Unmasking Greatness
Join Fitness/LifeStyle Expert & Mentor Chris Kakouras talk about maximizing your health, business, mindset, and overall life! Let's get better together as I bring on amazing guest to interview and learn from!
Unmasking Greatness
Are You Dying For Your Family, Or Finally Ready to Live For Them?
Chris shares deeply personal stories about his parents' cancer diagnoses and brings important perspective on health priorities even in the face of serious illness. His honest conversation about his mother prioritizing work over health despite her cancer diagnosis highlights a common struggle many face.
• Different phases of health journey from ground zero to optimizing metabolism to fat loss to getting lean
• Need to change your identity before tactical changes can stick
• Distinction between surface metrics (weight, inches, photos) and deep metrics (bloodwork, hormones, sleep)
• Why tracking is essential - what gets measured gets improved
• The importance of whole foods versus highly processed options
• Reframing motivation from "dying for loved ones" to "living healthfully for them"
• How health becomes the only priority once serious illness strikes
• The value of being present and healthy for family moments
If you need help implementing these strategies in your own life, reach out to Chris on Instagram at coach_KAK or join the Facebook group linked in the show description. Watch for an upcoming free 5-day challenge packed with value to help you take action.
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Welcome to Unmasking Greatness. I'm your host, chris Kikoris, a lifestyle fitness coach and mentor. This podcast is about unmasking your greatest potential, finding your purpose and crafting a life worth living. Health and fitness has been the gateway drug to all of my success. My continuous drive to keep learning and surround myself with other high achievers forces me to level up, which has developed my mind to something I never thought was possible. This podcast is here to share what I've learned and continue to learn with all of you. This is your sign to take back control of your health, mindset and personal environment. Strap in as we are recharged and always find value in the show. Please subscribe and share, as we can all get better together. Let's go.
Speaker 2:What's up guys, welcome to another episode of Unmasking Greatness. I'm your host, chris Kikoris, and I hope you're having the best day of your life. You're alive, it should be the best day of your life. But today I'm going to get a little personal, a little deep with you guys, give you a little update. I don't talk too much about my family. As far as my mother and my father they do have. I mean, both of them have cancer. My mother has non-Hodgkin lymphoma. She's had that since, I think around 2020 she got diagnosed. And then my father recently, within the past year, eight months or so has stage four lung cancer. That we are, you know, going through the chemo process and all of that, and so I want to give you guys a little update, but also put things in perspective for many of you guys on how you're living from a day to day.
Speaker 2:So, backing up a couple days ago, as my father goes to Duke University to do his treatments, to see his doctors, it's roughly about three and a half-ish four hours to get from where we live. So I drive my parents up there just to kind of help them. You know, moving luggage around and helping them. You know, go to the hospital, stuff like that. But I take them up there and so, you know, he went up there, had some doctor's appointments, they looked at some scans and, without getting in too much detail, as of right now, their, their goal is inevitably to just give him quality of life. No cure, no fixing any issues, it's literally just maintain what we can and get you to do as much as you can on a day-to-day at this point, and that's it which is good and not so good. As of now, he can move around a little bit. He's on oxygen 24-7. Energy level is low. There's not much he can really do, although he's functional right. And you know it could be way worse, he could be a vegetable. So I always try to look at the positives when it comes to situations like this. But on the way back, obviously the drive is quite long, especially if you hit traffic, and so I started, you know, having a conversation with my mother, and I know she listens to this podcast. So you know, love you mom. But I thought that the conversation got got interesting and had me thinking as well.
Speaker 2:You know, my mother's been into, you know, corporate world for as long as I can remember. She's HR management. Right now she is, in the next couple months, going to be retiring, which is exciting, and also, when you've done it for so long, it's almost like, well, what do I do next? What's next? And you know, one of the things that she has, you know, expressed is she really wants to put more focus on her health. You know, express is she really wants to put more focus on her health.
Speaker 2:This has been a topic that has been going on for a very long time, back in, I would say, probably 2020, I actually helped her, you know, start getting healthier. You know she lost a little bit of weight, eating better. You know those sort of things. And you know, inevitably, she just kind of dropped it and focused on work. You know, focused on doing a good job for her corporation. You know, making companies, the better job you do, you don't make more money. They give you more because they know you can handle it. So, because you've done such a great job in your corporation, they basically give you more work to do. Congratulations, so you can imagine, you know, having a very high, stressful, long hours of work week after week. It can wear and tear on you and my mom always wants to do a really good job.
