#118 | Vinny & Laila Orlando |

Join Nick as he chats with guests Vinny and Laila Orlando about overcoming health challenges, marathon training, and the balance between strength and cardio. They delve into Vinny's inspirational story of running for cancer awareness, share personal anecdotes, and discuss the importance of family and community support. Plus, they explore hygiene in sports, marathon experiences, and navigating life changes with a touch of humor and heart.

Vinny's Instagram
Lailas Instagram

Chapters

• 0:00 Staph, fungal infections often remain undetected.
• 14:12 Crises can ultimately lead to resilience.
• 19:10 Policies erode society; prioritize experienced leadership.
• 27:29 Family support and foundation are essential.
• 45:59 Emphasizing identity issues can increase resistance.
• 48:57 News overload fosters negativity.
• 1:02:36 Strength training is vital for marathon runners.
• 1:10:54 RFK plans to eliminate fluoride from water.
• 1:13:42 Consider dietary changes and spring water benefits.
• 1:25:09 Conversations and mistakes drive essential growth.
• 1:29:50 Warm-up is key to maximizing workout benefits.
• 1:41:30 Healthcare privatization rising due to public distrust.

Transcript

0:00

Did not know that he had pneumonia. Yeah. What happened? When was that? Microplasma pneumonia. Oh, you did say that you went home for a couple of days. They said, go back to teaching. You're not going to get sick. And we get sick, you know, Microplasma pneumonia. Thanks for the Z pack. And what's the other medicine we had? How often do you take a Z pack? It was five days. Five days. Z pack. Mucinex. It wasn't like the Z pack, though, that, like, you know, you take like, eight tablets when you get home. It was like, one a day. Okay, that's good. I don't take antibiotics ever. I don't really take medicine. So when I. When I had staph, that shit got knocked. Oh, yeah, I didn't tell you that. Yeah, I had staph in my beard. Here I was, my brute. My beard was burning like, what the fuck is going on? I had no idea what was going on. How'd it feel? Bernie and itchy. Bernie and itchy and. Yeah, honestly. And so I shaved because I wanted to see what was going on. Cause I had ringworm a couple of times the couple of months leading up to that. And I looked in the mirror and I went, huh. Kind of looks like ringworm, but okay. So I stopped going to Jiu Jitsu, and I started just lathering on Lotrimin, because that's what you have to do on the ringworm, because it kills it after. Once you treat it for. I think it's three or four days. Once you treat it. I'm looking at him because he lays down every single time, and then he kicks the tripods without fail. Why is your foot always on the tripod? Hi, baby. He just wants some loving, baby. Yes. Be a lion there. There he is. So after, like, four days, you're not contagious anymore, but you still want to apply and then go back once it's gone. Yeah. So I was just applying it like cake on my face two, three times a day, and then I moved. And then as I'm in the process of moving, it's just. It's like getting flaky and crusty. Wasn't good. Just wasn't. Wasn't. Wasn't a good situation. So I went to the dermatologist, and he didn't even want to touch my beard. No. I'm like, come on, bro. Put a glove on. Just touch it. He's just like. He's like, yeah, no, no, it looks a little like staff. I go, come on, bro. Just put a Glove on be, man. Like, get in there. Touch the staff. I want to. I'm paying this down. Pay this co. Pay down payment. I'm paying this copay. It feels like a down payment. How much is it? I'm like, please, bro. Just, like, touch it, Touch it. So he. Yeah, he wouldn't touch it, but not the first one. But anyway, so, yeah, so then. So then I had to take a antifungal pill, which is hard on the liver. Evidently, he said it wasn't. I'm like another doctor that just says, nah, nah, you'll be all right. Take this. Yeah, take it. We rarely see that side effect, but online, the forms are like, no, I hurt my liver. Isn't that. So I took the antifungal, and then I took an antibiotic for the staph. But because I never take anything like that, it was cleared up three days, it was gone. My beard was clear. Holy shit. No more flakes. Nothing. It was great. I was getting nervous, man. It was getting creepy. From jiu jitsu. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just rolling around all the time. Yeah. I mean, you know, unfortunately, staph and these fungal infections can live on your skin for 10 days. They could take to, like, actually happen. So sometimes you don't even know. You think that it's from the night before when you rolled with somebody, and it's like, it could have been a week ago. You have no idea. And unfortunately, a lot of people are covered up unless you do no gi, which is just the rash guards. But a lot of people are covered up in the gi, so sometimes they don't even see if they have a little spot of ringworm on the back of their arm unless somebody goes, yeah, yo, get that checked out. You know? So it sucks sometimes, but that comes with the territory of what it is, you know, everyone's got their own. Their own issues inside of their respective sports. With baseball, I mean, it was just. Everyone had their own equipment, so there wasn't really anything like that. Own bags. And that was it. I mean, we had our gloves college provided, obviously, bats and all that stuff. Helmets. So we did share stuff like that. But no, for the most part, I mean, we had our own stuff. Hockey, I could imagine. Hockey's disgusting. I feel like. I feel like. I feel like the hockey funk jumps bag to bag in the locker room when they're out playing. It's just like the funk manifests in the center, and it just goes back to all different bags. Like, I'm gonna go home with this guy. I'm gonna Go home with this one. Growing up, my cousin Matt played hockey, and he. He played, like, what was equivalent to, like, independent baseball, but he would travel all the time. And I remember we'd go over for holidays or just go out to hang out with him. Anytime we were in the garage, it would stink. And I'm like, what is that smell? He goes, it's my goalie gear. And he was a goalie, and I was like, what the heck is this smell? My guy. He goes, yeah, this is it. I was like, do you clean it? He goes, yeah, that is cleaned. I was like, whoa. That was like, the paintball stuff. Yeah, that was, like, some of the paintball gear. If you didn't clean the paintball gear, the paint would just get funky, and then on top of it, sweat and everything that's already, like, in there. So I'm actually genuinely shocked. I never got any type of an infection from that stuff. But what about softball now? Right? Same thing with baseball. Same thing. It was. I feel like we were in middle school, high school, all of us. I guess when, like, MRSA broke out for the first time, everyone was freaked out about that in the locker room, but that was it. I mean, nothing. We had our own stuff. Yeah, yeah. And you're not, like, trapped in equipment sweating, you know, like you can breathe. Sharing funk. Yeah, yeah. Sharing funk. Yep. The longest. I mean, the longest piece of equipment you have is your glove, and then you're washing your uniforms. Short period of time, you have a helmet on. Yeah, well, that was one of the big problems with me when I had my last apartment is I had no washer dryer in there. And because it's like a ticking time bomb, you have to. If you put the gear. Same with the hockey. If you put the gear away and you don't clean it instantly, it starts to roll over after days, and then the funk bakes in. So there was a couple of times where I had rash guards that you clean it and it smells perfect, like, clean as hell. The second you start rolling and sweating in it again, that original funk smell starts coming out, and you go, oh, that's me. That's the rash guard. So the secret. If anybody's listening that doesn't know the secret. Johnny shouts to Johnny, black belt. Johnny at the front desk. Shout out to Johnny at the front desk. He's a beast. Yeah. Johnny at the front desk and on the mats, beating everybody up. Yep, yep. He told me, you want to get a big container, drum, whatever. I got the yeti that you use for baseballs. For pitching practice. So I got one of those. And you get a bottle of Odoban and you put a quarter full of Audubon and then fill the rest with water. And you dump anything that stinks in there. And you put a lid on it for two, three days, and you just let it marinate. And what it does is it. It actually eats away the organic material that's causing the smell. So it eats all that away. Then you put it in the washer. Done. Funk. Be gone. Doing that with our workout clothes when you get home. The problem is, though, maybe you only want to do it for like, 12 to 24 hours. The longer you leave that in there, the more you're getting that Goodwill Odoban smell. So it's not the vibe. It's not the vibe always. No. I like a nice lavender, even though it's probably endocrine disrupting. But I like a nice lavender or something, you know, like, let me live, damn it. I just want to. I want to just smell like a fresh meadow every now and then. I want that Christmas vanilla flavor, you know, that'd be. There's a Christmas vanilla detergent. Yeah. It has to be. Somebody has to make it. Is there? No. That's what you want. I want it. You want your clothes to smell like. Christmas, like, right this second, right now. Christmas vanilla. Christmas vanilla. Or maybe it's like sugar cookie. Maybe one of them. Do they have it? Buff City came out with Christmas scents. Well, that's what I'm talking about. Buff City. Where's Buff City? It's a soap company. They're good. And I also want to add, every apartment in Charlotte has a washer and dryer, so just. Oh, he's just already started trying to get me to relocate still. He's trying to get me. I've been trying to get this guy down Charlotte. Y'all don't need another New Yorker down there. We do. I mean, you don't. Yeah, but you're a different breed, brother. You're a different breed. You are. That's true. You know, I want to go see Gladiator 2, but while when I'm watching it, I'm probably going to think about you the whole time. Me? Yeah. I think that's. You like being dad in Charlotte, brother. Need that. Where is this going? Yeah, I got it. Nick. Coming to Charlotte. Come to Charlotte and we'll go see Gladiator 2. You to build the Coliseum. And then we'll go train at. Yeah, and then we'll go look at apartments. Listen, I Have told you. I know, I know. He probably sends them to you five times a week. You know, he stopped. He stopped because he stopped because I stopped answering. It's not because I didn't want to answer. I just, like, I would just see a message from Vinnie and I'm like, all right, it's either apartments, it's either an apartment, or it's a question about working out or just saying what's up? And I'd look and it'd be. It would just be an apartment link. And I'd literally go like this. All right, I got to get back to Ed. On to the next. I gotta get back to editing. So, yeah, I think I signed for two years, three years at my current spot. I don't know. He's gonna put it on the calendar. That's fine. I'm putting it on the calendar. Listen, at some point. No, I know at some point, and I've said this to mom, I've said this to a lot of people. At some point, if Long island is not the scene anymore, which it's shown that it is not in a lot of ways, if it has shown that it's not the scene anymore, I'm. I'm more than willing to look other places. However, I got to go somewhere that I can make money until I'm, you know, I'm making money doing this or something else that's more passive. That like, it just makes me money when I just put content out and do things I can't. I got to be where the money is. And right now the money is up here. And no, I agree. All my, all my local businesses, it's tough, man. When you have a very large overhead. You have a large overhead. And you know, we could talk about this on the business side of things for offices, because listen, I mean, I couldn't fit all of this in my apartment. Even in a two bedroom, three bedroom would still be stretching it. I just, I couldn't. And I would like to downsize in a certain way, but at the same time, does downsizing also mean that I'm going to be more stuck in my. My ways of being small versus like, oh, you have an office space. At some point I'd like to put somebody over there so they can edit while I'm out at shoots or whatnot. So it just, it becomes a. It just becomes a. There's no right answer. There's no wrong answer. You just have to figure out what kind of works in the moment that you're doing it. And timing is a Big piece to that, too. Like, whatever step of life that you're in, it's gonna cater you to one direction or the other. I mean, we talk about it all the time. And I think I just had this conversation with family. They were over on. Was it Thursday? Thursday night? Friday. Friday. Friday night. And I was just saying, like, growing up on Long island, it was Long island or nowhere. And then all of a sudden, you obviously meet somebody or something happens in life and you take a chance. And here we are, you know, obviously living down in South Carolina now. But for sure. I mean, I'm with you, man. You're in North Carolina. I know it's a stone strike. I know it's. What do we call it? We call it a. An extension. Charlotte. Extension of Charlotte, man. It's right there for sure. But, yeah, everything's getting expensive now. But that's the thing. And that was one of the big reasons that people would relocate wasn't necessarily because they just hated where they were from. I mean, there's plenty of people that talk shit about where they're from. And you. You see it all the time. It's like, there are people that live in North Carolina, like, fuck this place. I'm going to move to New York. And it's like, yeah, okay. You know, but then we're up here, and we live here our whole lives. Like, fuck this place. We want to move there. So it used to be more so on the. On the thought process of, well, if I move down south or I move to these other places that have, you know, just a better means to provide and afford things and be able to buy a house. But I mean, you look around and. The prices are just not grocery prices or grocery prices. And you know what grocery prices are? Grocery prices on top of, like, the real estate used to be something that was of appealing nature. And I mean, I look at Florida all the time. Florida used to be somewhere that I really could see potentially going. I couldn't. I couldn't imagine. I couldn't imagine it. I couldn't imagine because it's too humid, all the natural disasters. Now it's heartbreaking to live there. Dude, I'm not throwing all my money into a house. And then, you know, the flood insurance isn't covered the right way, or there wasn't a right T and crossed and a dot here and. Oh, because that wasn't submitted four hours before, it's like, well, fuck you. I just. If a tree's not touching your house, it could touch your property, could break whatever you have on your property, but if it doesn't touch your house, insurance doesn't cover it. No, it's insane. It's ridiculous. Insane. It's ridiculous. And then you still have to pay your mortgage on your house that was destroyed and is no longer standing. Yeah. So what do you do? You know, I can't. I can't drive to work because there's no. There's no work anymore. Can't drive to work. I have. I only have X amount of dollars in the insurance that's going to pay for what just was damaged, ravished by natural disasters. And now I'm in a position where I have to figure things out. Do I stay? Do I go somewhere else? Where is there safer? In Florida? You know, my boy Jeff keeps trying to get me to move down to Florida. I stall still in Orlando. Is he doing the relay? Is it. Listen, Brandon Stahl, I have it. I have it now. It's time to make the move. It's. It's happening at his time. There's a trend of Vinny trying to get everyone to Charlotte. I know no matter where they're at. Charlotte does not want it to get more New York. So. Well, we've seen it with the tornado or it was tornadoes and flooding from the hurricane that went through Asheville in the North Carolina mountains. I mean, like our traffic has gotten so much worse since then because people, they don't have jobs anymore in Asheville. So whether their house is still okay or not, they're having to move to Charlotte. Yeah. Oh, is that what's happening? So they uptick in Charlotte. New renters, new tenants of my rental property. Asheville took away their business. Like where the. Neil is his name, his company was. Is just gone. It's gone. So they uprooted to Charlotte, found my house, and here we are, you know, here they are setting up a new life in Charlotte. And so what are they doing now? They have. They found a job. They have a baby now. So they were just like, we got to get out of here. So, yeah, they moved. You have to provide for yourself and your family. I mean, not scary. It's scary shit. I've always. My biggest issue in life has always been I need to know what's coming. I hate, I hate not knowing. And unfortunately, especially when you're an entrepreneur, you just. You'd never know. Like, things could be astronomically amazing or the next day everything could hit the. The could hit the fan and it's over. Like in, in, in, you know, layman's terms type of situation. And it's never over until you actually deem it like it's. It's not recoverable. But, you know, everything has the ability to come back better, stronger, and in different pivoting motions. But a lot of times it's tough, you know, there's a lot of days where you wake up and you're just like, fuck. It's like. It's like another uphill battle. They finally just got electricity, but they're setting up new pipelines, right, for better water and stuff like that. Water infrastructure was completely wiped out. So having to rebuild pipes and then you have to run it for X amount of days so that it's safe to drink and safe to use. I mean, crazy. And the betterment of it, like, to the. The people coming together of Charlotte, I mean, it was beautiful to see. I just shout out Glory Days clothing company right in Charlotte. They raised $30,000. I mean, upwards of $35,000 just on t shirts and sweatshirts. And then we had. What was the name of the concert? It was Concert for Carolina. Yeah, Luke Combs, Eric Church. Like, some big country artists came together and they raised, what was it, $25 million. And all that money's going for support, you know. But, yeah, I mean, it's more than the country did to help out. No, for sure. I've been. I've been pretty outspoken about shit like that. It drives me nuts. And, you know, unfortunately, you get people that defend that type of situation, and when they defend it, they go, oh, well, you know, the budget is allocated that they're getting for other countries. The budget's allocated to give them that. It's like, why are we giving regardless? I don't care what budget. I don't know. I don't care what the fucking budget is. Why are we giving money to other countries when we, our people need it? Hawaii, Asheville, Florida, Tampa, like all these places, they need the money more currently. So we. I don't care if the budget allocates a trillion dollars for outside spending to other countries. First and foremost, Andy Frisella says it best. Unless our country looked like Dubai. And okay, some people listen to that and they'll go, well, he's built on slave labor. And it's like, okay, let's take all that shit out of it. Let's take any ethical, moral, whatever. Let's just say unless our country looks like Dubai, clean, safe to walk around. Like, it's just. It's. It's an awesome place. And if you haven't been there, it really. I felt Like, I could leave my camera gear, no. Lie outside the entire night and it would not have moved. That is how safe that place is now. The cultures and the people are very different. So you have to, as Andre Ferguson said, you have to shrink yourself sometimes because you're in their world. And there's a lot of people that travel and they don't understand that you're in their world. You're not in America anymore. So these freedoms that you either are for or against and pretend like you don't have, they're not the same now. So if you're outspoken or you curse in public, or you use drugs or this and that, that's. It doesn't fly in other places. You have to know where you're going and the laws that apply. Yeah, but we should not be doing any outside spending until our country is top, top tier, top notch prime time. And it is not, and it hasn't been for a long time. And we need to get back to a sense of. Just like, a sense of like, right after 9, 11 is really what we need to get back to. And that was what I felt yesterday running. It was. I'll get emotional. You know me. There were times I was getting teary, dyed. I mean, obviously hugging the support system when they were there. But running 26.2 miles with all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, people traveling all over the country to be a part of what we were doing yesterday, I mean, the support, when you saw people slowing down, hey, you got this. And they were like, I don't know, speak English. And then you're like, I must have said si se puede 100 times yesterday. You know, I must have said te amo to Italians, which is, I love you. You know, like, let's go. I mean, it was just. It was so beautiful to see. And then obviously getting to my parents at the end and Laila and all the support, that was their family. My sister, her boyfriend, my cousin Joey, and Matt Weiss. It was unbelievable. But to go back to what you were saying, to