The coming undone is the podcast for this with dare bravely risk-modelated and grow relentlessly. Join me, Toby Brooks, as I invite a new guest each week to examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place. Some corners of the internet can be scary places. A medium in particular can be rough, with self-proclaimed experts on every virtual corner at the ready to tear us down, be critical, and just generally tell us why we don't stack up. However, bright spots exist and hope remains. Take for instance Canadian John Akebolaq, an interior designer by training and experience, she's in the midst of a major life transition to coaching and personal training. As years of hard work and experience aren't through relentless dedication, not only change your life. It's changed the lives of those around you. While John Ake never intentionally set out to inspire her little corner of the world, that's exactly what happened as she steadily became the face of the FitPod workout apps Facebook group. Not to mention the curator of the page's Flex Friday, and an instrument of hope and light who provides genuine heartfelt encouragement to others who are also on the path of the fitness journey. The work eventually led to her being asked to regularly contribute to a new podcast that helps tell the stories of one of the most encouraging social media communities ever. It hasn't been an easy climb for her though. Overcoming the shame, stigma, and unhealthy habits of an eating disorder that first showed itself during her teens, her condition got better for a season and re-emerged like an angry monster in her early 30s. John Akebolaq will forever be grateful for the persistence of a concerned physician and the family and friends who supported her through lengthy, deliberate, difficult work to heal and a steady result to learn and live through healthy habits. She discovered her voice and found her power. With that power being at an all-time high, thanks to a disciplined approach to healthy healing and serious work in the gym. With her healing, she also discovered that she has a true gift for helping others navigate similar paths. Here, John Akebolaq could tell her story of overcoming disorder eating, her road to recovery, and her current efforts to help others find success in episode 20. Inspire. This week is a special treat. This is a friend in this virtual world. It seems like we make these close friends that we've never even met in person, but it's like we know them. There are people. There are tribe. I'm super excited this week to have John Akebolaq with us joining us from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. John Akebolaq, a welcome. Thank you so much, Toby. It's so nice to be here. For sure. So John Akebolaq has a fantastic, a powerful story. I had her guest lecture to my nutrition and sports performance class last year, and she did a fantastic job. I'll let her share her story, but I just love the power and the inspiration. You've really kind of found a niche without even trying in your fitness journey. People, they really respond. You resonate with folks. I love your energy and I love just the relentless positivity that you bring to the space. Fitness can be a dark place for some people. You're never that. You are exactly the opposite, just this bright shining example of the good that can come from treating your body well. Oh, thank you so much. That's kind of you to say. So John Akebolaq is kind of venturing out in the midst of a transition, which is the theme of our show is becoming undone, and it's being brave enough to take bold actions. And so I guess we would start at the beginning for you. We'll get to the cool, fun, late stuff later, but start at the beginning. What did you want to be when you grew up and why? I don't know that I had huge career aspirations for myself. I always knew that I wanted to actually be a mom. Like that was a huge thing. Like my mom growing up was a stay at home mom, and so that was kind of the example that I had. I knew that she was really happy doing that. And it was something that I aspired to be, and it was something that I aspired to do really well at. And so that is actually where my path went initially. I got married quite young and had three kids at quite a young age, and I was a mom, and I loved it. I loved it. I feel like I excelled at being a mom, and it was something that I enjoyed. I loved the opportunity that I had to stay at home with my kids to raise them and to just be there for every part of their journey. So that was something that I that I always wanted to be. So I didn't have huge skills. But out of high school, I did take, I went to a technical college and took dental assisting, which seems like a lifetime ago. It's funny how you think your path will go one way as a young person right out of high school, and then you have no idea that it's just going to go in all these different directions. So I actually worked as a dental assistant very early on as my career, but that was very short lived. I realized that that was not my passion, and that was not that was not my calling in life to be a dental assistant by any stretch. Yeah. So we met, I'm trying to think how long ago it's probably been at least four years ago, virtually on a Facebook group tied to a fitness app. And it's now the fitness app that you serve as a podcaster for. But you use Fitbot, and I've used that tool. It was essential to my well-being during the COVID lockdown. I'm not trying to plug the thing. I don't get any money for it. But it takes the thought out of working after a long day of teaching rehab and therapeutic exercise. I found myself too tired and too disengaged to build my own workouts. And I thought I'll find an app and all whatever that barrier is, remove it. And so Fitbot filled that for me. And then I stumbled upon this Facebook group. And Facebook groups can be toxic. And this one is 180 degrees different from a lot of groups that I've been in. I just support and love and people willing to encourage one another. And used it out early as this beacon of hope and light and encouragement. But eventually you shared your story. And it was one of pain and one of triumph and one of overcoming some issues that were, if not life threatening, certainly life compromising. So take us back to the beginning of that journey. Okay. Okay. And I think that journey kind of comes into segments because I think as I looked at recovering from disordered eating as an adult, I realized when I look