Laughing Through The Pain: Navigating Wellness

CrossFit & Controversies: Unpacking Obesity, Nutrition Education, and Fitness Futures with Craig Howard

• Richard & Andy • Episode 40

Share episode

Send us a text

CrossFit Games champion Craig Howard joins us for a compelling exploration of obesity's many facets. Discover how the world of CrossFit extends beyond physical exercise, touching on issues like chronic illness and the significance of a balanced diet over processed foods. Craig's insights delve into the role of education, the historical shifts in food consumption, and the surprising impact of corporate interests on dietary guidelines, making this episode a must-listen for anyone passionate about health and fitness.

We venture into the challenges faced by schools in providing effective nutrition education against a backdrop of diverse dietary preferences and parental pressures. Craig shares his experiences speaking to children and educators, emphasizing the need for personal responsibility and informed decision-making. We also gain a unique perspective on innovative nutrition coaching at Diablo CrossFit, where separating fitness from nutrition creates a supportive, judgment-free environment for members.

As discussions widen, we explore the intersection of government policies, pharmaceutical influences, and public health, particularly regarding the weight-loss drug Ozempic. Craig offers a thought-provoking look at the future of CrossFit and the sustainability of fitness businesses in high-cost areas. From the evolution of the CrossFit affiliate model to the cult-like allure of fitness communities, this episode promises a comprehensive and thought-provoking journey through the evolving landscape of health and wellness.

FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS:
Guest: Craig Howard
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/craighoward_diablo/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/craighoward_diablo
YouTube Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@prsallday
Website: https://diablocrossfit.com/
Diablo Crossfit Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diablocrossfit/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/diablocrossfit
LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/diablocrossfit

HOSTS:
Richard Blake
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/The_Breath_Geek
https://richardlblake.com/
https://linktr.ee/RichardLBlake
Facebook: @TheOptimisedU

Andy Esam
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andyesam/

PODCAST:
Laughing Through The Pain: Navigating Wellness
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl_gOq4wzRjwkwdjYycAeng
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/laughing-through-the-pain-navigating-wellness/id1726046369
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2TdW2qSWyVpXUyfKvNrBon?si=ff8aba9b92c24616
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289623

Find us on Instagram
Richard @The_Breath_Geek
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl_gOq4wzRjwkwdjYycAeng
Webiste - www.TheBreathGeek.com
Please leave us a review, like and subscribe.

Speaker 1:

Rich, today we're going to be talking CrossFit and we're going to find out, crucially, if you're as good at CrossFit as you say you are.

Speaker 2:

I don't say I'm that good at CrossFit, so we're not going to find out that. And I'm certainly not as good as our guest today, craig Howard, who won the CrossFit Games in 2013 in his age group of 50 to 54. He's got phenomenal abs for someone in their 60s. Uh, I think most people would aspire to having these.

Speaker 1:

We'll probably put it on the uh, the caption clickbait for sure um, what a nice measured guy as well, so much more than like just a crossfit athlete. He was very, very knowledgeable and um very passionate about improving others lives as well, which I thought was really cool yeah, for sure he's.

Speaker 2:

uh, he's a kind of og of the crossfit world. He's been around it for many years. The ceo of crossfit often comes to him for advice and, uh, yeah, he's, uh, he's in a lot of sort of like think tanks related to CrossFit and he's got his own podcast, which is quite influential in the podcast world and we touch on, yeah, crossfit towards the end, but mostly we talk more about what CrossFit is doing, you know, in terms of the problems it's fixing, from chronic illness to obesity.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think the nutrition thing is very important again rammed home again, I mean, as fit as he is, as much crossfit as he does, he says you know you've got to focus on what you're doing in the kitchen, um, and the couple of the mistakes that many people are making with regards to processed food, packaged food, so obviously very passionate about that as well yeah, and we find out his take on ozempic and we're going to be.

Speaker 1:

We all know what I thought he was going to say to be honest, which I think is why you shouldn't assume, um, but yeah, I'm glad I I caught myself. I was about to put words in his mouth, but actually very interesting take on ozempic yeah, absolutely, and he.

Speaker 2:

One of the reasons I asked him on was because he did a talk to local schools and pe teachers about obesity and I thought the stuff he was saying was really interesting. Uh, not too controversial, you know, not. No, there's no ideology. He just wants people to to do better and um and and be happier and healthier, and I think his, his takes are really useful for anyone who's trying to take charge of their health he seemed very genuine and very supportive as well, so I think I can imagine him being a very good coach absolutely all right

Speaker 2:

well, yeah, enjoy listener, hey listener. Quick favor, quick favor. Do you like my stephen bartlett impression there? Do you know? What would really help us is if you could share this podcast with someone you love if you think it's good and if you don't think it's good, share it with someone you don't love. Either way, we get more listeners, which is good for us and will be good for you in the long run, because of karma and going to heaven, maybe. So, yeah, maybe, share that you are listening to it. Share on Instagram, take a screenshot of our episode and put it out there, and maybe we'll give you a shout out as well.

Speaker 1:

Nice and easy to begin with. What do you think is causing obesity?

Speaker 3:

Well, it seems to be a global epidemic and you can point to a lot of different things, which makes it incredibly complex. But obviously I mean, if you go straight to the heart of the matter, too many calories and not enough burning of calories. I mean, really it comes down to that. But then it's complicated by a number of issues. One are just behavioral and mental issues that people may be struggling with, and calories might be the temporary solution to make people feel better or to help alleviate the symptoms of either a mental or physical disorder. Then the other things are environmental causes. Was it pollution? Is it food additives? Is it pesticides? Is it other chemicals that people may be exposed to?

Speaker 3:

There's been a lot of discussion surrounding plastics in our systems now, and so you have all of those complications as well. So it becomes. You take a very simple equation too many calories in and not enough calories out, and then you be complicated with all of those things and now it becomes a very complex issue to deal with. So, right off the bat, to answer your question too many calories in, not enough calories out, and it has happened so fast, especially over the last 30 years. There's been a massive acceleration of obesity in this country that it makes it very difficult to unwind it and reverse it.

Speaker 3:

I think it's also complicated. One thing I didn't put in that list of complications was the incredible abundance of calorie dense foods that are readily available everywhere you go. And having that accessibility to food and for creatures that in our DNA we want to make sure we get as many calories in as possible to survive that's in our ancient history it makes it extra extraordinarily difficult and so it's all of those things and we're simply you know the way I see it is our gym, diablo CrossFit is on the front lines of trying to take it on one person at a time on the front lines of trying to take it on one person at a time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I, I would like how you've? You've given us sort of one one answer to that question, but at the same time, there are so many things that we need to address. It is calories in and calories out, but there are so many other aspects to that. I really think plastics, I think, is really going to be. We're going to be learning more and more about plastics in our food, plastics in our clothes and how they disrupt everything endocrine systems and things like that and people want just a. One simple thing is like oh, all I have to do is just I don't know, cut out seed oils and I'll lose all the weight. It's like well, maybe you have to cut out seed oils and you have to go to the gym and you have to stop the, the hypercaloric food, and you have to do all of these different things and it's a very complicated answer.