Speaker 2:So that took priority for her and she dropped the ball when it came to her health. I mean, she's your typical person that doesn't drink enough water, eats maybe once, twice a day, if that, and it's probably not quality food zero exercise, minimal movement. You know working behind a desk and being on phone calls all the time. So you know her health is declining and the fact that she's just not taking care of her body, on top of the fact that she already has a condition, that puts her in a position that is not optimal, right, having cancer. So you know I was talking to her and I asked her. You know her perspective because I said, you know, for me again, this is my personal opinion because obviously I, you know, I do take care of myself. Now, I'm healthy, I eat healthy, I drink water. You know I do all the things. I mean this is my profession. So it would say the least that I should be doing things like that.
Speaker 2:But even still, if I got to a position where I was diagnosed with some sort of serious health condition like cancer, would it not raise the flag to say, okay, I have this health condition that has arose. It puts me in a position that the longevity of my life could be shortened and so I probably, more than likely, should do everything I can to optimize the life that I do have remaining Right. And there's no, there's no time limit when it comes to that kind of stuff. But for me, I would be thinking, because she asked me. She's like well, what do you mean? And I was like, well, if I knew I had cancer, I think I would really start to prioritize my health. I would start to look at what kind and what kinds of food am I eating, you know, making sure that these are high quality foods, um, that are not cancerous. I would be making sure that I'm exercising, you know, on a regular. I would prioritize movement, you know, mobility, quality of sleep, um, I would really start to dial in those sorts of things.
Speaker 2:Because, again, you got diagnosed with a disposition and she's like I know I really want to. I just I need to get on a diet. You got to give me a diet. And this conversation has come up that's why I'm laughing, it has come up very many times and I looked at her and I told her. I said I want you to answer this honestly If I were to give you a nutrition plan? How likely are you to adhere by that? And it was silence because she instantly, I'm sure she knew the answer and didn't want to say it. But the reality is she wouldn't do it. And I told her and that's okay, not everybody that comes into our program is ready for a nutrition plan. We have to maybe start on some baseline tactical strategies to help you get to a point where a nutrition plan would be beneficial for you.
Speaker 2:And so she's like well, where would you start? And I would like, honestly, this is probably the furthest thing that you would probably be thinking but I would be looking at your morning and nighttime routine, because I know for a fact my mother does not sleep enough and not have quality of sleep. And so without having good quality sleep, you one cannot make any good, clear decisions because you're foggy braining, you're fatigued, right? Your energy level is going to start dipping midday if it hasn't started early in the morning. Your circadian rhythm is off, your body is stressed, cortisol levels are high. It is very hard to start to burn body fat at this. And not only that, you're not eating healthy and you're not exercising. So there is no muscle, quality muscle, that is being built, which is the longevity organ of the body. It is their. Science shows that having healthy muscle tissue improves the longevity of your life.
Speaker 2:So I told her I was like we need to optimize your body and its metabolism to actually make the nutrition plan and drinking the water and all those things work in your favor. And so she said, okay, so how do you do that? And we walk through that, we talk through how to set up a nighttime routine. You know, and I've done other episodes on this, but you know you can, I'll try to see if I can actually find that, um, that podcast, and I'll link it in the bottom of this one, cause I don't want to dig too much in that one. But the point is we need to start on some foundations. And you know, the more I started having that conversation with her, I started to really think and you know there are.
Speaker 2:There are different stages in people's health and fitness journey that people need to consider. Right, there's the ones that are where she's at You're, you know, ground zero. You're trying to build up to optimizing metabolism, right. And then there's another phase that goes from okay, I've optimized metabolism, now I need to drop this extra body fat that I have, Okay. And then there's the next phase, which is, okay, I've dropped this body fat, now I want a six pack, right, I want to get lean, I want to get shredded. And so we go from you know, lower body fat to now, let's get shredded.
