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Primal Foundations Podcast
Welcome to the Primal Foundations Podcast! We will dive into what I believe are the 4 essential foundations you need to live a healthy lifestyle.
Strength , Nutrition , Movement , and Recovery.
Get ready to dive into discussions that will guide you on your transformative journey to unlocking your path to optimal health.
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Primal Foundations Podcast
Episode 32: Cops and Campers with Eric Reynolds
Imagine reconnecting with a long-lost brother only to discover you're both on the same health journey. Eric Reynolds, a retired police officer and founder of Keto 5-0 and Cops and Campers, shares this heartwarming story and more on this episode of Primal Foundations. From the Hack Your Health event in Austin to organizing basketball games with health icons, Eric brings us into his world of camaraderie, transformative journeys, and the life-changing effects of the ketogenic and carnivore lifestyle.
Hear about Eric's incredible transformation as he sheds light on his battle with heart disease and PTSD, losing 80 pounds and reclaiming his health through dietary changes. His candid discussion on the struggles of managing high-stress professions, overcoming societal misinformation about nutrition, and the profound benefits of physical activity and mindfulness is both inspiring and educational. Eric’s initiatives, such as the Keto 5-0 and the Cops and Campers retreat program, showcase the crucial role of community support in achieving optimal health.
We also dive deep into the complexities of dietary choices, from battling sugar addiction to navigating health assessments like the Coronary Artery Calcium (CAC) test. Eric's honest reflections on detoxification, the impact of old dental work, and the broader implications of diet on family health offer listeners valuable insights. Whether it's managing post-retirement health challenges or homeschooling for a healthier future, this episode is packed with practical advice and heartfelt stories that emphasize the power of community, resilience, and informed dietary choices. Tune in to be inspired and empowered on your own health journey!
Connect with Eric:
Find Eric Reynolds @:
https://ketofiveo.com/
IG- @ketofiveo
X - @KetoFiveO
PRIMAL FOUNDATIONS PODCAST-
Instagram: @Tony_PrimalFoundations
Website: Primalfoundations.com
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Welcome to the Primal Foundations podcast. I'm your host, tony Pascola. We will dive into what I believe are the four central foundations you need for a healthy lifestyle Strength, nutrition, movement and recovery. Get ready to unlock your path to optimal health and enjoy the episode. I don't know, keep going.
Speaker 2:I was going to say my son's calling me coldy locks now, because I won't jump in the lake and enjoy the episode a great introduction to the.
Speaker 1:Oh, you got the thumbs up. All right, eric reynolds, welcome back to the primal foundations podcast. You know, it's great to see you at hack your health.
Speaker 1:You were literally the first person I saw as soon as I walked through the door oh, how cool is that yeah, and I was just like it is cool to see people at the convention that you know I've had on the podcast or you follow, and I'm just you know we're hugging, you know like let's take pictures, whatever, and I was joking with everybody. I'm like dude, eric is like the mayor of hack your health. You're rubbing elbows with everybody. That was great. I still got my uh, my keto uh 50 coin here there you go keep that with me. Yeah, did you. Is that your second or third time to that event?
Speaker 2:that was my first one oh that was your first one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been to like low carb, usa or society and metabolic health type of events, but that was my first travel and go type of show and it was fantastic. My buddy, uh, greg, runs the. He's the rv carnivore and I'm into camping. We're both retired cops and he was like dude, dude, you gotta come come to Austin check it out. And you know, obviously him having the trailer was a perfect. You know that's my path with my, what I'm doing right now with cops and campers and the keto five, those side of things. So it was. I was right at home. You know, here I am camping at a freaking event, you know in a weird way psychologically, and then you know you're seeing all your heroes and even people that recognize you. That you don't know and it's just and you can feel the energy there, right, just everybody feeling good. You know that's kind of how society should be right on a normal day.
Speaker 2:You know, get back out there and then you feel this oh, you're back out there with the rest of the herd. That's, you know, kind of sucking in life, you know. So, yeah, it was fantastic. I mean, I'm going to one in Tampa I'm already trying to arrange a basketball game with. We're going to get Dr Baker, we're going to get Benazade play some hoops.
Speaker 1:Baker's trying to dunk right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not going to dunk on me, no kidding. Next thing, you know he don't sell me. I'll be like, oh, I'm a meme now.
Speaker 1:Well, for some of the listeners that don't know, eric served as a police officer for Boynton beach police department in South Florida. Uh wounded in the line of duty in 2012, suffered from metabolic disease and PTSD. Later in life, eric discovered ketogenic and carnivore lifestyle and he's been helping educate others in exercise and nutrition with his company Keto 5-0, and his retreat program Cops and Campers, which I'm super excited to talk about today, and you can check out Eric's first appearance on episode three of the Primal Foundations podcast off air. I was like episode three you're an OG man, you're from the original.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, I was looking through it yesterday. You were an OG man. You're from the original. Yeah, I know, I was looking through it yesterday and it's only been like a year ago, man, and you're like, you're doing great big things, man. I'm like looking at all your guests. I'm like look at this guy Soon, he's going to have us in studio, in the Primal Foundation studio, right? Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:We were joking around the other day we did like a strength, like talk about strength training and my one buddy's like where am I meeting you for this? I'm like on zoom bro, and I was like thinking. I was like he thinks we're gonna meet at like a podcast studio, because that's what he sees. He thinks we're in podcast studios and I was like actually there's some in chicago. You could just rent them out and just do that, so we might do one. But we'll see. I mean, that's that's. That's pretty glitzy.
Speaker 2:Bring your gear to hack your health in Tampa and you can knock out a whole couple months of material right there, man.
Speaker 1:Seriously, there was somebody doing that. Actually they were interviewing. They had it as a piece of the schedule, Like you could just go sit down, sit there and watch. I forgot who was there was like Sean Baker and everybody else. They were getting interviewed. You could just sit there and watch. But that's a great idea.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to do that at my cops and campers rally get some law enforcement podcasts there that can come out and talk to the guys and you know, not just to get material, of course, but you know it's therapeutic for everybody. And sometimes you get a guy on there you don't think he's going to talk and now he's like me, you know, but that's therapy for them. So, yeah, I think that's a great idea. But, yeah, 12 years as a almost 20 years as a cop, you know led to a lot of metabolic disease and ptsd is not really disorder anymore. So we're trying to change the uh terminology of it.
Speaker 2:You know, because you're actually your body's doing what's naturally supposed to do. When you're stressed out and you get in that hyper vigilant, modeilant mode you're supposed to be in that, you know flight or fight situation, but we're just in that all the time, you know, and that's where the damage comes, even with a good diet. You know I was lucky enough to discover the keto way of eating for, like my last year on the job, you know. But before that, you know, I was 250 pounds. You know the whole story of losing 80 pounds doing keto carnivore and then my mind getting better. So yeah, I mean when you said that 2012,. Like holy cow, man, that shooting's 12 years ago, you know, and it's still there, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you wouldn't mind I know we covered it a little bit in episode three, but if you can share with the listeners just a brief kind of description of that day. And then also, but the biggest piece that I want to talk about, is following up after the event. What was the processes to recover, not only physically but mentally as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in 2012,. I was just regular road patrol at that point. I had my eyes on being a sergeant one day. So I had to go the FTO route and bank robber in another town robbed a bank, happened to be coming through our town and we got to do a car chase. That guy crashes, opens his door when we're covering the car and he starts firing a gun. You know this guy at us. I got hit in the foot left foot and my leg um, there's a graze on the right leg, kind of trump style, and I'm gonna say I guess we can use that now. And it was uh, we ended up shooting, killing the bad guy. So you know there was a lot of things going on at that time. You know we're heroes or you know officers of the month. You know we get washington dc has us up there for national police week. So I mean you're really getting the fruits of this battle that you went through Right and and after that, you know the stuff starts to creep in.
Speaker 2:You know you start worrying about the job, your family, everywhere you go, active shooters, school shoot, you know it just starts to be a lot, you know. And over that time I gained a lot of weight. You know I was stressed out, I wasn't able to eat, I wasn't eating properly, drinking a lot more. Just, my habits were kind of bad, even though I was working out, you know, and that day of my shooting was actually going to go play basketball that day and it never happened. So I always stayed active. I was still gaining weight, you know, still depressed in the way I looked. You know didn't understand it. You know, like man, I'm trying to watch what I'm eating. I, you know, like man, I'm trying to watch what I'm eating. I'm trying to work out, I'm trying to manage the stress.