Speaker 1:

But go on, andy is the plastic thing, then that's just because it it's mucking with your natural, it's messing around with your natural metabolism. That's what plastic is about.

Speaker 3:

To be clear, in the in the equation it's a in in small levels, very small micro levels. It's it. As richard said. It's an endocrine disruptor. Very small micro levels. As Richard said, it's an endocrine disruptor and could be one of the essential kind of trigger mechanisms that may be causing people, one to eat too much or two, to store fat instead of the body burning it in its glucose form. So it gets stored at glycogen in the liver and then, once our liver stores are full, then it begins to get their body stores it as fat. Well, it is possible, it's conceivable that the plastics in our system, or maybe the PFAAs or the even glyphosates from pesticides, could be disrupting that cycle and causing calories to skip part of the process and immediately be stored as fat. I mean, those are possibilities and those are things that that people are looking at as possible contributors to the obesity crisis yeah, so you spoke to some school children, didn't you?

Speaker 2:

some local school children, about obesity. What did you say to them?

Speaker 3:

it's well so, and I had an opportunity to go out and speak to pe teachers recently, but I've also I also speak to, have spoken to the our team program here and have discussions about it, and that discussion is really centered around it's it being up to us. In other, I think, people trust the system. They trust, obviously, their parents, and their parents trust the food manufacturers. Unfortunately, I don't feel like that's the case anymore. I don't think that it's not that these organizations, the corporations that want to sell us more foods, or the government that's creating legislation to try and prevent these things from being in our foods, and even the school systems that educate our kids on what to eat, what not to eat.

Speaker 3:

I think it's just all become so overwhelming. The amount of data and the amount of foods and the amount of contaminants, all of those things has become so overwhelming that they can't keep up, and so it is then up to ourselves, it is up to us to take the time to find out. Huh, how can I eat differently? How can I think differently about food? What should I be concerned about? Is drinking water out of a plastic water bottle that's been in my car all day a good idea, and can that affect me in some way? And the education process needs to start early on. And really that's what I did, not to scare kids, but to make them aware that they have a responsibility to themselves and to their future selves. To start to do the research themselves. For me to consume carbohydrates only all day long, with no protein, and getting them thinking about different ways of eating that can perhaps hold off the obesity for themselves.

Speaker 1:

Did you get the feeling that you were kind of this is a standing star, or is there anything in the curriculum? Because, kind of speaking from a UK point of view, I learned nothing about food at school up to the age of 18. Literally not one thing.

Speaker 3:

There is a small amount that is in our school system and again it becomes that. Here's the other thing that makes all of this very difficult. It's very controversial. Actually, I think about it from a perspective like we have vegans who are really about eating plant foods, plant-based foods, fresh, natural foods, arguing and debating with the carnivores who want us to eat grass-fed, pasture-raised meats from animals that consume vegetables, and both of them are correct, meaning you should be eating fresh foods, avoiding all of the nasty stuff that could be disrupting your metabolism or your endocrine system, causing you to get sicker later in life.

Speaker 3:

There is. So, as a result of it being controversial, it makes it difficult for any of the schools to talk about it, because then they get the backlash from the parents and others who say, no, that's not right, I don't want my kid learning that. No, that's not right, I don't want my kid, you know, learning that. It makes it very difficult. So, as a result, everybody avoids talking about it, everybody avoids the discussion. Meanwhile, everybody's getting fatter. They really are. I mean, it really comes down to that, and I think you're right. As I grew up, I had the food pyramid, and the food pyramid was in the United States is directed by or created by the CDC. I think is the organization, the Center for Disease Control, that publishes that, and maybe the FDA too.

Speaker 2:

I think it's the FDA yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, the FDA, the Federal Drug Administration and that pyramid is flawed in its approach as well. You're giving a predominant weighting to carbohydrates, which, of course. Then you start to look into the conflicts there and why that might be, and you realize that the FDA is and I've read statistics on this just very recently is heavily funded by. More than half their budget comes from corporations, the food corporations, who are obviously incentivized to make sure that food pyramid favors the foods that they produce, and so it becomes an educational process with kids. That that's not there now and really is up to the parents who, like you and me, don't have much information about it. And I happen to be in the health and fitness business. So I research, I read about it, I consume it all the time, and every time I do, each time I get articles and I send them out weekly in email, I'm like holy crap, everybody needs to know this. It is really. It's unfortunate. It's become really complex. 200 years ago and 300 years ago it was so much simpler. Granted, we had a lot of starvation in this world, but it was. You eat meat, you eat fresh food. That was the only thing that was available. There weren't a lot of packaged foods available. You went out and you got chickens and you got a pig. If you're lucky, you were able to get a steer and a cow to provide you dairy products, and that was it. And, not surprisingly, just obesity wasn't an issue in those times. And then it became okay. We need to make sure we can feed large percentages of our population, especially in times of calamity or war, and so the processed foods that stayed on the shelf a lot longer became kind of a savior for a lot of countries and then, of course, it became a profit incentive for all of these corporations. So now we're where we are today, where it's just brilliant how they make and process foods and they use scientists to determine how it's going to feel in your mouth, the color it's going to be. They have marketing experts to design the packaging and the colors of the packaging and the placement in the stores. Lots of money paid to the distributors to make sure that they get perfect product placement. You turn it loose in a capitalistic environment without regulation and you get what you got.

Speaker 3:

Today I can buy frozen pies at Ace Hardware. Ace Hardware in the United States is a big hardware store and you go through it. I was talking to someone the other day about it. I go, I cannot believe that. There's literally in the line to check out. There's a little cooler at the end of the line in this gauntlet that they run where they run all the kids through, by the way, to check out, and there's a pie refrigerator at the end and they're frozen pies that you take home and you cook yourself and they look amazing. And one of my members was telling me she goes, oh yeah, she goes, get those for Thanksgiving. Those pies are so good. In my brain I'm thinking that's so wrong and I was thinking I might have to try that. That's how brilliant they are Place, product, placement, design, texture, feel like all of that.