Speaker 2:And if you were to ask me what are the keys to be able to shift those phases, like, how do you go from? What are the things that you need to do, from phase one to phase two, to phase three, to phase four? It's not the nutrition, it's not the workouts, it's not the water, it's not the sleep, I would tell you, it's your identity. You have to change your identity in each one of these phases. Now, I'm not saying that the nutrition doesn't play a role. I'm not saying that you don't have to work out, but if you don't start to act like that person you want to be, none of those tactical things are going to work. And so you know this is where you need to put things into place. Now I want to. This is this is going to get a little deep, so hang in there with me.
Speaker 2:I'm very big with having strategies, tactical steps, processes in place, right For you to be successful. It takes a lot of the extra decision fatigue that you could acquire. You know the mental state that you have limited amounts of to go towards. Now, what happens when you tell somebody you know, let's say, you know, since we're talking about my mom I say, okay, here, mom, here, this is what you're going to do, you're going to go set alarm clock at this time, you're going to go to sleep at this time. You're going to wake up at this time, you're going to eat this breakfast at this time. So you know, everything's kind of put in in its place where it's just follow the map. Right, easy peasy, follow the map.
Speaker 2:Now, what happens when someone can't do that? We have clients that come in that this is a problem, right, we have realized that we don't have a tactical problem anymore. This becomes a psychological problem. This becomes something that now, these tactical steps is not what we need to focus on Now. We need to go a layer deeper and bring some awareness of why are you not doing this?
Speaker 2:This is a very simple task, you know for most, right? We're talking about just going to bed at a certain time, right? And which can be hard If you've been going to bed at one in the morning for me to tell you to go to bed at 10 pm. That's a pretty big gauge, cause like I'm not tired, I'm not tired, yet I get it. We got to train that body to get back to where it used to be, because I can promise you weren't designed to stay up till one in the morning, but over time and through your work and through stress and things like that, you know obviously, scrolling doom, scrolling at night, which is another layer of high cortisol levels this has created a new normal path for you. So what happens? What do we do next? We have to bring awareness, and a lot of that becomes into digging in and figuring out. Okay, why are you not doing this?
Speaker 2:You probably have some traumas that you're dealing with, some past traumas, right, and this is a very, very hard thing to deal with and it could be everything from you start to realize things that you you're just kind of putting on the back burner or you're ignoring, and it could be potentially having an eating disorder from you know your past, right, and a big one is, you know, as if you were, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, going to tell my age I'm 37 as a child. The big thing for the parents when we're eating is you finish everything on your plate. They're starving people in other countries we're blessed to have food. You don't leave anything left on the plate, unfortunately, as the generations have gone on, and when you go out to restaurants or when you eat, that's not a serving size anymore. You have two to three servings sitting in front of you now and to have that, you know mental habit built into you to finish your plate. This is why we have an obesity rate that's getting close to 50% in America, which is insane.
Speaker 2:And so you know that bringing awareness to that, you know, maybe it's a lack of confidence. You're so used to never getting what you want. Having a little win feels very uncomfortable. It's almost like you don't want that. Maybe you realize that you're in a relationship that you shouldn't be in. All right, oh man, this is tough. You know these are things that you really have to sit down with your feelings. And how do we work around that? Because those mental psychological layers have to be knocked down for you to be able to achieve ultimate health and freedom in your lifestyle.
Speaker 2:So, again, you know, depending on your situation, this may be something if you resonate with what I'm saying and you're like I've done, I've tried plans, I've done this or I've gotten plans that I just never started. You need to sit down and ask yourself why and this was part of you know, the conversation I also had with my mother is like all right, we need to put things in place, okay, but you have to track. You know what is measured is tracked and what is tracked can be improved upon. If you're not tracking, if you're not measuring, you're just pissing in the wind. You're not going to be able to fix or achieve anything because you're just hoping and wishing on luck. You know hoping the stars align in your favor and that's just not how it works.
Speaker 2:So there has to be levels of you to be able to track, and you know this really goes into whether you're in a corporate fitness field or I'm sorry corporate profession like HR, or if you have a business. You know everything that goes into there is tracked, is measured, is kept in a file right On a day to day. There are things that you have to do on a day-to-day to make sure that you're doing a good job. You know, I talked to a lot of restaurant owners as well and I'm like you don't just order food trucks and don't look at how much you're spending or what you're ordering or what your inventory is right. Because if you're writing big checks like that and you're not pricing accordingly, you're not selling a certain amount of volume. Don't forget, oh, you have employees that you have to pay for, you have payroll, you have electricity. If you're not tracking these numbers, you'll shut down in no time.