Speaker 2:You know a couple of things happened. I battled workers comp for therapy, for the PTS part of it. You know I was letting them know I had some issues and you know it wasn't like I was hiding or cowering underneath my desk, I was going to be over-aggressive and I had a feeling I close calls, pulling guns on guys that were unarmed but weren't doing what we said, and reaching and body, you know, reaching for their IDs and you know stuff that you could have articulated in a good shoot. But that was on my subconscious about shooting a guy that was unarmed and just built. A lot of battle workers, kind of got the therapy I needed from a, you know, regular psychologist. You know, I didn't go to psychiatrists to get freaking pills. I wanted, I needed to talk, I needed to get this stuff out, you know. And when in this world there is a little community of cops that do that, I'm just trying to spread it more obviously with my cops and campers initiative. But at this point I, you know, no listen, I'm not even camping. I never even towed a trailer in my life. At this point, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on with me, you know, and is this something I'm always gonna have right? And my therapist pretty much told me I gotta dance with it, you know, you gotta learn how to manage it. It's not going away, you know, and there's a reason why you're feeling like this, with your central nervous system taking over in moments like that. So I had to come to grips with that. I'm like, all right, this is my body's natural reaction to, you know, fight or flight, and it stays there, you know, and you got to work on these things. So, dr David Diamond, you know the cholesterol God. You know the LDL God, he helped me get some therapy art therapy at the University of South Florida, I went through a session working on the frontal lobe, pushing a lot of trauma back. There's different things you can do Meditation, obviously.
Speaker 2:Changing your diet was probably the biggest thing for me. You know, when I got off the processed foods, started eating more nutritious foods started, I changed up my habits a little bit. You know, walking more just keeping my body active got you know a step counter kind of watching how many steps I took a day, had a goal. You know 10,000, whatever the factory standard was at that point and things just started to happen. You know I started losing weight through the ketogenic way and started feeling better about it and it empowered me to help other cops and guys in my department. You know you lose 50 pounds at a department.
Speaker 2:They either think you're getting divorced, you're sick, or you're freaking. Something else is up, you know. So I was like no man, I've gotten divorced, I sick, or you're freaking, something else is up, you know. So I was like no man, I've done the worst, I'm not sick, I'm actually getting. I was sick, I'm getting healthier by what I'm eating, which is mind-blowing, because I was a novice.
Speaker 2:I could write a search warrant. I could. I could arrest you and write it to where it's a civil lawful arrest, but I didn't know how to read my blood work, you know, I didn't know how to read the back of a label nutritionally. So as that, you know, starts to happen, you start looking at different parts of your life Like do I really need this job for a long period of time, or can I retire early and kind of just change the direction we want to go? And my wife was like let's minimize, let's sell our house, let's get a truck and trailer and let's travel the country and you don't have to be a cop anymore if you don't want. And that was like wow, that was like a life preserve. At that point Usually you stay in it. You know, you're like I got to stay five years for the drop or I'm leaving too much money on the table.
Speaker 2:I got kids in college, you know I got two young kids. I mean people are thinking I'm stupid to leave that job with young kids. I don't have a mortgage right and you're traveling the country using that money for traveling, you know, and other expenses. Yeah, I'm not rolling in it, don't get me wrong. The way the economy's gone the last four years, and then the tubes, but you know, it changed my mindset. It gave me more strength and I was empowered to change my life more in a weird way, and I don't think I would have done that before unless I had changed my diet.
Speaker 1:You know. So all that thing, all that shit was happening, man. You know you got diagnosed with heart disease and I think that was one of like the kind of bigger factors of looking for change. You do ketogenic. You find carnivore. How much weight did you did you lose at total?
Speaker 2:Overall was 80 pounds. I got up to around 253, and then I lost like 10 pounds on my own Old style, you know, watch what you're eating, work out a lot. And then I was stuck man and a guy I played basketball with said keto. You know, and I say this all the time I thought it was something painful. They got to do like cross-training or something because I'd never heard of it. It or something because I never heard of it. It's just a shame. I am 49 years old, never heard of this way of eating ever. You know, it's always been the other way. That is bad. All that stuff, you know, all that propaganda.
Speaker 2:So yeah, man, changing the way I was eating was just like. And I saw myself losing two pounds. You know, I did my little carb manager. I want to lose, you know, stay under 30 grams of carbs. That was my target, stay under 30. I know people do 20 and less than 30 work for me. I could go a little bit over it, a little bit under it, and it was two pounds, like every two weeks. I could see it. I didn't weigh myself every day. I said, all right, you're only going to weigh yourself every two weeks. You know it was two pounds, two pounds, two pounds. I remember I got pictures of the scale all the way down to like 218. And I'm like holy cow, you know.
Speaker 2:And then it was 50 pounds in six months and it was like, and I went from a size 44 to a 36 inch waist man, which I hadn't seen, 36, which is still big for a guy that's six foot tall. I mean, I was still my, you know, my stomach was still too big, but now I'm, you know, carnivore took the last 25 pounds off, you know, that's just shook it loose like get rid of this stuff, you know. But yeah, man, what an amazing journey to get to this weight, at 180 pounds, that I haven't been since seventh grade, you know, and it's mind blowing. It's like my, my wife's, married to a new guy.
Speaker 1:She jokes around like I traded a minute, got a younger, you jokes around like I traded a minute, got a younger, you know, like they upgraded me got an upgraded model.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it's, my hair out got a beard. I mean, I'm totally different. I walked by cops I used to work with. I've seen them like a whole foods down in palm beach where I go back home, and they're not cops or buddies with. But I know from my department, you know, and I'm like they don't even recognize you dude.
Speaker 1:You know, and I work with these people for years they don't even notice yeah it's this, this type of eat, like you said, like I wish I would have known about this earlier, like we're finding this out later because we've been basically lied to for so many years. You know, I mean I went to school to be in physical education, like I'm a teacher, and I sat in the classes and we went through, like fat is bad for you, Like you have to be in this major calorie deficit and blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know all the stuff that I've learned in college I've just literally thrown out the door. You know, even in my master's classes, I have a master's degree I throw it out the door. You know, even in my master's classes, I have a master's degree I throw it out the door.
Speaker 1:And you know, for people like you and it's just super common that anybody that's in these high stress jobs you know we're talking cops, firefighters, dispatch, traffic controllers, right they seek out lots of food as a coping mechanism for their job, Typically fast food, you know comfort foods. And then you know that's like on shift, off shift, you're getting overuse of alcohol, amongst other things, which typically turns into you eating bad anyways. Do you think that's like very common for people in those professions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, we're taught right when we're young. You get hurt. Oh, let's get some ice cream. Every holiday is surrounded by toxic candy and sweets and high carbohydrate. You know food. So that reward system starts young, you know. I mean you go to any grocery store. All the candy is eye level for the kids. So, even as adults, what do we do if we're stressed out? We have a drink, you start munching. You know that's how we've been taught to handle stress. It's backwards, I mean, it's profitable. Of course that's what they target you for, you know. But getting outside, walking around, you know meditation, swimming, pole plunging, you know whatever you're doing to get the body moving, it's so much better off as therapy you, but nobody's taught that. You don't see it on tv, you know. You don't see an argument between two people. The guy's like I'm going out and he goes, gets drunk at the bar. He doesn't go out for a walk and then sit in a park stretching you know grounding with his shoes off.
Speaker 2:You know, in nature yeah, and I didn't know how to do that. I still take walks and it's usually because I'm just like, ah, you know. Plus, we live in a trailer and things get cramped sometimes. So you know, once in a while you just need to get out. And my boys are growing. I know last time we talked about our uh with kids and nutrition and stuff and they're still flying high. Man, my kids are such little warriors for the future of what what we're doing. Like you are. You're like 20 years younger than me and you're already freaking ahead of the game.
Speaker 2:You know, and think about the people we're going to impact that are younger, like our, our kids. You know we have a whole nother wave of us coming that are going to have a lot more power and influence in this field. Cause I think all those people should go to jail everybody in the FDA. And it's not because of the COVID bullshit, it's because of what they've done to us and approved the toxic food that they're feeding us. These people should go to jail. They falsified reports, they falsify studies, they get bribes. That happened to me as a cop. I'd be in federal prison, you know. Yeah, these people are appointed. You know what I'm saying it's so corrupt, and I hope, if we do get a change in administration, that we need people like us on those boards. You know we don't need these other freaking politicians and lobbyists. It's insane the amount of connections that they have with each other.
Speaker 1:What would I sell I?
Speaker 2:wouldn't sell any. I mean, maybe, beef farms, which is, you know, a staple of the American culture, right, I don't know, man, I'm getting more and more aggravated with what's going on with our, you know, agencies that are regulating us, and it's even affecting donations. I mean, oh, there's been a crisis somewhere. What do we send those people? We send them shit, poison. Oh, we're so humanity friendly, you know. And then we get them hooked on the poison. I don't see a bunch of cattle showing up out there and sheep ready for slaughter. Never see that stuff, man. So, man, so yeah, I'm taking, I'm gonna up the aggressiveness on some of the, I'm gonna start doing a little more research. I'm gonna get more involved in that side of things, because it's really pissing me off it's.