Speaker 2:

And unfortunately it's making us, incredibly, it's making us sick. Is what it is doing? Yeah, for sure it's. It is so unfair to think like the best minds in the world are behind this packaging, getting paid phenomenal amounts. And is your? You, let's say you know you're the mother of two working two jobs, super stressed out, a lack of sleep. She doesn't have the time, the willpower, the resilience to then go and fight against the best minds in marketing and food science in the world.

Speaker 3:

It's just, the things are really stacked against people Worse than that, richard too, and that's a great story right there, because that is very common and the one that I've heard not too long ago was, similarly, she's working two jobs, or dad's working a job too, and they come home and there's no food. So what do they do? They go down to 7-Eleven and they get a frozen pizza and a gallon and a two liter bottle of Coke and they bring that home and you think that's awful. They shouldn't do that. But then part of me understands if you've had two kids at home like screaming and hungry, you're like screw it, man. I know they're going to love this pizza. I know they're going to like this Coke.

Speaker 3:

Everything calms down, it resolves an immediate situation and they don't have time to do food prep. They don't know how to do food prep. You know you talked about what you learn as a kid, about food. Here's what my daughter doesn't know and it bums me out. You know my daughter's 21 now, but she's learning how to cook now, at 21, she's learning how to cook and she never learned to cook. Because you know what?

Speaker 3:

I was a helicopter parent. My wife and I were helicopter parents, so we did it for her. But in previous generations, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, the children were part of the cooking process. They learned that from their parents, it was passed on through schools and now today, with both parents working, they don't have time to food prep. And if they do have time to food prep, they know how to make shit, but they don't know how to teach their kids how to do it. And so now we have DoorDash and Uber Eats and fast food drive-through to help take care of that situation, and that's not the right solution. That's not the right solution.

Speaker 2:

No, and that situation and that's not the right solution. That's not the right solution. No, and the pushback you get at the schools was there much push pushback actually against you saying obesity was a bad thing? Because at my university it's no, we want body positivity. Being overweight isn't a problem. So just even addressing the problem itself has become controversial.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I choose that. It's interesting you say that, no, I didn't get any, but I choose my words very carefully, very carefully, and typically you know, you walk into, you walk into a classroom, you walk into even my teen class. You're going to get some of the kids that are going to be that are obese, and so you have to be. You have to be sensitive to that. Again, 30, 40 years ago you have a PE class. There might be one, maybe no kids at all that were suffering from obesity. But now, even here at a CrossFit gym and I think about our teen class I got two or three kids that are obese and maybe even close to morbidly obese. They're fit, they're getting fit and that's probably why they're there.

Speaker 3:

And I will tell you that fitness in and of itself is a great first step, but it is not a solution. It is not a long-term solution to the crisis. I tell people don't expect miracles to happen. When you come in here and you start exercising, all of a sudden you're going to like oh hey, oh hey, look at me. There's a lot that has to go on at home for that to happen. You guys know the saying abs are made in the kitchen. Well, obesity is reversed in the kitchen it's really interesting.

Speaker 1:

You mentioned, like, obviously at Diablo you're doing um things to combat these, these problems. And I mentioned about the kitchen. Can you touch a little bit more about that? If someone's interested in losing weight, how would you kind of approach that in the first instance?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's a very good question and we do it a little bit differently and maybe a little bit unexpected for some gym owners. We outsource nutrition. I've had nutrition coaches in the past and fully trained, experienced nutrition coaches on staff that were coaching fitness classes and then also doing nutrition coaching for my members, and what we found was that we weren't having good success with that. Adherence to nutrition coaching is very difficult and I had a lot of thoughts on it. But my primary concern was is if I tied those two together? And everybody says if you open a CrossFit gym, you should also have nutrition coaching at your gym, and I'm on the other side of that. I said no, I don't have nutrition coaching be remote or away. A couple of reasons why If they're doing it here at the gym, they have to see their nutrition coach often, and if they are struggling with their adherence to something, they feel guilty and then they stop coming in. So what I've essentially done is I've linked two habits together.

Speaker 3:

I had a member come in that was about three, four years ago and she confessed to me at about a month in she goes. I need to let you know something I go. What's that? She was French and she goes I smoke, and I go, you smoke a lot. She goes, no, I smoke like a half pack to a pack a day. And I said, okay, she goes, should I quit smoking? And I said, no, keep coming here. And then at some point in time you're going to want to quit smoking. What I didn't want her to do was try and quit smoking and try and do fitness at the same time, because she could. But as soon as she started smoking again, she's like oh, this shit's not working, so she loses both habits.

Speaker 3:

I didn't want to tie the two habits together. I didn't want to tie the two habits together. I don't want to stack habits. I want one habit. You come here, keep coming here long enough, and you do a couple of Metcons, richard knows as you do a couple of Metcons where you're hacking up shit. Afterwards you're like I've got to quit smoking. You'll come to that conclusion.

Speaker 3:

And it's the same thing I find with nutrition. Here People go to me how do I get better, how do I get faster, how do I run faster? The best one is like how can I do pull-ups? And well, and what I tell them is I go. When people are weightlifting, learning to weightlift, one of the things they try and do is they try to go too heavy, too fast and then their technique goes and they have terrible technique. So I same thing with gymnastics you got to take some weight off the bar and the only way to take weight off the bar is to change your nutrition, and you're going to have to do that yourself, and so I don't like to link the two together.

Speaker 3:

And what I do like people to do is to do it remotely. I remember we did a Spartan race when I had a group of my members in the car and there was a woman in the car and she was doing Stronger you, which is this remote online nutrition coaching, and I said how come, carolyn? I said, how come you're using Stronger you? It seemed like several of our members are using Stronger you Instead of going to Jennifer Ismar in my gym, who's a manager's gym.

Speaker 3:

She's a precision nutrition coach. She's a great nutrition coach and she goes well, because I don't want to run into her in the fucking grocery store and I thought about that for a second. I'm like what? And my wife said that and I went home. My wife, who's the richer, knows she's incredibly fit for incredibly she goes. Oh, yeah, definitely she goes.

Speaker 3:

I hate running into people at the gym. If I got something in the car for my daughter because they'll judge you and you feel like you're being judged and evaluated and I was and that, just that immediately resonated with me. I'm like, oh, and not only she goes, I don't want her to see pictures of me like in my underwear. She goes. I can send it to my remote coach somewhere where I don't even know where that person is. I'll send pictures of my before and after pictures. I don't have any problem doing it, but I'm not going to do that here.

Speaker 3:

And that really resonated with me. So from then on we partnered with online coaches and we refer nutrition coaching out and we let our members build that relationship. One of my good friends, tim Dimmel, who runs CrossFit Palo Alto, said to me he doesn't offer nutrition coaching in his gym. He also outsources. And he said to me nutrition coaching, or nutrition, is a lot like religion. Everybody's got their own special you know thing and he goes, and trying to change somebody's religion is very difficult and I thought, man, that's like. That's a brilliant analogy.