Speaker 2:So what do you think happens with your body? I think there's a big correlation with even running a business and your body. If you're not tracking and looking at the metrics of your physical health, what makes you think that you're going to be successful? Because, at the end of the day, you know when you're tracking and you're looking at these metrics, we're not looking for perfect numbers. We're looking how can we improve, how can we get a little bit better, and that's how we're able to grow and scale. This is why people quit so easily. You know people want the results so fast. But like what? What is that result? What does that look like? If we can extend that timeline and we can, inside of that extension, have landmarks where we start to accomplish goals, I feel like we'll start to get addicted, you know, just like a business, okay, I made a hundred dollars one day. Okay, cool, I made 200 the next day. Next month I made $500 a day. You know like, and it just continues to grow and you're like okay, let's keep going, keep going, let's work, let's work. You know, it becomes a an addiction, which is a healthier addiction.
Speaker 2:But we have to be able to measure, and so a lot of our clients that come in to our program we have what we consider surface level metrics and then we have deep level metrics. So this is something for you guys to take and utilize for yourself. Okay, you don't you need to have surface level metrics. Okay, this is where surface level means we're checking your weight, your body weight. You know, morning weight, before you eat or drink anything, you wake up, you go to the bathroom, you step on the scale. That is your official morning weight. If you weigh yourself midday or at the end, you're going to be two, three, six pounds heavier Food, water, it's not body fat, right. And then when you wake up you'll be back down to three pounds. You're like oh my God, I burned three pounds of body fat. No, it's not, it's a lot of water weight. So weight is one Inches. Measure yourself.
Speaker 2:Take some progress on your waist. You know, one of the number one places that you don't want to hold a lot of fat is in your midsection your visceral body fat. This is where the fat starts to surround your organs. This is where you get all kinds of health complications high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease. This is the cause. We got to minimize that ASAP, and it puts a lot of stress around those organs too. So, not to get rid of all of it, get it in a healthy range.
Speaker 2:Progress pictures super easy. I love progress pictures because you know you take them. I like to do them every week. Okay, some people are like why, why do you do it every week? Because I know that I'm not going to stop in four weeks. When you take your day one picture and then you look, you know, four weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks, 16 weeks, from day one to 16 weeks out oh my God, you should have significant improvements. So it's like, oh my God, this is working Again. These are another levels of you to gauge your progress.
Speaker 2:Now let's talk deeper. What is deeper? Level metrics? This is the kind of things that I want to track inside of our coaching program. We want to get blood work. We want to look at your hormones. We want to look at your lipid panels. We want to look at cholesterol levels. We want those details because if I know those, I know how to construct the plan even better and fine tune it.
Speaker 2:Body fat percentage All right.
Speaker 2:Weight on the scale what is weight on the scale? What are we talking about? Are we talking about body fat, water weight, muscle tissue, bone density what are we gauging? This is the number one red flag for me to tell people about using GLP-1s, ozempic, semiglutide, terzepatide, all of these weight loss medication injections, weight loss right, that's what they highlight. Oh, you'll lose weight. Of course you will. You're not hungry anymore, you're not eating, you're not strength training.
Speaker 2:What do you think is happening when that weight's coming off? Well, sure, body fat's coming off. What else is coming off? Well, muscle tissue. And what did we just say about muscle tissue? That is the longevity muscle of the body. If you want to live a long, healthy life, we need more healthy muscle tissue. And so with if you are not utilizing those drugs sufficiently and, you know, in the right fashion, you can really do yourself some harm. And there's a lot of now a lot of studies and a lot of. I don't want to call them testimonials or not testimonials, but people are showing up with osteoporosis. You basically starved yourself. So congratulations. The weight on the scale went down, but you have put yourself in a worse position than you even started. And the minute that you stop taking that injection, guess what's going to happen? Because you've decreased your metabolism, your hunger will come back and that weight loss will come back with vengeance, because you didn't develop the skills to be able to live a healthy lifestyle.
