for mineral imbalances prior and then talk to a therapist to help out with that side of things and then just start ticking off boxes, instead of just like ah, you're depressed, fuck it. Oh, here, take this pill. It's like what?
Speaker 2:Like you're depressed. Okay, what does your life look like? Take me through the day. That should be number one. What would it take? Well, you know, I wake up and the first thing that I do is I sit on the toilet on my phone for 45 minutes and then I go to a desk job with it. I absolutely hate. And then, you know, I come home and I eat a pint of ice cream while watching murder documentaries. Well, did you do anything physical activity today? Did you go outside? Did you do anything? No, well, why don't we fucking start with there? You know what I mean Start with behaviors first and then eventually get into the other stuff. Because for me listen, my own depression getting physical and like, actually like doing that type of stuff is huge, and there's many, many, many, many studies that I always, you know, present when I present to people on that. Like it affects your mental health so much actually doing something and having a purpose outside of what is going on. Life can get depressing if you allow it to get depressing and do absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And the monotony of things. Man, life gets tough. Life is tough for everybody. Let's just make that clear I don't care how much money you have, I don't care whatever. Life is tough for everybody. Everybody's living in angst. You know, we talk to, I talk to men. A lot men, especially Men, are just living in a quiet desperation. I love that quote man.
Speaker 1:Bedros bedros coolie and talks about it all the time. Like you know, we just I've been listening to a lot. I've been listening to a lot of bedros for a while now, but I also started listening to Andy again for Sella.
Speaker 2:I haven't in a long time.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you why. I stopped listening to Andy for a little while. Because just keeping it 100% real cause he does, or at least that's what he says he does I found that a lot of some of the stuff that he was talking about once he had guests come on that supported opposite you know positions of what he's been preaching. That realness went away, that that oh, no, no, no, if they were here right now I'd fucking tell them this and that, and then when they were there, they didn't really act like that anymore. So I kind of got turned off by that. But then, as of late, his stuff has been good again. He's been talking a lot about like what's going on in the world, this and that, and listen, it's all stuff I know already.
Speaker 2:Like legitimately, I love Andy. Like I could DM Andy right now and he would hit me back Like we have that type of relationship. You know, I just don't. It's just I listened to his podcast at first when it was like very like business minded or whatever. I just I know what goes out in the world, in the political world. I just choose not to put that extra shit in my brain. You know, and it's nothing against him personally, I just don't. I won't listen to any podcast like that it's tough.
Speaker 1:It's tough when it's all political stuff now, because I mean we know, we, you know, you know it doesn't matter what.
Speaker 2:I love him. He's a great listen. He is a great human being and a great person and cares about people so much you know like, and he really is just. He really is like who you know he claims to be in that regards like, just like, really gives a shit about people.
Speaker 1:I haven't had the pleasure of meeting him. I would definitely be down to. I think we would get along very well. He's cool as shit man. But yeah, I stopped for a little while listening and I've been listening again. But listen, it's very political heavy it is. It's very political heavy now and I got rid of, like you said, I got rid of a lot of those podcasts. I stopped listening to Nick DiPallo. I had to stop listening to Dan Bongino, all these other guys.
Speaker 1:It just you know, I don't care what side you're on, I like being informed. I find that mainstream news is gonna Fox, cnn, they're all gonna spew whatever they wanna spew, based on their side. The podcasts are a little bit more free flowing. You do get a little bit more, but listen, you know where people stand on, what they believe in. And it's just like you. You start getting it all day. It's like all right, I get it Like the president's an asshole. This part Like I get it, bro. Like after a while. It's just like you know, we keep talking but nothing gets done and at that point it's just like I can't talk about it anymore.
Speaker 2:You have to separate. If you're gonna listen to anything political or hear anybody out politically, you have to. And this comes with influencers too, man, like I've seen so many fitness influencers in the fitness industry. They're a terrible fitness influencer, but you know what really gets engagement on Instagram? Being angry and talking about politics, how angry it gets you, and then they make a ton of money off of that and then that becomes their whole personality. Now you have to work, wonder and I see this about people who actually work on CNN, actually work on Fox News. I guarantee you got these people behind closed doors. They don't even believe half the shit that they're saying. No, they don't. They're just saying it to be famous, to get money.
Speaker 1:Dude, it's so and they laugh. They laugh when you go up in arms and out roar and screaming and this and that During some of the rioting and all that shit that was going on like literally all the protests and whatnot I had posted just to give you everybody a heads up. The algorithms feed off of this behavior. I'm just letting you know. I said I just want you to understand doesn't matter what side you believe in, doesn't matter. I said just the more angry you post, the more you're gonna get the opposite opinion, because they want you to stay on this platform Because if you see just everything that you believe in, you're gonna get off the phone. You're gonna get off the phone. You're like, okay, my opinion is validated. But if they continue to give you the opposite opposition and people that are against you and this and that I said, you're just gonna stay. You're gonna stay in this angry cycle of posting and staying on and they get their ad revenue and all this stuff, bro, I had people tell me like, oh, you don't believe in this, you don't believe yo, you're a fucking rat.
Speaker 1:I'm like okay, bro, I'm like I'm good, I'm good on this. I said I'm done. I just I delete people and I just like all right, you're just gonna be angry, you wanna be. It doesn't matter what side you're gonna be angry, you wanna be that way. Keep living in that vicious cycle. I can't do it. I just I can't listen to the garbage anymore on everything. Back to the cop work, my man. So I mean, we barely scratched the surface. You had the dream, you started and then you decided to make the actual change. So now, what were the first steps? You said you started bike riding and doing stuff like that. How did it translate into getting yourself in check?
Speaker 2:So, as far as my diet is concerned, all I knew was what I knew back when was my fitness pal. So that's how I started. I just started tracking calories, trying to eat like a relatively high protein diet, and then I would walk through a gym, a shitty command gym, every day, like literally the bathroom water would like leak into the gym. It was like everything was rusted and I just sat on a bench one day and decided, okay, what can I do? What workouts can I do in this gym to get better? Start lifting weights. And then I just started lifting weights doing that, and then, from that, just doing better, evolved into my everyday life.
Speaker 2:How dopamine works is especially when you succeed in any task, any goal, whatever it be. You will wanna do more things that are good for you because you're doing something else. So, because I started just making better decisions, oh, eventually I was like, hey, you know what, maybe I'll take the promotional exam. And then I did okay and I passed. Then, oh, maybe I'll go back to college. I went back to college, got my degree. Finally, oh, maybe I write a book, did it, wrote a book and, like, all that stuff just bleeds one into the other and I don't think people realize how powerful is just making one decision and continuing on that path, not beating yourself up over bad things and celebrating those wins in your head, and then we literally will rewire your brain. It's called neuroplasticity, man, and it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's taking these compounding effects. It's really what it is. It's little daily wins, weekly wins, monthly wins, yearly wins. You know the bedroth thing. I can't take credit for that, but he talks about just compounding the wins, Because the second that you hit that snooze button that's an L, you start compounding losses and feeling a certain way and things aren't going with the way that you want them to, and just it takes time to kind of go into everything. Yeah, what were some of the biggest challenges when you first got started that you saw as obstacles that you overcame?
Speaker 2:My first obstacle was when the first, very first day that I rode my bike to work, I got a flat tire and then I had to walk my bike all the way back. So I was like depressed, like maybe this is a message from God or somebody saying that I shouldn't be doing this, that this is impossible. So that was like the obstacle number one. Obstacle number two is obviously work. Work gets in the way a lot. I just couldn't let it be the thing that got in the way because it ruined everything before that point. So I wasn't going to become a statistic to that.
Speaker 2:And just what people think about you, you know, the second you start doing it, it's so crazy. If I was to go out right now and I was to post on Instagram yo, I'm going out tonight, I'm going to get fucked up. I'm going to have 46 beers. Everybody be like yeah, hell yeah. But the second you start doing anything positive, people will be thinking you're fucking better than us. What do you think? What do you think? Isn't it strange? It's so crazy, dude. But that's exactly. There was that opposition too, especially when I started like leaning into social media and creating a social media account is people were very negative and apprehensive at first, but I mean listen, now those same people come to me for advice. It's just like that quote, like people who talk shit about you will eventually come back around and ask you how you did it and that does happen a lot. So I'm very thankful for that. But those were the main oppositions.
Speaker 1:Isn't it? It's so crazy to me that people will be so supportive of destructive behavior but they won't be supportive of you when you're trying to better yourself, quit alcohol, this, and that I find it crazy that I still have to say, even when I say oh yeah, I haven't drank, I've been sober since for eight months I wasn't an alcoholic. I just want to be very clear about that, cause people automatically think that you had a problem, cause I'm giving up something that's so culturally accepted, like one of the most culturally accepted drugs on the planet drink, have some wine, whatever, unwind this and that. Blah, blah, blah. It's like no, I'm good, I'll just have seltzer. People look at you. They're like oh, you know, I have some.
Speaker 1:I had a lot of friends follow suit. Tyler has been sober too. Tyler's been sober since June. Yeah, I believe he's been sober since June. It's just, you almost have that compounding effect from the right people in your circle, though, Because once you purge your circle from those bad people that don't give a fuck about you and that want you to do those destructive behaviors, now you have the people that are like oh shit, like I see nicks are leveling up, I see Aaron's leveling up.
Speaker 2:Maybe I should try what they're doing it takes a while to really realize who actually gives a shit about you. You think that just because you grew up with somebody, or somebody has been in your circle for a long time, that they actually care about you and support you. Now, it's 100% not true. A lot of people, especially when it comes to doing negative things, doing bad things and this is why it's so celebrated to do bad, negative things is because they want to feel good and comfortable about the shitty things that they do and they're looking to drag you into it, into their group of doing shitty things. So the second you start doing something, that deep down those people know that they shouldn't be doing those things and now they feel some type of way about what you've become. And you were able to escape that. And they haven't been able to escape that. And now they're judging you for being better, trying to get yourself better than you were, and they still see themselves stuck in that same place.