Speaker 2:

That's how nutrition has gotten in this world yeah, people have really, uh, latched on to nutrition dogmas in some ways to to their detriment. Right, and I like how you yeah, you've separated the habits, like I think there's an idea from bj fogg and tiny habits, like you should stack habits together and you're more likely to do them. But what? Yes, the key is stack a habit onto a habit that you've already got. Don't try and implement two habits at once. So there's a study the statistic is 80 of people who've, um, failed to stick to multiple new habits, and you need at least like 21 days to integrate a habit before adding on that second one. So for people who come into CrossFit, they should just focus on coming into CrossFit. Then, after a month or two of getting that habit dialed in, then they go into nutrition. So I think that's very clever. Well done, craig.

Speaker 3:

Experience, that's 18 years of doing this. I think there you go. What do you think of Ozempic? That's a good question too, because that's certainly a hot topic and it's changing people's lives and you know it's interesting. I've had two really good conversations with people who are using Ozempic, so I have some fresh data for you.

Speaker 3:

But I'll start it off with a story that about six years ago I went through a bout of and it's a middle-aged man thing you get to your 56 years that's the most likely time for men to experience depression, clinical depression and I went through a bout where I was dragging, not productive at work, taking long naps in the middle of the day, went and talked to my doctor and my doctor asked me about hey, how you feeling? I go, I don't know man, I'm just like I'm down, I can't get pumped. I got to, I'm not excited about stuff, I'm going to take a long nap. So he goes oh, you have depression in your family. I was like, oh shit, depression. And he men your age. It's very common Testosterone's faster dropped than this happens and he goes. Let me do this just for a short period of time. Let me prescribe an antidepressant Now. I'm an anti-drug guy. I'm like I don't know about this. I'm like, okay, well, I'll give it a shot for a few months and see how it is. And it helped. It snapped me out of the vortex. So I was in this vortex and this kind of spiraling vortex trying to solve it myself and I wasn't solving it myself and it was able to snap me out of the vortex and then I weaned myself off and put that in my past and now I'm easy.

Speaker 3:

I recognize the symptoms early on, I know what they are and I know how to remedy them myself. I'd look at Ozempic the same way. With the incredible quantities of readily available, unbelievably tasting foods that are available out there and the known fact that many folks that are suffering from obesity have almost addictive-like symptoms, I think Ozempic can be a great intervention drug, short-term intervention drug, where it snaps, it breaks them out of that vortex that they're falling into and that they finally just give in. And then it's all about body positivity and look at me and putting it out there, and then finally to depression and everything else that go, then illness and then of course, the chronic illnesses that come along with it. So now you got Ozempic that comes in, intervenes and basically takes away the hunger element.

Speaker 3:

I was at a party for one of my members had. It was for someone's birthday, I think big party and one of the girls there, who looked fantastic, told me she goes. Yeah, I've been on Ozempic for she goes. I've lost like eight pounds over the last 10 months. I'm like, holy crap, that's amazing, she goes. Yeah, it's because I took a Zempik and I said, what about the muscle loss? She goes, yeah, there is, she goes. But I've been working out she goes. I exercise, I walk, I do all of these things. I said it's perfect, she goes, yeah, and she goes. That's brilliant. That got her out of the cycle. Now she's going.

Speaker 3:

We got another member in here too and I'm going to have her on my podcast and Rich. I'll give you her name and then you can maybe connect with her too, because it's a fascinating story too. She's morbidly obese and she's black and she comes from a community that supports body positivity and she's been on for that supports body positivity and she's been on for, I think, eight months now and she has lost almost 100 pounds and she looks phenomenal. She's here, she's positive, she's working out. We saw her running the other day. I was in the front room and me and a couple of the coaches saw her running. We're like, holy crap, look at her run now, like she was literally running in the workout, versus three, four months ago where she had to walk or ride the bike instead. And she can't wait to tell me about her experience with it.

Speaker 3:

And again, for her, she's very educated, she's doing the research, she knows what the issues are surrounding it, different versions of it, there's the actual GLP-1 and then there's the compounds. She says she's using a compound it's not quite as expensive which is essentially basically like a generic version of it. But I look at her and I go, okay, that's working. That's great, because that's what it should do, because I can't imagine you know, if you've been, you know obesity takes years to many years 10, 20, 30 years in some cases where people have been putting on weight, trying to instantly stop that and reverse that, with nutrition changes and then being exposed and then being the outcast among your social group. Like that's tough.

Speaker 3:

Here's an interesting point. I'm sorry to ramble guys, tell me to shut up if I talk too much. Here's a really fascinating part of that story that that like stuck with me and I talked to other coaches about. Afterwards I was like holy crap, I forgot about this. She said, yeah, she goes. My friends are telling me that I've lost too much weight.

Speaker 3:

Now I look at her now and she's still probably another. She's probably 30, 40 pounds, still that overweight, and she goes. My friends are telling me to stop, that I need to stop losing weight. They like me the way I am and she goes. But I'm not. She goes. I keep coming here because look at these people and I thought, man, that's just like the social pressure. And then I thought about why her friends are telling her that and why her friends are likely telling her that is because she, through her efforts, are making them feel uncomfortable about themselves. That's highly likely. And can you imagine fighting that battle on top of everything else? Like all of your friends and your family want you to be obese, and I get it, I understand it. But, man, I couldn't you know if that was your spouse, your partner, your friends, your good friends telling you holy shit. And Ozempic can help kind of snap, snap you out of that. I'm all for it, but not long term.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that is such a common challenge that people have to face. Whenever they're changing anything whether it's their obesity, whether they're healing from childhood trauma there are always people who want to sort of bring you back into the bucket. There's that, that lobster analogy. You know, when they catch lobsters in a net, if one of them tries to climb out of the net, the other lobsters will pull it back in, so it stops getting free. And yeah, I think that's a, that's a great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, um it's quite sad and it's such a battle. But that's interesting that you say that this person was an Ozempic and then came off and was fine, because I've heard a lot of people say, once you come off, you can't come off it. Basically, have you heard that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, as a matter of fact, the CEO of CrossFit mentioned that when he went downfall he went and spoke with Casey Means, the senator who had recently hosted the function at the Congress a few weeks ago. That everyone's rebroadcasting. Jillian Michaels and everyone else are rebroadcasting their clips from there and I'm not sure if that's for diabetes management or for weight loss. This girl that I spoke to, she said she's been off for three weeks and she said she felt fine. You know her plan was to use it and then go off of it, but I have heard that that the belief is that you have to be on it for life, which would be awful how do you see the government's role in this?