Speaker 2:And then the last, deeper one I'll just touch on is that sleep. We were talking about Sleep quality. Oh my gosh, regulates so many hormones. It's going to give you mental clarity. Those that have lack of sleep are actually more inclined to dementia. That's right. Now there is a genetic component to that. But do you want to increase your chances of dementia? Stop sleeping so much. Get that three hours, four hours of sleep. There's a very and I you know again, there's studies on this there's a very small percentage of people that can, you know, live and work off of. You know five hours of sleep a night, but for the majority of us that ain't it. But you got to track. If you're not tracking, you're not making progress, and you got to audit. At the end of the day, you're going to look and see what's working, what's not working, and that is how you're able to fine tune your health and fitness.
Speaker 2:This is a journey. People say it's a journey. This is why you shouldn't be coming into the program thinking that this is going to be a 12 or a 14, 12, 14 weeks, 16 week fix, forever, if you've been struggling with weight loss for a decade or more. I love when I like talk to individuals, asking them about their goals, and they're like I asked him. I was like when was the last time you were in optimal health? You know, and it could be 20 years ago, cause they're like oh, back, you know, back in my twenties. Okay, it was how. How long are you expecting this weight loss to come off? Oh, you know, like I don't know. 12 weeks, um, wow, well, you can get some weight loss off for sure in 12 weeks.
Speaker 2:But if we're trying to make a lifestyle out of this, if you're trying to change the habits that you've really like made into a, a lifestyle habit already, then we got to make shifts to that. It's going to take a little bit longer. Uh, and again, because I want our clients to be successful long-term. So, again, we want to, we want to monitor those sorts of things.
Speaker 2:So there's a there's a lot that goes into the, the sleep, um, you know, and the harsh reality is when we're talking about food is processed. Food, um, is obviously much easier attained and highly palatable versus whole healthy foods. They make whole healthy foods seem scarce or very expensive and in all reality, it's not because they're more calorically dense, right, they have more of the vitamins, the minerals, the protein densities in them versus you're talking about highly palatable foods cookies, chips, things of that sort that are just carbs. If I ask somebody, oh, this dude's like oh, I can eat a bag of potato chips in one sitting. Could you eat six potatoes in one sitting? Because that's about how many is in a bag. Well, no, I couldn't do six, you know potatoes? Well, yeah, because that's not how they were processed. So we need to make sure that we're being aware of that.
Speaker 2:And here's a little side tip for you guys that are, you know, questioning am I hungry or am I bored, or I just want a snack? Have an apple, right. An apple is essentially 60% water. Right, there's fiber, there's some carbohydrates in there. If you can honestly eat an apple, stay busy, get doing something right after you eat and, you know, maybe 20, 30 minutes after if you still feel hungry, then there's a possibility that you do need to eat again. But if you eat that apple and you're fine, then you have shown and proven to yourself that you were just bored or you just wanted a snack, and at least with an apple it's a better snack versus, like I said, those highly palatable foods. So again, you guys, I'm emphasizing the fact of just tracking those metrics.
Speaker 2:If you want to be successful, you have to do this, and so you know I'll leave. I'll leave you with this because this was a. I don't know if I can make a skit on this or not, but you know a lot of and this will be speaking more to parents specifically, but in general we all have people in our life that we have, loved ones that we really deeply care about. And you know, the crazy thing is and I've seen this in my family and especially with my father is that you know, from a day-to-day perspective, so many things are important, right, we got to make sure that we're making enough money. My father was in the restaurant business, so running a business was top priority. You know that's what feeds the family. That's what keeps the ball moving. You know that's what gives him joy, right. That's what keeps the ball moving. You know that's what gives him joy, right.
Speaker 2:And so when you give somebody, or when someone gets you know, cancer or a very significant health complication, all that stops Nothing. Nothing matters more than your health. Your health is the only thing that you can see anymore, and this is why I'm such an advocate for what I do. You know so many people I talk to and these are people that are just overweight, don't have serious health conditions like that, like cancers. You know, if I were to ask somebody, you know what would you do for your kids, what would you do for your loved ones? Like, how far would you go for them? The most common one people will say I'd die for my kids. I would die and I'm like all right, that's, I feel, like a very easy, easy answer. But what if I told you I wanted you to live for them, right? What if I told you I want you to exercise for them, I want you to eat healthy for them, I want you to get that sleep right. I want you to go get your blood work done all for them.