Speaker 1:Yep yep, I had a buddy who I just recently not recently stopped talking to, but we stopped talking around March. I just kind of was on my level up journey. That's in that friend from high school. Love him, I really do love him, and he was just in a very bad situation with his girl. Just, she is a horrible human being and multiple kids with other people and then couple kids with him and it just it was a really shitty situation. She's just a misery and he would constantly say how much he can't stand being around her and this and that. And I'm like, bro, you gotta change your life. Man, only you could do it. Just because you have kids, you could still do.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:You can still get out and be able to experience life and this. And that he's like, ah, fuck it, 20 years in that bed. He's like making excuses. And then you just hear the constant negativity. And then I had said something to him about going and doing one of Bedros' squire programs with his son. I said you should go. I said you do ice baths when it's like coming of age moment with you and your kid, and you know it's just like you get to do ice baths and journal together and do all this crazy shit to like just build yourselves up together. And he just goes why would I pay somebody to teach me what I'm gonna teach my son? And I'm like, bro, you're like taking this the wrong way. I'm not saying that you wouldn't, this is just like something to do with your kid.
Speaker 2:And then he-, I never heard of that, so I think that's awesome Squire program yeah.
Speaker 1:And then he just went on telling people that I know that Nick basically said I'm a shitty father and this and that. So I was like okay, bro, you just stay in your miserable little world. Man, best of luck. I wish you the best, dude. I want you to get the most out of life, but in your current predicament you're not able to and you need to change that this is so crazy.
Speaker 2:Like me, like I know, I'm very confident in the fact that I'm a good dad, right, yeah, and I still think that that is awesome. I mean my kid's, not I don't know how old-.
Speaker 1:Let me get my phone, let me check.
Speaker 2:But, like you know, my son is six years old and like I'm like man, I don't know if I can get him in a nice bed, but like I would love to do some type of like program like that with him. You know, cause right now I have him in it's. This program, it's in Beth Page. It's called Kids Strong. It's essentially like a kids' world, bro. It's really cool. They teach kids about gratitude and like being positive and it's like a CrossFit class for these kids.
Speaker 1:Oh they don't just put an iPad in front of them. Make them sit there like fucking zombies.
Speaker 2:Interesting and it's awesome and like it's just something I want him to continue like later in life you know.
Speaker 1:The Squire program. Raise a strong man today when you. This is gonna sound like an ad, but I fucks with Bedros man and I fucks with what he's doing. He's dope.
Speaker 2:I gotta check it out. Honestly, up until the point where you talked about him right now, I didn't know who that was, so now I'm gonna have to check this out.
Speaker 1:It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. Yes, 100%, 100. Douglas, let me see, see you raise a man. I'm just trying to see where they tell you exactly what they do.
Speaker 2:No, but you're right about the kids, though. That's why the one book I didn't give you is another book I wrote. It's a gratitude thing for kids. So it's for kids ages five to ten, and one page it's like a giant workbook size, like a coloring book, and one half is just like questions to help them reflect on what their day was. Hey, what's something good that happened to you today? Did you help somebody today? Did somebody help you? What's something hard that you did today? And then the next page will be like draw a picture of you with your family or draw a picture of you in your happy place. So it gets them to reflect on good things, because kids today don't appreciate shit. Now, adults are bad, but kids don't appreciate shit because it looks like they don't even have to sit through commercials anymore, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, instant gratification, just like every every which way I'm trying to find strongman brother, hold on. I wanted my son Andrew to acquire and understand these traits sooner in life, because I knew the society that he was growing up in was much more confusing than the one I grew up in.
Speaker 1:So, when he turned 13 years old, I wanted to do something special for him that would mark him as a man. I want him to understand his character matters the importance of keeping his word to others, having core values and principles to live by, how to be a gentleman and a warrior. Through his journey of life and he said, I assembled a group of men who I respect and who live lives of high moral authority to put my son through a rite of passage experience. We flew out to a tactical training center that was used by police, federal agents in the military, to be better, to better hone their skills. Then, after a full day of high stress and high speed experiences, we poured wisdom into him that we wished we had gotten as teenagers ourselves.
Speaker 2:That's great. Yeah, it's, it's, it's cool man.
Speaker 1:I mean he's got. He's got something really cool going on with this. It's a father son journey where we both, where we take both of you through a 15 hour long ritual.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:For your son. We put him through a rite of passage from being a boy to having a seat at the table with men. For you, we show how to groom your son into a capable and confident man who's a protector and provider and who's always prepared to stand his ground. Within the choir program, there are five instructors who will lead you through the experience, and so, basically, it's just I gotta be honest with you, I thought it would be more expensive, yeah which is it? 1,900 bucks.
Speaker 2:That's not bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one time dates and locations below that dude Nick. That dude Nick Kuma, lot to source. Whatever is that? You already spell his Greek last name. Shout out Carol Ackis.
Speaker 1:He's the only Greek name I can pronounce right off the cut and then they have just a bunch of like X special forces guys that come through and it's cool, man, we need more shit like that, bro. The youth not only is the youth our next line just coming in, obviously, but it's just like everywhere you turn man, they're just making everybody weaker and they're taking the masculinity out of things. They're taking just like the ability to just be a man. They're literally castrating us and we have to have these conversations because, like I don't have kids, like I said, but when I have kids, it doesn't matter if I have a daughter, it doesn't matter if I have a son.
Speaker 1:That's a new role for me now. I'm not just a man on this planet, I am a father and it's my duty to not only protect them but to make sure that they are useful citizens in society, not just people that are gonna take, not just people that are gonna take up space. I don't want that for me and my lineage and family. And some people will look at that and be like, oh, that's so old and ancient. Guess what Shit would seem a little bit better back then. Shit seemed a little bit smoother. There was less mental anguish in a lot of people when we had purpose and drive. Yeah, you know what?
Speaker 2:There's. So everybody lives on extremes on the internet. So that's the thing is like you have the extreme soft and they have the extreme like totally crazy and saying like hard. But the middle ground on everything it's beautiful, it's beautiful and that is where everybody should be. There should be a mix of like hey, like people look like journaling is like soft, like no, journaling is not soft.
Speaker 2:That's one of the hardest things to do is like sit there and actually like be with your own thoughts or meditation. But people will be like, oh, that's soft, that's supposed to behave, you shouldn't use, you shouldn't do that. And then like there's people who are like oh well, you know the opposite extreme, where they hate everything. That's like, oh yeah, learning how to hunt or learning how to like cook your own food is like too masculine. Or like hold the door open or like shake somebody's hand properly, that's too hard, that's antiquated. No, dude, that is not antiquated at all. Like I can tell everything about a person the way they look in my face and shake my hand 100% and like, if that's wrong, I'm gonna fuck. I'm never going to change that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. It's crazy, man. We need more of this. We do really. We need more of this, just this hardened type of a mentality for family structure, because it really starts in the house, man. It doesn't start in your school system. Let's make that very clear. Your school system doesn't start. It's not the one that's gonna teach your children this and that when it starts is your home, as the man and as the woman of your household and making sure that you still good behaviors, morality, like a family structure of everyone looking out for each other.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you've told your daughter that she looks out for her little brother. These are things like that we all have to, and I feel like it's just, like it's turned into the digital age of just everybody just has a screen in front of them and I'm guilty man by myself Screen in front of your face at all fucking hours of the day, and it's just. You sit there and you look up at the clock and you go oh my God, has it really been like that long since I've gotten up and done anything? It's bad, man, it's just the screen.
Speaker 2:It's so funny. It's like I've heard you talk about this several times, so I always hesitate to tag you and shit, because I'm like if I tag him and this is gonna look at his phone, it's probably gonna fucking ruin his day. No, I don't.
Speaker 1:I get tagged all day. People sit next to me. I really do keep my phone on D&D most of the day now I really do. It may be bad for business in certain ways and this and that, but I just I can't just be on all the time. And then there's weeks that I go ham with it. I'm posting a clip a day maybe two clips a day of the podcast. I'm on TikTok. I'm posting to YouTube and guess what? I see growth. But then, like after a week of doing that, I'm burnt out bro.
Speaker 2:It's exhausting.
Speaker 1:I'm just I'm so tired and then I gotta keep up with the fucking comments and it's like that. Just it becomes too much because now I'm just sitting here like this and I don't want to sit here like that. I've been yearning for more of a nomadic, outlander type lifestyle as of late. I never thought I would be like that. I always thought I'd be a city kid. I always thought this and that Nah man I've been.
Speaker 1:I've been looking at places in like no joke. I've been looking at places in Omaha, middle of fucking nowhere. Omaha, fat, fat pads, bro, 600k mansion with tons of property. Bro, if I could get the podcast to that position where I could fly you guys out, fucking hang out for a week, like Cam Haines type shit. Come hang out, just be able to just enjoy nature and quietness. And when you look up at the sky, you actually get to see the sky and it's not just like bullshit and I just I want to.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it's like that being instilled in me of like wanting the polar opposite of where your life kind of goes towards, but I want that simplicity. I really do, I. Things are, things are too complex. I don't know if I'm getting older? I really don't. I don't know if I'm getting older, but like which I am getting older. But I don't know if I'm getting older in the terms of like. With technology, but just to do simple tasks seem more in depth than they've ever been Like. When I first had my iPhone, I used to get excited. I'd pick it up text, go on the internet this and that, great. But now it's like its own feature set gets in its way and it becomes a burden to use in certain situations that I just go. Oh my God, like I find I have more spelling errors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too. Me too. I find I have way more spelling errors. I really do.
Speaker 1:I'm like there's no way I'm fucking up that bad on some of these spelling errors. I find that just to do simple things like to copy and paste, you have to hold it down to. It's like things just don't come up easily. Then it's like you held it too long and now it goes away. Or, oh, you have to swipe over to get to the next page that has copy and paste. This has this just has find more information on it. Like, oh my God, bro, just do what the fuck I want you to do. It's not that difficult.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to look up a steak site.
Speaker 1:That's all I wanted you to look up, so my rant is over. I feel like I want that simplicity and I have a conversation with a lot of people as of late just where my life is going to take me, because I'm in a totally different place than I ever thought I would be ever.
Speaker 1:Good and that's okay, I'm embracing it, that's awesome. Yeah, I'm embracing it. I'm learning a lot more. It's a lot more self-development in it. But everybody goes through the point mentally of do you stay where you're at or do you go somewhere else, like there's just always a question to everybody's mind it's expensive to live anywhere. It really is. It's expensive to live, to be alive. And now this generation it's just expensive Between insurances, between business tasks and subscriptions and fucking taxes and all this stuff and stuff. It's just. It's so assinine how much everything costs and how much it takes away from your everyday life and stress and it just builds up on you.