see New York City like that, I haven't seen that. And I can't even tell you how long. And I'm sure that's the only day during the year. Every New York City marathon, it is the same. And just to experience that, it was like, okay, I got a little hope for what's to come or what this country really is. But it's just a shame to see that politics can separate the true values of a human being. One of the issues that I've noticed over time is that we can't have conversations. And, and when you try to have a conversation with somebody in general, you know, if they're so far in the opposite direction of what you believe in, they just look at it as like, well, we're never going to get anywhere anyway. And they scream and yell or they shut down or they don't allow the conversation to happen and it becomes a real struggle point. You know, after 9, 11, nobody was black, white, anything. Everyone was just citizens of America. And it was awesome. Like we were all Americans. Like we all looked out for each other. You know, somebody needed to sit down on the bus, people were getting up this and that. And unfortunately, once you, once you have policies in place that really erode society from the inside out, you know, you're seeing a lot of that now. The things that are, the things that we're looking at now were things that were enacted 10 years ago, 12 years ago, not yesterday, not a week before, not anything like that. This is stuff that has happened and the people that have been put into place and slowly but surely that's really how you, that's how cancer works in the body. That's how it works in civilization too. So when it comes down to we have to get back to a place of like scrubbing, scrubbing everything, clean, cleaning house, getting the right people in play, and listen, everyone's going to believe that their person is the right person. I'm big on track records, so to me it's like if the track record ain't there, I don't know why we're having a conversation. So like that, that's kind of, that's kind of what. And if you don't understand why we're having a conversation, we'll inform you. But when we inform you, don't get crazy. Like just don't get crazy. I've sat with plenty of people that have opposite viewpoints of me and my biggest viewpoint is I fucking hate the government. I want them to stay out of my damn business. I can't stand them. They do nothing but overreach and take as much money as humanly possible. And because it's us and fuck you, nothing ever gets done on home soil. I have a problem with that. I don't care if you're Democrat, Republican. It does not matter to me if you are somebody that's backdooring shit, which, you know, there's a million of them. If you've got into public service and you are now a multi, multi, multi millionaire with generational wealth, you know how hard it is to Build generational wealth that your kids. Kids, kids, kids, kids, kids are set. That is fucking insane. When the average person goes, I can't buy the grass fed butter because it's $8 versus $3 for the seed oil. Yep. It's heartbreaking. I mean, it's just, it's. It's heartbreaking to see. And you know, just to piggyback that a little bit, I look at my father in law, who's from Iran, came here. I was actually gonna, I was actually gonna ask you about what it was like growing up with him with cultural differences, because I'm sure it was different. Yeah, I mean he, I feel like came to America because it was a better way of life. Right. Like he. The story is phenomenal. I mean, his mom was terrified for him to come here because Americans are greedy. They're gonna take his money. So she sewed pockets in his underwear. I mean, that's. No, she's not wrong. That, that was. Yeah. 50 over 50 years ago. So he came here with his money sewn into pockets in his underwear, like. And that's the story he tells. And it's incredible. But I mean, I feel like I grew up wanting to know more about his culture, but he wanted us to live this American way of life too, so he didn't push it on us. We say all the time we wish he taught us Farsi, their language, just because it's cool. Right. Arash spoke Farsi. Really? Yeah. Awesome. Persian. Yeah. I mean, when I hear some phone calls with his sisters and stuff like that, he'll put them on speaker and I just like listen and I know nothing, but just to see his smile on his face and because his sisters are still over in Iran and just to see that. But that's America, right? Like you said, for a better way of life. I became a citizen. Yeah. I mean it was. He did it the right way. Yeah. Second grade. First or second grade. I mean, like it was a thing. Like I got to leave school, I went to his. The ceremony where they swore him. And as a citizen, it was so cool to see. That's awesome. Like the pride that was behind that. That's the word I was hoping he said. Yeah, well, yeah, the excitement, I mean, did things the right way. Came on, I assume like a work visa or a travel visa, something like that. I have no idea. Yeah. I don't know, but I know he was. I mean, he came with his. An engineer, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Scientist. Nuclear engineer. Yeah. That's sick. I mean, sick. Yeah. So. So you know he came over, did his thing, and he proved that. That he's here because he wants better for him and himself and his family. Listen, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for immigration. You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for immigration. You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for immigration. I am. I've always said I'm very pro immigration, but we got to know who's coming in the borders. Because when it comes down to it, we came here for a better life. But just because we want to let anybody else in, we can't drop our guard and allow our families to be potential victims. And that's not okay in society. It's not okay if my neighbor's kid gets the shit kicked out of him just because somebody wants a couple extra funds. I don't care where it is, like you. We. We gotta take shit like that seriously because it festers and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, like cancer. So if you don't nip it in the butt and you figure out what's going on, you gotta. You gotta take, you know, really drastic measures, which nobody likes to do. Yeah. Italy. Yeah. What am I, third generation? That's what I am, too. Yeah. Yeah. Third generation from Italy. Thought you were first. I wish. I wish. I wish you'd be second. Right. So my. My. Did your grandmother. My great grandfather. Yeah. So you're third. Third. Yep. Yep. I think we're the last ones that can get dual citizenship. Listen, my mom didn't want me to. Yeah. My mom can be an Italian by citizenship. Let's go. Yeah. You can. Yeah. My mom told me she didn't want me to get the dual citizenship. She was filling out the paperwork when I was younger. I was must. I must have been like, middle or high school. And she said she stopped filling it out because if I did the dual citizenship, then I would have had to serve in the military in Italy. Oh, yeah. A lot of those countries. Yeah. I don't know what you guys are talking about. Like, thank God for Mom. Iran. Right. I mean, my dad had to serve. It's like. But that's mandatory, right? As a. As a. From what. I know. I think so, yeah. Yeah. I mean, his stories were great. I mean, he knows if they're 100% true or not. He was telling me a quick story about how he kind of jumped the line in ranks and stuff like that. It was because he knew how to cook, and he made some kind of chicken dish and was able to rank higher. He Was able to sleep longer and stuff, but I mean, just must have slapped. I mean, my favorite dish from him now is his kebabs. I mean, he gets so happy about that and stuff and just again, being part of those traditions. But that's what America is, man. And it's so frustrating. Right? My grandfather's a pow, you know, like, you know, and you have background in that stuff, you know, people and you. Know, like far too many people in military forces. And my grandfather served in the Korean War. Yeah, my grandfather, my grandfather hid behind, behind the lines. My grandfather was part of the band. Yeah, he knew, he served. He was like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be in the band. Yeah, but those. I mean, you're there, you know. Nah, listen, at the end of the day, if the camp gets infiltrated, they put the gun in your hand and say, go fight. Yeah. And that's the piece, man. Like, come, but serve the country for value. What do you bring, Mr. Taffizzoli? My father in law brought values and he brought it down to Layla and Matthew, my father in law. And now they're tremendous people of our country, you know, and true Americans now. But it's just, it's upsetting to see, you know, it's tough. I think it's the degradation of society as a whole that's the problem. It's the lack of morals, lack of just judgment on. Upon people. I mean, you see what people do for money. I don't have to. I. Every podcast, I'm not going to go into it again because everyone's pretty, pretty much, you know, understanding on my viewpoints on that. But it's just. Listen, you know, there's a lot of people that'll say, oh, get that money, like whatever means necessary. Okay. You know, 299. Yeah. Really? Okay. That's all, that's all. That's all we're doing. That's. And then you sit there and you wonder why you're treated as a commodity, as a service, you know, instead of like a human being. Well, it's because the dude tried to take you out on a date. He treated you real good. This and that. And then you're. You're selling yourself online for anybody to see for 299. Yeah. Internet's forever, sweetheart. Guys too, Yo. Some of these dudes have no morals either. Guys too. Like, this isn't just, like, this isn't just ashamed girls that do only fans. This is like, got anybody? Like, I just, I think that that was a tipping point of society just not giving a fuck anymore and people just. And the loosely used word of model at this point in society. I don't know. Model used to be like a glorified title and it's not even because of like the extreme beauty, but it would be these people in high places and all this stuff. Now. Oh, it's an onlyfans model. It's a girl that just shows her butt for $2. OK, yeah, I think that I'll go back a little bit. I think the dinner table is very important. And what do I mean by that is like coming home from work or school or a ball game and being able to sit with mom and dad or if you don't even have mom and dad together. Mom or dad, whoever it is. Like it starts at home. And you know, I've seen it in the classrooms that I've taught in, you know, single, single family homes run by moms or dads, whoever, gang related homes. And the kiddos that had the hardest time were the ones that didn't have the support at home. You know, just being able to have a mentor or a role model or somebody to look up to, whether it's a cousin or an uncle, whatever it is, but like family and the foundation and like you said, morals being taught from the start. It seems to be lacking. I don't know, because divorce rates are so high. I don't know what it is, but it seems that there's a lack of parenting and teaching. I'm not a. We're not. Not yet. Soon. But you know, I just found out. I just found out. One of my friends, I can't say yet. Yeah, that's okay. I'm actually only one they told. Hey. His wife called me. She's just like, I just, I needed to tell somebody and you're just the one that I needed to tell. Yeah. And I don't want to blow it because I know they do listen and I don't know if my friends or family listen so good, but they just found out that they're expecting and it's awesome. It's awesome. That's incredible. And this is a girl who didn't want kids when they first got into the relationship because she came from a kind of like an exact fucked up home. Yeah. So she just said, I just, I don't want to do that. But I told her, I said, now look at, look at it in the light of you're able to now do the things that you know you wanted or needed as a child versus what your father, mother didn't do or did do. That was bad. Like, fear of replicating it. Yeah. I mean, listen, I don't want to be like my dad. I just don't want to be like my dad. It's a year. I've said it a couple times every episode. It's almost a year that I haven't spoken to him. Now, follow me on TikTok the other day, but he won't make a call. No, it's okay. No, you'll die alone. And it sounds harsh and sad, but you'll die alone knowing that your son didn't want to reach out to you because of the actions that you've done over your life. Who wants that? That's fucking crazy. That's your offspring. You should be amped. You should be excited about. About what they're doing. Look what he's doing. Yep. You know, instead. Instead of doing that, you just let your own misery poison your mind and you live and fester in it. Okay. You know, it's just. It's. It's. It has taught me a lot in terms of what I don't want to do when and if I eventually have kids. Yeah. And that's, you know, for us. Like, I mean, I think that's going to be our strong. I don't even think we've peaked in our relationship yet. I truly believe that our peak is going to be when we become parents because of the way we were raised and stuff like that. And just to go back to you, Nick, I mean, we've been boys for how long? And I look forward to kind of sharing that story, how we met and that stuff in a little bit. But. And I was just telling. I had that in the notes. Yep, yep, we'll get that. I haven't looked at it truthfully. This is how it usually goes. And then we wind up going, oh, my God, it's been how long? And, okay, we gotta do another episode. But, you know, and I was just talking about it with Mama O, you know, I was just saying how strong your strength and your resilience to overcome that, you know, I don't know what I would do without my father and having him to call to just say, hey, what would a man do in this situation? What would you do? You know? And look at your success without that. It's admirable. This is why you have such a great following. This is why we've stayed friends for so long. And our friendship is special because we don't have to talk every day. And now look at us right now. You Know, pick up like nothing. Pick up like nothing. And it's special because it's a brotherhood. And just don't want to shout you out because it's time. Like, yeah, it's. You're. You're strong, like, you're a man, you know, and you're doing it on your own, obviously, with Mama Karen by your side and you got Kenji with you. But you're doing it. You're doing it, my man. And it's. And that's not easy because you have the excuse. Well, I don't have. I don't have mentorship. I don't have a role model, you know, because that's what the world is. Look where I've been brought up in. Ah, it's. It's this person's fault. Oh, you're this color. It's your fault. No, you've taken what you were dealt with, and you've taken it and you've gotten in a Ferrari and sprinted with it. I appreciate that. Yeah, I really do. It's been an interesting journey. Yeah, it has. It has been. It has been an interesting journey. And there were definitely a lot of opportunities along the way to fuck up and get fucked up, you know, that my weight was one of them that I had to come back from. That was something that was a big challenge. We met. Yeah, I think I was at the. You were heading. I was heading up again. Yeah. Cause I had gone down and then I was heading up again and, you know, we could break that down. Yeah. But it was. Listen, I've said it a couple times prior. You know, I had. My father's family hated me and my mom because I was my mom's kid. And because of that, it was always a very bad struggle to assimilate into the family. A lot of nastiness, a lot of animosity because they didn't like my mom. They made it about my mom divorcing my dad because he was a nasty person and became somebody that she did not marry. And the problem is he got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and they made it about. She divorced him over those years because he was sick, and that wasn't the case. He started indulging too much in drinking and drugs and not taking care of himself. And he was nasty around me as a baby, and she did not want that for me to grow up with in the house. So she took a very tough choice and decision that a lot of, unfortunately, that a lot of families don't make at times, and they stick it out and the kids wind up even more fucked up than if they had just split up and she cut it off. So the unfortunate side was having to grow up and go to his house and try to go to family functions and fit in. And I never fit in. You know, I used to get put in the basement and there was a lot of things that really could have fucked me up bad. And I'm sure there's lasting effects of it in my psyche and internally, but it's nothing that appears on a daily basis where you're like, oh my God, this guy's so deranged. And what did he grow up like? So, you know, living that. And I got a lot of support from my grandfather, my mom's father. He helped a ton. He helped raise me. Essentially he was more of a father figure than my own dad was. And it's not to say that my dad didn't try. He did try. He tried the best way that he could, which mostly was buying affection and then just like, not allow. Not giving like the real shit that a boy needs. Like, I used to cry because I wanted to have a catch with my dad and like actually do physical stuff. Number one, he just didn't want to. But number two, he was also sick. So he. As I was getting older, he was progressing in the disease, so he couldn't walk as freely as he used to. So it was like a. It was really an uphill battle. It was for a long time and it was. I moved a lot. I had three different times that I moved. I moved from West Hempstead to Melville to Plainview, and it was like starting over each time with new friends. And it was a very weird, thrown into the mix type of a scenario. So it just, it created, I guess it just created the echo chamber of just me to constantly just keep rising to the occasion. I guess that's why I do good at owning my own business. Even though there's like multiple days where you just go, I'm sure you've been the same way. I'm done. I want a nine to five. I just want. All I wanna do is go work at a Starbucks and just go work my shift and fuck out. Clock in, clock out. That's all I want. So I'm grateful for everything that has happened in life. The heartbreaks romantically, the heartbreaks from family and whatnot. And it has created a perfect storm in some sense of just making it so I'm very self sufficient, bro. It's quiet. It's quiet by me. It always has been. I was only child. Yes, My entire life. Not that it would be, you know. Yeah, I had said that before. Yeah. And then somebody just goes, well, you mean your entire life? I'm like, yeah, yeah, you know what? You know what I fucking mean. I've always been an only child, so it's. I grew up in my mom's office. So, like, what you hear here is what I grew up with, like, in an office building. You know, I did a couple of little sports here and there, but for the most part, it was always, like, listening to business calls with my mom, with my grandfather, or by myself, reading my books, hanging out, just doing whatever. So, you know, there's a lot of people that. Especially on the. On the romantic side of things. I've been single since 2018. There's a lot of people that are just like, don't you. Don't you want somebody? Don't you this and that? And it's like, yeah, I do. But I'm not going to just allow anybody to come in and not disrupt my peace, but potentially take that away if things aren't a cohesive match. So I'm willing to try, but unless somebody really, like, dazzles me, I mean, my place is quiet. Yeah. And it's. I'm just used to it. Like, if I wasn't used to that and I was. And I was used to having a sibling or people around me, I probably would latch on. Like, I see a lot of people that latch relationships. You know, these people. These people that they're in a relationship, oh, my God, I love them. I love him, I love him, I love them. And then they're done after three months, four months, and then three weeks later, oh, I love him, I love him, I love him, I love him. It's like, bro, didn't you just have a girlfriend or boyfriend for, like, three months? And now you're on the next one, and it's just a constant rebound, rebound, rebound, rebound, as opposed to, like, no, I'm just going to wait and see, you know, what happens. And if somebody comes along and meshes, then we're good. But they just keep jumping to the next, to the next, to the next because they don't want to be alone, and they're used to that companionship. So I. I guess all of you know, long story short, I guess all of that has led me to the point where it's like, you don't want to be alone, but you're cool with it. Like, it's just. It is what it is. Like, it's like, okay, God, Bless you. In this dating scene nowadays, man. Holy moly. It's rough. Yeah, I downloaded the dating apps again. Yeah. Okay. Trying to meet people or just what do you like? What's the. I mean, Cause again, right. You have so much to offer. Is it just because you're so busy or is it so hard to find somebody? I think it's both. Yeah, I think it's both. I really do think that it's both. Because truth be told, having a dog that has medical needs and whatnot, and attachment needs, it's. It's difficult. Like, my. My plates full. So unless someone's going to come through and make that plate a little easier, whether it be like, oh, I got, you know, I know you're at a shoot right now, or I know you're at Jiu Jitsu, I know you're doing this.