Speaker 1:

and you mentioned a little bit earlier, you know, um big food producers and the food pyramid. What are the government getting so wrong?

Speaker 3:

the government right now in the US. There's the reason why so many people are out so many of these health advocates were in Washington DC is there's a bill that just went through the initial kind of committee overview and passed a US representative's committee on providing coverage for Ozempic in Medicare and Medi-Cal and it passed that initial committee. So now they're going to put the bill together and you'll go before the representatives and before the Senate to be voted on. And it was essentially the big component of that bill was to provide Ozempic for Medicare and Medicaid users, which would be an estimated trillion-dollar-a-year cost for American taxpayers. That's an astronomical number, but I understand it from the perspective of they're facing a $4 trillion budget, primarily due to the explosive costs of treating chronic disease in this country, which includes, of course, heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and many cancers. And so there's this incredible growth of chronic disease which is putting inordinate cost on our government, chronic disease which is putting inordinate cost on our government. And now they're seeing Ozempic as maybe that solution, wegovy in it. But you know the bulk of that money would go towards one company, the manufacturer, the designer of Ozempic and Wegovy, which is Novadisk I think it's called a Danish company, danish pharmaceutical company. They'd be the biggest benefactors. Ironically, they have 3,000 lobbyists in Washington DC, or maybe not so ironically, they're working. They're lobbying our country to take a look at this as a solution.

Speaker 3:

So that's the more nefarious information that most of us aren't aware of either, in terms of what is our government doing and how they're looking at it is. I think they're mired in the same politics that we are on a local level, meaning talking about obesity is politically incorrect and can be considered offensive. Educating people on food choices is contentious because of the diet choices of some people, and then what Congress and our government is faced with, unfortunately, is talking about or changing the diet structure in this country or the nutrition requirements in this country means upsetting political donors, and you have the major food corporations and beverage companies that are funding the campaigns of many of our government officials and you have to tread very as a politician. You got to tread very carefully or risk losing that funding, and that's unfortunate. Pharmaceutical companies. I saw it again another statistic the other day where 24 of the last 30 executive or the heads of the FDA or something like that the officials in the FDA government that get revolved in and out, all went to work for pharmaceutical companies after they left office.

Speaker 3:

Those inherent conflicts make it very difficult and I understand how these things happen.

Speaker 3:

These aren't things like someone sitting in a. I know a lot of people like to think oh, they're sitting in a room somewhere with their pointy hats and fires in the background and sacrificial things and they're plotting the end of the and the takeover of the world. I don't think those things are happening, but I think over time, over 50 years, what's happened is these small relationships have creeped into the government and then become part of the status quo and if you want to get ahead, you've got to take these people to dinner and you've got to accept their campaign contributions. If you want to get elected and take on your initiatives that you're going to change the world, you have to first of all make sure you take care of these guys first. And I think over the last 50 to 100 years, all of those things have resulted in the current situation in our government where you can't do anything because you're going to offend somebody, and the last person you want to offend is the guy that's paying for you to be there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, I agree. I don't think there's some. It's much easier or nicer to think there are some global cabal of hyper intelligent reptiles who can figure all these things out. But actually it's just chance, it's just capitalism, it's just human nature. And that's a lot more scary to think of, I think, because it's so much more chaotic.

Speaker 2:

But the economic impacts of OZEMPIC are huge. Airlines are changing their forecasts of profit and fuel in the future because they know they're going to need less fuel to fly people across the country, around the world because people are going to be so much lighter. And ring manufacturers are changing all of their forecasts because they know they're going to need less gold because people's fingers are going to are changing all of their forecasts because they know they're going to need less gold because feet, people's fingers are going to slim down. It's it's really going to change the economy. But yeah, it's fascinating stuff, but changing gears over to to crossfit, which is what.

Speaker 2:

So what you really do is run a very successful crossfit gym and you're very well, well known in the crossfit industry. I was down in San Diego and I told people I was at your gym. People know you. He's kind of a big deal, andy, he's very much like Ron Burkenty, but what are your thoughts on the future of CrossFit? I've it was exponential growth for many years gyms opening up all over the place but now there seems to be a lot more challenges. So what do you think is going to happen?

Speaker 3:

It's every two years, something extreme seems to happen to the organization at the top level, on, where I've kind of gotten used to it. The methodology itself is just brilliantly effective and it's so simple and the prescription so easy. And Greg Glassman, the founder that created the methodology, is an extremely smart guy. He's the son of a rocket scientist and engineer and is a studied professional himself and came up with. The first thing he did was define fitness. Right, if you looked it up in the dictionary 30 years ago, fitness was the state of being fit. He said well, it would. It would be good to. If we're shooting for something, we're shooting for fitness. We should be able to define what we're shooting for. And he said look, worked it out very simply just by studying and researching and coming up with a practical way to explain it in really easy to understand terms. It's increased work capacity, so your ability to increase, to ability to do more. And he said he added, across broad time and mold of the mains. So in other words, yes, a triathlete or a marathon runner is fit, but at the end of the race they probably couldn't deadlift their body weight. They're not, so they're not strong across different domains. And so they. So being able to run a marathon and deadlifting your body weight might make you more fit. And then, of course, being able to do skills like gymnastic skills, in other words, being able to control your body, having balance, agility and flexibility. Those things are also included in fitness. So it's increased work capacity across broad time and multiple domains.

Speaker 3:

Very simple, started there and then he determined, through basically years of running classes and teaching individuals, the best way to get there is to do functional movements, stuff you do in everyday life Constantly very change it often almost daily, and that way your struggles to adapt. It makes really good sense. Know kind of changing the adaptation makes your body adapt overall quicker, so it's constantly varied and then it's done at high intensity. Put a little bit of intensity in it and, similar to our ancestors, you had to run away from shit that was trying to kill you or run after stuff that you wanted to kill so you could eat. Adding those components in made you fit really fast. It made you able to do more work across broad time and mobile domains for really simple content Adapted really fast, especially post 9-11 because it was very popular.

Speaker 3:

Crossfit became very popular in the military community military police, fire community, and so those were the fastest adapters and essentially the tip of the spear for CrossFit, and everybody looked to them and said, oh shit, well, if that's what they're doing, then I'm going to do that too. So it grew rapidly and he trained coaches in it, offered training certifications that people were gobbling up so that they could teach it themselves, and then shortly afterwards, people came to them and said, hey, we want to have this name on our doorstep. I said, okay, pay an affiliation fee and get your certification with us and teach CrossFit. That's all you have to do. And so the barrier to entry was really low. So it allowed it to grow really fast. And he had a blog, and that's all it was was a blog with a message board, and it just exploded.