Speaker 1:It's kind of a shame that you know we're we're joe schmoes, right, we're just regular people and we're the ones that are like trying to push this along and getting people's ears about it. And it's like, oh well, this person has a nutritional degree and that's like the worst thing you know. It's like I prefer somebody that didn't and that comb through. Yeah, research is great, but at the end of the day, I was talking like everybody. I just had anthony chafee on and we talked about nutritional studies and I'm like, are, are they even trustworthy? He's like no, they're not. He talked about how, like, coca-cola spends 11 times more money on food research than the National Institute of Health 11 times the amount. And I'm like, what are we doing? Health, 11 times the amount. And I'm like, what? What are we doing? We can't, we can't rely on this stuff.
Speaker 1:And everybody asks about carnivore and keto, like, well, that's. You know, I've read this study. It's, it's actually unhealthy. But like to bullshit man stepping in the shoes of people that had autoimmune issues, were overweight, addicted to food, that went to this diet and feel tremendous. And there's no medication, there's no extra hospital visits. There's no other bullshit you need to buy. You just got to eat meat and like, eat whole foods. That's it. It's simple stuff I want to talk about too. When you're, when you're transitioning, you're doing carnivore and all those things, you lose all the weight, you're feeling great, you're looking great, you're working out. Have you stuck with the same like vision of carnivore or ketogenic throughout, or have you, like, changed throughout the years?
Speaker 2:Oh, I've definitely. You know, I started off pretty much I was a keto boy. I had always a lot more meat in the recipe. When I was doing like I was doing cauliflower and hamburger casserole or something, instead of a pound of meat I'd put two pounds in there. I was like I just need, I'm working out whatever. I didn't understand that it was. You know, it was just better off to do that anyways, you know. But yeah, eating that way and I'm sorry, what was your first question? I got sidetracked. I'm calling you.
Speaker 1:No, no, like so when you started you, and then you kind of transition to carnivore. I feel like there are, as people go through carnivore or transition to carnivore, they'll be like super strict and then they'll start kind of changing their diet a little bit and I have two super recently of changing like how much fat I'm eating and protein and and just the way my body is a little bit different, or with the diet. Um, some people are doing lying and that's it. That's the only way, and some people allow different things in the diet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my kid. You know, being having a 12 and eight year old sons that are active doesn't mean they need cars. But you know, my wife comes from the Mediterranean type of living, you know, and so she's OK with olives and, like you know, cucumbers and avocados and you know, some basmati rice and maybe there's some cassava pasta she'll make. So homemade sourdough bread three ingredients she'll do, you know. So I have dabbled in that, you know, over the time. You know I don't do it every day, of course, and it's just, it's like fake filling, you know, it's like you're full for a second, but, you know, just like Chinese food right, we talked about it last time you just get hungry again.
Speaker 2:So the only thing I kind of I realized that the deep down, like sugar addiction that's to the core, is something like almond butter. I think it goes back to peanut butter as a kid, because I ate a ton of peanut butter, like most of the kids in 80s, if not later on. I just know that was a go-to meal. Imagine that was my meal, with white bread, right, and jelly. Let's put some more. Sometimes I didn't have jelly, I put syrup. Oh, so yeah, it was. Peanut butter is still the thing like Reese's peanut butter cups. That's the stuff I would. You know what is it, Jason's little Reese's? You know something?
Speaker 1:Yeah, reese's, they're the healthy version, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would grab those and you know I was. I like fat bombs in the beginning when I was doing the keto board way of eating. You know I like that little treat that wasn't poisoning, so I did get into that routine. I do like a little stevia my coffee, so I still have that little bit of a sweet tooth. I mean, I copped for 20 years Dunkin' Donuts what do you think? Extra cream and sugar.
Speaker 2:And then, man, it's real and I try to tell people when I talk to them I go it's not your fault, bro, this stuff's been tested on rats and stuff to make it more addicting than than you realize. And you can even almost help yourself sometimes. You know you're fighting it, you know. And yeah, I the almond butter. You know I'd still drink vodka as my drink of choice with sparkling water or something like that. You know I tried to get obviously no aspartame or any of that stuff in the fake sparkling water, but that's pretty much the most I ever did.
Speaker 2:If I went out for with buddies at chicken wings and they had some potatoes or fries or some, yeah, I grabbed some of them, you know. But now that I'm really understanding my, you know, with the heart disease and we were discussing earlier my CAC score being so high and some of the other heavy metal testings and mycotoxins that I tested for. I'm testings and mycotoxins that I tested for. I'm really cutting out a lot of that stuff, from alcohol to the random meal that I'd have out, even if it's chicken wings, because you know what they're frying that in.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I'm really just trying to take a control, this for a little bit, and I have another series of tests coming up in august and january, so I'm just let's see how we go yes, let's get into that.
Speaker 1:So you've got a cac score. Can you kind of explain, like what that is about and kind of where you placed on this kind of this test?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's a coronary artery calcium test. Pretty much, you're seeing how much calcium is deposited in your you know your, I guess, your arteries and all that. So I didn't know a lot about it. But in 2019, when I'm battling my doctor about LDL and I've already lost 40 pounds, and he's like, well, your cholesterol is still high. The same thing we've heard a thousand times, right, it might as well be like CNN repeating the same message, right? So it uh. And he was like, well, let's send you for this CAC score or a CAC test. You know, I'm like what's that? Well, it measures, you know, the plaque in your arteries and if you're good to go on that, you don't have to worry about the statin, because I was fighting them on statins. Thank you to Dr Berry, that was my guy. And then it led down to Dr Diamond. That was my path, you know zero. And then all this debate. Oh my God, I'm freaking out because I got a seven, you know.
Speaker 2:So my test came back at that time at 1500, like 1530 or something, and my primary doctor calls me freaking out. Oh my God, I got to get you into my buddy. He's a cardiologist, don't worry, he takes care of you cops. He's a good guy, but you know that old thing and he vouched for him so, luckily. I already read about statins and you know they were talking they want to put stents in me. Dude, I was asymptomatic, I had no, nothing going on. They're already ready to go right. So I talked to the cardiologist. He didn't any of that stuff because I came in with information. He wasn't rude but he thought statins were the savior.
Speaker 2:You know our curves heart attack since 1990. Look at the statistics. I'm like, look at the statistics, if we can. Type 2 diabetes and kidney disease every that stuff's just hammering you. For what? Four days, now what dr maholtra said. You get four days that are take after taking that toxins. For all that your life. You're going to get four days out of it, thanks. So, man, 1500 was quite scary, though you know cause you do, it does creep in there. You're like, oh my God. And then I did the MESA score, which is? You put in your HDL and all your numbers and it came back with me having a 9% chance of having a heart episode in the next 10 years. Well, what's that? Is that?
Speaker 1:a heart attack?
Speaker 2:Is it a stroke, is it? Oh my God, I got chest pains, you know. Or is it death? I mean, you know, you don't know, but and my doctor's telling me you're one, you know, 9%, that's pretty high. I'm like, yeah, but it's 91%, I'm not right. Well, doc, look at the other side. He's like, yeah, unless you're one of nine I go, but I don't plan on being one of nine. So I walked away from that test. I never did it again.
Speaker 2:I heard people getting their cat scores at different health events. You know, you know, it's 400. I'm like, dude, I'm 1500, I'm still walking around. Well, this last january I was in boca raton at um an event and I was talking with dr philip of vadia and then also ben azadi, and they were talking about somebody had reduced their calcium score, like what you reduced it. And they go have you had one done in a while? I was like no, it's been five years, I've been pretty much carnivore and they were almost licking their chops wondering what my score would be. Because here you got a test subject that's never had statins, asymptomatic, pretty much eating a diet that I can actually record and write down, because I know what I've been eating, you know, and they were like we should get it done. So when got it done? And then I get a call from dr avadia and he's like, yeah, your score is 4,000. I think it was 4,148, 4,148.
Speaker 2:Wow, and he was like that's a bit high, I go yeah, you think it just tripled. On carnivore, I go is that so? I mean, what's going on? So one of the things they didn't know was, when I started carnivore and I lost that last 25 pounds, was I still healing the soft plaque and the calcified plaque? Carnivore and I lost that last 25 pounds, was I still healing the soft plaque and the calcified plaque? Was I still going through that transition? And then, after five years, I'm just stable. Right now we don't know if it's really progressed year to year because we don't have the year to year test. We only have a five-year gap. When I got super healthy and all my numbers went up, so it looks like scar tissue in a weird way that this whole area, just I don't know. I feel like I'm saying from the you know the four, whatever the four superheroes, you know that guy was just all stone. I feel like my insider, just yeah the thing solid right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the thing. And yeah, I mean all we're looking he's. He's trying to figure out what would be causing the additional calcium to keep going up. You know what could be causing it. So then we went down the road of heavy metal testings and mold testing. He says a lot of his cardiac patients have tested high in mold.
