SPEAKER_00 0:30

Hi JP. Hi FP. How are you today?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Hey, how you doing? I'm doing great. It's good to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

So I was hoping you could tell me a little bit about why you're here, about your business, and what your kind of plan is for where we're going forward.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Man, okay, so from Florida, flew all the way down here because me and FP have a mission to go in after a platform of family first fitness.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

It's uh an establishment that we came up

Origins of Family First Fitness

SPEAKER_01 1:00

with. We met in Afghanistan 13 years ago. Uh we reach out to one another every couple of months or years, he'll call and ask me, Hey, are you still working out? And I'm like, Yeah, I'm still working out. Are you still working out? And he's like, Yeah, yeah. I'm like, all right, that's what's up, man. We've never stopped, you know. And this was way before we had kids. So uh now that we have kids, we're passing on down the torch as well. For example, when we went on vacation and did the rock climbing. Our kids did the rock climbing and stuff like that. So, you know, that's our platform that we're working on. So we would like to be here to um represent and start a movement.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

And I think we're trying to get away from the whole you have to be in a gym, the whole I work out. When people say I work out, you assume they're away from their family. We're trying to re-script that and make it more family involved. So when you say you go to the gym, take your kids. When you you work out, and you know, we push your kids to do push-ups with you. I have a pull-up bar in my room, my kids wake up every morning, ask if they can sleep with me to go to the gym with me in the morning. And so it's kind of those things of keeping

Fitness With Kids, Not Away From Them

SPEAKER_02 2:17

the kids involved, building that future that we want them to do.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

And tell me more about that. Why is that important to you?

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Why, as in bringing the family into the situation, it's important to me because I've learned discipline, uh, dedication, motivation through working out. So if I think I can bring that to my kids and show them that platform of what I do when I bodybuild and how much work I put in to do that, those certain things, my kids see that. And the more I train, they see that. For example, my my bodybuilding routine. My kids know it by heart. They know the song, they know the moves. And my kids actually

Discipline Passed From Dad to Daughters

SPEAKER_02 2:57

try to choreography the next one I'm gonna do. And so, like, I think Moana is one of their favorite songs, and they want me to put that into my bodybuilding routine. So they're like, so they're into the whole fitness thing because daddy's into the fitness thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

So you guys are actually both girl dads. There's there's no boys in the combination. I love it. And so, how does how does that affect your approach to coaching them for fitness when they're girls versus I think I no, I'm gonna go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

I think it's even stronger than having a boy and having a girl. When you have a girl, I think it's a lot stronger because having a boy, you know, you have that stereo, oh my son, we work out, we play football, blah, blah. And then you have the girls, you know, when they're Barbie dolls, pink,

Girl Dads and Breaking Stereotypes

SPEAKER_02 3:42

unicorns, whatever. So it's more when they say, I want to be part of the fitness era and they're and they're happy about it. That's that right there. You take that and you run with it.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Uh, for me, it's like when you start, um, well, they start young. For example, my daughter's six years old, so when I'm doing my push-up, she's watching me. Right? Um, they we we're kind of like building something from a young age. They they start to grow and see what you're doing. So they're probably gonna follow you or follow him or something like that, you know, girls. And they say, hey, I want it'd be anything, any sport, dancing, swimming, which she plays in, she participates in all of these things at an early age. So we're creating that mindset of um starting early. That way, when they're at high school or something like that, they're still active. That's my place on that.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

So there's really no difference between being girls versus boys.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

I think the girl, you got to be more involved. Because I think when you I'm more involved with the girls, because again, you know, they do the whole girl vibe, and they're not into the workout football, tough sports or anything like that until they I guess when they see daddy do it, they're like, Daddy, I want to do that too. Okay, like my daughter got into roller derby, she's a very caring, loving person, and I guess she sees daddy do a bunch of great stuff, so she's like, Daddy, I'm joining roller derby. And my daughter doing roller derby is like, what? You want to hit people and push people? I was like, I'm down for it. I was like, I'm your cheater, dude. I was like, I'll support every bit of it. I was like, but it's just kind of out of the realm. So I think when she sees daddy do things that are out of his comfort box, and that kind of pushes them to do things that are that's not normal for them.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

You know, it's funny you say that, man, because um my my niece, she I think she plays on the football team. Um I'm like, what's going on? You want to play football, no cheerleading, no nothing, you know, she wants to play football. So I don't know. Um when it comes to male sports, female sports, as long as they're active. I'm not gonna judge her and tell her, hey, you can't play football, it's a man's sport. She's active. So that's what puts a smile on my face.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Absolutely. So you guys have been friends for a long time. Oh yeah. And you've been focused on fitness through that entire era. So why don't you guys tell me your favorite memory of each other during that time frame?