I got Kenji's pills at 8: 37:49

00. You know, you could stay like 20 minutes later, 30 minutes later. That takes time to, like, build that trust. Someone ready. But. But at that point, if I had that ability, this is what happens to Nick. Yeah, I get to relax a little bit because I'm always on edge. I am. You know, I'm finally sleeping a little bit. The last couple of nights, I'm setting my house up. Finally I'm getting. I'm finally able to sleep a little bit better. But, you know, for a long time, any. Any sound I hear to seizure up, and you're like, so. And he moves around all night. He eats like a sundial. He's in the hallway. He's in his bed next to me. He's in the. He's on the other side. He'll jump up for five minutes, then he'll jump back down. So it's like every noise, I'm jolting, jolting awake. I haven't been able to, like, chill. So when my mom says, hey, I can come over and give Kenji his pills later tonight. So, like, that's what I need in a partner. Adding value, the ability. Cause my plate's full. I've got meetings, podcasts, videos to edit, dogs to walk 5,000 times a day. Cause he's needy. Nah, I love him. He's great. Beat him up, though. But that's really what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for, you know, you see all of these dating profiles and it's me, me, me, me, me. That's all it is. What do you look for? Make me laugh. Feed me. I need the last bite of food on the plate. It's Just like. Like a baby. It's like, what the fuck am I getting myself into? Sounds like another. This sounds like a mortgage. I'll take your last bite, though. Every day. The first and the last. The first and the last. Gotta make sure it's not poison. Yep. And I'm not expecting somebody to just, like, pop up like, oh, there it is. There it is. Yeah. She walks right in, I'm here. Oh, my God. You know, I'm not. I'm not expecting it to be like that, but I'm also. You said I bring a lot to the table. Not to toot my own horn, but I do. You know, there's a lot of fucking guys our age. Let me tell you. They've got a lot of handouts, and they're not anywhere near what the little. The little thing that I built here in terms of apartments, lifestyle. Yeah, we were just talking about what we were just talking about, and I was like, oh, did you just secretly call me a true man? You were describing somebody and you're like, I would never be interested. Yeah, I was describing someone and I was like, they just don't feel like the person that could, like, take charge as a man in this person's life and, like, lead them and lead their family. It was a backhanded compliment. Yeah. I didn't mean it that way, but, like, it came out that way because, like, it's natural, though. Like, I can look to him and be like, what decision should we make? Or, I know he's gonna take charge. And whatever it is we're going through. In life, which is what you offer, which is why I was going with this, you know. Yeah. I mean, you want somebody that's gonna be listening for generations and generations. The. The man was the head of the household. It's not necessary. It's not. You know, some people will take that because they've been brainwashed into thinking that when you say the head of the household, it means the woman is nothing. And it's like, make me a sandwich. And. Yeah, like, women are some of my favorite people on this earth. Karen is my favorite human on this planet ever. Like, that's my girl. Yeah. So. No. No, that's not what that. Yeah. Is not what it means when you say that. Or at least when I say that. I'm sure there are some people that are like that, where if the sandwich isn't made, they're throwing fists. So it's like, okay, that person does exist. But that's not what we say when we say the head of the house. The head of the house means the door gets kicked in at 2 in the fucking morning. Who are you looking to? I'm running. Who's got to take care of it? He's in the front. Yeah, this is what I'm saying. So, like, when. When shit hits the fan, you know the woman. I got this, babe. She's not going in front of him. And if she is, we got to get the testosterone down that household. That's a very good example of what I was trying to talk about the other day. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's. It's just. It's. It's. And when you say head of the household, that doesn't mean that voices are suppressed in said household. It means that, okay, I'm looked at as the man of the house. No one's coming in here to fuck with my family. But, like, we need to get. We need to do XYZ for our needs or what have you. Honey, what do you think? What should we do? Because just as you lean on him, he leans on you for other things. And that's. That's why there are differences in men and women. Yeah. Let's be honest. There's differences in men and women. And that's what attracted me to Layla at first, was like, oh, my God. Like, she's a strong business owner. She's a. She's a woman. She runs a very successful Jim. I mean, and you've been there, and we can get into that in different ways. But she's not Westernized. No, no, she's not westernized in the sense that she just goes, fuck men. I'm a boss bitch. And this and that. It's like, okay, you can be that without, like, sitting there and, like, this isn't you. But, like, rubbing your chest like, oh, I'd do everything without men. It's like, okay, we get it. Like, you've been able to accumulate wealth for yourself and open a business, but that's not what this whole thing needs to be about. It's not. Fuck the other sex. It's like. It's like, we need to work together because that's what's worked for how many generations? Up until the last 20 years. Motherfuckers are bored. Let's just be honest. We have gotten so cushy and had life so easy. Everyone's bored. They just bitch about fucking anything anymore. Oh, the bathroom doesn't say everyone's accepted in it. Oh, fuck you. Oh, I'm gonna write a strongly written letter and sign it with my cock at the bottom, it's like, bro, just rel. Relaxed. It's like, not that serious. Dude, go in the men's room. Listen, we're going to get through it. Yeah, it was the wildest thing. We were looking for the bathroom in our hotel. Just checked in. Need to go to the bathroom before we get to our room. In the lobby. In the lobby. I, like, go one way. He naturally is trying to go the other way. And then I'm like, oh, I think we both go in here. So we went into our separate stalls, came out. We're sitting there washing our hands together. Like, this is so weird. Well, there's. And they'll be like, what? You just not used to it yet? Like, it's just like, this weird breakdown of, like, society. We don't need to get used to anything. We need to just, like, be real. Like, things work for a reason, you know? Unfortunately, I'm sure there are people that have good intentions when it comes to some scenarios like that. Like, they don't. They actually are not trying to see women or see men or. But guess what? By doing this, you invite that type of behavior in, and you're gonna get the sickos that are looking at fucking kids or they're looking at women because they're a peeping Tom and they get off on that, or they flash you in the bathroom that everyone's allowed in. It's weird. And although those cases may be, you know, because they're not publicized, far and few between, I'm sure, as if it goes unchecked, it becomes more and more common. That's fucking weird. It's just weird. There's differences between men and women. Let's just be real. Like, scientific differences, biological differences. Like, everything. There are differences. If you feel uncomfortable in your skin, do whatever the fuck you want to do. I've always been a proponent of that. I had Alex Talinka on my podcast, a female that transitioned into a male years ago. He transitioned before he hit puberty as a female, so you wouldn't be able to tell that Alex was ever a female, ever. And he's very open about everything. They did psychological testing on him. They did everything to ensure that it was properly done that way. That is not happening for everybody. Alex is a. Is very widespoke, like, outspoken about these things. He's also outspoken about, like, having the conversations and not feeling weird about talking about them. I mean, my podcast with him and John Panetti was great. We really. I just said, so, like, what's going on down south? Like, I Just need to know, like, I'm just curious, like, do you. And he said, I just haven't gotten the bottom surgery so I still have a vagina. Like, it just. If you feel uncomfortable in your skin, do whatever makes you happy. The issue that comes up that I see as I'm looking at X and just watching people's reactions to things, the issue that I'm seeing more and more frequently is the pushing of their beliefs on everybody. Let me be real with you, and I've said this multiple times and then we'll get off this topic because I want to talk about you at the marathon. Yeah, you're good. Let me be real with you. If this person hates another person because they're gay, because they're bisexual, because they're white, black, Asian, whatever, whatever classification, if they hate somebody based on that, I can almost guarantee that your teaching and constant re education and pushing it in their face is not gonna make them not hate you. It's gonna make it worse, unfortunately. And then what you're doing is by constantly pushing this narrative of like needing it to be in everyone's face. Constantly, constantly, you're making the regular people get irritated because we never didn't accept you. We just wanted you to do whatever was happy for you, like whatever made you happy when we wanted you to do that. But the problem is that you just. And it's not even the most, it's not even the majority of people. It's the companies, it's the corporations that get off on a whole month for this cause or that cause. And it's like they go, oh well, look how inclusive we are. It's like, bro, just treat everybody like fucking people. Yeah, just treat people like people. Because the more we keep classifying it as you're white, you're black, you're trans, you're gay, you're this, you're that. The less we get away from the original reason we started this topic, which was you're not an American. Yeah, you're this, you're that, you're that. Just because you're all these things doesn't mean you're not an American. Yep, you're, you're human, you know, at the end of the day, you're human. Yep. And like you said, you know, it's the pushing from both sides, you know, and like you said earlier, the government, it's disgusting. And you know, if we can get back to, like I said, the at home life and making that stronger, I don't see these issues, you know, staying forever. I mean, I think social media and the cell phones have caused so much issues. They've caused a ton of issues. You know, I mean, I've spoken so much about them. They've caused so many issues. I feel worse. And I'm. The unfortunate truth is, because it's an election year, because I've been on it far more than I care to admit. Just, like watching, reading this and that, seeing articles and this, just staying up to date with everything. I find the more I'm on my phones, which this is. This is my main phone and then this is my private phone. So, like, everyone gets this number type of situation. This has no social media except X, which I have to delete on there. But I've found that the more I stare at these screens and my phones, the more unhappy I am in real life. I mean, like anxious. And I don't sleep as well. And you feel cloudy. Yeah, cloudy. Just feel. Sometimes you can't even explain it. You just feel off. And it's just hours, hours going by where you're just staring at a fucking screen. And from a relationship standpoint, I mean. I mean, she's been great at it. She's like, get off your phone, you know, and we'll be just sitting on the couch, hanging out, tired. But like, that's time away from each other, catching up on our day and stuff like that. And, you know, just bringing this back to relationships and why things are heading south for single people nowadays, you know. Lack of a better sense. Yeah, you know, but I mean, it's valued time that's taken away because you're trying to catch up on this nonsense that's just in the palm of your hand all the time. Well, think about it in the terms of, like, we're trying to catch up with constant news that we don't need to be caught up. No, we're trying to stay informed about things everywhere. And the unfortunate truth of that is by staying so informed with everything around the world, it's creating a doom cloud over your head constantly. Because the bad news and the sensationalism is what flies and what people want to see. They don't want to hear the good story about how a dog was reunited with its owner after 10 years or four years. You know what I'm saying? They don't want to hear those stories that'll get a couple of clicks. Aw. And then that's it, onto the next one. Oh, this just in. This dude was executed for dipping his tea the wrong way in Spain. They're like, what? Everyone just gets fucking Crazy. It's like the clip. Was he gay? Was he this? Was he that? It's like, oh, my God. Like, everybody just relax. Like our parents grew up with the newspaper. You read that, you closed it, you went outside and did whatever it was, work, play, whatever it was. That was it. It was just the newspaper. Now you have these anxiety boxes in your pocket. It's driving me crazy, AI. Like, is it even real? Yeah, well, you start thinking that, then it starts bringing into perspective of like the simulation theory of life. Is this all real or is this simulation? I know, I mean, I'll stress you the fuck out. We'll need really diving deep into those topics and how, like at the root of certain things, it's binary code. And you start going, oh, like the cells are binary code. And you start looking and you go. Makes you think, you know, when you died, you just wake up out of the computer. It's just like, hey, thanks for trying this game out. And you're just like, what just happened? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It'll stretch you. It'll stretch you the fuck out. I haven't drank it forever, but we'll need an espresso martini for that conversation. I broke my sober streak. I told you, I broke my sober streak and I'm worse off for it. Yeah, that's all. I should have took it out for two years. No, truthfully, honestly, it was well deserved. Yeah, it was good. It was fun. I had a couple of beers and I hung out and that was it. A couple of beers here. I literally bought. I went to this beer distributor and I loved getting like craft beers and I went and I got a bunch of pumpkin style beers And I got two, first off, two four packs. So eight beers total? Yeah, okay. It was like 40 something dollars. Oh, my gosh. I was like, yo, who is paying this on a regular basis to get like, to drink like this? That is crazy. But I said, all right, fuck it, whatever. So I bought it and I got this Imperial pumpkin beer from Sand City, which is a Long island beer distributor or a brewery. And I had one. It was 9% alcohol by volume. I had one. I started texting people. I was like, yo, I'm sloshed. This is fucking crazy. I haven't been sloshed like this in a long time. I was 16. Crazy. Oh, man. So, yeah, so I finally, I drank the last two of those this past weekend when I was playing Call of Duty. I said, all right, it's a nice little evening in. I was stressed from Building the IKEA furniture all weekend. Oh, gosh. I said, all right, it's time. And I had the last two, and then that was it. Yesterday, I had my last cheat day. Cheat. It wasn't even a cheat day, but, like, I had my last cheat meal, ice cream, last night before I went to bed. And I woke up this morning, and I'm back on animal. I had. I had six eggs, six whole eggs, and I had 150 grams of blueberries. And that's it. Now we're back to. I gotta. I gotta drop to. If I'm gonna compete in this tournament, I have to drop to about 180. So I'm 198 right now. What's the if? What's the if? What? You're good at what you do. No, I know. My ankle is not 100%. It's probably like 90, 95. Yeah. It has moments. And from squatting this entire month for squattober pressure, my LCL on my right knee has definitely been a little bit twinged. So I have to focus more on the recovery aspect of things and get back to prioritizing rest and recovery and good food, because my diet has not been clean. It has not been clean. My protein has not been high. My carbs have been through the roof. So I. I have to get back to all of that. So all the cylinders are firing. But the real reason that I'm hesitant is I don't care if I lose. I really don't. I care, of course, but I don't care. Like, if a dude taps me out. Okay, onto the next one. Great. It could be somebody that's vastly superior than me, but it could be somebody that is not as good. And then they just got a lucky break and they're just like, okay, here's the arm. Boop. My issue is injuries. Yeah, it's cool when you train for something like a New York marathon, because you're not going directly against another person. You're going against people, of course. But it's not a combat situation where things can get things. Can you tap and they don't let go and they snap your arm? Shit like that freaks me out. You know, training, everyone's super respectful, but you roll. You get a picture when you start training more and more about who rolls nicely and who doesn't. Who is going to be more of an asshole and hold a submission a little longer or is going to. Every time you roll with them, it's a dogfight. Like, you just know. And a lot of times I'm not up for that because I've been working all day or I was doing squattober and squatting every day. So it's like, oh my God, my legs are just toast. I can't, I can't fight this fucking person off for a five minute round. Yeah. So my biggest fear is going into a tournament and then getting a person that is not going to be respectful as I would be respectful with them. I'm the guy that I land on somebody and I go, oh, you good. I didn't mean to land on you like that. We cool. And like, some people like go, yeah, like we're rolling, we're fine. And other people go, oh, I appreciate you asking and checking in. It's usually always the higher belts that appreciate it and the middle blue belts like me and lower most of the time, unless they haven't rolled me before, they're kind of like, like they're taken back by it. And it's like, yo, at the end of the day we could really hurt each other. Bad career ending injuries, like a Kimura is when somebody basically pulls the arm behind your back and they try to make it touch the back of your head situation. That could snap you. That could just destroy your shoulder. It could break your arm and your elbow and it could destroy your shoulder in two seconds. So it's like, I always do submissions slow. Yeah. Give them a chance to tap. There are people in tournaments that won't do that. And for what point? Well, because they want that plastic metal. They want that plastic metal. They're just like, oh, gotta have the plastic. Oh my God. It's my local tournament. Yeah. I gotta be this guy. I gotta snap a motherfucker. The Facebook post, the Facebook money in it either. It's literally just you go pro, but right at the bottom. I'm 33 years old. I'm probably not pro. Right. I'm not, probably not gonna be able to compete at that high level. I'll be able to, I mean, listen, I'll be able to shake some shit up and do well. But I don't think I'm going to be able to, you know, go against Gordon Ryan or these other guys that are the big names of the sport. He's also in a very different weight class than me, so thankfully. Thankfully. So let me ask you this. You've always been an athlete. Always. You've always been an athlete. You really have. You've always been coaching or competing in athletics. Yeah. Baseball. Yep. College marathon running. That's new. Why did you choose to do the New York Marathon. Because I'll be honest with you, it felt, like, so weird to hear you say, oh, yeah, I'm getting ready for the marathon. I was like, whoa. It was weird to watch him run it. I mean, yeah. I mean, baseball. Growing up, my whole life obviously played everyone starts with soccer, you know, football and basketball. But obviously through my family. My cousin Sal played collegiate. And I mean, it was just the love. There was the love of baseball. Growing up, New York Yankee fans that was. Has been coaching. He's still coaching at 60 years old. He started coaching at 20 when he lost his father. So, I mean, that was just in the family, in the blood, but kind of. I miss competing. You know, they don't teach you. And this is a whole nother conversation. But once college sports is done, let's say you don't get drafted or go play pro or semi pro, whatever it is, it's done. You just sit there like, you're done. What's now that meme of, like, little monkey sitting there. Yeah. Like, what's next? You know? And shout out to all my former college athletes, like, God bless us. You know, because it's like, it's done. This was not what our life was, but it was everything to us, you know, And I was just looking for something to compete in. Obviously, we have the gym and that stuff is awesome. The camaraderie there, you've been part of that and seen the energy. Dilworth. Big D, baby. Hey, Big D, baby. Shout out to Steven, one of our best members, for just saying it one day and it stuck. But, no, I was just looking for something to just help that edge. Sink your teeth. I missed it. Yeah. So unfortunately. But fortunately, cousin Jack was diagnosed with leukemia in September of 2023. Sorry to hear that. Yeah, he is doing awesome. He's playing football for MacArthur. He's a senior. They got playoffs next weekend. I mean, he's back on the field. How did he know? What were some of the symptoms? Big, huge black and blue on his. I believe it's his right leg. It might be the left one of them. But he couldn't walk. Like, in the middle of the night, something tightened. He rolled over to get up, and I guess he fell or he just couldn't walk. He's like, dad, dad to my Uncle Joe. Like. Yeah. And so he rolled his pants down. He had this big black and blue. If he didn't recognize that, who knows what happened. And he's like, my uncle's like, we're going to the hospital, Jack. We gotta go and this is my Jack. This is Jack. No, we ain't going to the hospital. I got a game in two days. Thank God they went. They found out it was leukemia. Don't know the big severity of it, but it was bad, obviously. Any type. That's. My uncle passed away, and he stayed there for. I believe it was weeks. I remember getting the phone call. Just finished working out at the facility, and I came in crying. I was like, leukemia? Like, how bad can it be? I had no idea. My dad called me. Jack's out. Leukemia. What's that mean, dad? Like, what's the recovery? What are we doing? He's 16. He's a senior at MacArthur. Yeah, I mean, unheard of. What did they. What did they say was. There was the. He's a reason. He's one of one. It's just birth. Yeah, it's DNA. Addison's birth. No, no. Like, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yep. Yep. So he's one in one million and something. The. The case that he got or the kind that he got or has still, because he takes pills monthly, is common in 75 and older. This is rare. It's also more common in twins. And he's a twin. Shout out to JoJo. Love you, buddy. His brother doesn't. I mean, he's fine, but. Yeah, more common. No. No, I don't believe so. I mean, I could definitely check that out, but. Because I would probably be like, if my brother got. Then what are the odds there? I want to just know the odds, and I want to get tested to make sure there's nothing dormant or pop up, pop up. And then, you know, you know me, you know, how can I help? Right, Jack, what can I do to keep you motivated while you're battling this thing in the hospital? I mean, it was so cool to see the community of levittown and the MacArthur High School football team. They were outside every day and stuff, you know, with. 59. Yeah, 59. You know, I got his bracelet right here. Jack. Team Jack. 59. That's his number. But I said, jack, let's do something crazy. Let's raise money for cancer, and let's see what we can do. He's like, all right, let's run a crazy marathon. I was like, dude, my thick ass and my big hips. We're meant to run from first to third or, you know, 90ft. We're meant to run 90ft at a time. 360, if you. 360. What is it, 384 times around the bases equals 4.2. Yeah. 384.2 times around bases, big field bases equals 26.2 miles. This is what we were doing. Morning of the marathon. How many times would he have to run around the bases? Yep. That was my mindset, to relate it to something. So anyway, he's beating it. He's battling it. And shout out to my buddy John. John Welsh, who. I ran first 16ish miles, probably first 13 miles, first half with. He gave me a call, actually. Just was like, perfect timing. He goes, you want to run New York City? I go, when he goes in 20, 25. I go, I'm in. Calls me the next day. He goes, we're in for 25. He goes, no, 20, 24. I go, like, now, like springtime. Yeah. Like, how many months? Like, six. He's like, oh, my God. I was like, all right, it's time to go. So, you know, we got connected with the American Cancer Society. Awesome charity group. The energy in our, like, the Facebook groups, the emails. We had all run coaches. We had a program. Did I stick to the program? No. Because I'm a former athlete. My body breaks down if I, you know, work too hard and stuff like that. So we trained in a way that I would be able to start and finish. That was the goal. And to also not break down my body too much, because we trained. He trained. I did not train. Listen, you were there for the 20 miler down in Rosemary beach, right next to me with the bike. On a bike. Yeah, but that's. Yeah, that's huge. I needed it. I did that with Marina when Marina was getting ready for high rocks. It's huge. You need it. Marina was getting ready for high rocks, and I had. I just. I couldn't keep up with her pace. She was just. Yeah, I. I told her, I said, I don't run like that anymore. Since I stopped doing og, I don't run like that anymore and try to find my paces. And I was. I was running. She goes, oh, I just gotta do 40 minutes of cardio, you know, Not. Not that. No, not that bad. I'm most like. I'm thinking. I go, all right, 40 minutes. I gotta run for 40 minutes. Yeah. Slow, steady state. Yeah, that's what I said. I said, how intense. She goes, oh, not that intense. We're doing like a 740. What? That's a pace. I wound up doing, like three miles, two and a half, three miles with her. And I said, just keep going that way. That's the way to the house. I just. I'm not doing this. We're all the way in Huntington Harbor. Yeah. She's like, you sure? I go, oh, so sure. I'm walking the rest of the way. I'm like, I'm not doing. I don't run like that anymore, so. Which I have to start running again to get my. It's funny. Like the, not the derail, but the weights versus cardio. Now that I got my strength back up. Yeah. And I, I could have hit four or five for squats. Yeah. So I know. But I was tired. You looked good. I know. I was tired. And I said, you know what? It. I'll just stay at 365 for one. Yeah. But now the strength is over, but the cardio is back down. So I want to just get back to the middle. Yep. I mean, and that's. I think that was the strength for me. I mean, to run 26.2 miles, you know, Again, it was mixed between sprint intervals during the week. Sundays we would do track workouts, which if you've never run on a track before, I'm just running a 5k is so hard. And then to hit the streets for my long runs, I felt. Felt good. The lungs were awesome. We trained them the right way. Um, we'll get to the pneumonia piece again in a second. But just the way we did it. I never gave up strength training. So if you are a marathon runner and you can access a gym or like an OG something that's going to push your strength, whatever it is purebred here on Long island for us. Obviously we have the gym at isi. Don't stop strength training. You need it. My legs did not give up because of the strength that I had in the lower half. Obviously, if you can talk to yourself and clear that mind and just think positive, it's a no brainer for somebody that wants to try it. But it was hard. I didn't want to run 16 miles on a Saturday morning in the heat. I didn't want to run 20 miles in Rosemary beach on vacation. But it had to be done. How to stick to certain protocol to get my body ready for what's to come. And the race itself, man, like I said earlier, it was unbelievable. Running over the Verrazano Bridge, the Queensborough Bridge, running into the Bronx for a second and you're here in New York, New York, York. Play. You get into Brooklyn. Brooklyn would go hard. Jay Z was bumping. You know, it just. The energy was unbelievable. And it goes back to our. What basically our conversation has been about. Like everyone came together. People are people. I mean, it was. And there was no politics. Yeah. You saw signs. Go out and vote when you're done running. Like, dude, this ain't about voting today. You know, but age wise, I mean, I ran with a 75, 78 year old. She was unbelievable. It was her fifth marathon. I ran with people from Israel, Italy, Spain, Canada. We met on the train on the way back, but everybody congratulated. It wasn't, hey, what was your time? No, it was, congratulations, you did the damn thing. One of my Buddies texted me, 0.17% of the population will run a marathon every year. So, like, I'm part of that. 0.17 for the 1%. Isn't that crazy? It's wild. It's wild. When you see the statistics for the. Course activities that you do, it's unbelievable. There are statistics like that. I think it's something like for Jiu jitsu, there's something like 80, 70 or 80% of people won't make it to blue belt. Yeah. So it's like. And you're there. You're there. Yeah. Whoa. And then it's also motivating. So shout out to 2025 Chicago Marathon. We'll be back with the American Cancer Society. So I'm gonna run Chicago. Gonna run again. Yep. He texts me. He's like, hey, I got into Chicago. Should I accept it? I was like, why don't you just wait and see, like, how New York goes? He's like, I already clicked. Yes. All right, we're going to Chicago. Fees done. We're going to raise more money for cancer. And that's the motivation because again, it goes back to who I am as a person. I've always wanted to compete in a. You know. Yeah. I want to win. I wish I could run a two hour and seven minute marathon like the winner was, but that's not my body type. Two hours and seven minutes. What was your. What was your time? I was 5 hours and 1212 minutes. What was. My buddy Jake. Yeah, Jake ran yesterday. I mean, I mean, listen. Yeah. Jake is like, yeah. Pro lacrosse player for a long time. What's up, boy? Hi, man. Hello. Ken Rocross, player for a long time. Yeah. And he's just like a freak athlete. Yeah. And the thing about Chicago is you don't have the bridges or the hills. It's all flat. So I will go for a PR there training now. I think nutrition we're going to lock into. Layla did an amazing job. So again. Right. Going back to the household. Layla did a phenomenal job with Whole Foods and You know, making sure the protein intake was up in the car. Three hours and nine minutes. I mean, God bless. That's unbelievable. Is that good? That's unbelievable. Is that good? Get the heck out of here. That's amazing. Yeah.