Speaker 2:All right, let's do the mold test and also seeing a homeopathic doctor at the same time doing tests, because I like to do both sides of it. You know I don't just go one way of thinking, I like to explore my options. You know this has to do with. You know like't just go one way of thinking, I like to explore my options. You know this has to do with. Uh, you like the acupuncture world. You know where your body's all connected and there's all kinds of different things, therapies you can do.
Speaker 2:So I get the metal test done and I'm super high off the charts in mercury, arsenic and aluminum. Now, aluminum can be many things. It's in our food, it's in the air when they're spraying that's. It's in our deodorants. I think it's deodorant because I was a heavy right guard guy. You know all in the 80s, that's what it was. You know we used that toxic shit. You know, the arsenic I think is the brown rice and all the breads I had in my life. You know it's always in that stuff, everything the cheap shit. And then, uh, mercury was. I was a little shocked but it turned out my six mercury fillings that I had in my mouth were, um, leaching into my body.
Speaker 2:You know, I went and saw a bio dentist and he looked at it. Of course he's going to say, yeah, you know, you go to a mechanic, they're going to find a problem. You go to colonoscopy, they're going to say, oh well, we have to snip a couple of things. Good thing you came in. They're never going to tell you they didn't need the procedure, right? So I'm always like, ah, this guy really knows what he's talking about. And he did. You know he was like man, this stuff's poisoning you slowly. It's connected to your brain, you know. And then you know we've already discussed the PTS stuff. So like, well, maybe this will help. You know, of course they don't cover that shit um, with dentistry bills and all that and removing the work that they did. But you know, anyways, it's civil war type of dentistry. You know it's old school. You know they use the mercury because after you leave it's still a little bit soft and your bite can correct itself naturally without having to go back and repeat visits. No, he took them out, man.
Speaker 2:And now you know I had mentioned earlier I didn't tell you I'd also test a positive for Lyme, even though it wasn't active. And for Lyme, even though it wasn't active, and I think the low carb way of eating keeping, you know, my symptoms low or you know all the signs of it just it was keeping it down and my son had gone through it. That's why I was kind of thinking, all right, we know the low carb way of eating is working, so I get all you know right. When I got to Austin, when I had the mercury taken out, so I was like, wow, this is, my teeth are normal, I don't have this, you know, metal sticking out of my mouth. But things started happening, man.
Speaker 2:I felt myself detoxing, you know, because I got one of the MTFR genes MTHFR genes and I have a problem at times, I think, with methylation Not 100%, but detoxing and also absorption and it could be blockage in my lymph nodes. I mean, this is going off the rails on deeper stuff that I didn't know until I went on this path. I thought, you know, carnivore saved my life, the body will fix itself. But 50 years of poisoning yourself, there is some issues that come along the way. Your body's not operating optimal, you know, and there's things you got to do, detoxing. So we're doing all this crazy stuff as a family, trying to loosen up the lymph nodes and but my right knee swelled up out of nowhere, dude, like I didn't hurt it, it was. It's been like six weeks now I've been battling and the Lyme's active now and I think the detox and all this stuff that's going on.
Speaker 2:You know I mentioned the heavy mold testing. I tested really high in that. So I'm detoxing from mold. Where do you get mold from? Well, food you eat has mold, your environment, my vest I wore for 20 years was moldy as heck. In South Florida they make you wear polyester, you know. So I was a Petri dish all those years, you know. And old police car, old police department, all of our houses probably are high and molded in South Florida they're not going to go tell you, tell you that. So yeah, it really opened my eyes to more, a lot more of the environmental toxins that are out there and I thought it was good, but someone's making that calcium score go up, or at least made it go up over 4,000, which is this I'm part. You know, facebook has a group for everything right, I'm part of the high-cac club.
Speaker 1:The high-cac club.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the amount of people that are on stats, they're all talking the wrong information. I'll throw my story out. I don't preach to them, you know, I'm just hey, this is my story. Hopefully they read it and it opens their eyes to other ways of doing things. You know, no-transcript it down to zero. I'm never going to get down to 400. If anything, it may go up every year a little bit because of the healing that's going on. You know, we don't know. You know there's not 54 year old guys walking around with 4 000 tax scores that haven't been touched by modern medicine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know so it's interesting my path and see where I'm gonna end up. I mean, hopefully I make it. You know, my thing now is the highest tax score, or that, sorry, the cash will be in 400 or over 4 000. My now rate of having a heart episode in the next 10 years, according to their scale, is 30%. So they have it in their tools that they use to diagnose you, the ability to tell you you're still sick. You know what I'm saying. They're going to come back and say well, eric, you're still over 4,000. What are you going to do? Prescribe me a statin. What are you going to do? Open heart surgery? Why surgery? Why I'm running around, I'm still living my life. I mean, you know I'm what they call a paradox. They can't explain it, even though they can because it's healthy, living, de-stressing environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's. It's very difficult when going through like these types of things because I similar thing. I was doing a lot of training. I got got an adjustment. I was doing like triathlons, ironman, whatever, and I got an adjustment because my hip was kind of clicking or whatever Wasn't super bad, but it was irritating. I got an adjustment. I just do, my hip popped, wow, and I just like, oh my God, this feels so good. I felt great.
Speaker 1:And then the next, the whole entire week, the next, I don't know, six days, I could barely walk. I couldn't walk. I was like shit. I'm like I was training hard. I had a detour from my training. I got the Ironman coming up. I'm like, oh my God, I was limping for six days.
Speaker 1:I called the um, the chiropractor. I was like, hey, man, like my hip is still hurting, like, and I called him before telling how much pain it was. He's like call me back in a couple of days. If it's still there, go in there. And he's like, yeah, I gotta, there's something up. We gotta get you to have an MRI. I gotta send your MRI stuff to this uh hip doctor at rush hospital. He was like the number one hip surgeon. It's like, okay, do the MRIs Like, yeah, you got a torn labrum? He's like you got to go to surgery to like now.
Speaker 1:And I was like, okay, and I started doing some research. I met with the guy. He's like, yeah, we got a schedule for surgery like within the next couple of weeks. And I was like, fuck, I'm like I can't believe I'm about to have hip surgery. So I start Googling some stuff before I went in there and I found that even though they see in the MRI that it's a torn, there's like a dark spot where my labrum is torn. Most of the time that that labrum is, that dark spot is from the MRI. So people go to get these things done and a doctor like you said they would open them up. There's a labrum that's there. They might repair a few things, but it's still there and they'll close you up and they won't tell you anything different.
Speaker 1:And then I asked the guy I go, so if I get this surgery I'm going to be okay, like I'll never have hip pain again. He goes oh, you'll have like a 75%, 75% chance higher of dislocating your hip after this. I go, but I'm not dislocating my hip now, why do I need surgery? I'm squatting, I'm running. You know I'm having a little issue now and I literally just like, never went back. They want to schedule me like a company You're going to have surgery in two weeks. I was like, and I never went back. And my hips, fine, it, it. It hurts a little bit every now and again, but I'm like, dude, I'm living my life, you're living your life. You're able to do things and not have restriction. Why the hell do we need to have surgery if we're not restricted? It's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even Dr Chaffee said well, just don't run any marathons, sprints are okay for you. So I do think about you know, I've always hated long distance running anyways. You know, like these triathlon stuff that you guys do, screw that, I'll run after somebody, I'll run after a ball. You know you want to play some sports soccer, basketball but just running for no reason, oh, that's the worst to me. I mean, maybe it's all the football days of us running gassers all the time. You know we got in trouble and stuff. But yeah, I mean it's, it's changed. I'm not going to lie. It's changed my workout habits a little bit. I'm not pushing myself, make my heart pound as much, because sometimes I'll be at whatever planet fitness or 24 hour fit, whatever I am, because we travel. So you know, I'm always in a different gym. I should do reviews, hey, you guys out there, um, but I'll start looking like where's the aad in this, motherfucker, you know like I have some idea like hey, it's over there as I fall.
Speaker 2:You know which is not going to happen that way, but I don't know, it's definitely creeped in, it dropped the seed in there this whole, and it's a procedure that if I never had done, even in 2019, I wouldn't know and would it matter? Would it really matter in my life, right? You know, and that's when I retired in 2019. I didn't. I was getting all the tests done, like that test done, and the next one up was the colonoscopy and I started doing what you did. I started reading about it. I'm like well, if you're eating a pretty healthy diet, real food, you shouldn't need, you shouldn't be building up any cancer, any cancer or any of those polyps or whatever.