back that the seeds of that disorder were planted very young for me and actually started when I was quite young, my mom struggled with her weight most of her life and was very vocal about that with us as children. It was something that I watched. It was something that I actually was was quite frightened by wondering if, if that's, you know, if struggling with my weight was going to be my flight in life, if that was what was going to happen. And I felt like it was something that I didn't really have much control over as a child. And so the seeds of trying to gain control over that aspect of my life were planted quite young. I also would like to say that that I think coupled with that was my inability maybe to find my voice as a young person as well. I struggled to be able to speak for myself. I struggled to be able to test things for myself. I was very much a people pleaser and I kind of tried to keep things inside. So as I look back on my young, as I was a kind of probably preteen and into my teenage years, I realized that there was a lot of kind of unhealthy behavior that was that was kind of presenting itself. I was an athlete. I played a lot of sports, but I also looked to kind of gain a lot of control over my feelings and over my discomfort and maybe my anxieties by controlling the foods that I ate. Couple that with just the challenges of being a teenager in your body, trying to appreciate it for what it can do as an athlete, but also going through lots of changes. Like there's just a lot of like, there's a lot of in that cocktail as a teenage girl, you know, just kind of lots of things in the mix. But I kind of got to the end of my teen years and I would say that my disordered eating kind of went into what I would call remission or was not as prevalent. It was something that maybe I was living with a little bit less stress in my life. I, you know, maybe felt a little bit more control over my own destiny and my own choices. But as I was a young mom, I had three kids. As things kind of started to progress, I started to see these disordered eating patterns reintroduce themselves into my life. And it was kind of scary. I felt a lot of shame and I felt a lot of embarrassment over it because I felt like this was something that people deal with and their teenagers. And so I felt like, okay, I kind of had that as a teenager. I kind of gone past that and here it is presenting itself again. And I was really embarrassed by that because I was probably in my early 30s. I had three kids that I was raising like I was a fully functioning adult. And I was just kind of struggling with this ugly side of myself that was very secretive. It was, it was something that I didn't really want to share with anyone. And it was something that I kind of kept under wraps, which I think most people who struggle with this do keep it under wraps. It's something that I kind of, I kind of presented to the world that I was on this like healthy, healthy cake that I was, but I was, but I was secretly really, really, really just trying to work out enough to burn off what I'd eaten. There was a little bit of binging and purging going on in my life behind, behind closed doors. And I really kind of struggled to justify all of this in my mind as people, people would praise any weight loss that I've had. And I was, I was normal sized when I kind of started down this path again like, like I was very average. I wouldn't say that I was particularly needing to lose weight. And so it was hard for me to reconcile in my mind how everybody was like, you're losing weight, what are you doing? Like they, you look so good. Like, you know, but, but I was doing all of these like ugly behaviors to kind of get myself to that place. So I felt like there was this kind of this disconnect between this like healthy image that I was trying to portray. I was trying to, you know, run and, you know, eat healthy. But I, but it was really about controlling the calories that were being consumed into my body. And that was really, really just kind of an unhealthy place to be where I felt like this disconnect between what I was presenting to the world and what was actually going on inside of me. So I think a lot of the things that maybe were going on in my life personally at that time led me to feel that need to control the control the food and, and, and maybe control what I was presenting to the world had some relationships that were really causing me a lot of angst that again, I didn't have the voice to, to share what I was feeling and so again, it was just that like suppressing of that, that voice that needed to come out that I just couldn't find at the time. And so this, this eating disorder just presented itself again and, and it was ugly and shameful. And it was, it was very embarrassing as a full grown woman to be struggling with this. Right. Now, a common theme that seems to have emerged out of this first 15 episodes that I've done is people that find themselves in a spot that they didn't really intend to be. You didn't choose an eating disorder. It, it happened and it grew and it, it likely, it was something you wanted to give rid of. But consistently these people talk about there was one person or a couple of one people who recognized no matter how pretty the mask was that you put on or the front that you gave people because let's face it. None of us like to admit failure and we tend to dress it up so that people don't ask questions and they don't dig too deep because they're going to find the truth. But those people that make the most difference, those people who impact our lives forever into eternity and maybe even generations, maybe I'm not overstating that. But if I recall, you had a one person, you had someone who wasn't settling for the story that you were selling. Talk to me about. Yeah. That was like you said, that changed my life and actually I have tremendous feelings of gratitude for my family doctor. She's in my family doctor for a long time. She is an amazing, amazing person. She delivered my daughter what 18 years ago and she's still like, she's still my, she's still my family doctor. I drive a long way, sister, but it's worth it. So I was in for a physical and she asked me like I had lost weight. It was noted in my chart that I had lost weight from the year before. I'm not quite sure exactly what the number was that she had me in the room and she flat out asked me, she asked me like, what are you doing to be losing this weight? And I just kind of like