Speaker 1:Is Long Island the place for me long term? I don't know. Every month I see reasons of why it isn't, and I'm not one to make rash and drastic decisions. I'm not the guy to just like. I've had friends that just go, well, fuck it, I'm moving tomorrow and it's like, okay, well, good luck. And then they come back and it's okay, it's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1:But I have to be more calculated. My money with my dog, with my life, my family and I just people have been asking me well, where do you want to go? I don't know. I don't know, because I always call Long Island home and all the places that I've traveled and I've experienced. I've always looked around and just been like I don't know, I like Long Island, I just I always have. But the way that life is going and the decisions that the state's making and this and that it's sketching me out and I'm just like all right. So I start looking into the places and it's like, well, okay, the house is $500,000. Fat house, like it's huge, great. But like what's the? What is it like to try to make money out there? Yes, you know, these are the things that I have to start weighing and figuring out.
Speaker 1:So I end my rant to say that I think everybody should be very aware of their emotions, of where they feel life could take them. No, maybe I moved to, let's say, omaha. Maybe I moved to Omaha and I meet the fucking, the girl of my dreams, like I just that was. That was what life had in destiny for me, I don't know. Maybe I moved out there and I fucking hate it, I don't know, you know. So I think it's just important that we, we center ourselves, we meditate, we really do a lot of self reflection, journaling. What am I happy with? What am I unhappy with? How could I make these situations and these things better and what would make them worse? If I stay here, is it going to get worse? Do I feel worse? Am I going to be more upset? We have to weigh these on the scale and just see and just take it day by day yeah that was it.
Speaker 1:That was it. I wanted to know how. How did you? Motivation is fleeting and discipline takes over where motivation fleets and that's why discipline is so important. But a lot of people that start any journey that they have whether you want to learn how to play trumpet, whether you want to lose weight, whether you want to be a better father a lot of people just once that motivation goes away, it's almost as if the mission has imploded and they just whatever. They don't care anymore. They just they, they. They get turned off by the goals that they have because the goals seem too big. When you first started, being at what top end weight, what were you?
Speaker 2:425, over 425.
Speaker 1:So, 425, what was your original goal to get down to, or was it just?
Speaker 2:it was just lose weight, Just lose weight. Overall health get better long term. So I think that is one of the things people leave out big time. They're like I want to lose X amount of pounds in X amount of time and unfortunately what they do is they won't meet that goal, because the goal is usually absolutely ridiculous, as opposed to looking at it as like a, like a lifelong journey and I know it's corny, because everybody always says it's. You know fitness is a what do you call it? Lifestyle? Right, I forgot the corny line that everybody uses Fitness is a lifestyle, and it's true, it's a lifestyle. It's a lifelong thing. It's not something that's going to happen overnight. So I think you have to give yourself that forgiving perspective. If you do mess up and just get back on the horse the next day or the next meal, break your day into four quarters, as I was big on this is that you can lose the first quarter or the second quarter in a game, right, and you can still come back and win the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've seen it plenty of times. 100%.
Speaker 2:Chow's to.
Speaker 1:Tom Brady. Yeah 28 to three.
Speaker 2:And that's it, man. As far as motivation is concerned, motivation does help to a certain extent. You know like I'm always motivated to see other people other, you know people doing what I do or what I've done, and even people who are just starting on their journeys when they're successful, and it motivates me to help other people do that. But it's discipline. You got to go when you don't want to go and I know it's so corny. Everybody always says you got to do what you don't want to do and that's what makes the difference. But it really is what makes the difference. And if you want to meet your goals, that's really what you have to do. And don't forget why you started and that's why it's so important to have a real reason why you want to do it. So people are like, if you want to lose 10 pounds for a wedding, to me like that's not a real enough reason that you're going to develop discipline. If you want to live a longer life because you don't want to fucking die and you don't want to leave your kids alone without a father, that's a real reason.
Speaker 2:And when I coach people, I get dark on them. I will be like. They'll be like oh, I didn't go to the gym today and I'll be like, oh yeah, well, why don't you tell your kids that you didn't feel like going to the gym today? Because you don't give a fuck about them, right, and I know that's harsh, and people out there who are listening to this are like, oh my god, that's so mean. No, it's not mean. That's the realistic perspective, because the second you stop going to the gym once you're not going to go to the gym tomorrow. It becomes the opposite cycle and then eventually your lifespan is 10, 15, 20 years shorter and now your kids don't have a dad. Now I always go way, way darker man. I always like, okay, good, your wife's going to fuck somebody else, yeah, your wife's going to fuck somebody else, they're going to marry them and that person's going to abuse your kid. How are you going to feel about that?
Speaker 1:You're going to allow somebody else to raise your child?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Dude, you're a thousand percent correct, though If I had a daughter, I think the biggest drive factor would be like who's going to walk her down that aisle?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, big time.
Speaker 1:Man who's going to give my daughter's hand away in marriage? Uh-huh, not going to be someone else. Oh hell, no, no way, fuck no man.
Speaker 2:That's going to be me.
Speaker 1:I'm going to look buddy right in the eyes and be like yo, man, I like you. But let's be very clear Don't fuck this up, because we'll have a problem. Oh for sure, man. Yeah, so you have to get dark. You have to get real with it. Too many people are afraid to get real. They're afraid to just like say, call a spade a spade and say things that they have to say and because they need to be said, not because, like, we want to say it, no, no, no, it needs to be said. It's like it, just it is what it is. Everyone's so fucking emotional and so hurt about everything. It's like yo, we got to have a little dragon skin in the game.
Speaker 2:You got to like be able to toughen up People like the conversations that I have with myself are way worse than the people, the conversations that people could ever have with me.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sure you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean the mental aspect that people have to go into whenever they're trying to achieve something. Yeah, I'm not saying like, beat yourself up, but you got to be hard on yourself and realistic and be like you know what. Like the alternative is to not you know, get what I want. You got to be a fucking asshole. Give yourself that middle finger in the mirror all the fucking time. You know who's the king of that, oh Jamal.
Speaker 1:Oh okay, yeah, Jamal goes dark when he starts looking at himself in the mirror. He calls himself a bitch like, looks himself right in the mirror and he'll say it out loud. People look around. They're like is he talking to himself? He's like oh yeah, that makes going into a dark space right now I love him.
Speaker 2:I see him in bed all the time. I'm always saying what's up to him, man, but like he's a scary fucking dude dude, I'm like I can't tell if this guy likes me enough.
Speaker 1:But hey, how's it going? If he says hi, he likes you. If he says hi, he likes you, yeah. If he doesn't say hi and he just stares at you, yeah, you might want to just go somewhere else, nah, he's the best. What were some of the immediate changes that took place?
Speaker 2:I immediately started, like you know, lost a couple pounds. I lost 70 pounds fairly quickly, just like riding my bike and tracking diet. That was over, I want to say, a couple months, and then those are the immediate changes. But the other changes was just my mental aspect of just life in general and how I looked at things and like now that I saw that this was possible at the beginning and I started achieving things I maybe want to achieve more things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you have more of like a brighter light outlook on life as well?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, of course. So as soon as you start focusing on yourself and controlling the things that you actually can control because we get so caught up in the things that we can't and we make excuses around the things that we actually can control things seem much more manageable and it like really shifts your mental perspective on how to deal with life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, once again, life is tough. I can't emphasize it enough for everybody Life is tough Everybody. We all go through shit and just you have to be able to get to that next high point of looking it down at the bad points and just going oh man, I'm so glad I just toughed it out. You're going to have more low points. You're going to have more high points too. You have to ride the roller coaster. That's really what it is.
Speaker 2:That's what creates resilience man, and we live in a culture where we almost shy away from resilience and doing hard things and difficult tests. I actually wrote this thing. It's like the dichotomy of life is trying to help people not go through what you went through, but then realize what you went through is what made you who you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't shield everybody from their experiences. You can give advice, you can help them along in their journey and tell them this is what I had go through and you may experience similar things or you may not. If they take that information, most of the time they won't listen to it, just like when I used to get told, hey, man, enjoy, it goes by quick. And I'm like, oh yeah, sure, I feel like I've blinked and farted once, and then all of a sudden it's like, holy shit, I'm 30? What do you mean? I'm 30? Yeah, it goes by quick, so you got to enjoy it. You got to really just take it for what it's worth. Man, everyone just takes that life so hard, everything is so hard. It's like if there's one thing I have to emphasize, it's just like you have to be able to just relax.
Speaker 2:Just relax. Take your life so seriously that you don't take everything that seriously.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, take your health, Take your mental health seriously, take the important things seriously, but all the other bullshit it's just like listen, man. Oh, somebody stole your credit card. They use your money. Yeah, I guess what? Call the card, they'll cancel the card. You get your money back? Okay, don't worry about it. It's like instead of fucking having the Hades from Hercules moment where the hair goes on fire, we're going to be all right, man, it's, everything's going to be cool, don't worry.
Speaker 1:It hasn't helped in certain in argument situations on the street. But, like when I get into arguments on the street with people, which happens more so than you would think around here, I don't know why people just like say shit, and I'm very, I'm very calm and confident. I was looking at people. I'd be like yo, it's not that serious, we're going to be okay. Relax, take a deep breath. We're going to be okay, we're going to be okay.
Speaker 2:What do you mean?
Speaker 1:it's going to be okay, I was the dude that was yelling at me with.
Speaker 2:Kenji yelling at me.
Speaker 1:He was going fucking insane. Got in my face. I was like yo, we're going to want to take that energy down a little. I'm smiling in his face.
Speaker 1:We're going to want to take that energy down a little bit, like it's going to be okay. Relax, because I told his wife please move a little quicker with the dog, because she was standing in front of us with Kenji's going nuts. Her dog's going nuts. She can't hold the dog, kenji. I'm trying to hold Kenji back. He's on his hind legs trying to get to this dog, trying to kill it Big dog too, man he's 83 pounds.
Speaker 1:I'm holding him back and I said, hey, can you just move the dog a little quicker? He goes. What does that even mean, bro? Like right in my face I went hey man, let's take that energy, I'll let the dog go and your dog will not be okay. I'm just letting you know like your golden retriever is not going to have a really good experience if I let this go and I just deal with you. So let's relax, we're going to get through this, it's okay. So, yeah, I try to take things a little less serious now and then going back to being a cop, because it's interesting, and I did write some statistics down that I did find on studies. But how much did the weight change affect your job? Because that's huge.
Speaker 2:So you know what's crazy is? I always tell this, and I was never a bad cop because I was overweight. Maybe my anger or my level of mental resilience was affected, but as far as doing the job for me personally, I was always a pretty decent cop. But it does affect people's jobs to a certain extent, depending on what it is. Now I also have an advantage, being a city cop, that a lot of people don't have. I am never alone. So that's number one.