Speaker 2:And then I started reading about the injuries and some of the complications and then the cleaning procedures and I was like that's it, I it, I'm canceled, I'm not doing it. I said I haven't done it. They were like really, guys, I got it done at like 40. You know what's next? You'll be 20 years old, getting your freaking pipes cleaned. It's like geez, come on, guys. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's other ways to do it besides over. You know and I just look at myself all my procedures you know from injuries that maybe you know broken in, you know broken bones is different than you know. You got a rash on your elbow, you know your arm or something, and then doctors never look at what's coming up from the inside of your body. So, yeah, it's been amazing, dude, to be this weight, even though I've got the hard stuff. That's probably the 20 years of listening to that radio and every time there's an alert tone your heart stops because you don't know there's a dead baby bank robber. You know a cop in a shooting and he's back up. It takes its toll, man. I don't think we should be cops longer than 20 years because guys are holding on and they end up dying anyways after they retire.
Speaker 2:There's a big statistic about that, that people once they leave, you know a few years after retirement that you know they'll have a heart attack or an episode and they always say it's because you have nothing to do. No, it's because of the freaking stress that you put on your body for all those years and maybe you're trying to do stuff that you're not used to. Yeah, that leads to it, but you got your diet under control and you're able to manage your stress. I mean even that 20 years is enough. My kids I can't even tell those cop stories when I'm not being tied to a tragedy.
Speaker 2:You know, everything's like a funny oh yeah. You know, murphy slipped over here on the dead body, you know, kicked the head because the guy got run by, run over by a train or something right. And the kids are like I got run over by a train, like oh yeah, and you know, and you're like oh yeah, why did that guy get run over? Oh yeah, he was addicted to freaking painkillers that were prescribed by who? His doctor, right, so it just. I mean, I'm so far down the rabbit hole with the pharmaceutical companies I'll probably disappear one day, you know. But I, I, they're an organized cartel, totally. You know they go out there and pump their business just like a regular drug field. But you know, and unfortunately, and all the people I meet in my camping travels, you know all these retired first responders and military guys they got.
Speaker 1:I can't even tell you if I say how many people are on medication yeah everybody's raising their hands, sometimes two hands jeez, the amount of pills that my mother takes. She's had a thyroid taken out. My dad and my stepdad both had um, they went in. They both went in to get stints. You know, but I was a firefighter, my stepdad was a sergeant for police department. Both went to get stints and as soon as they like this is the crazy.
Speaker 1:It's very scary when the doctor they go into surgery and the doctor comes out in like 20 minutes, you're like shit, like oh, like this must be hours long. I'm like dude, if the doctor's coming out, something's wrong. Like yeah, we like went up there, you know, through the leg, looked at the artery, it's too much of a build-up. Right same thing happened with both of them. They're like we gotta, we're prepping them from surgery for another day. They're going to have to have bypasses. So they both had bypasses and they both lost weight.
Speaker 1:After the fact doing the physical therapy, their diet was better. I still disagree with what the doctors were prescribing them, like oatmeal, orange juice in the morning you know what I'm saying? Like chicken breast, vegetables, like no, nothing fatty whatsoever. I was like this this is the shit. That kind of got you here. So why are you still doing it? But whatever, they lost weight but they, they both ballooned back up. They're both, if not as heavy or heavier than they were before the heart surgery.
Speaker 1:And it's just. And the doctor where's the doctor? Who's who's helping them with lifestyle? And I can talk to my dad till I'm blue in the face. He says I'm on the unhealthy diet. He goes how's that unhealthy diet going? I'm like dude, I'm fucking, I'm great. I feel great. I feel better now in my 30s than my 20s. But he just can't get over that aspect. And the doctors don't care about lifestyle, they only care about. Can I prescribe you this? Can lifestyle they only care about? Can I prescribe you this? Can I give you this, uh pamphlet? Um, I'll see you in two months. Like it's not helping.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a racket. You know everything's a little bit of a racket. You know they get you in this system. You know it's like you know your oil change. They're always going to say you need something else, right, oh?
Speaker 2:you need to change that cabin filter or you know, it's always something Always trying to get some money out of you. You know I hate it. You know, I know these guys are smart guys and ladies, of course, but they just been. You know, I say this to my wife Trying to tell people about the way we eat and how they've been lied to is really like trying to tell them to change their religion. Right, it's just so indoctrinated in them that they can't. They just can't imagine that they've been played and lied to like this and they have.
Speaker 2:You know, it's amazing, like, oh my goodness, do you not see the death and destruction going around us with our youth, with the? You know you mentioned having Dr Kiltz at my cops and campers event the fertility issues that we have going around. You know, I mean, come on, people. You know, but you know this isn't the message that gets put out there. You know, um, it's this grassroots movement, seed by seed and eventually maybe we'll be able to shake it up, man, but there's too much money in it and if you get too big they silence you. You know, then you're walking around handcuffed with a sheet over your head, you know, but it's crazy, man, I, you know, talk about Dr Kiltz. I also had a Dr K. I'm not a doctor, he should be a doctor but Kevin Donaldson is also retired, a New Jersey cop that has a old. He wrote a book called a man you're crazy or, and anyways it talks about. You know I was able to bring the two-headed monster together. You know I got Dr Kills talking about diet, nutrition and how you know therapeutic it is and how you can heal. And then I got this guy that suffered from a lot of stuff and has a podcast that he does to help cops, and now it's like these two worlds are merging together because he's understanding through my story how you can get better thinking. We have a super high rate of suicide in our profession. It's getting worse. Guys aren't able to handle the stress or the afterlife of it. You know they don't know what to do and this is just one way to, you know, obviously, help them. You know, through these different things I'm doing. You know, next year I get Dr Baker out there and we all, you know, have a big steak steak eating contest or something like that or something. You know. I just think the guys need to hear from a different voice because they've only heard their city doctors or county doctors. That are all part of the networks that is paid for through health insurance.
Speaker 2:I've been riding five years without health insurance and it's glorious. Glorious, you know why? Cause I don't need it. Yeah, a little. I pay cash once in a while for a little procedure here. You know, if I have to go get a cash, score a hundred bucks, you know little things like that. But I, I save money, you know. Put that money aside. You know people can't I don't know this insurance thing They'll still bill you. You're not getting away. So what are you worried about? You know, for me to cover my family after I retire will be $2,000 a month. That's wild, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:So that's a mortgage. That's a mortgage, right there.
Speaker 2:That's a mortgage, a cow, whatever way you want to look at it. I'm like you guys are insane. Well, I got to keep my prescriptions low. Well. Well, why are you taking prescriptions? Well, because I'm fat. Well, let's get, let's work on the fat guys, you know. But yeah, the easy way out is the way we do it here the hospital should be for what it's designed right.
Speaker 1:It should be for emergencies uh, broken arms, like actual, like you know, in the moment, injuries versus this is all lifestyle. I was just on the podcast yesterday. I was talking about it. U S government spends $4.5 trillion on healthcare. $4.5 trillion on healthcare. What Like this is so crazy. It's it. And this is all preventative stuff.
Speaker 2:Where's that money coming from?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, us yeah, and I I want to talk more about cops and campers and you know, can you give some listeners background about the program and what? And also because you started off with the thin blue line flag story, because I think this is where it kind of jumps off well, I'll cover a lot of.
Speaker 2:I'll go real fast with this part of it. I am also the son of a police officer. My mom was a homicide sergeant in Miami for 30 years. She's actually featured in the show Griselda on Netflix. That was last January that came out. Her character is June Hawkins that battles Sofia Vergara's character of Griselda Blanca. So here are. My mom's is badass cop in the 80s and 70s and stuff. But that's where my bad diet started, you know, because she's working all the time and what's she going to listen to? You know the TV or the news and read the boxes that say it's good for you. So I started bad habits back then. But when I had retired in 2019 and we started traveling, well, first I found a brother that was the cop.
Speaker 1:That's a crazy story through a DNA search and he had been I heard this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he and I camped for the first time together and we had been interviewed on Fox and friends and we were on NBC night. It was insane the amount of coverage we got in 2019, cause it was a good car. You know, it was a good story. Two brothers, 50 years old, didn't know about each other, found each other both cops in Florida. It was wild. So he'd been camping his whole life RV stuff and I never had. So I finally went camping with my big brother and learned how to do this life. So we picked up and left Florida in 2020.