stammered. I'm not a good liar. So if you asked me some pretty pointed questions, I cracked pretty easily, but she did. She got very, very pointed and she asked me, she said, is there some unhealthy behavior going on with this weight loss? Are you binging? Are you purging? Are you, are you, you know, doing things that are creating this weight loss that are unhealthy? And I broke down into tears with her in that, you know, I confessed to her that I was and I was, I was embarrassed, but I was also, I was so relieved also to be able to finally let it out. I have some maybe question and push back about what I was doing that was causing this weight loss to happen. And so we had a pretty good long conversation. Like that's one of the things that I love about her is she takes the time to delve into things. And so she asked me about, you know, my family relationships and about some of the things that were causing me to feel this need, you know, to participate in these behaviors. And we kind of really started to kind of like uncover some of the roots of what was going on with me and why I needed, why I needed to maybe look at doing things differently and why I needed to change. And so she was very loving, she was very understanding. I felt like there was very little judgment, but she was very pointed in what she asked me and she wasn't just going to let this one slide and not mention it. And I will forever be grateful for her for doing that because I think I was, I was, I was at a real crossroads at that time when I, when I came to her. I also a lot of shame over this behavior. And I felt a lot of responsibility for setting a better example for my children. Like I said, I had three kids at the time. My daughter was, she was young. She was probably two, three. And I just, I remember just thinking about her and feeling how upset I would be or how sad I would be if she ended up dealing with things the same way that I was doing. I remember having that thought over and over and over again and how I wanted to be better for her. I wanted her to see a healthy example of a woman who was strong, who was in control of her emotions and her body and didn't feel the need to, to suppress her feelings in an unhealthy way and to have just this unhealthy relationship with her body. And so when my doctor asked me about this, I was really, really ready to latch onto the change that needed to happen. I felt like, I feel like she was inspired. I feel like there was divine intervention that, the timing of all of this because I was just right on that break and I was just ready for that hands to be reached out to me and she reached out that hand and allowed me to, to let the secret out and to kind of like talk about it with me and, and for it to be okay to talk about it. Yeah. I think there's so much shame and it's not just eating disorders. There are so many behaviors that we could classify along this, whether it's addiction, whether it is an eating disorder, depression. I mean, there are lots of times when we do our best to put on this false front, this mask that we put on. And I know I've been in those seasons where I'm doing my best, but if I'm really honest, God, I hope somebody sees through this charade and they care enough to reach through this, this fake me and that I matter enough that they care enough that they're going to have that conversation. And so for that to come from a physician is just remarkable. I mean, in this day and age, healthcare in Canada is different than the United States, but still there's a need for volume through that clinic. For her to sit there and take the time that it took, cost her money if you really think about it, but it changed your life and it changed your children's lives. And now you're inspiring others. And so for any healthcare providers, I just want to encourage those are the conversations we got into the business to have to begin with. And it's just so powerful for me to hear you share that story. It wasn't a friend. It wasn't a family member. It was a physician. It was someone who didn't spend a lot of time with you. She looked at your chart, knew something was up and she wasn't going to let you lie to her. And that's a hard conversation to have. Do you feel like along that way, maybe deep down, you would hope someone would pierce through that mask or were you really in denial? It was, you mentioned divine intervention like it was right place, right time. Yeah. And they sometimes the challenge with people close to us is that I think we often feel judgment when they bring things up like this, when they bring things up that they see behaviors that they might be concerned about. I think it's often hard. So I don't hold anyone to blame for not talking to me about it, for not asking because I think they probably had, I think people around me probably had concern. I think people around me probably were a little afraid to kind of like, what do we say? How do we, you know, how do we approach this? I feel like it almost was okay for her to ask and to push on the subject because she doesn't have any judgment. She's not, she's not personally invested. I don't feel judgment when she asks me something. It felt like it was just a little bit more of an open conversation. So there was concern and there was care there, but there wasn't judgment. So I think that's the hardest part for people close in our lives is to be able to remove that judgment when they do bring up these difficult conversations. And so, I mean, that's hard. That's hard to do because we do tend to judge people in our lives and, you know, think that we know situations and I don't blame anyone for not really bringing it up. I think there probably was concern, but I think it just, it was just very hard to figure out how to have that conversation. Sure, would you consider that conversation rock bottom in the journey? Like from that point forward, you were moving toward healing? Yeah, for sure. For sure. That was definitely the turning point for me. There was no turning back from that because one of the things that she strongly encouraged me and, you know, guided me to do was actually to admit to people close to me in my life that this was something that I was struggling with. Because for me, having to let that shame out of the bag and to let people know, that was a huge motivator for me. Like I did not want to have those people see that I continued in that behavior. And so having to share that with people was super humbling for me and it was, it