SPEAKER_01 6:19

I'll go first. All right. So um, yeah, so I don't know if JP even remembers this, but um our routine, because he's Air Force and I'm Navy, but we would meet up at a certain time, work out, and then go to our branch, our duties.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Just a side note, he was a lot stronger than me back in the day. So I followed him to get stronger.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

It worked out great. So then we um Um we met for lunch in the tent. We were sitting in there in Afghanistan,

Afghanistan Memories and Bonding

SPEAKER_01 6:50

sweating, and it was just like he was like, hey, buddy, what's going on? And something, I think our RPG went off. And while as we were talking to each other, for the for the listeners, what's an RPG?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Not everyone knows that.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

It's when a missile comes into base and you pray to God you're not in the way.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Uh I can't remember. Rocket propelled. Rocket propelled grenade, grenade. Yeah. So um so once that went off, I think we like everybody was in there. It was about 75 people in the tent. We're eating lunch. Um fast forward, he's he says something, he spits his food out on my face, and because it the um the the microphone said, incoming, incoming. So we all got up at the same time and fell on top of each other because we were getting ready to run out there. It's like four people going through the through this door at the same time, you know. We were just like so amped up, so animated that we all fell. And then I was like, You were scared. He was like, No, you were scared. And then I'm like, I was scared. I'm just glad the rifle didn't go off, that's all.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

I made a Philly cheesesteak sandwich one time we got hit. So I wasn't scared. Play story.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Okay, JP, what's your favorite memory of FP?

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Oh man, I would say our movement to our workout video. Because I remember when we we'd work out in the gym all the time and we decided that we're gonna record it, and kind of it's funny that we we're here now, 13 years later, because that was without kids involved, and we were just trying to make of a workout at what everybody does, the whole stereotype of gym, and it was just the norm, but now we've constructed something totally different with the family involved. So we've kind of a full 13 years of discipline working out to becoming dads, and and so I think that was like my my best because I think I I come across that. I have it on my laptop still, and so I forgot to bring it, of course. But uh I always I always like look at stuff and not come across videos. I'm like, oh man, and we actually look the same too. That's crazy. I just don't have a beard.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

But but yeah, we reconstructed that video over and over again and had our beast mode, I think title for it, and everything like that. We have the music and everything like that. So going from that to where we're at now is kind of super cool because we kept with it and now we're building this platform.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

And it's funny you mentioned that, JP, how you said that you know we still look the same with the exception of the beard. Um that's that's another part that fitness plays. Staying active, keeping the body tight, working out, staying positive. It plays a it plays a lot of different numbers for you, you know, with fitness, but nobody could believe how old I am. So I I feel like that played a good role.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

100%. And we go to the park and we're the best looking dads on the park. It's my fault. You ever just go in a crowd and you look around, you're like, yeah, I'm that 1%.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Excellent. Okay, well, so to the 1% of the good looking dads, you obviously being at war was challenging, right? And so how did you maintain your confidence while you guys were there serving for our country and doing things that were absolutely amazing for us?

SPEAKER_01 10:09

I'll go first. For me, it's uh consistency. Um military, the in the military and especially in war behind enemy lines, it could be very chaotic. So you have to have discipline, you have to have that mindset

From War Stress to Healthy Routines

SPEAKER_01 10:25

where you uh you have to reduce stress because it's stressful out there. So um it keeps you it it's not just a physical thing, it's a mental thing. So you gotta um yeah, you have to want to work out, you have to stay strong, you never know what can happen, and that helped me get through my time on deployment.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Mine was well, I was in the special forces community, so we had no choice but to stay fit, stay focused, because if we weren't, we'd die. Just plain and simple. But uh what helped out a lot was actually having a friend like him. Kept me off of the because we ride, we were running gun, we did a lot of crazy stuff. Then I came back, come back to base, and it kind of felt like home. It wasn't the war anymore, it wasn't the battle. So I go hang out with Fanati, we go work out, it was just the normal being home. So that kind of brought me back to it's okay, I don't have to bring the all the torment, everything like that. So it was like to flip the script, and which helped me out coming home as well, too, because everything that happened down there, I could come home and just leave that down there. So that all the bad never came with me. And so with Finati and all that, and the whole deployment, us being together with the videos and all our workouts kind of distracted us from what was really going on. Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

So that's interesting to think about because obviously you needed the distraction while you were at war, but then how do you bring that now to your consistency that you guys have had since you've come home? Because you haven't faulted on your fitness, you've been focused on it, you want your kids to be healthy, you want your partners to be healthy. So, how do you make sure that that happens?