Speaker 2:I've been traveling the last four years in a travel trailer and a big dually that I'm sitting in right now which is acting as my studio, and we just started going around the country. You know, and everywhere I go, I put up my thin blue line flag. I meet first responders, I meet medical people. You know we just shoot the shit. You know and hear my story and, wow, that's pretty crazy Lost 80 pounds just by changing your diet. So it was like. You know, I was like a snake oil salesman. You know, at the back, going to town to town, like on tour, and you had one campground in New York Put my flag out and they said you got to take your flag down. I'm like you're crazy, I'm not taking my flag down. So it turned into this little situation I recorded. One kind of viral news came out, did an article on them trying to tell a retired cop to take down his police flag. They were going to call the cops on the cop or the cop flag. You know, it's freaking insane, right. I mean, what world? But it was 2021, where everything bizarro world, right? So I ended up standing at the campground stirring it up a lot of social media coverage on it and I got suspended from a camping group called thousand trails yeah, I'm calling you out, um, because their policies were vague on the flag. So I get suspended two months and then four different campgrounds in upstate new york said bring your flag, your rig and your family, you're staying with us. And they ended up covering the whole two months.
Speaker 2:So everywhere I went, I was meeting local cops because they're all pro first responders and it was just we'd have campfire stories. I'm like you know, we should just do this. You know, go camping as us and just meet up places. You know, meet up. Now it's taking a different. Taking a different. You know, now I'm doing the other meetup, but at this time I was just regular meetup and we'll call it cops and campers. There was a rally they had for me and it kind of took off, but then I didn't know what to do with it. You know, all these cops want to get together. You know what am I selling shirts? What's my message? Is it just camping? You know, everyone loves to camp and drink or whatever.
Speaker 2:And I start really diving into the mental aspect of it, how therapeutic it is to get outside, to get around each other. You know, we all get out of that profession and we're missing the guys, we're missing the girls or the groups that we had. You know it's especially. You do it 20, 30 years. You're missing. It's like being.
Speaker 2:You know, I understand when athletes retire and they're away from it, it's a big change in your life. I mean, I played 13 years of football, one year in college and then when I left, it was a vacancy. It was a big, you know, emptiness I felt. So I can imagine after a 30 year career, you know, or being a soldier and just being around that. So this doesn't replace it a hundred percent. You know you're never going to have that adrenaline dump where you both kicking down a door and getting a bad guy or something Right. But you get around each other, you shoot, you tell stories. Sometimes you tell the real bad ones. You don't share a lot, you know, and that's therapy.
Speaker 2:And guys started meeting each other separately. Hey, we're going fishing next week, so all of a sudden you start having these mini groups. You know, almost like pop up campers, right, and it's just started taking off. You know, almost like pop-up campers, right, and it's just started taking off, you know, and they wanted to do one again in um, ithaca, new York. So we've had three events there. There's a documentary on YouTube. We did just the 30 minutes just talking about what we do and why it's so beneficial for us. We've done two in Georgia. We got another one coming up in April 2025, ithaca's July 2025.
Speaker 2:I'm hoping to have Dr Kiltz said he'll come back and it'll bring his tribe, so we might have a little bit more meat on the bone at this event. You know and you know, really try to it from another voice besides the keto crazy cop that's always out there with the long hair and the beard. You know like it's a different voice. You know and I don't know. You know I can. I can reach a lot of the cops man to man, but then I have that extra layer, you know. That's why I'm trying to network with like rivero and all these other groups that I want to push their services on my crowd. They need it. They don't understand how to go outside of their network for help. The idea of them paying cash for their own health is still, you know, foreign to them. But it's your health, dude. Why not give $450 to a practitioner that's going to follow up and really help you, rather than you paying that $1,200 a month?
Speaker 1:medical bill.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean. So, yeah, that's what the cops and campers is about. I'm hoping to have boosts up one day, you know, kind of like like a like a keto con type of situation, not that big, I mean, maybe one day, you know. But you know, I know guys in Austin want to do it. When I was there I did a law enforcement podcast there. They camp, they want to do something like that. So I'm like, well, shoot, you know let's. So we went nonprofit in November. So now we're nonprofit legitimacy and we can now start collecting donations and I collect a little bit.
Speaker 2:For the last event. I spent it, you know, on the catering, some food we had and reservations for guys that maybe needed to help to get there. You know, not everyone camps. Not everyone has a camper, you know. So I don't mind sponsoring guys to come. You know people donate their campers to this event if we need it. You know we have cabins available, you know.
Speaker 2:So there's different ways to get out to this. You don't have to stay in an RV, so we have those options. So, yeah, it's, it's really the way it's. Threading with the outdoors is really beneficial and most of the retired cops and first responders are camping a lot anyways. You see them everywhere. They like to get away and just they know they're almost doing it. They don't realize why your body's telling you to get into this de-stress life. Get outside, outside of nature, look at the water, you know, take a time. Or take the time to look around, you know, and you don't get to do that for like the first 50 years of your life, right? Just go, go, go. By the time you start school, it's nonstop.
Speaker 1:And I think, community too. It's like you're bringing community together, which I feel is more important than ever. You have a good message. Some people look at us on Instagram and I always I contemplate sometimes, like, why the hell do I even have a podcast? Why do I post shit on Instagram or whatever? And some people might interpret that as like oh, they're just, they're pushing the new fad, that's what they're doing. Oh, they're just, they're pushing the new fad, that's what they're doing.
Speaker 1:But you also have doctors, you know, like kilts, ken Berry, chafee, sean Baker, like all these people that are giving Ovadia legitimacy to what we are talking about and we live it and our stories can impact a lot of people. But that just gives you that little piece of legitimacy of like, yeah, no, these are doctors. These people have stepped away from the narrative that they've been given and I I had Ovadia on my podcast and one of the things we talked about was when you graduate medical school I'm sorry, no, when you go through medical school and you retire by the time you retire, a third of everything you learned will be false. And he's like yeah, that's, that's pretty accurate.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean my police career I went up and down on my opinion on drugs, you know, and a lot of it was. I just thought, well, it's illegal. They say it's illegal, you know. And then you start back, you know, you start looking through the history of stuff and why is this illegal? But isn't, you know? Why is it this shut down? But these places are open. You know taco bell is open but you can't go to our local pizzeria because you know. So you realize it's a money game, you know.
Speaker 2:And I don't ever regret my police career because I got in it to help people and that's all I ever did. You know, I didn't get the joy off arresting people. Yeah, it was a bad guy that did something bad. Oh, yeah, that was like winning the Super Bowl catching those guys, you know. But the day-to-day stuff we dealt with, the trauma that I'm talking about is domestics, the car accidents that people on you know. Oh, drinking and driving. You know how much medications people are driving around on that never get tested on. They're all DUI out there, you know it. That never get tested on, they're all DUI out there. It doesn't mean everyone's wasted, but they're all under the influence of something. You see it like that, on those numbers and you're just.
Speaker 2:You know, all I can say is watching my kids do the keto for way of eating. Oh my God, you guys want to have the. I mean, knock on wood, my kids are well adjusted and they're stable. They don't have these up and down emotional things that a lot of kids go through. That I didn't know. I was no expert. I'm sure I had my moments too, you know, but I see it. You know, we're around a lot of homeschool kids. We're around a lot of public school kids and we see it, you know, and it's just going to make them better human beings and you got to think about it. You know, if you're going to change your diet, you got to do the whole family. Guys. I mean, it's you trying to do it yourself but still let your family poison Come on.
Speaker 2:You, you know, and they and people don't understand. You really got to explain it to them. Watch the magic pill, watch fat fiction, watch fat. You know all these other movies that are slowly coming out, you know. Watch how they, the industry, has railroaded us into being sick, to profit from it and then take it personal, and then they use that. They'll power you and that's what I'm doing and they ain't getting me. They got me for 50 years. You made me sick. You know you poison. They it's poison. You know everything. It's crazy. Toothpaste I mean my wife's crazy. You know she'll look at everything. She's like oh my god, you know we have clay toothpaste, which also is good for taking out if you get bit by mosquitoes. Put a little clay toothpaste on there. It draws out the freaking stuff. You don't have to be using the chemicals all the time.
Speaker 1:This is all stuff I've learned because of my wife.
Speaker 2:She's the same wacky wife. Had me sell the house and let's get a truck and trailer travel the world, but she saved my life so I can't argue with it we live this lifestyle, modern lifestyle, you know it's.
Speaker 1:It's little changes that you could do. It doesn't have to be super drastic. Like I got rid of um, I use everyman jack. Now I, what it's called Every man Jack deodorant has no aluminum. I use a toothpaste without fluoride. Now, you know, um, do I still have cleaning chemicals? Like I looked at my it's so funny. I looked at the other day. I'm like I have like cleaning chemicals of like different things that I'm like ah, this is probably not the best cleaning chemical in the world. And slowly I've been like looking into getting different other things and like I changed the way. Like my laundry, I don't use Tide anymore, I use like an organic thing for my laundry. So it's small changes there could be.