was very, very motivating for me to put me back on the track of getting to a place where I could be much healthier. So yeah, like that was the huge turning point. Like I didn't want to go back there. I didn't want to go back to that doctor's appointment and have her follow up and say, yeah, I'm still doing it. So yeah, that was that was a big point. Yeah. For me, I haven't struggled with needing this order, but certainly depression and mental health concerns over the years. And there's certainly been times in my life where I knew what I was doing was counterproductive. I knew that my coping and air quotes for those that are listening was not serving my purpose. Pastors tend to talk about sin and they talk about repentance being, I'm headed down this direction. I'm going to turn and go this other way. And for me, that's where healing has been and not to over-religify this. I just made that word up. But to turn from these pathological, these unhealthy, these poor coping skills to something that serves me in a positive way. And that's really how I turned to fit by. That's how I turned to fitness and running and those types of things because I found that they regulated me. They gave me self-esteem. They gave me confidence in my ability. My energy was better. And that's so much better than listening to sad music for three hours or whatever it was that was just driving me deeper down the hole. So you have this conversation with your family physician and your turning. What was the process like? Talk me through the logistics of your healing. Yeah. Well, it's kind of a difficult process because I know that health and fitness are an important part of a well-rounded life. And so I still wanted to be able to seek out a fitness journey that would better serve me. So I had been using fitness and diet and fitness in a really unhealthy way. But I needed to figure out how to be able to use those in a healthy way. The challenge of an eating disorder is you can't stop eating. Like you need to learn how to eat healthy because you can't abstain from eating. You cannot abstain from having food around you. And so it took a long time for me to figure out how to adopt healthy behaviors where I'm still very cognizant of what I'm eating and still very aware of needing to incorporate fitness and movement into my life. But being able to have those things as a more healthy outlet and something that that make me better as opposed to something that helped me to control what's coming into my body. So I really had to learn to identify those things that were very triggering for me. And there's things that I still incorporate into my journey to this day, which people often find surprising because this was a long time ago that I had this conversation with my physician that was probably 15 years ago. And I would say there was a transition period, but I've been on a journey where I've been able to eat intuitively and to maintain a healthy body weight for years now. It's probably been almost a decade. So people are often surprised that I don't count calories. Are very, very triggering for me. I don't look at how many calories I burn in a workout. I don't get on cardio machines and look at those numbers and try to rectify those with how much I've eaten that day. Calories are something that I'm very aware of because I counted them obsessively while I was going through my eating disorder. I'm very aware of where my calories, where things are calorie dense and where things aren't. I'm very aware of serving sizes and how much are in serving sizes. And so I use those things to my advantage. I'm aware of serving sizes and I'm aware of where I'm getting my calories, but I do not track them and I do not allow myself to become obsessive with them. I, another thing that is super triggering for me is weight putting myself on the scale. It's something that I don't do. I, I will not weigh myself because it's triggering for me. It no matter what the number is, it's somehow messes with my brain and people are surprised by that. Most health journeys start from a place of weight. People weight themselves and talk about it all the time, but I know a lot of people that have come forward and have shared with me that they also struggle with eating disorders. And you know, getting on a scale is super triggering for them as well. So when I go to the doctor's office, I stand with my back to the scale. I, I'm not interested in them sharing the number with me. I know that I'm at a healthy body weight, but I, I don't need to know what the number is unless, for some reason, it's completely off the charts. And so those are some things that, you know, I had to learn like I had to teach myself how to be able to, to track what I eat, but, but not become as sensitive about it to be able to be aware of what I'm putting into my body without, without it controlling what I do and where I go. I was able, luckily, to come across fibod. That's like you said, where we met. But that allowed me to shift in my journey as well to focusing on, on, on building strength in my body and developing muscle and looking to chase numbers, refine technique and form. That just took me away from that whole cardio, you know, burning so many calories per hour on, on this or that or out running. And so that really would allow me to kind of like shift in the direction that I felt was a little bit of a healthier focus for me. I was able to look and see results without having to weigh myself to, you know, get higher numbers on my lifts to see that I was progressing that way. And so it allowed me to kind of like pull away from those things that, that allowed me to not be so obsessive over, over the numbers on the scale and the calories that I was consuming on a daily basis. Yeah. And I love that it allows you to tap into the competitive side of my personality. I can be with myself. So instead of worrying about burning off that candy bar, I sidebar, who am I kidding? Cami worms, not candy bar, which is pathological for me. It's really more about what can I do today to be better than I was yesterday? How can this number from last week be better today? And so in a lot of ways, recovery from something like an eating disorder or depression anxiety is really similar to the way people deal with addiction. And anyone who's been in addiction can tell you that some days are easier than others. Some days I just win and I'm killing it. And other days it's a real struggle. What's the difference in your mind between being