Finish time was 12: 1:06:07

20. That's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing. Wonder what time his heat took off, but that's unbelievable. Yeah, that's amazing. He's the homie. Yeah. I mean, God bless, man. I want him on. I want him on the podcast. Just in general. Get on the podcast, brother. Yeah, Jake's the homie. His family's really good people. They own a lot of the. They own the Qdobas in Long Island. A lot of Burger Kings. They're restaurateur type of franchisees. So the race is about to begin. What's going through your mind? I mean, I was definitely feeling like, again, I go back to it. Locker room mentality. Like the butterflies. Headphones were starting to come in, but again, you were with all ways of life. So it was looking around. I was like, there's no way I'm not finishing this thing. There's no. No way I'm not going to just take in the atmosphere. We did the national anthem, which, you know, to me means so much. I mean, walking past National Guard and armed soldiers, I was like, all right, my grandfather's here with me. And then, you know, they go, all right, we're on your mark. Get set. Boom. The cannon goes off, and you just see everybody start going. We go up to Verrazano, and I went up the bridge slow. I'm going around at the Verrazano right. At the end, going towards Staten Island. From Staten Island. From Staten island into New York. Into New York. Yep, yep, yep. So we went through that over there first. We just walked. We walk. Everything was blocked off. So, I mean, we did a lot of ferry, though. Oh, yes, yes. Sorry. You took the ferry to Staten Island. Yep. And then you get. You walk to the start. Yep. And then we have, like. I get. They call it, like, athlete area. So we would stay there until our corral and our heat was called. And it was cold yesterday morning. Yeah, it was cold. It was cold. Yep. I mean, another cool thing that, like, you don't see. Like, so many people donated clothes. I mean, there was big boxes filled with sweatpants and stuff like that. And that's, like, the beauty of these events is, like, it's more than just running, you know, the amount of. The amount of money that the American Cancer Society, just one charity out of hundreds. We raised $1.5 million for cancer this year. It was a record. It was a record. You know What? Seems like$6,400 that I raised was small, but it was the bigger picture. So the Jacks of the world will have more opportunities. Still blows my mind that we don't truly have a cure for cancer, which goes back into the medicines. It might be in there somewhere. Y. But hey, I'm not. I got. I got the YouTube disclaimer. I'm not a doctor, so don't, you know, take my advice. Just. I'm sure we have. I'm sure we have a cure. The unfortunate side of that business. I feel like I could say the unfortunate side multiple times the podcast, but it's very unfortunate. Yep. The bad part about it is that without people being sick, these people are out of jobs. As opposed to being preventative measures where, hey, don't eat xyz. Hey, get exercise. Hey, go get sunlight. Hey, put. Take your fucking shoes off and put your feet in the sand. Like, honestly, when I'm in here, I. I forget where I saw it on Tick Tock, but I call them shoe foot prisons. I take my shoes and socks off, spread my toes. Yeah. Gotta just be dexterous and just feel that. You know, you go to, like, girls that wear heels all the time and their feet are just scrunched. It's like, that's not. Can't be good for you. No. You know, go touch some grass. Go walk out. You go walk around outside for a little while. Yeah. The simple things that have kept civilizations and people alive for long times. Even though the life expectancy wasn't as long. But guess what? It's coming back down now. We're going the opposite direction. We're trending downwards. Food. More sedentary lifestyles. The food is dog shit. Disgusting dog shit. But somebody will look at me and I say, I ate six whole eggs and blueberries this morning. They'll be like, are you trying to have a heart attack? It's like, what are you talking about? It's cool. You had a box of cereal. What the fuck are you judging? What are you out of your mind? But hey, remember, you know that. That food pyramid that one time they put up that stat, that statistic and study that said lucky Charms is better for you than a steak. That was during COVID wasn't that. That was right after. That was wild. That was like a year or two after. But that was just to make a certain circle of people feel good about themselves. And that's. That's that's an issue. We've allowed. That's not true. We've allowed the insane to run the asylum. That's what's going on in our, in our civilization today. We have gone back on the. We have regressed so far in, though, you don't want to bully anybody. You don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. You don't want to do this, you don't want to do that. And because of that, we just go. We pacify people. Like, they're barking and barking about how lucky charms are healthier than steak. And there's a lot of people that just go, oh, yeah, you're right. You're probably right. It's okay. But then another person comes along and starts barking with them and. Oh, it's okay. Yeah, yeah, oh, sure. Whatever you think. But the more that we do that, the louder that minority voice of, like, lunacy gets. And now it's. Now it's a thousand people screaming. You're just like, whoa. Like, hey, guys, it's not, it's not like that. And they're like, no, no, no, we're all together. You said you. We're pacifying people and situations. That's what's going on. And the Food and Drug Administration is like one of the biggest things. Rfk, bro. Listen, man, I know. I don't care who you like as your political person, but I'll tell you what, man, rfk, who is a Democrat, who was for a long time, yes, that is the guy to come in and shake that shit up. Because I think they were just talking recently about taking fluoride out of all of the water start if they get elected, starting January 20th or some shit like that, making sure everybody stops putting fluoride in the, in the drinking supplies. Huge, bro. Fluoride, I think it was. I think it's more prevalent in areas of lower income, which is fucked up, and poverty. And it has been known to cause learning disabilities. It has been known to cause different health impairments cognitively. Why is it toothpaste, all the drinking water, all this stuff, but then you get people that go, oh, no, it's good for you. They put that on our teeth as kids. Like, you would go. And it would be like, fluoride. It's probably in your toothpaste for sure. Unless you get fluoride free toothpaste. It's in your toothpaste. And you brought up disabilities, obviously. I'm now back in the classroom. Shout out to my special settings class. Pleasant Knoll Elementary School. One of the Top schools in South Carolina. But you talked to our parents growing up. Did you know students with special needs? Yes, but how many? Two. Now we have four classrooms in one elementary school. That gets me very nervous to eventually have a family. It's like, listen, at the end of the day, I don't care if I have a boy or a girl healthy. I just want the boy or girl to be healthy. That's all I want. I've never been like, I have to have a boy. I have friends like that. And then they have 10 girls. There you go, bro. You shot yourself in the foot. You got what you didn't want. I just want whatever child I have to be healthy. The problem is when we don't have. Once again, we go back to not being able to have conversations. Because the second you say, oh, I'm against all these force, say vaccinations, let's say that's what you believe is the cause for a lot of the uptick in diseases and whatnot and autism and all these learning disabilities. If you believe that, oh, you're anti this, you're anti that, and the mob attacks you, as opposed to you just being able to have an opinion. Yeah. Like, hey, this is what I believe. You don't have to believe it. It's okay. But let's talk about it. Let's have a good conversation and let's. Figure out why, and I'll hug you after. Truly believe that the drug companies have your best interest in mind. Look at their revenue year over year. Look at their revenue, look at how much money they're making, and look at the diseases and life expectancy dropping. Why? I thought they were fixing everything. I thought if I took this pill, it would get rid of all of my inflammation and all of my problems in my body. But actually it just caused four other problems. Yep. And I just had a stroke. And you're on another medication, and I'm. On another medication to balance out the medication I took for the original problem. Whereas if I just took all the bullshit out of my diet and I maybe drank, let's say, you know, I don't think it's the cure to everything, but maybe I drank filtered water and I remineralized it and I drank clean stuff, you know, why do you think. Why do you think that some of the best drinking water you can have is natural spring water, like from the source in France, all these places in Europe, they have places where people walk around with their canteens and it's a natural spring, like offspout of the Actual stream. They literally just put their bottles underneath it. They get the water and they walk. It's got some of the best TEs. Total dissolved solids into water. So your potassium, your sodium, all of the different minerals that you need. You know, when you just filter water out, that's great. But it's not mineralized now. So now it's basically flat. Dead water. There's nothing in there. And then the problem with that is, from what research and people have said Is that as you drink it now, it goes through your body. And because the water absorbs in some capacity, it's taking some of that minerals from your body, so you become more deficient. So you drank something that didn't have any benefit to it, and now it actually stripped you a little bit of the minerals, which makes you go back. Which means you spend more. Exactly. You know, when you see a. I'm gonna talk shit about smart water. When you see water like that, what does it say on it? Smart water. Yeah, but what. What is it? What type of water vapor? Distilled water and electrolytes for taste. Okay. Purely balanced pH. Does it say purified water anywhere? I don't see it. Purity. You can taste purified water is basically as if you just used water through a British. So they charged Dasani, Poland springs and natural water. But Dasani, what are the other ones? Evian is one of the best waters you can drink. What about Voss? Voss, I believe is good. I don't drink too much Voss. The bottle always freaked me out. Yeah, it always felt too fancy. My bougie sister always goes, mountain valley. The green. You see everybody drinking mountain valley water. Very good for you. But you want to make sure that you're drinking spring water. That's what you want to drink. You know, there was a. There was contamination efforts with Fiji recently. Over a year ago and whatnot. The unfortunate side is like, once profits are. You know, profit margins are at stake and this and that, you start seeing companies cut corners. And by cutting corners, it's not always the cleanest. Yeah, there's. There's. And I want to get back to the marathon, but there's. This is what happens all the time. There's a. There's a. A constant battle of people saying that there's a secret demonic agenda when it comes to liquid death. Yeah, that. You know, why wouldn't you call it liquid life or whatnot? It's like. It's very demonic in terms of, like, the water and their messaging and whatnot. But they did used to advertise that it was French alp water and now they've switched. Now they're using water in the US. Everyone'S walking around with it now, so why would they. Yeah, they're making money. So how can we make more money? Yep. That's the unfortunate side that it gets to. Yeah. Like how can we make. How can we 10x this and make our shareholders even more happy with us? Well, we could just, you know, the original water was better from France, but we could probably get it from the US Somewhere and it'll be cheaper for us to manufacture. So it goes back to. It all circles back to businesses. Yeah. If. If healthcare is not a for profit business, there's no incentive for them to just keep people healthy all the time. It's fix, fix, fix or treat. It's never, when you talk to people, it's like, oh, we're never going to cure you. They'll never use that word. Like, especially cancer patients. Yeah. We can't say we're going to cure your cancer, but we're going to treat it. Yeah. It's unfortunate. It really is, because we have so much technology and so much, so many abilities to just do so much good and it gets bottlenecked in the thought process of profit. But I think capitalism is good and when it has its place, it's its time and place. But in the healthcare, it's tough. Yeah, tough. Anyway, back to the marathon. You were pulling up your numbers. Yeah, no, I mean, I mean, we just, I mean, we sat 11s and twelves, 12 minute paces. Ran with my buddy John. Yeah, Again, it was a smooth run. Like I said, we train to start. And what's your motto? Thick guys fly. Thick guys fly. Hey, now. That's it. Shout out to y'all thick guys with big legs and big booties. But no, I, it was, it was awesome. I mean, I. Sammy. Shout out to Sammy Siegel. He called a thousand times. I finally got to him. Love you, bud. But you know, he was like, did you ever. Was there a mile that you hated? I said no because it was. I trained in. In the tens. I trained in the tens. You know, my, my ego and my hot head. You weren't pushing it. No, it was just smooth. It was a smooth run. And did you ever have to dial yourself back, though? You started getting a little too much. So I have a lingering stress fracture in my right foot and that heated up probably back 10 miles. It was frustrating. Yeah, it was, it was, it was really good. It was. And obviously your legs go. Because we. I've never run 26. Training. Capped out at 20 for me. And how many steps did you take? Take like 60,000. Oh, my God, Nick. Wait for this. The amount of walking that they make the marathon runners do. Yeah. Get to the start line, dude. Get to your family after you cross the finish line. Wild. Insane. It's like two miles on each side. Yep. Let's see. What do we got yesterday? How do we go to yesterday? Well, it was some. It was some crazy thing. Oh, and then slide over. There we go. Got it. All right. Calories burned. You ready? You want to guess? Calories burned. This is the entire marathon and you started it and stopped it around the marathon? No. So this is probably the whole day. Whole day, yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna say probably 6 to 8,000. I wish. 4,700. Okay. 4,760. 