Speaker 3:

And shortly after that, because the workouts are measurable, observable and repeatable so I could do a workout here, fran, which is thrusters and pull-ups, and someone in the United Kingdom can do it as well and we can compare our scores because we're doing exactly the same thing we're squatting to a certain depth, we're using the same weight and we're doing pull-ups the same way. The same thing we're squatting to a certain depth, we're using the same weight and we're doing pull-ups the same way. So because it's measurable, observable and repeatable, they could have competitions, and which led to the CrossFit Games eventually, where they crowned quote the fittest on earth. And they say it's the fittest on earth because they can do more across broad time and multiple domains. It all kind of came together really nicely and it was easy to host the competitions. You had judges, so it exploded. So from I would say, 2010, really to 2018, there were just there were literally thousands of affiliates opened around the world. Crossfit was doing tons of certifications.

Speaker 3:

With that explosive growth came also the antagonists out there and within the fitness community that felt threatened by it and so they started to attack it. Crossfit's dangerous, those types of things, but you see more people in there but their chiropractor doctor's office than you do in the gyms. All of that stuff started coming. It was basically anytime you have success, no matter whether it's Elon Musk or Greg Glassman you're going to get detractors that are going to try and slow your growth or maybe take some of your market share, and a lot of that happened with CrossFit. But here's the other thing a lot of the people that opened these affiliates were passionate crossfitters and coaches and they opened businesses without a real fundamental understanding of running a business running a small business especially and the first few years are great.

Speaker 3:

Members come in, you're paying your bills, it's awesome and then your landlord says, hey, you know what? We're going to raise rents by $1,000 a month next year. What are you going to do? We'd be raising you out, or the, in my case, the city, comes in and says, hey, you're not allowed to be here because this area, this light industrial area, where there is tons of vacancies and no one gives a shit that you're there, is not zoned to have a fitness studio in it, so you have to leave, is not zoned to have a fitness studio in it, so you have to leave, and you get those types of challenges that come up. Or you get a customer that gets hurt and it says you know what, I'm gonna sue you. All of those things are new to people that started these businesses and they become overwhelming. And then you, all of a sudden, you're managing coaches and the coach doesn't show up for a 5 am class, or you piss them off and they quit. Or what we had for a number of years, from 2016 to 2018, is people would, the coaches would leave and they'd go open up the CrossFit of their own a mile away and they'd take half your customers with them.

Speaker 3:

Those types of things made it incredibly challenging for these thousands of affiliates that opened up. The normal tenure for an average small business owner is, they say, like four to six years. Four to six years is what an average business owner will go. And then they finally they either go back into the workforce or they move on to something else, because opening a small business is very challenging all of the same reasons. You're in it 24-7. And there's always something. And so you have thousands of CrossFit gyms 14,000 to be exact that opened up around the world over that period of time, and now we're in 2024.

Speaker 3:

We had a pandemic that took out a lot of these businesses, and you have these burned out. You have a number of burned out affiliate owners that are tired and don't know what to do and how to do it and how to resurrect their business, how to create the demand that they had from 2010 to 2014. And so they opt out. Costs have risen, rents have risen, the cost of equipment now is higher. All of those things. It makes it very challenging.

Speaker 3:

And then CrossFit itself. The new owners of CrossFit said, hey, to participate and to be affiliated, it's going to cost you more money. They went to when I started back in the day 2007 or 2006 is when we first affiliated was 500 bucks a year. Now it's 4,000 a year and that's, that's a. That's a big number. That's a number that where you get like you get that bill and you're like, oh shit. When you rationalize it from the point of view of that's two members a year, it's not that big a deal. But when you've, if you're going month to month on all your bills or your margins are really low and all of a sudden you and you didn't plan for it you get a $4,000 bill, you're like oh man, and so you're getting.

Speaker 3:

What we're getting now is, I think, normal attrition within the CrossFit community. I'm not sure exactly how many affiliates there are, but if I had to guess I'd probably say it's not as high as 14,000. But they've installed a new management team. They've got private equities, the ownership. That, of course, upset a lot of affiliate owners as well. They're concerned about the big corporate influence. The reality is the management team that is there and in place is keenly interested in the success of the affiliates. They have to be.

Speaker 3:

We're the primary source of revenue, but we're also the indoctrination centers for the CrossFit methodology. We bring people in, we teach them CrossFit methodology. Those people want to go become coaches. They sign up and get their certifications in the CrossFit training system. That generates revenue. They go and they're the ones that become future CrossFit affiliate owners and that results in more affiliation fees for CrossFit. We also create the athletes that go to the CrossFit games. That generates millions of dollars of revenue every year. So the affiliates are really essential and what they've done is essentially over the last year now. They've really tried to professionalize the process of being an affiliate owner and provide all of the tools so that affiliates can succeed on their own without too much help from corporate, corporate influence, and really so that they can remain independent yet have all the tools to make themselves professional. That was a long answer, but yeah, it's thorough.

Speaker 1:

I like it. Yes, indeed, the main criticisms I hear about crossfit and it's like you get injured, earns people out and also it's a bit culty. I think that word is spoken about quite a lot. Have you heard that? I'm sure you have.

Speaker 3:

You know that's not unique to CrossFit. I remember in 2000,. Your 2000 has started running. I lived in Austin Texas.

Speaker 3:

In Austin Texas, that's where Lance Armstrong's from it's a very big cycling and triathlon community and so my friends in that community roped me in to start running the series of races that Austin has that leads up to the marathon. And I did that for six years and it was phenomenal. It was so much fun. We had to get together on Saturdays, we trained together on Saturdays and we'd go to breakfast and I was doing all of the races, which starts with a one mile race in January and then culminates in a marathon in May, the Austin Marathon, which was a lot of fun. But you do 5k, 10k, builds all the way up and I was a cult. That was an incredible cult and I was really happy to be a part of it. And then and I think that's the way it is with, unfortunately, it's how fitness is perceived If you get involved in a any one particular methodology or mode, it's perceived as all but because that's who your friends become, you want to be around those people, and CrossFit is no different.