motivated and being disciplined? Oh, those are two completely different subjects to me. Those are, I think motivation is, I always say it whenever I'm giving people advice, I think motivation is a lie. If that's what you're seeking to find, motivation. I think it's fleeting, it's an emotion that might get you started, but it's not what you need to help you find success. Dedication is what you need to stick with it. I think if you were to stop and ask yourself for motivation to do most of what we do in our lives on a regular basis, you would not do. You would not be showing up at work every day if you were asking yourself every morning, do I want to go to work today? No, I don't really want to be there. To me, discipline is deciding that you are going to do something and you make it happen. It becomes a part of your day. It's not something you ask. I don't get up and ask myself every day, do I feel like working out today? It just is something that I do and it's something that I've been doing for so long now that it's just become who I am. I think motivation is just a very small part that might get that fire, that initial desire to dive into, but it's not what's going to keep you there. If you expect that it is what's going to keep you on a healthy journey, you're going to be really sadly disappointed. I think this is the time of year. Here we are just after new years. What's the last few days? I can't remember. There's some stats out there about how many days it takes for people to break the New Years' Resolution to be on a health and fitness kick or whatever. It's very fleeting. Unless you figure out how to make it happen and how to structure your life around making it happen, you're going to struggle to succeed. Motivation for me is key to getting started, but keeping going is all about discipline. Far too often, especially if you're trying to make a big change. For me, the mentality, the mental switch for me was quit talking about diet and exercise. Diet is short term. It's destined to fail. Exercise seems punitive. My coach made me do extra exercises. The flip is fuel and training. Fueling my body. I don't always do great at it, but it serves a purpose. It should serve the purpose till the day I die. Training is, I want to be better able to do my job at work. I want to be the strongest guy in the room. I'm not always, but I want to be that's the goal I'm chasing after. I want to be able to keep up with my son and play catch. There's so many quality of life things that training enables us to do. An exercise is punitive, whereas training is formative. It's such a small thing. The general population wouldn't even know the difference. The motivation is so key to me. Do you think early on in your journey, you were more motivated by fuel and exercise? It took you a time, or was it a pretty quick pivot for you to realize that I've got to make some changes? To be that best mom that I always drink to be, I'm going to fuel and train. I actually had a moment. This was another real aha moment for me that I will remember. I used to get a lot of health and fitness magazines. I remember kind of like, coveting the look of these athletes on the front of these magazines. They were runners or they were lifters. It was early on in my fitness journey. I was doing it, but I wasn't like all in, if I am now. I just remember having this moment where I just realized how incredibly entitled I was being to expect that my body should look like someone who treats their body as an athlete treats their body. I just had this entitlement is probably one of my least favorite character traits on the planet. I had this real self-reflection of Donica. You are being incredibly entitled to think that you should have any level of success, physical success that they are having, without committing yourself to the way that they are living their life and fueling their body and training their body. For me, that was a light bulb moment that I could not pretend hadn't happened. It lit up in me this idea that if I want to be an athlete, I need to treat myself like an athlete. That means I need to fuel my body properly. That means I need to seek out protein to build the muscle that I want to build. That means I need to be in that gym training and putting the hours in that I need to be an athlete. For me, that was something that I couldn't shake, that moment. It knocked me in a totally different direction. It changed that level of commitment to one that was just, I treat myself like an athlete. I'm no special athlete, but I work really, really hard and I fuel my body really, really well. I told you earlier that I don't track calories, that's not something that I do, but I do track my protein. I know that I need to be fueling my body with protein to build the muscle that I want to build to achieve the things that I want to achieve in the gym. That is something that I do pay very close attention to. I spend a lot of time prepping my meals each week and dividing them up and making sure that I have healthy options. I feel like I treat myself like an athlete and I feel like my body reflects that lifestyle. You can't fake that. You can't, you can tend that you're living the lifestyle and expect that your body will show that you are living that lifestyle. It's not something that you can fake. Once you are committed and you are doing it, your training and your body will reflect the choices that you're making on a daily basis. She's right. I've heard it explained this way, despite plastic surgery, liposuction, tummy tucks and all that, a fit, muscular body is one of the only things we can build but never buy. It can be covered but frequently it will show anyhow. And it will perform at a moment's notice whenever we need to call upon it. For Johnica, fitness stopped being this masquerade of unhealthy habits in an attempt to be thin and instead became a competition with herself to attempt to be strong and powerful. It was a transformation of both the outer and the inner self. I think there's a dark side to this and the thing I've always loved about you is you keep it real. It's pragmatic, it's practical. You're not the type of person that's going to say, I'm going to eat the same breakfast lunch and dinner. 