1,207 steps. 31.67 miles. Walked throughout the whole day. So obviously stopping at 26. I was at 50. 4,000 steps. 58,000 steps for 26.2. On a stress fracture. On a stress fractured right foot. I mean, it's lingering. And again, I'm. I'm teaching, we're coaching, so it never really truly heals. So obviously we'll get some help. Ortho, Carolina, I need you when we get back home. That's me with my. That's me with all my injuries, but I keep training through everything. And that's like an asshole. And that's what I'm saying. I was like, lay, if we could fix this piece, I think we can have some fun in Chicago because Chicago's all flat. October 12, 25. Oh, so you're going next next year? Yeah. So I'm gonna do six months of strength training, get back to isis. Isi, you know, I miss being in there as much as I used to be. And then we'll do six months of. Of what we did. You know, we'll train healthy, we'll train strong. We have dead sember coming up. Yeah. What's that? Squattober. I finished. Okay. Deadlifts. Yeah. December starts and. Yeah, I'm. I gotta get back into that. I missed the deadliest. I'd like to pull 500. 550. And you've been there? Yeah, I've been to 500 before, so I probably. I would say I'd like to pull 550. 600. That'd be fun. I didn't think I was going to smash through my squat PR. My squat PR was like 320 back in the day. You got 365. Yeah. Can you post your form all over the place, please? Because I'm tired of just. The form is incredible because, yeah, the hinge piece with you, like, your chest isn't over the floor like some people. And we can get into the coaching piece. Like, I watch form and coaches standing next to people, and they just let it go. Yeah, they just let it go. Because, I mean, it's a hard exercise for sure. Nobody wants to squat a lot of. Times or that way. Do it 500 times a day. Yeah, but body squats, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, you know, so the form doesn't need to be impeccable. Once you load that bar up on your back, it's a very different feeling. And people don't know where to put their feet or center things out and whatnot. I'll tell you where it all started from. It's a very funny story. I posted a video of me squatting up in Connecticut when I was getting ready for my bodybuilding shows, and I loaded 225 on the bar. I thought I was hot shit. And this is when I was posting my workouts every single day. And I just. I squatted. And it was horrific. It was horrific. I saw that video a couple of years ago again, and it's one of those videos that you just watch yourself doing something and you just go, oh, bro, you posted that. That is crazy. Facebook memories. Every morning when I wake up, it was horrific. Let me tell you. Like, we're talking barely squatting past neutral. And I just. I thought I was the shit. Like, I was squatting heavy motherfuckers put this weight up. And I remember, like, a dude that I was friendly with through Bevs, he commented on it and he said, yo, delete this. This is embarrassing. And I went, went, oh. Never deleted it, but I remembered it. So thanks to him, ever since after that, I went, oh, I'm gonna be squatting ass to grass. Whenever I squat, whether it's light, whether it's heavy, I'm gonna make sure that I'm sitting on the ground. And that's why people go all the time. They go, oh, shit. You, like, really sit down. I go, oh, yeah. Like, there's. There's no stopping at neutral or a little bit below. I'm. If I. If I don't feel my hamstrings connect with my calf, I didn't squat low enough for me. And there's some scientists and exercise science people that'll say it doesn't add any more benefit. And it actually Causes more tension or whatnot, whatever. Yeah. For me, no, I'm squat. I'm sitting on the fucking ground every time. But I think that's the cool piece is someone said something about it. Right. Like, we live in a world where everyone's workouts, no matter what it is, is so prevalent on social media. People are scared to say something. I don't want to hurt their feelings or I don't want to make that coach feel less than. And. And we're not all perfect coaches or members at gyms. But, like, someone said something, and it made you a better person because. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That fueled me to get better at squatting. I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. I'm never being spoken to like that again on the Internet. And then go into what it's done for you. Like, you just said, you just changed your projection of squats for us in the gym. If we don't say, like, if we walk by somebody, which rarely happens. Our coaching staff were blessed, trained well. They're just. They're great human beings. If we see something wrong, we're gonna go over there, we're gonna say something, and we've built relationships in the gym that we know how to speak to certain people a certain way and they'll listen, you know, that fires you up. Probably. That. Probably. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Oh, wow. And then I started realizing. I went, oh, yeah. No, no, no. This ass. Yeah, Ass. This is an ass squat. This is horrible. And now look. What, you wonder if that video is still there, because it was. It was pretty. It was. It was pretty bad, and it just. It really did. I don't go on Facebook, so we're gonna see, like, a ton. I just don't go on this app anymore. But, yeah, I mean, it just. It kept me. It kept me realistic with myself, essentially, and it made me just want to get better at it. But some people. You know, some people will have that spoken to them, and they'll never post another workout video again because they're just scared of that criticism. Yep. You know, I don't know if it's because of that or it's because, you know, just obviously with the podcast, everyone's gonna always say something. I always get people that say shit on the Internet all the time. Whether it's positive, whether it's negative. People always saying shit. At the end of the day, you have to consistently remind yourself that it's engagement and that person's thought process or what they're saying has no direct impact of you as a person. So you just gotta keep trucking forward. Yeah. And that goes back to our conversation of having conversations. How are you gonna grow without talking to somebody? It'd be boring if you did things right the whole time. How are you supposed to get better? You know, the amount of conversations we've had with coaches that just want to, you know, get more informed or more information on how to do certain things. We get it all the time at the gym. You know, members pay a price, right? It's a week of groceries for them that they pay to be members at the gym. We got to give them that value. I say it to the coaches all the time. We preach it. You have to give them $180 value every single time they're there. And that's. You know, you have to do it. Otherwise, they'll go to Crunch Fitness and. Or wherever. No knock, but, you know, a box gym, and they'll go do their own thing. It's got to be up here. Can't wait to see little Nick squatting. It's got to be up here. This is. This is, like, tight. Yeah, here it is. This is tiny, Nick. I thought I was the. With my belt. My wife beater on. Let me. For those that. For those that need to be told, a wife beater is slang for a. A. An Italian tea. All right. He never beat her. I don't actually beat women. People. You know, someone say, wait a minute. Let me. We're watching the video right now. Yeah, horrible. We're watching a video right now. Ligament. Let me talk about this. Nick Rizzo. What year was this, Nick? Pumping squats for days. Got to build these wheels so they stick through the board. Shorts, dog. What year? No, no, no. But no. Quads are getting sticking through the board. Was. Was that. Was that the year you. You. We went to the movies and you brought your salmon and had it in the movies. That smelled good, I bet. Or. Or we watched. Or we watched the Super Bowl. We watched. Supposed to be a parallel squad. I'm just wondering. Got to go deeper. It's all. It. It's. It's. It's all on the way up. I remember him coming over for the Super Bowl. He brought. I must have deleted that comment. Your layered lunchbox. Every two hours, you would have to eat. Mama made chicken. Kitch. Yep. He didn't eat him. No, man. Yeah. I was very regimented back then. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't say. This has to be 2013, 2014. Yeah. So that's 10 years ago. 10 years. Yeah. And now look at the difference. Homies. Yeah, Just, you know, you gotta. There's. How many people need to humble themselves when they go to the gym too, you know, you have to understand, like. And I had that thought process when I was younger. I would just grab the heaviest weight I could ever grab. And it just, it didn't make sense for what I was trying to do, you know, especially when it was bodybuilding focus as opposed to strength training. I was focused so much on building muscle, but if you're just grabbing the heaviest dumbbell, hitting it for two reps, that's strength training. Like, that's not, that's not what we're trying to do. Right. That's why this, this program for squattober was so cool. It was so cool that I got in, I did my stuff that I had to do and I dipped. That was it. As opposed to, oh, well, now I'm gonna hit side raises and now I'm gonna hit chest presses. And it was like this. My workouts used to be this long, drawn out thing and it doesn't need to be like that. No, I mean, you could speak on the gyms. 50 minutes in and out. Yeah, 50. And I want you to talk about this because that's what I loved about og I really did. I love that. And I got in, I did what I was told and I fucking left. And that was it. It was beautiful to be able to do that as opposed to sitting there and just going like this. Fuck, yeah. Well, if I do that, then I'm gonna do this, then I'm gonna do that. Okay, I guess I'll do that. It's just like, nope, there's the workout. Let's go. Get it going. Do it. Get in, get out. Yeah. And I think there's, there's a balance, right? Like we tell people all the time, if you're in here five, six, seven days a week, you're probably not going to hit your goals because your body's not recovering. Right. So the nutrition piece is big, but the recovery piece is just as big sometimes as the working out piece. So you come into ISI and we warm up, we have to explain the workout, we have to explain the movements, which. You like the warmup. I like the warmup, man. Because the problem that other spots that I've gone to over the years is that, you know, and even with Bev's at when I would go train by myself is the warmup was literally. Yeah. All right, let's go hit maxes. Yeah, just like you're not really primed and ready to go yet. You know, doing that jog in the parking lot with you guys, nobody wants to, like, you know, jog cold like that, but you have to, because it warms the body up and it primes it for getting ready for movement. Yeah. You know, that's why I like my theragun, too. I've been using that more and more, and I've been doing it intentionally with the thought of flexibility and getting my body ready for movement. I'll do it on my lower back. I get constant tendonitis from gripping the geese and just gripping everything. So it's like I get constant tendonitis in both arms. But I find that you use the theragun. You open it up before exercise, after exercise, promote blood flow. Yeah, well. And it takes away from the time that you're actually working out, but it's equally as important as working out, because you're not going to get the benefits from your workouts. You're not going to go as deep as you can in your squats. You're not going to put up weight that you could be able to put up if you weren't warmed up. So our workout time is 30, 35 minutes max. You're in, you're out, and you're hitting different body parts every day of the week, but you're also repeating movements, and it can feel boring. But that's how you get better at it. That's how you got better at squats. I'm sure this whole past month you were squatting a lot. You know, it's probably boring at five days a week. Yeah. I mean, the first week was horrific. First week was horrific. My buddy Dylan did it with me. He's like my little brother Dylan did it with me. And the third day, he just. He messaged me that morning. He just goes, oh, I can't walk. Like, this is bad. And I said, we have. We have this program that we got to do today. Like, we have to push through. Yeah. Second week, you start going, okay, I'm fatigued, but fuck, my legs feel solid. The third week, you're just like, you're doing these workouts, and you're not sore at all. You know, the weight feels heavy, but you're not. Not.