Speaker 1:I mean a little financially. They're a little bit extra, but I'm going to I'll. I'm fine with that if that's going to keep me healthy. But I want to go back to this too. I mean this literally has come up in almost like the past three podcasts was like I don't have any kids. I can't imagine trying to navigate kids, you know, through life like a carnivore, keto-vore, with just the landscape of food. I mean you guys homeschool, they're with you more of the time but going out like is that like a big issue?
Speaker 2:We don't. We don't go out in celebration anymore for stuff, you know we'll grill out, you know. But if it's like a birthday of my mom, you know we're up in Tennessee to see my mom we'll go out, but we'll just go to a high end steak restaurant, you know. And yeah, they have potatoes and, let's say, peas and carrots on the side of the plate. My kids would eat that, you know. But they already know they're going to get a steak or pork chop. They don't mess with chicken. Yes, I mean they will, they have to, but they're already red blooded beasts. You know, their little carnivores, their bodies craving it. And they're smart as heck man. They're so much smarter than I ever was because they're allowed to live free in their minds.
Speaker 2:They're not part of the system, right? You know? You got to. You got to learn five, six things a day in each class and you got this. My kids just love math and science. You know, just run with the kids, run with it. You know we can pick up the other stuff along the way, you know, depending on what you want to do in life.
Speaker 2:You know, and the benefits of homeschooling, I know a lot of people can't do it. We did it by accident. My wife was already staying at home because of a second child and we pulled him out in 2018 out of first grade and it was the best decision we've ever made, because for him, he's a little man, little warrior, that needs to be active and that needs to run around, you know, and needs to eat a good, you know, real food diet Like we're out here in cape vince and he's swimming every day, you know, and I'm seeing a 12 year old that's ripped, you know, and I was like that up to about 11 and then the processed food got me, you know, and you know football. You got to get weight on, keep eating, keep eating, get fatter.
Speaker 2:So, seeing these kids, and then they're an influence on other kids, you know they're like why are you eating pork rinds? Kill you. Ah, because doritos is really bad for you. He doesn't preach to him. He's like plus, these are more filling, I don't need as many. And then the kids are like mom, can I get, you know, pork rinds? Like kill you, you know, and that's, you know. Maybe I need them to have a little kids podcast, talking keto or stuff more kids.
Speaker 1:To be honest, that would be a great idea to have that, because I think that's because we talk about. People need a face, you know, to hear a story and that's how people connect like dude. Imagine your kids having a youtube short. That goes like crazy, because we can teach our own, you know yeah, yeah yeah, so and kids will watch other kids and yeah, I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 2:But you know you also don't want to exploit your kids and put them out there either. You know that cop side of me is also like oh, yeah, you know no the message that they they could actually reach an audience like I can.
Speaker 2:You know, I have my police first responder side of things and they got every kid out there. You know and they won't. You know, of course they'll be. You know and they won't. You know, of course they'll be. Uh, you know they'll be pushed down because they're not promoting, you know, candy and all this other stuff.
Speaker 1:But yeah, but it's okay to do the tiktok dances, oh yeah, you know, and that's, that's great. But like you want to talk about kids, helping kids, helping kids like, and it's like, oh wait, hold on, what are these kids talking about? But I, that's, that's something that's a fear of mine, cause eventually I want to have kids, and not a fear, but it's just, I know it's going to be an obstacle, I know it's going to be hard when you know you're going to have to educate kids and if they do go to school, you know how are they interacting at school. What's the food look like?
Speaker 2:You know, I have it in the back of my head like man, I I'm gonna have to send my kids with something but a lot of ground beef or maybe the goal at that point is your kids don't have to go to school and they can be like what, uh grace to just go to two hours a day of ai school and become a master of your profession and the rest of your day is open. You know, I mean, this whole ideology of having to go to school six, seven hours a day is still a new thing. You you know the last since the Rockefellers got in control of our schools some years ago.
Speaker 1:So it was only the last hundred years before that.
Speaker 2:our kids learned with us, they worked with us, you know. And what's the end game? To go get your kid a degree that owes all this money, to go work corporate for somebody else in their pants? I mean, what's the end game in this big picture of life Cause I looked at it questioning my own route my life would have been big house, jet skis, boats, kids go to college, paying for their weddings, helping them out and probably die by the time I was 68 years old of a heart attack. That was going to be my life you know, and physically.
Speaker 2:That's what's happening all the time. So, yeah, i't be scared to change it. The kids were aggressive with now. I mean, when they were young they were breastfed. We were seeing when my wife was eating gluten how an effect affected my first kid. So she knocked out gluten and you know what she felt. Great, she didn't know she had a an issue with gluten. So there's things you can do. A lot you will learn with your kids, you know. But they, they can't eat the shit if you don't have it in the house. And if you go to parties, bring your own food. It's food, not poison. Right, they have poison. You wouldn't take your kid to a party and let them just sniff cocaine or do a freaking shot of whiskey, right, well, you got to look at the food that they're going to is the same way.
Speaker 1:Because it is, it's just a longer death.
Speaker 2:It takes longer, that's all, and it's addictive. So now you're setting the standard for the rest of this kid life. He's going to go to a pizza party at the office because he's going to have slice of pizza and a slice of cake every friday. You know what I'm saying, and then yeah, it's just snowballs man. So if you get a hold of him in the beginning, yeah, he may have that slice of pizza in that cape, but you know he's gonna feel like shit, that's a big one man I'm not doing that again maybe I should have just had two bites and I'd eat the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and that's what I'll do. I'll sample a little bit now and I'm like oh god, it's so sweet, I can't, I can't imagine that I used to eat this. That's what I, you know, because the taste buds change when you get off of that stuff.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's a big I love and I like that too. And I tell this to myself sometimes if I do allow myself an indulgence, a slice of pizza or whatever, like it's life. I'm about to go to Japan and like I'm gonna have some things that are not carnivore in Japan, just it's gonna happen. But I know when I do have those things I feel like shit. So like to me it's like I know this diet works when I go to this stuff I used to have all the time and I would never feel crappy. It's just I didn't realize how bad I felt. It was just the norm for me. But when you go to this way and you have something that's highly processed, super starchy, very heavy carbs, you're like, oh my God, did I drink last night? Like, am I hung over? I ate pizza. I.
Speaker 2:I find one of the things is all the injuries. You're talking about doing all your marathons and all that stuff. When I eat like that, whatever was my nagging thing that I've had from playing sports for 50 something years? Right, my left knee would act up. It might be my bad back surgery I was 24, another probably unnecessary surgery where they went in and took out some of my L4 disc, but that'll act up. It won't be necessarily. I feel hungover, that my guts are wrecking. I mean, my gut might be a wreck also depending on what I was eating, right. But yeah, it's just inflammation, man. It kicks in in those sensitive areas right off the bat and I can feel it and it makes me realize how inflamed I was before. When you're just adding to the collection of inflammation throughout your body, you know. But you feel a lot more when you lay it off, lay off that stuff and you dabble again.
Speaker 1:It's, it's pretty brutal you kind of mentioned this earlier, and when I kind of end with, too, of like how, how is it like seeing your mom being portrayed on Netflix across all you know? I mean because Griselda was like a, it was a big show yeah, well, my mom was in People Magazine.
Speaker 2:I mean, I mean, how many guys can say my mom was in People Magazine, right?
Speaker 1:I mean it's insane you've had insane, you've had a cool life man, you've had some different things. You've been in the news for a bunch of different stuff.
Speaker 2:And not even trying. You know the brother thing that went viral. And then, a month later, after I found the brother, I got a call from Doug Myra, who's one of the executive producers of Narcos, and they were like, hey, I'm like, wow, he wants to talk to me about Dave and my you know, hey, we're going to be. I don't know, maybe they're doing a cop show right. So I thought they were going to ask me to be part of a cop show, tell my story or something. They're like we want to talk to your mom. Like, ah, the hero mom again, you know the one that saw all those. Okay, so I got them in touch and they were people out to talk to her. And then COVID hit. So everything kind of got pushed back. I mean, Dave and I even auditioned for Amazing Race and we were going to fly out December of 2019 for casting. I mean they had selected us for season like 33 or 34. Oh, cool, and then COVID hit and everything got shut down. And then that summer they're flipping and burning police cars. I'm like, dave, I don't think we're getting that call. So, anyways, all this happened. You know they want to do a Miami Narcos and then we I think it was 2023.
Speaker 2:The actress Juliana Martinez is playing my mom, called my mom. They went over the script together because she's Colombian, my mom's Cuban. They say things differently and then I got to talk to Juliana about being the son of a cop, like that. So they actually have one scene with me going to baseball practice when I'm arguing with my mom in the car and I'm telling her about a gun in the glove box, you know, and they got some actor playing me, you know, and I remember the act. The producers were like so, eric, what were you doing at 14 13? I was like you really want to know I was doing that for you, don't want to know I was discovering I was discovering life.