Speaker 1:Number two is you always have a partner.
Speaker 2:Always have a partner or partners, and I always worked in teams, so there was more than one of us Usually, because I was the fat guy, I was the driver, so I wasn't the rabbit, as we call it. I wasn't the guy always chasing after somebody. But in situations where you are in law enforcement and you are alone and backup is far away, dude, that's the difference between life and death, and it definitely could be the difference between life and death For me too. Back then I just didn't look at it that way, unfortunately, and I'm very fortunate that I've made it to this point and still alive, because I let myself go and all that other stuff.
Speaker 1:I see heavy cops and I just kind of just have a moment where I just go oh man, dude, this doesn't affect you? Oh, of course it does God forbid, I would wrestle a perp and shit like that. You could be heavy and have weight behind you, but you don't know how to move man. You don't understand grappling. You don't understand any of that shit. So, it's like, bro, you're putting yourself in a very bad situation from the cut right out the gate.
Speaker 2:People shouldn't have at least some type of at least know something? So even up until the point where I became a cop, I used to take martial arts.
Speaker 1:What'd you take?
Speaker 2:It was this guy, so it was Wing Chun, right, but this guy he was a retired detective sergeant from Lyndon Hurst. It was a place called Modern Warrior. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's not there anymore. But this guy was like the real deal, like I mean he had a whole setup in his garage. You could look it up. There's videos on YouTube of it. We had a whole setup in his garage.
Speaker 2:It's almost, I want to say, like a real life course, like he used to be able to make it rain in there, dude, oh shit. I mean, like Wing Chun is a lot of like blindfolded fighting, like misdirection, like physical contact, like it's just very different than a lot of other things. You know who practices Wing Chun. There's a guy on Instagram, dominic Izzo. So if you ever go to Dominic Izzo's page, he's actually he was a former Chicago cop. He has some videos on there about what Wing Chun looks like and it's good.
Speaker 2:So I always took martial arts, so I was always pretty confident in that. But I mean every cop should have some type of baseline. I mean it's unfortunate that in training, the training that we get, and people in the NYPD will always be like oh my God, our training is terrible. That is true to a certain extent, except they don't realize that I am in contact with cops from all over the world and there are police departments, bro, where, like this is how what their academy is. They go to a community college.
Speaker 2:This is, this is a true in Florida and other places. They go to a community college, they take a police science like course, right, that's their knowledge. And then their physical fitness is okay. Here's a P90X DVD. Do this for your physical fitness portion, bro. And then they graduate with this certificate and then they have to put in a bid to get accepted by an agency to get that's the whole, that's it, that's all that exists, and it's. It's crazy. They don't learn any tactics, they don't learn how to do any of this stuff, and then it's just, it's insane, dude.
Speaker 1:I mean it has to. I feel like if I was an officer, if I had to go out there and battle the demons of people and society and shit like that, I would want to stay sharp Like I really would. I have a lot of guys at Jiu-Jitsu, or cops, I mean. You know AJ from Bevs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I roll with AJ a lot. Okay, nice, aj is so fucking strong. It is so scary dude. He's so strong, I mean, and every time he gets me on like a knee on belly, he'll put me in a knee on belly and then he'll grab the back of my head and pull my head so he'll have his knee in my solar plex and then he'll pull my head into his knee. It is just a horrible situation to be in, but it's like you need to be able to know what's your Jiu-Jitsu to go to. Sarah Matt Serres.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you know, sal Acomando no, all right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Would you ever come?
Speaker 2:I've done Jiu-Jitsu a couple of times, dude, like here's my issue, okay, and I know everybody says this shit, all right, but like I've done Jiu-Jitsu a couple of times and in those couple of times where I've done it like dude, my shoulder mobility is so fucked that like I am so scared of like getting like my shoulder ripped out of its socket. It's who you roll with. It really is. It's who you roll with.
Speaker 1:Aj and I roll pretty rough together. I've had more issues rolling with like bigger guys with my jaw getting cranked. That has hurt more than, say, legs or arms or stuff like that. Generally I tell dudes I'm like yo, if you get me in an arm bar I'll tap Like just go into it slowly. I may try to roll out of it, but just don't crank it Like, just don't rip my arm back and shit like that. Mostly guys are very cool.
Speaker 1:I've had most of my injuries in the white belt class. That's the issue. There was a and just recently All younger people and I haven't listen. I, you know I didn't. We were supposed to do the podcast a week ago. I didn't feel well last week so I haven't. I haven't rolled in over a week now and I was going to go this morning. I'm going to go to the competition class tomorrow, which is asking for trouble. But even before then there's a guy that had come for a trial about a month ago. Brazilian dude, very nice guy, doesn't know any Brazilian jiu-jitsu, whatever. We were paired together and I was teaching him while the instructor was showing us.
Speaker 1:I was paired with him to teach him a little bit more and he was in the class right before I got sick. He was in the class to do live rolling. So once we all drilled, we did our thing, we started live rolling. At the end he came over to me to get. He basically had to get past my guard. This dude was going 300%.
Speaker 1:But, like and like a nasty 300. Like trying to like really push my shoulder down and this and that. So like, okay, I'm giving you 60% bro. Like, relax, like, it's not that simple. We're just, we're trying to just do the moves, but without like being nice, without being babyish to each other we're just lay there and let you do it.
Speaker 1:So I do. I got fucking tired of him, bro. I just I grabbed him and I just like I tucked my elbow and I picked him up and I slammed him down and then I turned around and I was like, bro, if you're gonna this is like my message If you're gonna roll like that, I'm gonna roll like that back with you and then we'll both get hurt. I'm just letting you know, like, if you want to do it like that, I'll put all of my effort and energy into this and we'll both have an injury.
Speaker 2:So the first so the couple of times I've done jujitsu it's been in like very introductory level stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, live rolling like real.
Speaker 2:No, it's all just like tactic stuff, like teach people, and the people that I've been with have been very experienced very experienced people so, so experienced that, like when we were rolling, like they were, I didn't even tell them.
Speaker 2:I'm like, hey, listen, just you know, like I'm not that great Like he was able to feel the point of tension in my shoulder. Where was the maximum that he would be able to push before hurting me. You know what I mean. And like him informing me of that, he knew that, like, maybe confident in the ability to roll with this guy who I knew wasn't gonna completely take advantage, and, like most people are like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Even in the comp classes. Yeah, there are times when we go heavy, there's times when we go off, isn't that you know? I popped my knee once in class and I was like, oh, this is it, man. I thought I tore something. I was like that's it, bro. Like you asked for it, you let your ego get in the way and you fucked your knee up and then I was fine, it just needed some rest. But it's tough, but it's really fucking good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really good, you learn a lot I think everybody should learn it.
Speaker 2:So we've had a couple of tutorials.
Speaker 2:The NYPD has a BJJ team and they also have an MMA team and they always have experts the Gracie's come in and like do stuff.
Speaker 2:So one of the things I did was I was with the Gracie's and they like literally altered a program to teach cops based on what our use of force protocol is, and it was very informative and very good. And one of the biggest mistakes that I currently see on the street, like when it comes to tactics and I'm not on Monday morning quarterback, okay, I'm not, I've made plenty of mistakes that I'm glad I'm not caught on videotape is like they don't get close enough. They leave too much space in between them and the person who they're trying to rest or wrestle and they don't realize that they can't control somebody out in front of them as nearly as much as they could if they were on top of them or like close with them and like that's something I learned also when I took Wing Chun is like it's all about closing the gap and closing that distance. You know what I mean. And people I don't know if they're afraid to get that close to somebody or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:I mean you think as a cop you probably think someone's gonna take something out, stab you once you get that closest and that you have to create to keep distance from you or the person. But at some point if you're scuffling with somebody you're gonna be right on top of them. So now you have to just use that weight and throw it into them. Of course you know I go against guys that are the 300 pounds. So I've got, I've rolled against guys like that and I just know the second that this fucking guy gets on top of me, I can't get out Like that's it, it's over for me. So it's like I'll keep the distance and I'll try to do moves and maneuvers and this and that, but it's like it's tough. You learn a lot. You learn a lot about how movement affects you. You know there was a we were doing takedowns and I don't get nervous to do takedowns. I just always get nervous that I'm gonna put someone down too hard or they're gonna put me down too hard, or when I shoot in they're gonna go down and we're gonna collide faces or something like that. There's always that possibility. So I'm very calculated with when I shoot in. Some people will be like stop running. I'm like I'm not running, I'm just not gonna let you take me down. So if you wanna take me down, fucking take me down. But we're not gonna do this Like I'm just gonna let you shoot in. We're gonna shoot in the same time and fuck each other up and it's like but now, learning that with AJ, who's actually the last one that I got to do it with, we were going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth Wouldn't let him take me down.
Speaker 1:Super strong. He keeps grabbing a lot of collar ties, grabbed me behind the neck and then trying to break you down. A lot of soreness in the neck from Jujitsu. It's bad. I've never experienced soreness like that based on the skull, top of the neck and traps. Never experienced soreness like that, but anyway. So he kept going, kept going and finally I just saw the opening and I went oh, that's what it feels like now, cause he's totally upright, and I shot in and I did a clamp right through the back like this and I just topped him directly into his quads and he went over like a sack of potatoes and I was like, oh, that's what it feels like to be able to take someone down effectively. It's cool cause you learn Like I never thought I'd be able to get to that level.
Speaker 1:That's awesome man Not that I didn't think I'd be able to. It's just like that in the timeline.
Speaker 2:It's so cool man and I love hearing about like your personal journey into jujitsu, and I love hearing it from other people too.
Speaker 1:You gotta come through. You're gonna come through to Sarah's. I need you to come through to Sarah's. So stats on weight and the police force was interesting. I did a little light dive just seeing what some studies from PubMed and whatnot and there was a study conducted by the American Journal of Preventative Medicine and it concluded that 40.7% of police, firefighters and security guards are obese and I just wanted to know like your take on it why?
Speaker 2:Because theoretically, if you're out and you're doing things, you know you're up and moving, you shouldn't have the I do a whole thing on this presentation when I usually present is number one is people watch too much TV, cops included, and they see episodes of low on order or like these cop shows where cops are constantly chasing after bad guys every day and they do all this stuff. That's not the reality what it's like to be a cop. Most of the times we're just sitting around riding in a patrol car or doing whatever it is in patrol, just sitting there doing absolutely nothing. Or at a desk in an investigative unit doing absolutely nothing, not moving around enough. Then couple that with you're not meal prepping, so you're eating food that's out on the go and you're not making the best choices. You're going to get Chinese food or pizza late at night. That couple's on top of that.