You're just kind of like, whatever. And then once I started hitting 3: 1:30:53

15 for triples, and then. And then four or five reps, I was like, oh, it does work. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. And you push through opr. Yeah. Yeah, pretty crazy. Which, like, our. I Mean, our training is definitely more hit than going in and loading a bar and squatting. But I think it goes back to functional fitness as, you know, the big term these days. But truly, like, watching even my mom age, she's 69 years old, she comes and does an ISI workout. And my dad, like, strapped up a dresser last week and she's like, pulling it like she's pulling a sled. So it's like, what's going to make me healthier, let me live longer, let me be stronger and live my life better every day. Training for life. Yeah, that's it. And that's really what needs to be. That's the motto, actually. Isi late training. What are you training for? Train for life. Yeah. You have to. Yeah. You know, one of the things that I really wanted to incorporate. Listen, I bought this fantastic home gym. Yeah. And the problem is it's at my mom's house and I don't have access to it because she put a fucking bunch of boxes around it. Karen. No, she said to me. I said, I've said this a couple of times, she said. She calls me up one day, I was living at my other apartment, and she just goes, so this, like all this workout stuff in the gym, in the garage, we keeping this? I went, you are not touching it. That's like $10,000 worth of shit. Are you out of your mind? Yeah, we're keeping it. Yeah, touch it. Does she have the monkey kettlebell? She's got everything. She's got it all. All my kettlebells. She's got 500 pounds of calibrated steel rogue plates. I have a $2,000 rogue monster rack in there. I've got the assault bike. Yeah. I've got all of the flooring, the stall mat flooring. I've got a landmine. I've got two powerlifting bars. I've got one kabuki strength Cadillac bar, which Tyler and Gabe bought me for my birthday that year. It basically pivots in the closer you get to the middle, so this way you don't put as much stress on your shoulder. So I have that. I have literally every attachment you could ask for. I have kettlebells ranging from£10 to £125. Yeah. We're fucking kidding. Out of your mind. It's not going to Goodwill. No. And you know. Oh, my God. Yeah. That's somebody you'll buy for $4. What do you mean that took. Took three weeks to ship? I mean, that was during. That was peak Covid. I was miserable. I Just wanted all my shit. So I want to train for Jiu Jitsu specifically. Like, Tom Sandbags, kettlebells, all this stuff. It's just. It's very. He. He'll. He'll say, I'm making an excuse. I'm really not very tough to get down to him. He's all the way in Baldwin. It's very tough to get down to him with needy things in my life and work and things that I have to do. So that's why Squattober was so welcomed, because it's like, oh, yeah, I need something again. I need, like, a little program that I could jump into. And that's Dead Sember is going to be great, by the way. Side note. Yeah. I was talking to my friends, Evan from OG Did. Did Squattober. Okay. He was messaging me every day like, this is hell. I was like, yeah, man, get ready for December. That's awesome. Get ready for Dead Sember. But I was talking to him, and I go, I don't know why they don't do benchuary. So he's like. He's like, yeah. So they put up that they were doing Dead Sember. And I said. And I messaged on Squattober page. Yeah. That they collaborated with Pen and Paper Strength, which is the strength and conditioning company that does the programming. I put it on the comment. I said, any reason we don't celebrate Benchuary and Pen and Paper Strength literally goes. I mean, asking you to bench five days a week isn't really a challenge like squats. It's basically like asking you to eat ice cream every day. And I just went, all right, the truth hurts. But, like, I'd still like to do Obentuary. So Evan's laughing. Whatever, bro. He messages me, like, three days later. He goes, yo, can you believe this? Now? Coming soon. Benchuary, let's go, baby. I wrote on the post, I said, I'll accept my apology and a free teacher. Let's go. Because that's bullshit. Some kids said, benchvember. I'm like, you're an bench. You get so many different variations. Yeah. I don't know if I'm gonna do. It for January or February. Now, is it just a straight bench, or are you gonna go different variations? It's whatever they do. Whatever they do. Got it. They do all the programming. It's. It's fantastic. How do you feel? How. How did it feel to be back at Beta? It felt good. Yeah. It felt good. I'm actually going to shoot some videos for Steve. Okay, cool. For bet. For Bevs Yep. So that's gonna be nice. I've been bouncing around to some of the gyms because I've been shooting some. Obviously some stuff with an Nick, and we're actually going to film a picture next week. Awesome. Mason something. Mason from the Athletics. Okay, that's cool. So I'm going to Pittsburgh next week with Carol Acus to go film him because he's part of the team. That's awesome. I don't know if I'm allowed to announce that. Sorry. It's out there. Nikki K's the man. Man. I like that guy. Yeah. They've great products. I With you. Yeah. And stuff is really, really great products. It's a nice water bottle. Yeah. Do not open that because I don't. I don't know what's. I don't know if it's coffee or a protein shake. Yeah. So, yeah. So it's. It's been good with them. I do some stuff with condemned labs, with Shout Out Mike and all the guys over there, so it's been good. I'm producing a podcast that I can't really talk about, which is with somebody that everybody knows. I'll talk to you. I'll tell you guys. Off air. Beautiful. It's cool. So, yeah, things are good. Things are good. A little bit. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Yeah. Yeah. So now you got Chicago that you're going to be doing. Are you going to do it with him? I'll train with him. Do it, but. Okay, so here's the thing. I wish. I know, I know. You don't have to wish. She's got plenty of time. She does. And I kept telling myself, the energy, I will say, is. I mean, you look at people and like he said, all walks of life. Truly, I feel like I saw more people over the age of 50 than I did under the age of 50, which is inspiring in itself. But I told him I would train with him and, like, if I get to a point where I'm miserable, that's fine, I'll stop. But I think you. I think you'll enjoy it. Yeah. Because you are an athlete. Yeah. You always have been. Yep. And I. I believe that once you get into that mindset of, like, oh, yeah, we're doing this. Yeah, you'll be right alongside him. Exactly. All right, come on, babe, wake up. It's time to go. And they, they. They call it the marathon bug. You know, she thinks I'm crazy, but in two weeks, I'm running the Charlotte half with a couple of people we know and stuff like that. That's everything though. Yeah. I see it with high rocks. I see it with jiu jitsu tournaments. I see it with everything. You do it once and then you're just like everyone you want to. You, everyone you see, it's like, okay, I'll sign up for this, this, this. But the common thread is it's keeping you healthy, it's keeping you motivated. It's not like we're doing anything stupid or dumb. This is healthy stuff, you know, And I feel good doing it. You know, I look at running as prolonging my life. Every mile I run, I'm getting healthier. Not 31 year. Almost said 28 year old Vinnie. 31 year old Vinnie. It's crazy. 31 year old Vinnie, 75 year old me is going to thank me. 80 year old's going to thank me. Right. And that's why I train also to be a strong husband and a future father and a son and brother. But the big piece is I want to be on this earth as long as I possibly can. And that's why we toned down the diet. That's why we're going to keep going. You know, I have high cholesterol. I'm hoping to get off meds as soon as possible. I'm hoping the running is going to do that. Because that in itself, as you know, you've been there, you know, with the crazy stuff that you went through. You know, I don't want to be on medicine, but if right now they're telling me it's going to make me healthy, well, I'm going to find a better way, you know, because I don't want to put things in my body. How are you eating? We've cleaned everything up. I've lost. What is it, what does it mean when you say you've cleaned everything up? Whole foods except for chocolate chips. Yeah. Except for the last couple of days I've ate a lot. That's okay. But I'm saying generally, what are you eating each day? Three egg. Three egg bites. I make them egg bites. Okay, so he has egg bites every morning with spinach and bacon. Beef and potatoes for lunch. Yep. You don't really snack. You track your food. I should, I have in the past. But we had this conversation. Yep. Yep. That was fucking insane. Yep. That was. He was doing it for me. I know you got mad at me. I just. I was flabbergasted. I wasn't mad at him. I was just. I was speechless. I said to him, I said, yo, track your food. Yeah. He just goes, oh, well, Leigh does it for me. Went, what do you. What do you mean? Layla does, like, I track my food, but I can't. He's like. He's like, oh, no. Well, she tracks it for me. I go, well, what happens if you are out and you eat something and what, you just message her, hey, babe, I just had this. Can you log this for me? I was like, nah, bro, we gotta get on that tracking. She's a great wife. At the end of the day, that's what that means. Yep. Fantastic. Cause I would. If I was your wife, I would have been like, yo, brother. I know. Get that app on your phone. It's there, it's there. It's just dormant. Yeah. He paid for the year subscription for which one? Which one do we have? My fitness Pal. My fitness pal. I just got. I'm gonna jump out this fucking way. My fitness pal. My fitness pal. Okay. I use my macros plus, I used to use my fitness pal. My fitness pal has a much better database of foods to scan the labels of. But my macros plus, I found, was, like, more fun and more easily customizable for me to just be able to, like, track. Yeah, it just kept it. It just kept it, like, real. Like, my remaining macros and macros I've eaten so far at the top. Yep. It just kept it very. Yep. Basic, but enough features that I felt like I was comfortable using it. Yeah. Versus my fitness pal, where it was like every other fart was an ad from Under Armour. I was like, oh, my God, I can't watch this shit anymore. I have to Google how to, like, go in and change my macros if I want to. It's. There's so much you have to pay to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And he does. Yeah. Yeah. And it was, you know, through the cross of the. Just across the board. It was 18 pounds down through training and 4% body fat. Yep. I mean, it was just. We cleaned it up. Dropped 4. 4%. What? You leave? You still leave today? We leave tonight. Yeah. Okay. I was gonna say you should have gotten a DEXA scan while you were home. Shoot content for Dexa. Would have loved to have had you guys go in there. Oh, yeah. Next time when you. Are you coming back up for the holidays at all? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll set that up. Yeah, we'll let you know. I'll have you guys come in, I'll film you guys for content for them. Yeah. And they'll do. So the cool thing about Dexa Here's a little plug. Shout out. Yeah, shout out. Brian at dexa. Brian's a phenomenal guy, man. He really does just want to help people. And it started out as him owning DEXA for that branch of Woodbury that he was in, Syd Woodbury. And he has expanded since then into doing DEXA scans, VO2, max RMR. So resting metabolic rate. Now he just invested in red light therapy. So he has a whole red light bed that you lay in for, like, 10 minutes, recharge your body. He has the oxygen therapy. So you like that chamber you get in? Well, no, you run on the treadmill. Yes, run the treadmill. They put the mask on you, and you breathe all of the, like, 90% oxygen as you run. So this way your body gets, you know, basically electrified of, like, real oxygen. I forget the percentage that you actually breathe in when you're just breathing, but it's very low comparative to 90% pure oxygen. And so you know him and that team, his team is called Pre Fusion down in Belmore. They're phenomenal, but they do a lot of this, like, biohacking metabolic stuff. They'll run blood panels for you and tell you all of your minerals and everything like that. They'll do really deep dives into health, which this is where healthcare is kind of going. It's going into the privatized side because people don't trust the mainstream doctors that got their degrees from companies that funded their schools. And of course, they're gonna be biased towards that. Oh, my student loans are paid off by xyz. And then there'll be doctors that say, oh, that never happens. It's like, all right, well, maybe not to you, bro, but I'm sure there are outliers, so it's pretty cool. But we'll have to get you guys the DEXA scan, because the DEXA scan will talk to you. We'll give you the metrics of mass and your total mass, any type of visceral fat around the organs, which is the fat that you want to watch. It'll give you your body fat percentage. It'll show you skeletal, bone, health, everything like that. Very interesting. That's awesome. And the cool thing is if you get a scan in November or whatnot, and then you come back and do another marathon, let's say you train for the next year or whatever you do, you get the scan, they keep your original results, compare and contrast. How much body fat did you drop? Did you lose any muscle? Did you this that? It's. It's really Cool. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. So we'll get. You guys do that. Yeah. So the Chicago twins. You guys gonna both gonna do Chicago? Hey, I'm gonna push her, you know, And I think, obviously running for another great cause with the American Cancer Society again will be a little. You could do a 5K right now, right? Oh, yeah. We did it. She was my 5k master. I mean, she would run the track with me, which obviously running on the track, if it's not fun, it's just circle, circle. But the footwork and how hard it is to run on a track. Track versus the street was awesome. But, yeah, she was side by side with me. I mean, she rode her bike and. Yeah, I mean, it was great to have her a part of that training piece. It was awesome. You said you're doing which marathon when. You get home, so. The Charlotte Half. Charlotte half in two weeks. How long is a half marathon? That's 13.1. How long's a 5K? 3.3.1. 2.