Speaker 3:

You come in, you come into class, you warm up, you're all talking to each other. Then you do the workout. There's this incredible endorphin rush. Now I'm sure you're getting tested. I'm sure you get this incredible endorphin rush after doing something that intense for a short period of time and everybody's high-fiving each other. You go walk outside, you feel good, you get in your car, you drive it home, you're pumped. Then you're instantly online, you're putting pictures of yourself, you're putting your workout results on there. All of it becomes very intoxicating. But the beauty is that you're in a community, a supportive community. These become your new friends, and so the answer is is it a cult? Hell, yeah, it's a cult. That's what I mean If you define a cult, but it's the kind of cult that people need to be in, because they also are one. They want to share what they're doing. They want to share with the family. They want to share with them and help reverse this incredible chronic disease crisis that we have in this country and then hopefully pass it on to a generation of people that are interested in taking care of themselves. What it's unlocked for me is a passion for learning about all of the things that influence our health. You know, how do I know about, how do I know about a Zempik and Wigovian the impact on the body? Well, I know it because I'm doing CrossFit. I want to learn about these things. How do I know about Richard's amazing breathing techniques for improving your mental health Not only physical health, but mental health. Well, it's because I'm in CrossFit, I freaking want to learn more about how do I improve my body and my health.

Speaker 3:

It's easy to understand how people perceive it as a cult, but regarding the injury stuff, yeah, we have injuries here in our gym. There's a lot of CrossFit affiliates that CrossFit needs to do more to tell people that you're not going to get injured. I'm like, eh, I'm not so much worried about it because the normal aches and pains that you're going to have with any physical activity are going to happen here as well. I want people to be prepared for that. I want them to understand that a muscular strain is not something that can limit you, that has to limit everything that you do in your life, that you shouldn't stop what you're doing.

Speaker 3:

I remember walking in the other day and she gave a crap because she came in a boot and she's in her morning class, she's in her 9 am class and she comes walking in a boot and I go oh, she goes, don't ask. I said, how did you do that? And I was worried that she'd done it here at Diablo, maybe running or you know, doing some sort of jump rope or something like that. She goes no, I did it playing pickleball. And I'm like, oh man. I said well, I'm glad to see you here because we can scale and adjust, which is what every, by the way, anybody's listening and I told her. I said ask your coach, because your coach will give you a substitution. Obviously you're not going to run, obviously you're not going to jump rope, but we are going to keep you moving so that you can heal faster and you can learn to make yourself better athletes, so that it doesn't happen in the future.

Speaker 3:

I also told her. I said I really appreciate the effort that you put out in your pickleball that caused you to get an injury. I said I wish you would put that type of effort into your CrossFit workouts. She told me she goes. Okay, there's another statement you've made that makes me want to cancel my membership. She was very funny about it, but it's true, as we do things with passion, no matter what it is, whether it's kayaking, whether it's pickleball, whether it's crossfit, it doesn't matter chances are you're probably going to experience some sort of pain along the way. That's human nature and what you have to be able to do is adapt and get around, heal up, learn to heal and get around and move on yeah, pickleball is definitely a cult, but it's also like, is that such a problem?

Speaker 2:

I mean, you look at professional sports, what fans will do for manchester united or the 49ers, that that is very cultish behavior and that's just, yeah, an accepted part of society.

Speaker 3:

yes, and and makes one like and I and I love pickleball. By the way, I don't play it, but I love. I run by a park every day with my dogs. Every morning, my dogs are run by and they're out there playing it and it's usually 60 plus year olds, 50, 60, 70 bucks and to me that's awesome. If those were tennis courts, there'd be nobody on them, but now you got literally 30 to 40 people. This little park in my neighborhood that other people are pissed off about because they make a lot of noise, but to me I'm like that's awesome. That's awesome. And if they want to get better at pickleball, come to my gym. I'll make you better at pickleball, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So there was a lot of controversy recently at the CrossFit Games with the tragic death of Lazar Dukic. So he, andy, was one of the top athletes in the world and they had a run swim event and he drowned and the lifeguards didn't spot him and, yeah, he passed away. So, yeah, a lot of flack's been thrown at CrossFit for that.

Speaker 3:

So, craig, how do you respond to that criticism better? Or was it preventable? Or was there negligence? And so we're waiting to hear back from CrossFit.

Speaker 3:

I was there at the games and it was horrible and there were a lot of tears shed, there were a lot of hugs and I personally was in favor of the games continuing on, which they did, and some of the athletes decided not to participate, and I respect that decision as well. I imagine it was especially those that knew him very well made it very difficult for them to continue on with the event. I like your picture perspective that the sport must go on. I also take it from a personal perspective. In other words, if I was in an event and something happened to me, I would want the event to continue. But that's my own personal and maybe that's selfish, but that's my own personal perspective. I just don't like to put an obligation on myself, on other people. And in this case the games decided to go on, which allowed the other athletes whose livelihoods depend upon it the sport to continue and to participate and to earn that money. It also allowed all the vendors who were coming for the weekend and really depend upon it the sport to continue and to participate and to earn that money. It also allowed all the vendors who were coming for the weekend and really depend upon the games as a large percentage of their income. It allowed them to participate and continue to earn their incomes, to continue their livelihood, so that they wouldn't be negatively impacted or too severely impacted. It also allowed all of the people that work at the venue and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people that are coming there to be there and employed by the games and not only that, but by the Dickies Arena, which is where this is held allowed all of those people to continue to do their jobs, to continue to earn the money that they were entitled to. It allowed the sponsors to continue and showed the sponsors that the sport can thrive and can survive a tragedy like this, and it did nothing to undermine the impact of it and certainly the severity of the issue. That, because CrossFit is doing a tremendous amount of work to try and find out one how this happened, why this happened and then also how do they prevent it from happening in the future. All of that is going to come out.

Speaker 3:

The team is genuinely concerned about making sure this is a very safe sport for everyone what this was. Guys was the first time someone died in a CrossFit event. Guys, was the first time someone died in a CrossFit event. And you guys know, in the sport of endurance competitions triathlons especially, but marathons as well, and cycling events, tour de France deaths occur.

Speaker 3:

People are at training and doing work at the absolute extreme edge of performance and when you are there operating at that edge, the possibility of severe injury or death is much higher. And that's what has happened here in this situation operating at the absolute extreme. The amount of work that they have to do in a four-day period of time under an intense environment is incredible, and CrossFit has been very fortunate that they haven't had any severe incidents in the past and unfortunately they had one this last weekend. I think it'll ensure that there are changes in the future that will make it safer for athletes and hopefully it never happens again. But it is certainly a possibility that all athletes need to make sure that they understand when they participate in the sport.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for your thoughts, craig. That's a really measured answer and it's a very difficult topic. No doubt I hadn't heard of that oh yeah, very sad. I would like to know what's next for you and diablo that's a.

Speaker 3:

That's a good question too, man, you guys load them up, um, so I'm so, I'm my, my I'm 61, my wife 62, and we've been at this for 18 years. I'm interested in continuing to grow our business, so I'd say 90% of our efforts are focused on that. My wife competes in the age group level, so she dedicates quite a bit of her time to that, which is an awesome example for everyone, especially me, who has to measure up to that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, where did she come in the world this year?