Speaker 2:But the sedentary lifestyle we see this stuff on TV, even as cops or like other people see and like, oh, they have an active life. So us as cops like I have an active life, I have a busy. No dude, you're just sitting around just as much as somebody who works somewhere with a desk job. You got to counterbalance that with somebody else, something else, you know. Then hours, obviously, like if you work nights, like it affects your metabolism greatly and dude, and we're like I said before, we are chronic enablers of each other. So we'll see somebody eating bed, we'll see somebody doing this. We're like, oh, I'm stressed out, I'm all this stress. So we don't prioritize taking care of our health and taking care of ourselves because we have us. So instead of leaning into those good coping mechanisms like exercise and fitness and nutrition and meditation and mindfulness those are almost like pushed away from the culture because they're positive. So instead we lean into negative coping mechanisms like eating like shit or drinking alcohol and doing these things as opposed to that, and then we get away from that. And that is what was the major cause.
Speaker 2:And obviously don't get me wrong, stress is there too, but stress management is also there. There's no reason that we can't manage our stress, but unfortunately we're chronic excuse makers in society. And then, when you get into that enabling culture of law enforcement, we will give each other excuses. Excuses are almost built into the job, and police supporters and people who support the police they're great, I appreciate them so much. But they also give into that enabling culture of making us victims and that our job is so stressful that we have no choices, that we can't do these things on our own, and then all that affects on how we think about certain things.
Speaker 2:So, unless we're really gonna start taking care of ourselves and making that decision and actually acknowledging the truth and the truth is the fact that we are not victims and nobody's coming to save us. Our agency's not coming to save us. No company's gonna smack a cheeseburger out of your hand and fucking make you go to the gym it's just not gonna happen. You have to make the decision on your own. Whatever job you work for is not going to save you. They're not going to make it better, and in law enforcement, we unfortunately work in a job that we think should exist. Oh, the job should take care of us, they should give us time to work out, they should do all this stuff. You will let it happen and it's not there. So unless you start doing it on your own, that may never happen. So you're gonna wait forever. No, you can't wait forever. You gotta take care of yourself and whatever time that is, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I know plenty of people Listen. I have it really good where I work. I worked very, very hard for a long time and a long unit's working overtime. I have it very good where I work now, so I know it's very easy for me to manage that, but I also did it under the circumstances where things were difficult and I was working all the time and I was working around the clock. I manage both things and there are plenty of people out there right now. There's a guy right now. I don't know if you know him, brad Brad Lombardo.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, he rolls, I do get to with him, yeah, and he also goes to bed and I know him, and I know him for a long time, love him when he used to work. He's an extremely busy guy and I always see him rolling and I always see him in the gym. It's just that decision that you're gonna. And he's got a family too, dude, you know what I mean. His wife competes, I think I'm pretty sure she brought me. I don't think I've ever met her. So they all. You have to make these decisions and unfortunately, we just choose not to do these things and there comes a point where you just gotta give up a little excuses, like you either give a fuck about yourself and your health or you don't.
Speaker 1:And that was actually the second part, which is like how does it get better and how do we fix it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's it. You just gotta decide on your own that you're gonna do it and take care of yourself first and make sure that you do it.
Speaker 1:I find it interesting. When I was with Michael Cunahan for a little while, I found he got a lot of fucking flack for taking care of himself. Oh dude, yeah, it was insane. I mean, I really wasn't around Mike that often. We did those two shoots together and like we talked here and there and I'd see his socials, but he would get a lot of fucking flack man.
Speaker 2:I love Mike. He was really, honestly, the forefront of like police, like actually like putting things out there on social media. I love Mike. I didn't know him when he started doing social media. It wasn't until, like I was already on my journey and I'd be like, oh, you ever hear this guy? I'm like, yeah, I went to the New York Pro to meet him once and I had him autograph the magazines on the cover of Iron man Magazine and he was like laughing and I'm like, oh, it's so crazy, we're on the same job, whatever. I still have that, you know. And I love Mike to death because he really just started putting himself out there, making like me, definitely put myself out there on social media. And he did get a lot of flack and still does. He's got a lot of haters. So, listen, so do I. I just don't fucking care. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And how do you get to the point of not caring? And just in your world, how do you get to the point of not caring.
Speaker 2:You ready, you ready. So I'll read any social media posts that's like normal, right, and I'll go on there and you'll just see these complete lunatics in the comments. They're just so angry and like nothing, and it almost makes it comedic to how people are just like mad at anything. They're just looking for a reason to be mad and it's got nothing to do with you, man. You know what I mean, because and the easiest transition for me was the fact that I remember what it was like to be that angry at other people I would never comment that anybody's shit, because I'm not like that.
Speaker 2:It's a special kind of person, right but I remember what it was like to have thoughts like that, to be so negative and to be so angry and to be so resentful and jealous and all these things that I was masking through other stuff, that I remember what it's like to be that person and I remember how that feeling had nothing to do with the people that I was taking my aggression out on, that it had everything to do with me and what was inside me. So that's the perspective that I keep. Every once in a while I'll get one up, like you know, this is pretty funny, or whatever, or like whatever, you know whatever, but for the most part, dude, like I laugh about it and I gotta realize, like you know, those people are hurt somewhere and they have no other quiet lives of desperation man, like we talked about before, and that's what most people live, and they're just looking to take that anger out in some other place in a negative way, as opposed to doing something for themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've had people comment on the podcast. You know, could I put reels up and TikToks and stuff.
Speaker 1:And every couple of weeks I get the dude that just has the comment and he's just like oh look, another fucking person that's got a podcast doesn't need one. And I'm like, don't listen, bro, it's cool. Tiktok is the worst, you don't have to. It's actually YouTube, youtube, youtube, real shorts. I've been getting at those people Really. Yeah, I'm just like. I'm like all right, bro. I was like, hey, dude, it's a clip. It's a 30 second clip from a two hour conversation. If you aren't interested, the best thing to do is just to swipe and just keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just keep going about your day. But the fact that they can't do that and they lack that self-awareness and lack of self-control tells you everything that you need to know about them.
Speaker 1:Everything. And I'm gonna give you another quote. Andre says he leaves a lot of his negative comments up because that comment says more about that person than he ever will about me 100% and I usually do too A lot of times I'll leave it there, unless it's like.
Speaker 2:The only comments I'll ever delete is if it's like something so off the wall, racist or like wild Dude, I will like delete it and I'll block them. But negative comments, y'all leave it up there. I don't care. Everybody's entitled their opinion and to say what they want. That's fine. Especially when it comes to TikTok. I monitor my social media, Instagram comments. That's where I do most of my engagement. That's where I get most of my DMs. That's where I get most of my questions. I will post on YouTube reels when I remember yeah, and I'll remember, and TikTok right. But as far as the comments, I will literally only engage if it's something I could say like funny or whatever. But I can't keep up dude. No, yeah, it's very thought. So I have. I've chose one platform and my platform is Instagram, because that's where most of my stuff comes from, and then I just a lot of the other platforms. I literally just post and goes dude.
Speaker 1:And I don't have TikTok is where I have all of my shit, because I'm at 53,000 on TikTok. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's awesome. Because it's awesome, it's awesome to see you grow on TikTok and Instagram just fucked you. Instagram sucks, bro. Oh, I had a post Instagram is dead the other day and like I listen, dude, I'm going to keep doing what I do, no matter what I post, just to stay relevant.
Speaker 2:Some of my favorite things that I post to get the lowest engagement. Like I love going to other gyms out of state and let's just like being like oh hey, I went to this gym. This is what it looks like is like whatever Lowest engagement ever. I'm never going to stop posting them. But some posts I post dude, I have 37, whatever thousand followers. You go into the thing and it'll be like how many people was this served to? Bro? 600. Yeah, 600 people showed it to.
Speaker 1:Yup, I paid for the check mark for like three, four months. Pay the 15 bucks or whatever it was month for the check mark, I don't know. I didn't see any difference, so I just stopped paying for it. I'm like fuck this check mark.
Speaker 2:Twitter sucks. It's a whole other thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they all suck. I mean realistically, they all fucking suck. It's funny that you mentioned the gyms, because I had that out of all the gyms you visited which been your favorite, so we'll get to that in a second. Okay, in a second, because I had done my Aaron homeworker. I know you, I know what you're saying. One of the other things that I saw was like a out of 10 cops are technically overweight technically, and the PubMed study on behavioral variables associated with obesity in police officers 172 male officers. They had reported their height and weight they were divided into non-obese and obese categories, which can be misleading because we obviously know that BMI isn't everything but also reported their age, their health problems, family support, police work hours, police stressors and police support, and the results revealed that cardiovascular and strength training, physical activity were the only behavioral variables between the two groups.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that was the outlier that caused them to either be obese or not by the use of physical activity was, like the outlier of that, pretty interesting.
Speaker 2:No, it is interesting.
Speaker 1:What they put underneath. Is it an accountability problem? It seems like it would be. Of course it is, yeah.
Speaker 2:I talked about all about that. It's self accountability. Everybody's waiting for somebody, and this is just not in police. We're always just waiting for somebody to come in and swoop in and save us and take care of our life for us, man. That's why everybody wants to win the lottery. Well, if I just won the lottery, all my problems will be fixed. No, the fuck, they wouldn't. Nope, you still have the same problems. You're not fixing your own behaviors and you gotta take accountability for yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no one's coming to save you, ian Smith, no one's coming to save you. So now we're on training. So, out of all the gyms you visited, what has been your favorite? Hi, mr World Traveler.
Speaker 2:I have so many different types of categories.
Speaker 1:And then I have honorable mentions underneath.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I really liked. What the hell is the gym in Chicago? Man, I can't think of it off the top of my head.
Speaker 1:I thought you were gonna say Kiss Me from Orlando, oh.
Speaker 2:Kiss Me. Muscle gym is my favorite for a different reason, though. Great, you've been there.
Speaker 1:No, I just I saw you post it.