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Well, it's like the same spectrum as being in the military. We have to stay fit, focus. So when you get out, it kind of doesn't die. And a lot of people it does. That's why we say we are the 1%. Because a lot of people get that DD 214 and they know they just let it go. Right. I refuse that. He refused that. And so we could be, and then we have kids, and I had three, I said, I'm a father of three daughters. And so for me to look any other less than what I look now will be a failure to me and a failure to them because I look at the dads now and it's like that

Life After Service and Staying Consistent

SPEAKER_02 12:35

dude can't protect him. You know, and they look at me and they're like, okay, he can protect them. And so I always look like the dad, like I said, I I've been told I look like an axe murderer, so I'm doing something good. And so I'm doing something good.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Well, let's not murder anybody.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Right, right, right. He just looks like I just look at it. I just look at the big, well, I'm a big colour bear.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

I'm I'm I'm the little sweetest person in the world.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Yeah, he wears his heart on his sleeve. He's a good dude, a good father. Um I've seen his children, his children plays with my daughter, things like that. He basically said it all. We're setting an example. And yeah, we're not gonna stop just because we're out. So, I mean, I had that same um situation when I got out active duty. I said, what am I gonna do? There's nobody gonna push me anymore. So I pushed myself. And uh Yeah, I didn't know what I was doing. But do you remember um the gymnasium uh Bally's back wait back then? It was like 2003 when I first started. So I've been training for 22 years so far, and I'm never gonna stop. Um they showed me what to do. Um uh the personal trainer took mercy on me. He was just like, What are you doing? So then uh he I said, What do you mean? I was just I guess he saw me just working on chess all day. And he was like, No, one day it's push, the next day it's pull. And then throughout the years, I just started implementing my own my own routine. And yeah, so now I'm I'm at a point where I'm just unstoppable. I mean stronger than before. I'm not stronger than I was 21.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

So I had to run a lapse around my 21-year-old.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Right. So be at 37. Yeah, so that's the way it works.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

So when you think about that, what's the advice that you would give to someone who doesn't necessarily have that fitness focus or isn't there or has the quote unquote dad bod that we've kind of laughed about a little bit versus your bods?

SPEAKER_02 14:31

I would say the advice is you have to start. Uh you have to start. Everybody pushes to the side, say, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it next week, I'll do it at the beginning of the year, I'll do it January 1st. That has to quit, and you have to do it. Because I've been doing it for over a decade now, and I still wake up every morning with a drill sergeant in my head, the good guy and the bad guy. Have a good guy, get up, go to the gym, do what you gotta do. The bad guy is like, hey man, sleep in. Why are you doing this? You don't have to do this. But I always listen to that guy. I always get up. And I sometimes I'm just like, what am I doing? Four o'clock in the morning. But again, it's discipline and it's consistency. I show a path my girls can follow. They know I do it. And I wake up in the morning, for instance, to not affect my family time. So when everybody's sleeping, well, now they come with me, but when everybody's sleeping, I do what I gotta do. So it doesn't affect my family time. I'm home, I'm there. I'm a present dad.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Uh I would say start start small, but start together. Um you wanna yeah, you wanna build that foundation. You don't have nothing to prove, but just do it for your child, do it for your wife, do it for your husband. Start small, but do it together. Um it could be even for a 15-minute

Start Small, Start Together

SPEAKER_01 15:46

walk. It could be um cooking a healthy meal together, for God's sakes. Um things like that is the advice I would like to tell novice, novice b uh beginners. So um yeah, it I mean it's not gonna happen overnight. You're not gonna see a change, but you gotta start somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

What about food? Why don't you guys talk about food a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Oh, okay. Oh I'll go first. Yeah. So um as far as food, I've always been a healthy eater. Um I was fortunate. Um I by the way, I have an African background. So a lot of um so we eat, so I eat uh I eat uh a lot of rice. Um but I eat rice with a lot of other types of sauces

Food, Culture, and Simple Nutrition

SPEAKER_01 16:40

and things like that, protein, chicken, and stuff like that. I barely go to fast food restaurants. I'm not trying to um insult anybody out there, but you know, um I just I do a lot of cooking at home, vegetables, things like that. And I mean, there's a lot of meat uh meat eaters, meat lovers out there, right? So uh, you know, who's gonna turn down steak? Um uh I mean for most people, right? Uh most most most people eat steak and chicken and fish and salmon. Um, so protein definitely plays a part. Rice is good. Basically, home cooked meals is the best way to go. So, I mean, you can have your cheap meals all anytime you want. All right, JP, you ready to stuck on rice? Right, rice, brown rice, Quaker robes, eggs, you know, all that good stuff. Dairy products. Food.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

Uh no, my wife uh actually my wife is one of those people who looks in the nutrition labels, and we're very adamant if you can't read it, get it out of the house.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

So that helps me out a lot because I'm an Oreo freak. I'll pound a family pack of Oreos in one city, no problem. So that's my problem. But my wife holds me to that. But our whole household is uh knowing the red dyes and everything's good. My my wife likes to build our kids with nutrition to build them up and all the garbage everybody puts in their kids nowadays.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

So I love it. Perfect. I think what I heard from you, FP, though, is cooking can be easy. Like it doesn't have to be hard. Make it simple, make it healthy.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Thank you. I really appreciate that. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Or we could pound a pack of Oreos, either or. So tell me something that's the most important thing that you want people to learn about family first fitness. What what do you guys want people to take away from the mission that you guys are on?