365. There's, you've got kids that you cook for. You travel. There are obviously going to be exceptions to this. And I think the dark side of it is we get so legalistic. So we go from being completely undisciplined. Oh, if I just had the motivation, I could look like you. Well, first of all, stop with that mess. It's not about motivation, it's about discipline. And we can get so legalistic in saying, well, I can't eat that. Oh, that's bad. Food is neither good nor bad. And that's, that is the cornerstone of an unhealthy relationship with food. When I think, oh, that's bad. No, it's just food. In moderation, I can squeeze just about anything into the plan. And likewise, when I'm so scared that I'm going to turn back into that chunky little kid that I was missing a day is terrifying because it's going to be the first day that I start my regression back to who I used to be. And I'm finally to a place where I can afford myself the grace to say, I'm sore. Like this is painful. I need to take this day off. And that's okay. It's for you to feel like there was some point in your journey where you could let off on the discipline a little bit and be real about it. Or do you still struggle with that side of things feeling like you have to be on all the time? Well, to me, I also feel like it's finding something that works in your everyday life. So I feel like there's a couple of different camps when it comes to, you know, I feel like there's those people that treat like every day as a special occasion. And every day, you know, like every weekend, it's a party and we'll relax. And every, you know, and then I think there's those people like you're talking about that are super, super rigid and afraid to be able to, you know, go out with friends one night or eat at a restaurant when, you know, but to me, some of those things lead me back into that obsessive behavior that I really try hard not to participate anymore. So one of the things when I was in my eating disorder was the challenge of eating food that had been prepared by someone other than me because I didn't know exactly what had gone into that. I didn't know what the restaurant, how many calories I was consuming and that. So it was something that caused me a lot of anxiety and I shied away from. So I've had to kind of allow myself to relax about that a little bit, but I actually really thrive in a very, a very steady, very controlled, very practical step by step. So most of my, most of my meals, most of my week are pretty, are pretty planned out. And I'm okay with that because I feel like it's, I've found a way to be able to live life and still make healthy choices. So I feel like there's pretty much any restaurant that I can go to and I don't feel like I have to blow the, the bank to be able to enjoy a meal out with friends. I feel like I've learned how to make swaps here and there. So I love a good burger like don't get me wrong. I'll go to the restaurant and I'm not necessarily looking at the salads on the menu. I, you know, I love a good burger, but, you know, people and restaurants nowadays know that there's a lot of dietary changes that can be made and they're, they're very accommodating. So I can get a lettuce wrap burger with all the fixed things and a side salad and feel like I eat in a really great meal prepared by someone else that hasn't blown anything, hasn't, hasn't derailed me in any way. So I think it's important for us to make the distinction between finding ways to be able to live our life that don't completely, like if we're so restrictive that life can't be lived, you might need to, to reassess your plan because it's just a little bit too restrictive. If every time you want to eat out, you're just like, you know, blown, blown your diet like completely out of the water, like maybe, maybe we need to like reassess how restrictive your, how restricted you're feeling about what you're eating on a regular basis. I love to eat. I consider myself a real foodie and so the food that I prepare at home for myself for my meal prep during the weeks is delicious. It's beautiful. It looks nice. It tastes really good. There's variety to it. I don't feel deprived on a regular basis. So I don't feel the need to blow things out of the water when I have the opportunity to go out. I feel like there's ways that I can still enjoy myself without, without like completely being derailed. And then like as far as workouts and exercise go, rest days are still one that I'm, I'm mastering, but I do feel like movement is part of what makes me happy on a daily basis. So there might be days that I'm at the gym, not giving 100% and pushing my numbers and killing myself. I feel like I've found a rotation that allows my body to work different parts at different times. I'm not always hitting the same muscle groups. And so there's, there's, there's opportunity to rest, but I also allow myself to take those days where it's just like I, you know, I'm tired or I strained something last time or there was a gym and I know that I need to take some recovery time or it's going to become a problem that's going to side by me. So I do, I do sometimes have to talk myself into those complete rest days because I genuinely enjoy the time that I spend at the gym and I enjoy the way that moving my body makes me feel. Yeah, there's a quote I came across a few weeks ago that said, exercise is not punishment for what you ate. It's a celebration for what you can do. And that's, I love it because we're all aging as badly as I hate to admit it. 20 years from now, I'm probably not going to be able to do what I do now. So I'm going to celebrate today. I'm going to celebrate the athlete that I am today. And I love that mentality that I'm not going in there to punish myself. I haven't done anything wrong. And even if I did fall off the wagon and I've eaten things I shouldn't have eaten, I can still go in there and celebrate. It's not punitive. So you have a diet and fitness. I actually really like to separate the two. I like to keep them very, very compartmentalized in my mind because I don't believe it obviously for my background. I don't believe that you go to the gym to repense or to a tone for what you've eaten. I believe that I maintain my body weight and a healthy body weight by the choices that I make with my diet. And I go to the gym to push my body to see what it can accomplish, to look to gain strength, to look to, you know, to feel better, to move better, to have better mobility. Those are the goals that I have in the gym. So to me, I feel like if you can separate those things, you will find much more success in both areas because I know people that work out like madmen, but eat like madmen as well. Rubble to see results in the gym that they're looking for. And it's