Speaker 2:Great gym there. The guy who owns it is a great guy also, and I don't know if it was when he first started his gym, but I took a picture. And then this is going like years ago man, like I wasn't even like that crazy far on my fitness journey I took a picture. I was alone in the gym, it was like five o'clock in the morning, nobody was there. I took a picture and it was on like a like an inclined you know chess machine, and I just had it on my Instagram. I sent it to him, whatever he like, printed it out and had it framed and it's like right above the office doorway. It's still there. And then there's another picture of me on the wall there too, and I love that guy. I haven't been to Orlando area in a while but I can't wait to go back to that one. But I don't know why I can't remember the name. Actually, like to Jim in Chicago. Right now at the top of my head, I'm just.
Speaker 2:You know? Do you know where it was? It was in Chicago. It's a pretty mainstream bodybuilding gym. It's one of, like the top five bodybuilding gyms. It's in Chicago. It was actually really cool. I've been to a lot Iron mine gym no.
Speaker 1:Barbell compound quads gym Quads.
Speaker 2:Thank you, quads. Geez man, I'm like shot. This is what happens when you get old. Don't get old everybody out there. Okay. Quads gym is awesome. They had so much equipment.
Speaker 1:They had so much equipment. 3727 North Broadway, chicago Illinois.
Speaker 2:It's so much equipment that Jim Nick, that like there's a guy who used to come to Beth's he actually lives in Chicago now and he was from Chicago originally he's like, oh, when you come here you gotta go to Quads. I'm like, all right. So I went there, I walked in and there was like a shitload of equipment and I start working out and then all of a sudden I see somebody come down from upstairs and I go what's up there To like the gym? I'm like what? And there was a whole upstairs section that had way more equipment than downstairs and it was a really cool gym man. And then when I'm in Aruba I always hit up body's own fitness. I've become very good friends with that and people are like, oh my God, you travel and go to the gym. Like, yeah, dude, that's what I like to do.
Speaker 1:I gotta hold myself accountable so I can enjoy you a little bit and not go off the rails.
Speaker 2:The hotel has a gym, but it sucks and I'd rather check out new places, so those are definitely the better places that I've been.
Speaker 1:I do that with Jiu Jitsu. Now, golds and Veniz is all right. Man, golds and Veniz sucks. Don't listen to him. That's the first thing that he said. That's inaccurate on this podcast Do not listen to him.
Speaker 2:I said it's all right, it's just a basic gym man and, like I, my platform just lies like that's insane, no it's okay, but what I'm trying to say, though, is it's like overrated, you could skip it. You know what I mean, and like.
Speaker 1:Just go to Golds and North. Just go to Golds and North Port or.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's essentially the same thing, man, and I was definitely disappointed in that, but I didn't get to go to a CT Fletcher spot. Ct Fletcher spot was cool man.
Speaker 1:I know I got to film him there. I know I remember. Yeah, I was gassed there.
Speaker 2:It was so cool and West Coast, oh, it's a very nice gym. I like to go to historic gyms, so I went to Eastern Gym. It's one of the. It's actually the oldest gym on the West Coast and it was an LA and I actually ran into in there. I didn't take a picture with him because I didn't want to blow up a spot, but you've watched it show the bear, yeah, the chef, yes, oh cool, yeah, he was working out in there and nice guy and they were really cool in there. Just cool to be in an historic spot.
Speaker 2:And then also out east out on the West Coast, was this gym up in Portland, oregon, called La Princes. La Princes Gym is the second oldest gym on the West Coast and when I tell you they have some equipment in there, if you go to my Instagram page and look for the video review I did of La Princes Gym, you can be like I have never seen this shit in my entire life. It's like you know, like how in Beth's they have that like one, like one or two chain operated like leg machines.
Speaker 1:The one yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like all older shit like that and they have like the round dumbbells Like it's really cool man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that, that old school feel, and nothing beats the old school equipment. Man, the new shit sucks, man, they just it's like all the influencers on social media, you're just trying too hard bro.
Speaker 2:Generally. There's some machines that are like new where I've tried them and I'm like I definitely can't bench press 405 in real life. There's no way I should be able to be doing it on this machine you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:It's like false sense of hope. Yeah, and what are your favorite workout days? What splits have you seen that have been most effective for your body, and what do you least enjoy training?
Speaker 2:When I first started I used to do like the typical bro split like chest one day, back next day, and then like arms, then legs, then you know whatever.
Speaker 1:Which most of us do you upgrade?
Speaker 2:Then I transitioned into doing which is psychotic is push pull legs. So I would do like a full push workout. But here's the thing usually when people evolve into a push pull legs workout, they like scale down how many sets and reps that they will do for each body part, and I was not doing that okay. So I would literally spend like over two hours in the gym doing push, doing pull, doing legs. My leg workout is essentially still the same as it always was, but now I split it into four days where I do chest and shoulders. One day I do back, I do like a pull workout, like it's like back rear delts and like some type of like trap exercise, and then I will do legs and then I will do arms. And the only reason I split it up into four was because I felt like I was rushing through arms at the end of a push and pull workout that I wasn't getting enough. I saw like almost like a put a back pull in development for myself.
Speaker 2:What is my least favorite thing to train? I'm not even gonna say legs, because I've learned to love it, and especially now that I started like squatting a little bit heavier, like I feel good, man, I feel good. My least favorite thing to train is cardio. That's my least favorite thing to train. And I started running, which is psychotic in itself. Also, a couple of days a week I'll go out and I'll go run. Not fast I am not fast by any means but I'll go out and I'll run a couple of miles and it sucks for me the next day because my knees really hurt. My knees are fucked, but it feels good after the fact. But that is my least favorite.
Speaker 1:That was actually what helped me, because I always knew I needed to incorporate cardio back into my routine. And that's what helped me with OG Because, like going there, I was just like try out by fire. Here we are, like it's time to just go out and run on the assault runner, because you do it every fucking class. And then that transformed into like the Jiu-Jitsu for cardio, like that was another way of getting my expenditure and this and that, and then I started running up here. So a couple of times I was over the summer especially I would run from my apartment and I'd run all the way up Huntington Harbor and I'd run all the way down where all the yachts are in the marina and I wound up doing about six miles in an hour Like I was. I was doing pretty good man. I was like really fucking torching it.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I'm excited for the spring and summer. I'm not the guy that, like Tyler, will go run outside right now and do the run club on Sundays. It's too cold, I'm not running outside. It's so fun. I'm not that motivated to run. I will. I will go out when it's nice out and I get nice scenery and put my AirPods in and like really fucking hit it hard, but like I need to be like in that mood, like I really gotta wanna run.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, me too Same thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it's tough because then that goes back to like, ooh, be disciplined. It's like I'm disciplined, Fucking relax. I've got 40 pounds in under six months.
Speaker 2:I'm disciplined enough to know, to know what works for me and what doesn't. And it's not like I'm not gonna do other wild shit in that time. You know what I mean yeah.
Speaker 1:I've trained twice today and now this run is on top of it. I'm tired. Let me just get these reps in and call it a day. And then, obviously, one of the big things on weight loss journeys, and something that is mostly overlooked as being the hardest part, is nutrition, uh-huh. So I had a question of like what have you been able, what have you used to be able to sustain a healthy lifestyle, but you also have a healthy attitude with food still, cause you're still able to get pizza and enjoy food and not overdo it, and be able to keep yourself in balance and in check. So what has been like some of the tips and tricks of the trade?
Speaker 2:So here's the deal. When I first started, like I said, I didn't know very much about it. I was just using my fitness path to track, which, if you're out there and you're using my fitness path to track, this is the first step. Okay, you, we are sedentary mostly. Okay, don't put like you have a highly active lifestyle if you aren't like out there carrying roofing up to doing roofing every day or doing construction. That's number one. So, quite frankly, and even if you do put sedentary lifestyle, it will be a little bit low in calories. You should probably eat a little bit more, right? But that's how I started with my fitness pal. I was under eating, not eating the right things, and then I had to like manage it a little bit better. And what I do now and essentially this is what's gotten me the best results is I will eat a high protein diet. I will eat 250, 260 grams of protein throughout the day, at least. That's at least. And what do you currently weigh? I currently weigh 265. Okay, and this is like on, like the backend, this is like on the beginning. I don't want to even call it a cut, okay, but like, essentially, october, november, I take not off from really monitoring my nutrition hard. I just take a break. Yeah, Okay, so I will Mental reset, I will enjoy myself a little bit more and then, when you know November the end of November, beginning of December rolls around, I'll start coming back down. So but what I do nowadays it's so easy for me to stay disciplined at work because I'm prepping my meals I will literally eat almost no carbs dude from.
Speaker 2:For breakfast I'll have like eggs, whole foods, only supplement when necessary. Anybody who's listening to this. A supplement is called a supplement for a reason. You should be supplementing whatever is missing from your diet with that supplement. You shouldn't just be like I eat 14 shakes a day, like, okay, then you're on slim fast dude. You know what I mean. So I will have eggs, whole foods, whatever it is, even if it is like Hamburg meat, ground meat, steak, chicken, fish, whatever it is. That's what I'll eat and I was portioned it out for the day, so I'm getting at least like a certain, like over 40 grams of protein per meal per day. Then I'll go home, then I'll have dinner. Whatever my wife made for dinner, it will usually be a healthy option, whether it be like turkey meatballs turkey meatballs is big in my house. So let's just say that Turkey meatballs should make some pasta. I will have a little bit of pasta, nothing crazy, and then I essentially that'll be like my only like carb heavy meal. Maybe I'll have some rice cakes or some peanut butter for dessert if I want to enjoy something, and then I will.
Speaker 2:I essentially save up whatever I want like calorically for a heavy calorie meal at the end of the week. Sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't, but that's just so I can keep that balance where I'm not going nuts. This is why when people are like, oh my God, you can eat pizza, this is bullshit, like no dude, it's cause I save those calories throughout the week so I can have that thing. And this is what I want to impart on everybody out there. Listening is that's what I do. Like I know, nick, you're big into fasting, doing all this other stuff. Yo, that's great too.
Speaker 2:And I on social media these days we get so caught up in like what one person is saying to you that you want to join whatever cult they're trying to preach to you. And here's the truth everything fucking works. It just works in a different way. You have to figure out what works for you specifically to maintain your nutrition, to maintain your diet and get the result that you're looking for. Because if you are not getting that result that you're looking for from whatever this person that you're listening to, then it's not working for you. You gotta, like, move on from something else. We see these people in the gym all the time. They've been there for five years. They look exactly the same, exactly the same. It's crazy. No results, but they just keep on doing the same thing, like you should try doing something else.