Speaker 3:

her third year in asian and she was six in the world in the 60 to 60 64 year old category.

Speaker 3:

Really remarkable performance this year, the third year in her age unbelievable. Yeah, she's a machine, but the so for. So she'll continue to do that. I will as well. But for us, I'll tell you, one thing that we're interested in is at this age and this is, I think, anyone that hits this age at 60 plus the things you start thinking about is how can I protect my legacy and our legacy, really for us?

Speaker 3:

I had a career in finance and investment banking, but really I measure myself by the success I've had in the world of fitness and the ability to influence people to change their lives through fitness, especially CrossFit, and so I want to make sure that continues and that Diablo business continues to thrive. And so over the next five years, my wife was thinking about how do we transition this business so that it can continue to thrive and grow and make sure that the next person that comes in to take on Diablo CrossFit to the next level is the right person. The other things that we're focusing on, too. A big part of what we're doing is making sure that, because this is a challenge for a lot of affiliate owners, by the way. Coming back to the affiliate question is how do I make sure that I can give my coaches, and CrossFit coaches in general, the opportunity to earn a very comfortable living wage to do what we're doing here? And that's a challenging thing is the coaches are often not well paid, and so we're working on a number of different things to help generate more income for our coaches so they could come work out and coach and make our members better but at the same time, be able to have a family and have insurance and have a long-term retirement plan and be able to afford a house. And in the Bay Area that's a difficult thing. But we're doing, we're starting to.

Speaker 3:

We're making some real headway with private coaching here at the Diablo and with our new initiative, which is a small group training. So we're small group training is becoming very prevalent within the fitness world training. So we're small group training is becoming very prevalent within the fitness world, and we're having some success with that as well, where people pay more for their membership at a gym but what they get is a reserved class time with a small group of people, usually two to four people, with the same coach doing programming that is customized for them, and there seems to be, and it's a trend within the industry, but there seems to be a real appetite for that right now, especially with an aging population facing the wall of chronic disease. People are interested. They don't necessarily want to be in a large group class with 20 other people. That makes them feel a little bit uncomfortable.

Speaker 3:

Hey, I can come. I know that I can come. Monday, wednesday, friday at 11 am. I'm always going to get the same coach who knows who I am and knows what injuries I have and everything else that I have. So they can customize it and give me custom programming. I'm down for that and people are paying considerably more money to do that and for me that allows me to give a large, very large percentage of that to my coaches.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, yeah, and how do people find you? Obviously, you've got the podcast. What's the name of the podcast?

Speaker 3:

It's PRsAllDay P-R-S All Day. That's on the YouTube channel, but they can find me on Instagram at Craig Craig H Diablo. I think it is Craig H Diablo. We'll put it in the net. Yeah, craig H Diablo. I think it is Craig H Diablo. We'll put it in the mail. Yeah, craig H Diablo. And then, and you can find us at Diablo CrossFit on Instagram as well. That's the easiest way to find me. Just go to at Diablo CrossFit on Instagram and you can find me there and I'll answer most of the direct messages I get except for the ones from some random the UK asking to be my friend.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks so much for coming on, Craig.

Speaker 1:

It's been a pleasure to have you.

Speaker 3:

No, I hope I didn't talk too much. It was awesome. Those are good questions, very good questions.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, all right. Thanks very much, craig.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, cheers, yeah cheers.

Speaker 1:

Firstly, we're going to have to see his birth certificate, because I don't believe for a second that he's 61 no, he 41, he does and he works out like a 41 year old.

Speaker 2:

Um, and yeah, listen, I hope you enjoyed that. I hope you learned something. Maybe you've taken something away, maybe you're gonna stack some habits in a different way. Maybe you'll even try crossfit, maybe you'll join the cult and uh, yeah, well, it depends which cult, whether it's the pickleball cult or the.

Speaker 1:

I actually don't think pickleball's reached here. We're still on paddle. Is that what's coming?

Speaker 2:

thanks, pickleball I don't know. I feel like the the gap in the market has been filled by paddle in the uk.

Speaker 1:

Um, it's basically the same thing, so maybe there there's there's no space for pickleball in the uk but I found it really interesting yeah, going back to the habit thing when he said he outsources his nutrition advice because I think a lot of pts try and do your gym and your diet together and I thought his take on that was particularly interesting in terms of you should probably keep them separate yeah, absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2:

There's so much psychology in nutrition and that idea of I don't want my gym coach seeing me in the grocery store and the shame and the guilt of of not being perfect which is no one really is with nutrition and on a lighter note, I learned you could buy a pie from a gas station a hardware store?

Speaker 1:

yes, a hardware store, yeah, ace hardware is not somewhere I'd be getting my groceries, but yeah, fascinating but you haven't been to ace hardware.

Speaker 2:

It's not like bmq, it's like really nice, they're really friendly in there. If you're like me and completely useless with diy, this is the place you go, because they actually come up to you and say can I help you? And I'm like what's this thing? This, you know, just like oh that's a spanner. That's a spanner, sir, and they'll tell you what you need and stuff. Ace is amazing.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, this is in the podcast about ace hardware and they're not sponsoring this show, but there's an opportunity sponsor us but I think that, uh, yeah, I think for sure, and I think the crossfit when people hear that they think you know hour-long workout, bit cold team might get injured. Hopefully it's put some more dimension to that in terms of the diet and the kind of unsupportive network you get from excellent coaches like craig um and the good work they're doing. So, yeah, I thought it was really interesting yeah, for sure, all right.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you listener andy. Where do they find us?

Speaker 1:

at andy sam on instagram, at the breath geek on instagram and richard l blakecom. And then it's laughing through the pain, navigating wellness on all good and bad podcast hosting sites absolutely, and you know I've got a little bit of an announcement, andy.

Speaker 2:

I have finally gotten myself a work visa in the US. So people can now they don't just have to listen to me on this podcast, they can now come to me to work one-on-one on their breath work, their functional breathing, where they can come and see the study I did. They can do conscious connected breathing with me virtually and change their lives, as we did with the people in the randomized control trial that I was the creator of.

Speaker 1:

Top man. Well congratulations. Another accolade for Richard L Blake, Doctor Work visa.

Speaker 2:

Yes, the accolade is work visa, work visas, dr Richard L.

Speaker 1:

Blake. Doctor Work visa yes, the accolade is work visa, work visas. Doctor Richard L Blake yes, indeed.

Speaker 2:

All right, well, thank you, bye-bye, bye.