because you aren't working out to allow you to eat whatever you want. You're working out to be fit, to have health, to build muscle, to achieve whatever you're looking to achieve in the gym. But you're looking to feel your body in a way that's healthy and to maintain your body. And to me, it's just very separate. It allows me to keep those things from getting muddled. Yeah, I think that's key. Untangling it, de-shames everything. It stops being about shame. And it starts being about celebrating what I can do today. So you wouldn't have chosen this path. I don't think anyone sets out to have an eating disorder and you really kind of had two rounds with it. But that said, it's shaped you. It's changed who you are as a person. It's changed the platform that you have and the people that you can inspire. How would you say the journey has shaped you most? I would say that it has really helped me to to find my voice and to be able to share parts of myself that maybe I don't feel are as desirable as others. It's allowed me to share things that other people relate to. All of us, like you said, we like to put on that mask that, you know, that rosy colored like our life is perfect and that there's nothing wrong. But I think once we let that down a little bit and share with people the things that we struggle with, the things that, you know, that maybe we've overcome, the things that maybe aren't so pretty and shiny about ourselves, it really, really helps everybody to feel okay about their own struggles as well. And it helps us to all realize that nothing is as perfect as it seems. We don't need to compare our imperfections for with the perceived perfection that we see in others because perfection doesn't exist. It's it's important for us to see that real side of people and it's been a journey for me to recognize that it's okay for me to share that real side of myself, the things that I struggle with. Because that's actually where people relate to me best. It's not in the perfection that I might try to paint or the things that, you know, are easy and, you know, shiny and beautiful people, people relate to the things that I've struggled with. And I've been able to recognize how much that helps people in their own journeys to see someone who's overcome maybe something that they're struggling with. Yeah. Something you mentioned when you guess spoke to my class that I think is worth repeating. There have been some things said to you over the years that were probably well intentioned. You kind of alluded to it now where, oh, you know, you've lost weight. You look great. What are some four word choices or maybe well intentioned compliments that people don't realize for someone struggling with their weight or with a needing disorder or with body dysmorphia are really things we need to put in the past. We need to stop saying those things. Yeah. I don't know. It's something that I've carried with me moving forward. My tentative nature in commenting on people's weight loss. It's something that I'm actually always very nervous to point out or to even make comments on because I just feel like we never really know. And I think I'm actually happy to see the direction that I think society is is trying to move in. I think we're recognizing that people aren't always on a journey to look a certain way with their body. Like people go to the gym and aren't looking to lose weight. It's not an assumption that should be made. So I think we need to be careful when we're talking to people about, you know, assuming that you're here to lose weight. Like maybe you're not at the gym to lose weight. Maybe that isn't your goal. Maybe you're very confident in your body. Maybe, you know, you don't have weight that you need to be losing. So I think it's important for us to sometimes maybe focus on complimenting or looking for things other than those physical, the physical attributes that are so easy to see and focusing on those, especially when it comes to the women and to our younger crowd as well, like teenagers. I think it's very, very dicey. And again, I think society is moving in a direction that's kind of recognizing the challenge and the the age shells that you need to walk on when you're talking about other people's bodies. I think sometimes it's just something that maybe you can maybe you should just kind of keep on the inside and really focus so much on because I think sometimes we we tend to focus so much on that exterior that it just becomes something that is so easy for us to obsess over. Yeah. I think you said it aptly. We have our own struggles and for me, it was always, oh, I wish I weighed a little less. So if I see that someone's lost weight, I know how hard it was for me to lose weight. And so if I see that my assumption is they're doing the right thing. So I want to compliment them and encourage them. This happened probably seven, eight years ago. I had a colleague at work who I hadn't seen him in probably a couple of months. We worked in different parts of the building, but I happen to see him and he looked really good. He had lost weight and looked fit. And I'm like, Hey guy, you look fantastic. What are you doing? And he's like, I have cancer. And I said to myself, wow, like I just made an assumption that because you're not as heavy as you were that you're healthier. And it was a real stop your tracks and really, I love encouraging people. But sometimes compliments can be triggers. They can be things that send people to places because you're reinforcing bad behavior. And so that experience and others that have had since then, I worked with gymnasts for two years. And I just, I want to encourage people, but I don't want to say the wrong thing that absolutely sends them in a different direction. So I think we should be cautious with how we compliment, especially like you said, our young women. Well, and it's just so hard to know. You never know what someone's coming at this situation from, like where where their past has been. And so it's just it's a hard one to navigate. And it's it's something that we like you said, we jump to conclusions all the time. And unfortunately, sometimes I feel like, especially for women, like the idea that super thin is always what everybody's going for. Like I was surprised as I was going through my own journey and that people would compliment me on losing weight. Because it was like, I don't need to be losing any weight. Like that's it's almost like you couldn't be skinny enough. And you know, people are still like praising you that it's that it's really good. So yeah, I just think we just always need to be careful how we, I think there's just so many other things that we can look to compliment and look to praise about people that maybe focus on a little bit more substantial. Yeah. And then just let our bodies look like. Yeah, I think that's a great segue into one of my closing questions here. You're like the Pied Piper of the FitBod fitness community. 