Speaker 2:And I say that to everybody. When people come to me, they're like oh well, I do intermittent fasting Cool, dude, we'll work around your intermittent fasting. Oh, I don't eat this, I don't eat carbs Okay, well, we'll work around this. Or I'm a vegan Okay, cool, we'll work around this. I mean, vegan comes with its own set of issues, but I don't give a fuck. I will help you with whatever. You can. Just know that if you're not getting the results that you want, stop doing that thing and try something else. Don't be married and this is why I have this hoodie on. This is my favorite hoodie. Nobody knows anything, because everybody will complain. They'll say that they're an expert in shit and they don't know shit. They don't know anything. You know what I mean. Me neither. I will be the first person to tell you, even now, what I just said up this whole podcast. I don't know anything. If you don't want to listen to me, don't?
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, yeah, click next yeah yeah. Click that little arrow. Yeah it's. I think everybody just needs to be able to experiment, because it just takes time and I just kind of fell into the fast thing.
Speaker 1:I don't do it every day. I tell people all the time I don't do it every day, but maybe a couple of times a week. I'll do it here and there. I'll fast for an 18 hour window or I'll just happen to just be like, yeah, I feel good, I'll just do 24 today and I'll just do 24 hours. You should join, tyler and I.
Speaker 2:We have I know day after Christmas right.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah, come on man.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I could do it, man.
Speaker 1:You could do it.
Speaker 2:You never see those. Remember those old commercials like have a Snickers you know yourself, You'll be okay.
Speaker 1:Bro, that is me, You'll be okay, we're gonna get you. We'll get you some element. You get some electrolytes.
Speaker 2:I could only do it if I am at work because I don't want to wind up divorced. You know, I'm telling you you'll be good.
Speaker 1:It's crazy. I'll tell you what, truth be told, you should do a 24 hour before then just to see how you feel, because the 24 hours man, I could keep going. I feel after 24 hours I'm just like what I'm like I don't even want food right now.
Speaker 2:A lot of people say that they have a problem like after hour 36, it's like, that's where, like.
Speaker 1:That's where you start getting your demons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's where you started.
Speaker 1:Hey, that's where we started figuring it out last way that we haven't done a podcast yet. We were supposed to do it last week. Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1:We were supposed to do it right after yours and then I was not feeling well, so we're gonna do it in this week to just talk about just some of the stuff you know, slowly integrating food back in, because you can't just like, oh, I finished my 48 hour fest, let me go ahead and get a cheeseburger. It's like no, you gotta like drink some bone broth. Chill out like just get your stomach acclimated again to eating, because there's like a reverse process that has to come into effect. But like it's weird, because I've never experienced my stomach empty Empty. You feel like your stomach's like flat against itself, like you just did nothing in there. It's like wow.
Speaker 1:But then you look in the mirror and you start tightening up. I mean, we get like assholes on Thanksgiving to be able to like do a fast for 48 hours and then all of a sudden you're bounced back and you're totally fine. You don't look at yourself. He's like whoa, what's this magic? It's like crazy guy. I have one cheat meal back when I was bodybuilding and I'm fucked for three days Like I was crazy.
Speaker 1:But now it's like I can fast after my cheat meal for 24 hours and I was like, oh, it didn't even happen. It's like weird. My body just like recovered. The insulin wasn't a problem, it just dropped down and it's pretty cool. So if you decide that you want to join us, it's whatever. Your last meal on Christmas Day is 48 hours. Okay, I'll let you know.
Speaker 1:So you get to eat Christmas Eve, you get to eat Christmas Day, get your desserts, get whatever you want in. But we're doing that. We're doing that microbiome fucking reset and all that stuff. Just, we're going coffee, black coffee, water and element shouts to element. Oh, hey, listen, if you want to fucking loud, italian, sponsor me. I'm cool with it. I drink a lot of element. They're not cheap but they're good. So I'm happy to continue pushing them. I'll put a little box right there next to Goku in his little ultra instinct form. But I want to get into and start rapping, and then I want to get into your book as well. But your role with the NYPD you transitioned into a more health and wellness role in teaching officers and doing these speeches, and what would you classify it as? Is it just health and wellness of just teaching people how to do better.
Speaker 2:Health and wellness is the section that I work in, but my main function in what I do there now is I teach resilience, so people when they think of mental health or they think of suicide and they think of all these things, it's there's three levels to it. There's prevention well, there's awareness spreading, which is just like letting people know that these resources exist. But then there's prevention, intervention and postvention. Prevention is like teaching people how to use tactics in their own lives that develop good coping mechanisms so it doesn't become a problem. Because when it becomes a problem and you get severely depressed or you become severely anxious or you become suicidal, now that's intervention, where somebody has to come in and tell you or you tell yourself that you need more than just those tactics that have been working before. So that's intervention, like maybe like post suicide attempt or you were thinking about suicide. And then there's postvention, which is like after you make those things, making sure you check up on treatment, making sure you're okay, whether it be like whatever it is, the problem is in every culture, in everything this isn't just as in first responders we skip that prevention part so much in teaching people daily habits that they can do before they get to that point of crisis that can actually de-stress them, make their lives better, enhance their lives outside the career.
Speaker 2:Like when I teach these classes. I don't teach it as a standpoint, because a lot of trainings, unfortunately, it's like oh well, the job wants us to teach this. Like, no, I came up with this training on my own, based on the things that I do, based on my certifications of being an FBI National Academy resilience instructor. I teach these things on their personal life and how it's gonna make them a better person outside this job. Because I don't. Great, you're a better cop, cool, great. But if you're not effective at home, if you're not effective to yourself, I don't. Who cares? Who cares about any of that stuff? So that's mainly what I teach them.
Speaker 2:I teach them about self-awareness, physical fitness, nutrition, spirituality right, I'm not even talking about listen. If you're a religious person, that's great, but there's many people who aren't and that's where, like all that meditation and stuff, you know nature. Nature's another way to become spiritual. That's like that's my number one thing getting out of nature and all these things, all these tactics, all these things that you should be practicing every single day. You don't have to practice every single one of them, but find things in those things that will benefit you and cause you to not be susceptible to those negative coping mechanisms.
Speaker 2:So that's the main piece that I teach and I also do other stuff there, obviously, like I do one-on-one fitness nutrition counseling for anybody out there who's in the NYPD. I write free 100% free fitness and nutrition plans for every single member of the New York City Police Department that requests one from me and I give it to them. Okay, it's a basic fitness nutrition plan. I will send you a list of like 20 or 30 questions based on whatever your lifestyle is, you send me back the answers and I will build you a program, a basic program. I'm not gonna follow you and hold your hand, that'll be impossible but I will give you a basic place to get started, and I do that for every single member of the department.
Speaker 1:It's amazing. Thanks, and what do you see as the biggest opportunities with these roles that you're introducing to a lot of people? I'm just able to spread these practices.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm just able to spread these practices and spread this knowledge Cause I think that sometimes at the end of my presentation I show this famous video. It's a video where it's a man and a woman and they're on this escalator right and this escalator just stops right and both of them panic and they're like somebody help us, we're stuck on an escalator right. Meanwhile, if you know anything about an escalator, you just walk escalator stairs. Dude, just walk up. But this is such real life. People laugh at this video and you just did mental laugh at it because I meant to be at the end. I go listen. This is us Like we forget that we've had these skills the whole entire time to be able to walk up those stairs and that an escalator just becomes stairs. We just stop using these things and we need to start using these things more.
Speaker 1:Max, let's get into the projects that you have currently. So you handed me a Grateful as Fuck a daily gratitude workbook by Mr Aaron Lohm, and you also handed me the journal for people that hate journaling. What were the inspirations behind this project?
Speaker 2:So journaling has always been, or practicing gratitude has always been, one of the biggest things. That's helped me change my whole mind and outlook about life looking for the positive, finding good things that happened during the day. And the reason I created both of those things is because, for some reason, even if you've opened up the journal at hate journal hate journaling right, I'll show you the first page here. It says it says journaling may sound pretty lame, but here's some people that have used it to help them, and this is just a list of people that are in pop culture or throughout history that have used journaling in their life to get better and like, for some reason, it's looked at like this soft practice. But there's people like Thomas Edison, benjamin Franklin, like you know, david Goggins is on here, jacques Wilink is on here. Like, these people use journaling in their own life and it's just looked at like this soft practice. It's not. It's just a way for you to reflect on your own thoughts. So I put quotes in here from every single one of those people to reflect on, and also I have prompts in here just to practice gratitude. Some of them are funny, you know. Some of them are like little sketches. Yeah, draw a bad drawing of a school bus. Right, you've got a school bus. Why would I draw that? Because I guarantee you me even saying draw a picture of a school bus.
Speaker 2:You just had a memory, whether you realize it or not, of you going to school on a school bus. That was a good memory right Now. That just jogged your memory. Now you're thinking about that, something that happened in your life that was good. So that was this one. The grateful AF one is just essentially journal prompts. Every single day you write down something that you did, something good that you did, your positive thoughts, something you're looking forward to, and then in the morning you're supposed to like reread it to start your day. So you remember the things that you're grateful for. So you start your day on a positive note, as opposed to doing what we always do is just grab our phones, scroll through social media, find something that pissed us off and then it ruins our whole day. So that's this part. And then I have a kid's one that I didn't bring in, but it's a deal.
Speaker 1:That's okay. Kenji doesn't like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I talked about it already. It's just, it's made for kids. It's very easy. Journal prompts for kids hey, something good happened to you, what made you feel loved today? And then they draw a picture of that. The book is called my Happy Place, so it's like the first art prompt is draw a picture of my happy place. So they draw a picture of the happy place. It's meant to make them feel happy and more grateful.
Speaker 1:Super important for younger kids especially to have that outlet, because there's just so many emotions as they grow up, as they're going through biological, chemical changes, and to be able to have these outlets. It's important and it also increases their brain capacity as well. They are able to then articulate themselves better and think through situations and it just creates smarter, more in tune little humans that are going to be big humans one day. What was the inspiration for the kids especially?
Speaker 2:I just it's things that practice with my kids, so as learning gratitude, if those of you who have kids out there, you'll get it. When your kid get off school, you're like oh, how is school today Good? What happened? Nothing, right.