SPEAKER_02 18:49

Our mission is pretty much be involved with your family. Don't go away. Like I said, everybody has that stereotype of the gym. You're away from everybody, you're away from your family. Keep the family involved. Like Fanati FP talked about uh going walks. You know, I mean, make fitness fun and make it a game. I I have a dice that me and my girls play with it's like an octagon dice, you roll it and it tells you a workout to do. And it's like simple things like that. I buy

The Mission: Make Fitness a Family Game

SPEAKER_02 19:16

and like I have a pull of bar, I have the gym set in my room. And so the girls love lifting weights. They love, they'll I have uh the dumbbell set, they'll pick up the five-pound weight, and they're just like, daddy, five pounds, and then they're getting it. So just keep them involved all the time, doesn't matter when, where, have them be involved, have them have them lead. And so that when they're even when they're leading, they'll have that leadership role and then make them more involved into what they want to do and make them fun.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Piggybacking off of what he just said, yeah, um, it doesn't have to be a structure, a structured workout. You make it fun. You can do things together, bike riding. That's an exercise. Am I correct? Am I right? Right? My little one gets me on that one also. Yeah, so you just want to do active things with your kids. You even throw them the frisbee, throw them the football in the backyard, things like that. My advice is to just make it fun. It doesn't have to be anything stressful, you know, nothing crazy. It doesn't even, yeah, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 20:20

On the port, I'm making it fun too. Give your kids a task, as I do to mine. I tell them, Daddy gotta do cardio twice a day. So I do my hour cardio in the morning. I I talk to my middle one, because she's the most, makes make sure I do it. So I talk to her and I'm like, hey, you gotta make sure I do evening cardio. She goes, okay, daddy. So every time I come home from work, don't matter if I come home at five o'clock and I'm tired. She goes, Daddy, get on the bike, let's go. I'm like, not tonight. Daddy, we gotta do it. So she makes me get on the bike, and then she gets on her bike and we go for a ride.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

I love that. How old is she?

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Seven.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 20:52

Oh, she's turning seven already. No, no, I'm sorry, six. Six, nine, two. Yeah. That's okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

That's exceptional. Well, what haven't I asked you guys about family first fitness that you want to tell me? Is there something that I've missed that I haven't hit upon?

unknown 21:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

I would say that everybody out there shall always um have a mindset, a goal, stay sharp, learn to have balance um and and and and a lifestyle because nobody has time anymore.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

And don't make that an excuse either.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Now the theory, this is a theory that I like to share with everybody. And I wanna I want to see if

Time, Excuses, and 4 A.M. Discipline

SPEAKER_01 21:36

I want somebody to tell me I'm wrong. You have 24 hours in a day. The average working hours is eight hours a day. People say that sleep is eight hours. Nobody has sleep eight hours anymore. So let's say, let's take it down to seven or six. That's 14 hours. What are you doing with the 10 hours in that day? So you have to make you you there's gyms out there that can that's open 24. You don't, you're right. You're right. Sometimes I work in out, I work out in a hotel. I'll do 500 push-ups for the next two days. I'm good to go. There's no excuse. So I want people to go out there and be like become motivated and take this seriously. So when somebody says, Oh, I don't have time, you have 10 hours to go.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

You got 10 hours left. So that's when you give them that key sentence, wake up at four. Everybody got time at four o'clock in the morning. Yeah. So that's just my I mean, I like it. Everybody has time at four o'clock in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Absolutely. No, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Thank you. Yeah, that's my theory. I there's no excuse, no matter how many kids you have.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

You can't look like this or like this with excuses.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Well, what are your last thoughts that you want to leave our audience with to think about as they because it's easy to say those things. It's easy to say you don't have excuses that you have time. But what are your last thoughts to leave people to be thinking about these things?

SPEAKER_02 23:04

My last thoughts to leave everybody with is look at you, look at your kids. Do your kids look at you like the superhero? If not, change it.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

That's all I got.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Yeah, well, JP. Um, I'm I agree with them. Start small, but start together. That's it. There's no rush in in this kind of thing, in this kind of lifestyle.

Final Challenges and Takeaways

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Take your time and but start together.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Well, I think you both are exceptional, and thank you for spending time with me today. And I'm excited to see what Family First Fitness does.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Thank you for having us. Thank you. Are we still taking off our shirts?