17,000 plus strong. You're this right shiny beacon of hope for a lot of people. And that was recognized by the creators of FitBod. So tell us about your latest venture. You're not just the guest on a podcast. You're contributing to one of your own. So tell us about built. Yeah. So that was actually that was a fun little kind of spin off that happened. So there's a member in the group, Michael Lynn. He actually is a podcaster for living. And he saw a community chat that me and another guy were having in the group. We had organized just out of the goodness of our hearts. This is like community live chat where we would you know, have some members from the fitness community get together and get to know one another. And he saw this as a great opportunity to kind of maybe move in that direction. So he approached the two of us and presented this idea of wanting to do a podcast. And so it was actually our presentation to the company of the idea that we had around doing a podcast for them. And so it's kind of like just organically grown. They love the idea. They backed us completely and just like jumped on board and have been so supportive. So we've been able to just kind of delve into the world of health and fitness. And so we we look to have guests on there that will like help to educate our listeners about different aspects of health and fitness. We also look to highlight community members who have had success in the group and are you know, just killing it on a regular basis because that's so inspiring and motivating to the rest of us to hear these success stories. You know, the challenges of real everyday people living lives and having families and having jobs and they're still just you know, really succeeding at the things that they're doing. And so we just you know, launched in September and have just been super successful with it so far. It's been a lot of fun. And we just are continuing to grow and looking to have a lot of growth this year as well as we kind of extend into that exciting adventure. For sure. So lots of great stats here already rated as being in the top 10% of all bus brought podcasts listeners over 100 different countries. It is certainly a source of inspiration and encouragement for a lot of folks. So kudos for doing that. You're also on Instagram, lifts heavy eats well, love the title kind of goes with that fuel and training mantra. So exciting things. You're also transitioning from your day job into this personal training space. So my last question it always is and you can kind of tell us about that and maybe where you want to go beyond. What for Johnicas left undone? Oh my goodness, everything. I feel like I have all of these like fingers out in a million different directions right now. All kind of health and fitness related. I have a couple of things that I do through like Facebook. I have like a food group where we get on and we share our meal prepping and our you know, swap tips and our food ideas and so that's kind of growing and doing its thing. I have another idea where I'm looking to like kind of like create this challenge that I'm hoping to kind of get people to meet right now. It's called a one K lower body challenge. And so what I'm kind of trying to do at modern day take on the 1000 pound club focusing on some lifts that are a little bit more lower body focus. So looking to have a thousand pounds lifted in a combination of lifts and right now that idea was dead lifts and squat and hip thrust and to have that that total be a thousand pounds. So I'm hoping that with my personal training and with kind of like all of this like health and fitness related that it's just going to kind of all tie together in some cohesive manner. But for now it's just all stuff that I'm really really passionate about. It's stuff that I feel like people are really happy to support me in and I feel like it's just it's just going to all lead to great things. I don't I don't have a master plan. I just get up and I work hard every day and put myself into all of these areas that I'm really passionate about and I feel like they're all just going to pay off for me in the end. For sure. Well, John, I kind of want to encourage you. You're you've been an inspiration to me. I think when the things you do align with your purpose, it just shows and that's true for anyone. Lots of times we have to do things to pay the bills. But when we can figure out a way to align our passions with our purpose, it doesn't feel like work at all. And I know you get out of bed every morning motivated to help shine a light on other people. And I just for those that aren't in that fit by group, they can connect with you other ways. What are the best ways for people to connect with you? Yeah, Instagram is probably the easiest way to find me. I have a you know, I keep it professional in there. It's just my health and fitness journey. I share things on there and people reach out to me and happy to answer questions and to share my experience and you know, the journey that I've had and just just share. I feel like that's to me that's the purpose of social media is to just kind of be able to connect to learn from one another, to see other people's accomplishments and to learn from them. And so that's probably the easiest way to find me and to follow, to reach out if so desired. Fantastic. John, I'm super thankful I owe you. If I can ever return the favor, you know where to find me. But yeah, I'm on that. Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, thanks so much. Thank you for having me Toby. It's coming undone is a nitro hype creative production written and produced by me Toby Brooks. If you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for becoming undone, contact me at undonepodcast.com. Follow the show on Facebook, Instagram and link in at Becoming Undone Pod and follow me at the Toby Jay Brooks. Listen, subscribe and leave us a review at Apple Podcasts. Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you give your podcasts. Until next time my friends, keep in better.