1. 5. 3:1. Yeah. 3: 1:43:08

1. Would you do that with him? The Charlotte? No. I think you need more time to train. Yeah, I think a 10K. Yeah. Six would. Yeah. Yeah. That would be the best next step, that. All right. So I think you guys should look for one. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. 100. She'd be great. She'd be great. I don't like the cold, so that's my problem too. Like, it was unusually warm for yesterday's marathon, so I'm thinking about Chicago in October and Windy City, baby. Yeah, it's gonna be a little frigid. I'm gonna make it a good weekend, though. That'll be fun. Yeah. I gotta go to Chicago in three weeks. Awesome. High rocks. Yeah, I'm filming one of the guys there. That's sweet. Have you done high rocks? No, I can't get into that. That. Not yet. So good on that. Yeah. Watch. I may. I may eat my own words. Yeah, Here he is. Coming. I know I said that I wasn't gonna do it, but here I am. Yeah. I don't know. I just. I don't have any interest. Yeah, I don't have any interest in it. I think it's cool. I get. I get gassed up by seeing other people do their thing and compete. Like, I see you train for a marathon and a bunch of other people I know that ran the marathon, and I sit there and I go, oh, should I train for something like that? Yeah. You know, and then I think about my respective sport, and once again, I have the internal debate of I really wanna compete, but I don't wanna get injured, you know, Marina, she was getting ready for High Rock Chicago, and she did tunnel to Towers, and she had to make a maneuver and kind of pivot around a kid that stopped short in front of her and she broke her leg. Yeah, that. And that was the piece yesterday, man. Like, just even. I mean. So I hugged them. Hug and kissed them twice out of the four times I saw them. When I got to them the last two times, I was like, I can't stop. Like, she threw me a water bottle. I caught sip, kept drinking it. Now, what was it? You were following him? Yeah, he. You could track him? Yep, we could track him. And then, like, I had, you know, have his, like, iPhone, location or whatever, but he kind of had it laid out what mile he wanted to see us at and, like, where he would need some nutrition and water, whatever. Like, the gel packs, did they help? No. So this is great. Shout out to Uncrustables. Uncrustables. Yeah. So Layla's deathly allergic to all nuts, so. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yep. Yep. That's why we. Screw you, Delta. Screw you, Delta. American Airlines, first class only. I'm just. Just kidding. Yeah, yeah. She's gonna be off after this episode. Send the. Send the check. Send the check. It's not free. No. So we went with. What. What was this brand called? This was Neutral Life. Neutral Life. Yeah. So it was sun, butter and jelly, and I would have one every three to four miles. And so I didn't feel like that. Was too much in your stomach running. No, no, because I had. I had a whole motivated. And yeah, I was motivated to eat, man. Because again, think about all the calories you're burning your body. I've never done that before. 4,000 something calories. And that span is unbelievable. So my body was asking. I also had goo shout out to Gu. I was eating their gummies, the gels, for me, the texture and the way they tasted was not good. What is the texture? Like, I've never tried. Oh, I couldn't. I want to say like a slushy, but, like, it was a little bit. I don't know, like, warm, probably. Yeah, warm. I just. No, we went with the Uncrustables and then we went with the Goo Chewies, which was like 90 calories per six of them. Do you know who Nick Bear is? Yeah. So I use his supplements. Yeah. Yep. I used his electrolytes. Yep. Bpm. Amazing. Thank you. My buddy Josh, home for Nick in Texas. And I met Nick. Nick before he blew up. Nick's met Nick at his warehouse in Texas. Really? And we trained at his gym. He was. I mean, super nice guy. This is before. I mean, he was big, but he wasn't. He didn't pop off yet. Like, he is now very, very down to earth, dude. I gotta. I gotta give credit where credit's due. Those are the electrolytes, right? So I have his shovel in the water, tossing water. He was my electrolytes. And then he has the electrolytes plus the carbohydrates. So I took that before the. An hour before the race. And that was 350 grams of sodium. And then I forgot what the carb intake is. But. But the. I mean, he was that. And I gotta shout him out. Human nutrition through isi. They were my protein and my creatine throughout training. But. So those were the two supplements that I used. I mean, it was great. I'm Nick. Nick does his. His content is unbelievable. Content's great. The way he moves for his size. Unbelievable. Big boy. Unbelievable. And I. It's just very motivating. And I would watch it, you know, throughout runs and stuff like that. He. He does a great job. Yeah, he's nasty with it. He's. And he's a very nice, humble dude. Dude. Ex military, obviously. A big piece yfile. I don't know if. I don't know if they. They. There's some people that hate when you say ex military because we're veterans. I mean, no disrespect. No, no, we. He knows. He knows we love him, but, yeah, it was great. Obviously, I would love for Layla to run and be a part of that one day, but. Yeah, Chicago 25, man. Chicago 25. But I can't wait to get back to ISI and start lifting. I can't wait. It's good. I miss it. Are you gonna do December? Hey, I don't. You gotta stay committed. If you're gonna do it, you gotta do it. I have to. Well, I gotta talk to Phil then, our head of coaching. I gotta tell him we gotta add some more deadlifts. Every day. Every day. Well, you can do it. Just. You just can't train. I mean, I don't think. What's the heaviest weight you guys have there? So we got new barbells, like, real barbells. Real. Yeah. Yeah. You had, like, the little short ones. Yeah. We got the big ones now. Yep. Upgraded. Couldn't tell you what. What. What type of Max would be. So, I mean, we could probably go. Well, they're 35 pound barbells. They're big though, right? The barbells are 35. They are the short. They're the short Olympic ones. Yeah. You gotta get real. Yeah. You're gonna have. You're gonna have to go to like a spot. Like an actual, like. Yeah. Strength training spot. Yeah, sure. Which. You have plenty down there. I like that gym that we went to that day. You went. You liked it? I like that gym. That was fun. Where'd you guys go? Which one? Poppy gym. I was hitting on the girl at the front counter. Was. Was it like, oh, did you go to court 24? Yes. Yeah. You went like the neon signs on the walls. Yeah. Yep. Beautiful gym in Charlotte. Yeah. I mean, people rave about it when they go. It's clean. Clean. It's clean. It was cool. I'll tell you what, they had a lot of arsenal stuff. Yep. I hit on the girl at the front counter. I got hit on by one of the gay guys at the gym. Hey, welcome to Charlotte. Yeah, he's like, oh. He's like. He's like, you're down from New York. He's like, you see you around here? All but. I'm like, wow, you're trying to get me moved down here too. That's it. Along with Vinny. I told him all. Yeah, he just. He just told everybody he was awesome. But no, no, that was it. Yeah. Are you gonna do December? If he does, I'm in. All right, come on, let's go. We gotta do it. We gotta find a gym. Yeah, we do. Do it. Just for the month. I. Joe, I joined. Bev's back. Just for the month. Yeah, we probably have a gym membership. I know somewhere in our bank. We probably pay for it somewhere. All right, let's just get a barbell, put it in the garage. We have one. Yeah, but it's gonna be more. It's gonna be more than that. They do accessory work and whatnot. Okay, I'll show you. I'll show you. All right. Yeah, I want to see that. Listen, I want to be respectful of you guys. Time. Oh, you're good. We're an hour and 50 minutes in. Yeah. How goes quick? Yeah, yeah. Nobody ever notices that it goes quick. I. You guys got a lot of stuff to do before you leave today. I want to show you guys the apartment and we'll go walk. Yes, but I'll carry him. Yeah, but he needs a right foot, first and foremost. Yeah. I love you guys. I Appreciate you guys coming and hanging out. Thank you. Chopping it up. This was awesome. Congratulations on the marathon. The first of many. Yeah, the first of many. Bite it. Yeah. Oh, it is. It is. Is it like a real. Yeah, it's heavy. Yes. Heavy. Yeah. Yeah. It's not plastic biting right where you bit. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Look at that. Right? This is awesome. And what do you have to do to get your shit engraved? We need to figure it out. I'm sure your dad knows how to do it. Well, they. Oh, they didn't offer this as a. Down in his workshop. I'm sure we could send it in somewhere. Yeah, I don't know. There's got to be. How do you not have, like, an engraving? I would think there would be someone at the finish liner. Yeah, right. I was blacked out. Time. Aim. Okay, here you go. Next, like, fucking thousand of them up. I know. That's awesome. First of many. That's exciting. Yep. And if you guys want to put your social handles, if anybody wants to get in touch with you guys in North Carolina area, come in for a workout, I'm sure you're gonna have your people listen to it back home, too. So it's at ISI Dilworth. Isi Dilworth. Isi Dilworth. Yep. And what's your tag? Leila T. Orlando. Say it louder. I don't know. Leila T. Orlando. Hey, now. The Mrs. Yes. Love it. That was a great wedding. It's a great feeling. Great wedding. We had a great time. 103 degrees outside, but we partied it up afterwards. I know. Are you hot? Oh, man. I know. I just. You know what? Everybody was like. The conversation was generally, they're just like, yo, it's going to be hot. And I just go, oh, no, no, no. He knows that it's going to be hot. And we're wearing these suits. I am fully prepared to sweat through this suit. And I don't care. Like, I was like, if I don't sweat through this suit, there's something wrong with me. Hey, we did a good job with them, though. They didn't. What? Nope. They didn't show through pictures. Nothing. I didn't see anything in pictures. Well, no, because I didn't. I. It was my back. Yes. It was covered for that time. Yeah. And then once the dancing started, that was it. It was like, it was gone. Yeah. And then everybody. Everybody started like. Like, touching. I was like, don't. Like, it's drenched. Don't touch me. I promise. It's gross. Girls couldn't keep their Hands off of you. Oh, it's so crazy. They just. They were just like, oh, Nick. Charlotte girls, come get your boy. Nikki Rizzo. Oh, man. Give me a job, and then we'll talk about getting me down there. Get me a job. Mr. Vinnie. Yeah. Social handles anything at Coach Vo. 20. That's it. At Coach V. 20, I try to be as motivational as possible, and that's it. She's got the gym, coaching a ton and teaching. That's it, bro. Well, I think this is gonna. I always am. What episode you're in bad at this? Well, because I recorded on Friday with Big baby and all the guys and Jamal. Yeah. Fab. So I just. I always say the wrong episode, and then I'm making the thumbnail, and I go, oh, God. You said it was this, and it's not. I think it's 118. Let's see if I'm right. 20. That would be awesome. How fucking cool. That's my number. Yep. 20. We were trying to find. My bib number is 20. She found a. Found a way to get it. I think it was, what, 60,277. Yeah. This will be 118. Let's go. 20. This will be 118. That makes number. That's my number. Your number? That's my number. So this is gonna be episode 118. If you guys learned something, had fun, didn't like something, I don't know if I can tell you. Comment. Roast me. Don't roast them. They're amazing. Like, comment. Share with people that you think may enjoy the episode. I appreciate everybody for fucking with us, but for now, peace. Peace.