Speaker 2:I still don't like to my mom, so I started flipping it and using my own gratitude practices on them. So what I'll do is like, hey, what's something good that happened to you today? They have an answer for that. They will have an answer for that, as opposed to just being like an open-ended question. So it's like, hey, you know what? I've been doing this to my kids for so long? Why don't I turn this into a practice that kids can do, either on their own or their parents can do the workbook with them.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Or even if you're a parent who likes to draw, or an adult that likes to draw, you can do the kids book too. It's just meant for kids. Literally anybody could use it, and you should be doing it together. This way, you know, you can have an idea of what they're grateful for, or even what's going on in their life. You know what I mean, which is huge. Oh my God. So many parents don't even know what's going on in their kids' lives, because they asked that question what happened today? Nothing, and then they leave it there. There's so much more going on in their kids' lives. It's insane. It's just a good way for people to reflect. People really need to reflect on the good things. There's so much negative out there if you look for it, but there's also a lot of good out there if you look for it too, and we need to focus on that.
Speaker 2:Has life been? Oh, life's been awesome, stressful, you know like stressful stuff. I have another project coming out soon, but I have that book too. There's a new book. No, this is the original book. This is the original book that came out last year. It's called Starting Over. Right Now people think this is an autobiography.
Speaker 1:Is this the picture I took. It is a picture. Yeah, I fucking love that.
Speaker 2:It's awesome. So people think this is an autobiography. It is not. There's like a little bit of autobiographical piece about me and my journey on there. But the truth about the book is it is a total guide on how to fix bad habits, or like, at least examine your habits that you have, whether it be mental. It teaches you about, like, cognitive behavioral therapy tactics, why lifting weights is important, why water is important, why and you know, like all these things, all these, all this like why working out is important, why physical exercise is important, how it affects your brain, right. So mental habits. And then the second half of the book is 30 recipes that I've used throughout my journey that are very easy to make, that you can make on your own and get healthy and kickstart your health.
Speaker 1:By the way, I like that A 30 minute workout is 2% of your day and then, for your information, if you watch two hours of Netflix, it's 8% of your day.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's right, and you can work out why you watch Netflix. I don't know why you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it puts into perspective. It's dope bro, thank you very much. Cheeseburger in a jar fire.
Speaker 2:Oh, the best Fire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, such an easy meal to make, I've had to get rid of dairy, though Dairy's been ripping.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, you said.
Speaker 1:Ripping my stomach apart. I don't do it. My mom, I had the fishula the anal fishula surgery.
Speaker 1:I had two surgeries for that and then the scar started hurting again recently and I was like, oh don't, I'm like I'm not doing this again, I'm not doing this. And I just went to the colorectal surgeon this past week. He's like dude, you're good, there's nothing back here. I'm like dog. Well, I'm like, well, why are you back there? I'm like I'm telling you, man, it hurts. He just says I think it's the scar tissue and this, and that I find that when I eat more dairy or I eat like these palm crisps, that I fucking love these little. I know what they are, yeah, and they're just like one ingredient they're perfect.
Speaker 1:I find that I have to go to the bathroom more times in a day than if I just like, have my fiber, eat my meat like the rice and this and that, and then, because I'm going more frequently, it starts getting tender again. So I think I have like an IBD. My mom's got colitis, so it makes sense to be honest with you.
Speaker 2:So what's funny is like I don't have colitis or I don't have a gluten allergy or anything like that. But people who are listening when I said that I maintain a relatively low carb diet during the week. One of the main reasons is that, like, my gastrointestinal tract gets severely inflamed if I eat too much bread Like, oh really.
Speaker 2:So the bread's the trigger for you, I have no, and I get swung, I get dude. I get so swollen Like if I were to go home right now and eat and people think I'm lying when I tell them this I need a very calorie, like a cheat meal, like very calorie dense. Let's say I was going to go home and have three slices of pizza and maybe like a couple beers Tomorrow when I woke up I would get on the scale and I'd be up 12 pounds, 12. 12 pounds, dude. No, I intake so much water and stuff. It's absolutely insane.
Speaker 2:So when I tell people that people are like no way, that's impossible. I'm like, no, dude, I'm telling you it's absurd. So that's why I maintain a relatively low carb diet throughout the week to almost like. Listen, I don't know the science, I'm not like Lane Norton and I don't know any of this stuff. You know what I mean Like. But I just know and this is why I don't preach any specific type of diet ideology is because I know that there's a huge difference between like what may be scientifically sound and proven via research and what makes people feel better and feel their best.
Speaker 1:So there should be a balance of both. Yeah, you have to just balance it out. I mean, for me I work better off animal based, me too, when I have dude. I had a ribeye last night with white rice, I felt great. This morning I woke up tighter, I felt great, this and that. Normally you know people would be hesitant to have a full fucking ribeye and not weigh it. I didn't care. Like I track my macros, but once I get to a certain point in the day I just kind of stop tracking. I'm just like whatever, like I'm good. But I do feel better. And the issue comes into play of the iron now because I eat a lot of red meat. So it's just like all right. So maybe I just got to donate every three, four months, whatever. Like I'll do that because I feel better eating that versus chicken. I don't feel good when I eat chicken. I just I feel like drained out. It's a little bit different, for sure. When I eat red meat.
Speaker 2:I feel good, he's not a fan of it. Dude, he needs a little bit of a fat dude.
Speaker 1:Well, panetti likes eating turkey. Now, I can't do the turkey. He says he found organic turkey. I'm just like I don't know if that's what we're going to get is. So it's just, it's tough and I'm not going to go by the fucking food pyramid, that's for sure. So you know, if I want to do that, I just I'd be poisoned and have to have every you know diagnosis under the book and within 10 years. So I'm good on that.
Speaker 2:Oh, you mean farmers who created grain were corrupt and could make it a pyramid. How would that happen? Why would that be a thing?
Speaker 1:Why is the health of fitness industry so corrupt? Why is? Why is fat demonized? I thought it makes you fat and it gives you swollen arteries. It's like nah bro, just shut the fuck up. I eat six whole eggs every single morning. I eat six whole eggs, and then I eat steaks and meat throughout the entire day. I'm doing okay, Yep, Doing great. Anything else you want to comment on?
Speaker 2:No man, I'm good man, I just appreciate you. I just want to say like, dude, like I'm inspired watching you do like your craft, bro, like for real, like I always have been. I always tell you that, like you know, when it was just like photos and videos and like stuff, like, legitimately, the market is so oversaturated with the same shit over and over again, and like to see you do this, what you do is just so different and like you're a real person who's like genuinely putting themselves out there and creating this content. And I know, like this podcast is probably a headache for you to create and you're not making money off of it. At least I don't think you are right, I'm not making money, I'm just getting such good shit that like I just want to say that, like seeing that is inspiring to me. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:It means a lot because, like listen, just like anybody else, there's doubts every now, and then you're just sitting here like, okay, well, the audio views are down but the YouTube views are way up, so it's like all right. Well, I guess that's the new thing and you have to just keep going Like, well, how many episodes do I do before I start like looking at it, going, all right, when are we going to make a little bit of money? Like when is it going to turn up? And you just kind of go, all right, man, whatever, just keep, stick with the process, just have fun.
Speaker 1:And the real reason I started was because I just it wasn't to be a billionaire, it was just because I wanted to talk to my friends and talk to good people and learn about their lives and learn about the changes and the things that they're doing in other people's lives, because it helps people that get to listen. So, yeah, it's just about staying the course and I appreciate you for always being supportive and throwing up the stories and try, man, you know, you do, you don't try, you do it, you do it and I appreciate it and it doesn't go unnoticed and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:I did want to end on a Marcus Aurelius quote that I saw in his meditation's book. That that was pretty cool. I've been flipping through it. I haven't started it. It's kind of like a fucking five year old speaking in this book. It's kind of crazy. I don't know if it's just because of like the time difference, of like when it was like him journaling things back then, but it's pretty interesting to like hear certain things that he had to say.
Speaker 2:It's probably a very rough translation.
Speaker 1:It's a rough translation. Yeah yeah, our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces, to what, to what is possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues its own aim as circumstances allow. It turns obstacles into fuel as a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp, what's thrown on top of the conflict conflagration, is absorbed, consumed by it, and it makes it burn still higher. So, fueling yourself, fueling your passions, that's what I got out of it Just taking obstacles and learning and creating things from them. Super interesting to me and I. You know that's life and that's what that's. The journey that we're all on is just being able to take these challenges, take everyday life, and just become better.
Speaker 2:Not only that, man Like if you don't do it on your own, everything will become a challenge, even microscopic, stupid things that should not become a challenge. And then you look for conflict absolutely everywhere, and that will just become. You know, your entire identity, entire personality is just being triggered by everything you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't want to. I don't want to live like that, and I know you don't either. Absolutely not. How can people check you out, get a hold of you? My Instagram. They don't know you, but they should know you.
Speaker 2:My name's Aaron Lohman. Hey now. Hey, aaron. But Instagram huge h, u, g, e, underscore fat, f, a, t, underscore loser. And then I still tough for me to say that, by the way, I know it's still tough. It's too late to change, though.
Speaker 1:No, no, you can't get, can't get rid of it.
Speaker 2:Nope, it was a time period where I was going to change. It Was there yeah. I didn't do it, but yeah, that's it. And then TikTok Instagram. You keep it fluid throughout the time. I'm on everything. So LinkedIn, aaron Lohman, linkedin sucks. It's the f, a kest form of social media.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, everyone fake, jerking each other off on there. Oh dude, it's, it's the worst. That's why I don't even use it. I'm like okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I joined it and I was, like you know, just to like put myself out there for the business world. But, like, let me tell you something, it's mostly it's just people hiding behind headshots and degrees who really don't know that much shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no life experience and it's just a bunch of corporate douches just jerking each other. I can't stand it. I really don't like LinkedIn. Anyway, episode 78 with my brother, Aaron Lohman. I appreciate you for coming down, taking the time to chop it up. All you guys listening.
Speaker 1:I hope you guys got a laundry list of things from this episode because it was fucking amazing. He gave out gems and you know. Share it with people that you know can use the information, because there are definitely at least four or five people in each person. I did check the stats. I always laugh whenever I check the YouTube stats from other podcasters, like Badger. Those know these guys. It's pretty accurate. Like my, numbers were like 70% of the people that watch aren't subscribed. So I find that credit and it was a lot of people say anywhere from 60 to 60 to 80% of the people that watch their show, even if they have 100,000, 200,000 views, millions, they're not subscribed. So please subscribe. Please like the episode. It helps the algorithm. It helps get me to reach out and speak to other people. Amazing humans like Aaron. Share it. It helps. It really does. The algorithm loves when everyone interacts. Comment. Just do the whole nine if you can. I appreciate it. On that note, I also appreciate y'all for fucking with us.