Speaker 2:Then it starts to get a little hesitant, which is crazy, right, because it's easy for someone to die. Right, that's easy, it doesn't take any work, it just happens. But there is some effort and work that goes into wanting to be healthy, and so sometimes you don't need your own motivation, you need somebody else to be that driver. And if that driver is your kids, if that driver is your husband or your wife or whoever that is, mean something very much to you, use that person as your driver, as that person, like, you want to make them proud and also you want to be around long time for them and healthy, because nobody wants to be a, you know, a hindrance in their life.
Speaker 2:Right, that's something I think you know, even my father has felt, and I, you know, I try to reinforce the fact that I'm blessed to be in a position where I'm able to stop everything I'm doing to go to the ER. I'm blessed to be able to, you know, take my computer and go wherever I need to work. I'm blessed to be able to drive him up four hours to his doctor's appointments, like that is not a hinder in my life. That's a, that's a blessing that I'm able to do something like that. But in somebody else's eyes, like his, is an inconvenience for me. You know he's like you got to work hard. I know you're busy and so I can. I can tell and I can feel that from him. And when you put yourself in somebody's shoes like that, like do you want to be that hinder to someone else or feel like that right? Feel like you're hindering somebody and making it an inconvenience? Of course not.
Speaker 2:So why not do everything in your power at this point in time to optimize your health and wellbeing and prioritize you know your, you know your blood work. Prioritize your body fat composition, prioritize just drinking water and getting some movement. You know the question is are you willing to do that for them? If you love them that much? That should be an easy answer too. And uh, that is what will make you do this long-term as well, and it's what's helped me be able to do this for myself long-term is that, you know I have a family to provide for.
Speaker 2:I have a son that's just thriving and running around and taking swim classes and you know I want to be that superhero to him and I take pride in that to be able to say and my son to say, like dad, you don't look like the other dads. Yeah, you're right, son, I don't. You know, I'm that 1% that actually plays with their kid on the playground, where all the other parents are just sitting on the bench because they're tired or they don't have energy or they don't want to be in the hot sun. No, come on, this is you guys don't have that much time. If you got kids again, if you got them young kids, that time will pass and this is your only chance to make those memories, because at some point your kids are not going to want to hang out with you because they're too cool. We've all been there. I was that kid too, you know. So take advantage of these times, you know, don't let it pass. I'm telling you it's something I think of and I understand and I've seen it. And again, this is just my personal experience.
Speaker 2:My father was a workaholic, so I didn't spend a lot of time with him. We didn't hang out a lot. Yeah, he was working, I knew he was there, but you know that really tight-knit bond was never really built, and so that is something that I really, really wanted to make sure that I could do when I had my son is like be able to go to his games, go to swim practice, show up to school events, like I wanted to be a present father and be there, and so when he looked in the stands he was able to, you know, see me, like yo, that's my dad up there, you know. And, um, yeah, like it, it chokes me up even thinking about it because, like, I'm living that and I'm being able to do that because I know at some point you know again, he'll be cool, but then down the road he'll get married, he might have a family, and I want him to remember me and also want to come see me and be like, just come kick it. Just be like, yeah, I'm gonna go kick it with dad, we're just going to go chill, we're going to cook out, you know we're going to. You know, whatever we're going to do at that time, drive around in flying cars, right, cause that's probably what's next. So, um, you know, those those memories mean everything to me, and so that's why, for me, being healthy and optimizing my lifestyle means everything. It is everything. So I'll leave it with that to think about, get tactical, get strategic.
Speaker 2:If you need help, reach out. This is what I do. This is what I can help with. Make sure to follow me on Instagram coach underscore CAC. I put stuff up there every single day. We also have a Facebook group. I'll link that in the description below. Get in there. You know we're going to be actually probably and you'll hear it here first we're gonna run a five-day challenge in the next couple of weeks, totally free, but it's gonna be just packed full of value for you guys. So just keep a lookout for that. But I hope you guys have a good rest.