Speaker 2:They're like, besides that, I'm like, oh, I played football, baseball, so I think to be that in there. But yeah, to see, there's some things, mannerisms that juliana nailed on my mom. That was kind of wow, you know, like some of the serious tones she'd have reminded me of my mom, the way my mom could just make me, to the core, feel like shit you know, whether it's disappointment, you know, like, oh you let me down, or something like that, but she did a great job.
Speaker 2:It was supposed to be 10 episodes, I only did six. You know, I think Sophia's schedule is really busy, you know, and she was the superstar of the film, so she had some influence. But yeah, I mean, my mom's story is amazing. We're talking about maybe writing a book. I mean she was a hostage negotiator for 15 years. I mean they could just do June Hawkins the hostage negotiator show.
Speaker 2:And she's got stories, I mean stories upon stories and her life in itself being a female in the seventies as a cop, a Spanish female, you know, I mean it's, it's crazy, you know. And then, like you said, to see her on TV, and then you know we're sitting around and yeah, man, I was like I was actually eight to nine years old when my mom was doing that. I wasn't a teenager, so I had no idea. I'm going to YMCA after school, programs playing, you know, knock hockey and stuff, and she's out there seeing dead bodies at 29, 30 years old, you know.
Speaker 2:And that's a whole other issue about trauma. My mom's got it, but you can't talk to her about it. So you know it's like talking to an old, seasoned veteran, you know from like Vietnam. You just can't bring it up. It is what it is and it's sad because it's probably going to be festered in her and eventually lead to her death because they can't get out of their bodies. You know all that stress they can't. You know it's hard for that older generation to talk about stuff we talk about. We cry about it. You know we're more therapeutic with it and we understand that for mental health, you know, or for mental wellness, that you've got to get these demons and some of the stuff off your list, you know, because it'll eat you up.
Speaker 2:You know and I see it with all my mom's generation of cops. They all got that hidden.
Speaker 2:You know they don't want to say that the stuff they saw was it was unfair in a lot of ways. You know, yeah, I, I bet you you didn't get away with much in the house. No, no, no, she, she got she used to get me on don't watch tv, right, and I'd turn it off, of course, when she pulled in. Every kid does that. She won't catch me. I'll start washing dishes and she walk in and feel the heat on the tv.
Speaker 1:Oh, the big back of the TV.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she got me a couple of times. I got caught skipping school because neighbors ratted us out, you know. But she was the type that would say I'm not going to give you a curfew until you prove to me you need one. But she also knew all the friends I hung out with because she would do background checks on my friend's parents. She didn't tell me that, but I found this out later. All those kids had curfews. So if they had to be in at 11, I was, what am I gonna do?
Speaker 2:all right, I'm going home. Oh good thing you don't have a curfew. See, I trust you, but she'd do those mind games. Allow me a little bit of responsibility. And then you know and it was her and I, my grandmother I mean my dad's five marriages, my mom three marriages. You guys want to go down a deep dive of trauma. Talk about having eight marriages and 10 different schools you went to before you got to high school Craziness. And you wonder why I was stuffing my mouth with Oreos, right yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean like we were talking earlier.
Speaker 1:That's how people feel. I mean, I'm case in point of I have to catch myself and that's why I was so big when I was younger, lost a ton of weight, regained a lot of the way to bring stressful times in my life. Uh, but, yeah, going to, you know, drinking alcohol, fast food, any cause it feels good at the moment in the time, but, um, that's the, that's the way that you cope with it. But, you know, high stress, jobs, life is stressful. But we gotta, you know, get active, talk about things. Uh, eat right, eat steaks, lift weights, like that's. We do that, we're fine.
Speaker 1:Go to more carnivore, get togethers you know carnivore, get togethers, go to all those meetups.
Speaker 2:There's one in your townhers, you know carnivore, get togethers, Go to all those meetups. There's one in your town, I mean I know locally. On Facebook there's one I saw the other day I was looking at some in Jacksonville, Florida. There's a meetup group in Jacksonville.
Speaker 2:Get involved with those groups, man, because that's just going to reinforce and you're going to lose some people in this life. Man, you know there's I mean not totally, but there's people aren't going to want to hang with you as much because you're not. They're going to feel nervous about eating around you. It's weird how that starts to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But you're the one eating the bad stuff. Feeling bad, you know, but I make you feel bad, so now we're not part of the circle. You know, it's kind of weird weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that sometimes you gotta cut people out.
Speaker 2:Uh, what? Uh, what's coming up next for you? Anything big coming up? Uh, I'm gonna be in. I I guess in august, august 22nd, 23rd I'll be in nashville. I guess amanda deppler is doing a little get together there. I think dr barry's gonna be part of that little group. I, I'm going there. But the only thing I got come up is a low carb event in Boca, which is the society metabolic health group. Yeah, it's a smaller group but it's a fantastic event over three days. I'll be there. I usually work the door. Keep the vegan.
Speaker 1:And Blake comes in, you muff them.
Speaker 2:And then after that, you know I'm working on the cops and cameras event in April, and then obviously in you muff him. And then after that you know I'm working on the Cops and Cameras event in April and then obviously in July, and then, if I can get Texas and Utah want something, I got to figure out how I'm going to fit it in and plus I got to travel there. Right, I got to bring a rig and a family.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of movie parts with this. You know mission I'm trying to do, but I mean sure beats, handling calls and doing you know all those old reports I used to do. I'm doing something, I'm passionate and that's the key. You got to do something you really love, man, because it's hard out there. You know, if you're doing time, a 20 year sentence at a job, do it and get out. Don't think, don't be scared to change careers, because I mean, look at what I'm doing. I mean I'm upside down compared to what my old life was. I mean it's, it's crazy and I love every minute of it. I'm spending time with my kids a lot, growing up with them at times, learning with them. I mean I've seen so many.
Speaker 2:We saw five great lakes in 2021, swam in them. I know you know what a great lake was. Being from miami, I saw Atlantic and the Gulf. That was it. Yeah, and it's just amazing, this adventure, when you set yourself free and you get out of the box, you know and you can still be in it. Keep one foot in, keep one foot out. You know and you know that life, you need it. It's a tool, but and make you freaking, so metabolically sick and, you know, have it be a death sentence.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to put um, you got to send me a link for donation too, so we can put that in the show notes. People can donate.
Speaker 2:Copsandcamperscom. If you go there there's a link there you can donate um any suggestions to there's people that want to host events. Uh, we meetups where we have 10, only 10 people there you know that are looking to camp.
Speaker 2:And some of those guys need more therapy, and it's not just mental therapy, it's they need the metabolic help. You know cause the medication's got them slowed down. It's got them thinking dull you know they're not dumb, but dull, you know. Once you start getting them off of that, I mean we got my father-in-law off of freaking insulin within a week after he started keto. So I mean it off of freaking insulin within a week after he started keto. So I mean it's the shit works, people. I mean I couldn't believe it until I saw it before my own eyes and I saw my own transformation and I started helping. You know, my buddy, ricky, lost 50 pounds, started calling me keto 50 for the 50 and 50 pounds. And look at us now, five years later. Right, it's crazy. I mean guys like you, I'm going to keto con events. I'm like who is this guy?
Speaker 1:damn, damn. I mean, like I said, literally I did not. This is my first time and I had never went to any of these events. You're literally like. I walked in. I was like I'm not going to really know anybody. This is going to be weird. You're the first person I saw.
Speaker 2:And I was just like oh, tony come here, let's take, I love it.
Speaker 1:Wait till the next time, dude, you'll be all of a sudden you want to get to the door, yet You'll be getting stopped outside and be like oh, maybe we'll see. I'm going to, I'll put everything in the show notes. Keto five, oh, cops with campers, guys, check it out, it's going to be, it's awesome. And then I'm going to try to make one of these events one of these days. Know, city boy, though, I need a cabin you need a cabin.
Speaker 2:I gotta get, I gotta get me a cabin.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I gotta, I gotta get an rv what rv.
Speaker 2:You don't have to tow it, you just walk in. They give you the keys, you walk in. It's like a house you don't need. We can get you a nice one. Oh, I was talking about driving an rv.
Speaker 1:Oh, you want to do it? No, I didn't know.
Speaker 2:I thought I had to go get no, you pull up at the campground, we give you a set of keys and we show you how to, you know, use the freaking awning and little things. You don't have to worry about the poop or all that stuff, because you're not going to be there long enough to worry about it Glamping, that's me. Glamp, that is you. We got glamping tents there's a whole subc.
Speaker 1:Well, Eric, thanks again for coming on to the show. It's always good to see you and I can't wait to meet up with you again.
Speaker 2:We will man All right brother.
Speaker 1:All right. Thanks for everybody listening to the Primal Foundations podcast. Thank you all for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, like and share. See you all next time on the Primal Foundations podcast.