17. How I Lost 70 Pounds | Curt Campbell

From everyday dad to Ironman competitor - Curt's 70-pound weight loss journey started with simple daily changes, not extreme diets. With encouragement from his wife and support from a health coach friend, he reshaped his approach to food and fitness, tackling hidden sugars and discovering the power of meal prep. His candid take on prioritizing health over appearance, plus practical tips for sustainable change & getting your family involved, makes this episode essential listening for anyone looking to CHNAGE your life.

For more info on Curt's Health Coach:
https://www.roundtablewellnesscoach.com/

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Transcript

Curt Campbell (00:00)
We'll usually do some stretching while we're watching TV. youngest daughter, a lot of times will lead my stretching sessions for me. It's time to stretch. go on, she goes on their phone and finds a little stretching thing and she's like, okay, we're going to do this. So we'll do some yoga together. Uh, and it just kind of builds into the day. It's not something separate that I have to go into another room or leave the family. My wife loves yoga and, and, so she, and

Pilates, so she's also usually down there stretching with this as well. Yeah. I mean, Colleen really loves it and she gets kind of into it and she enjoys, she enjoys being the one to come up with the routine. Right. So she comes up with the stretching.

Jollie (00:49)
More than 73 % of Americans have overweight or obesity, while more than 12 % have food insecurity. America is getting heavier, sicker, and more isolated from each other every day. Our motto, Give, reflects our belief that virtually every problem in America could be fixed if we took better care of ourselves and took better care of each other. Welcome to Interrupt Hunger's Move, Give podcast, where we talk with experts in exercise is medicine, food is medicine, and food insecurity.

And understanding that knowledge isn't always enough to help you lose weight. Every other episode showcases someone who's lost at least 10 % body weight to share exactly how they did it. Interrupt Hunger is a 501c3 nonprofit, which helps you lose weight while feeding the hungry. Bring our free 12 week weight loss challenge and donate your weight program to the places you live, work and pray. We fund our mission with sales from our movie, give bracelets and clothing. So please visit us at interrupthunger.org to show your support.

50 meals are donated for every item sold to the nation's largest hunger relief network. So you get to look good while feeling good. Now onto today's episode. Hey everyone, it's Jolly here with Interrupt Hunger. Thanks for joining us again. In today's How I Did It episode, we got Kurt Campbell from Barney. Kurt, thanks for joining us today. I appreciate you coming on and sharing your story. Before we get started, I'd like to, if this is your first time listening,

Curt Campbell (02:05)
Great video.

Jollie (02:14)
Movie Give focuses on experts in exercise medicine, food is medicine, food insecurity. Every other time we feature someone who's lost 10 % body weight or more. And that 10 % number is really when the dramatic effects of weight loss kick in and we start seeing pretty good improvements in different types of chronic diseases. The other thing that's really neat about these How I Did It episodes is you have no idea who's listening to the podcast. I have no idea.

But, you know, every once in while I get feedback from somebody saying like, you know what, this episode like really hit me and I needed to hear that. you know, somebody's listening to you and maybe the same age or similar occupations, similar family dynamics. And they're like, man, that guy's just like me. If he can do it, then I can do it. I can't wait to dive into this. So with that, why don't you just start off by introducing yourself and sharing your current work dynamics and family dynamics for us.

Curt Campbell (03:07)
Yeah,

that's for sure. My name is Kirk Campbell and I'm a practicing professional engineer. So I work for a consulting company and as my day job and I've got two beautiful young daughters and a wife. We've been married for 24 years now and we met in college and had my sophomore year in college and she was a freshman and we've been together ever since. My daughters are about

15 and 12, the oldest one just turned 15. Generally try to be pretty healthy at home. Uh, nowadays my wife kind of spearheads a lot of that. It's kind of part of my story. I grew up in central Texas and around moved around as a kid, but kind of went to high school in central Texas was kind of, was always into sports and stuff as a kid, probably in the, my earlier years when I was young, I didn't have problems with, put with weight actually probably had problems putting on weight. was very skinny.

As a young, as a young kid, always wished I had a little bit more weight as a young kid. always enjoyed basketball. I love basketball. And I was kind of the, I was tall, so they, they wanted to play me, but I was skinny. So I got beat up a lot. pushed her out a little bit. Um, you know, gotten to college, you know, I kind of, guess, uh, metabolism changed and I started, I grew, actually grew a couple of inches in college later. Uh, and, uh, and then put on a little bit of weight in college, but not.

Not too much. I thought it started from gain weight when I was in my late twenties and thirties, which is of course, when you kind of stop being as active and get into a working sort of a sedentary life with work and being behind a desk or computer most of the day, slowly over time, sort of accumulated extra mass, so to speak. And, uh, ultimately, uh, kind of got to the point where I was starting to experience some of

Okay. You're kind of hinting at it, start experiencing some health concerns and, things with, high blood pressure and, I've torn up my knees playing basketball. So that's always a concern for me. It was just extra weight on the knees. And then I had sleep apnea and was put on a, was diagnosed, diagnosed sleep apnea and had to get a CPAP machine to sleep. So I spent a couple of years using a CPAP machine to sleep and fight that sleep apnea. And then,

At some point my wife decided, she looked, said, Hey, we can't lose you. You're too important to us. So you're going to get in shape. And so I said, okay. And we had a really good friend that I work with that, and I'll call her my coach through this. And as we talked through, but a really good friend, Natalie sales, who was part of our bond. And so she got us onto their 30 day, forget exactly what they call it, the 30 day to healthy.

healthier you plan. so it's a basically cleansing plan. you cut out everything in your diet and you go to a strict, very prescribed diet. And then you, you have some shakes and it's very clean, right? It's a very cut out a lot of things. And part of that, you get to identify if there's anything you're allergic to or something that affects you. My wife and I did it together. My wife, she identified some things that she had some allergens too, that were affecting her. Some we knew and some we didn't, but I'm not really allergic to anything. So it didn't really highlight anything for me, but I did start.

I lost, and even in that first part, I lost quite a bit of weight. don't remember exactly, maybe seven pounds or something in the first 30 days, you know.

Jollie (06:36)
Okay, let me ask you, when did all this take place? When was this happen?

Curt Campbell (06:38)
Uh,

this is about, this would have been 2019. So about six years ago now. And so the first, you know, and then after we finished the 30 days, we just went, we took that and then they kind of recommend you go to what they call an 80-20, which is more of a, you're, doing a similar type of eating, but you put back in some stuff in your diet. And so it's, it's more of a, maybe a whole 30 type of diet. look a lot of.

Whole 30 for recipes and types of foods. And so we've kind of stayed on that ever since. I think it's changed for me a little bit more lately just because of when I'll get to my training schedule, but I have to keep more calories in now it's gone the other way. But you know, initially I lost about 70 pounds. I was about at my high, my highest weight was 254 pounds. Um, and then it dropped and lost 70 pounds, uh, by changing diet alone.

I mean, it was all pretty much diet and some basic exercise at home. you know, but what I noticed, and I think you and I've talked about it was what I noticed is when I started to lose the weight, I started to have more energy. Right. And then, so in that process and working with my friend Natalie, who became my coach, she talked us into, she talked me, she'd known I had played around with a couple of 5Ks, done a couple of runs, but was not serious about it.

And she wrote me in and said, Hey, you're going to do a triathlon. And she signed me, she said, we're going to sign up for a sprint triathlon in whatever it was eight months from now. said, okay, good. that, and we kind of built a little training plan and started practice a planning training and biking and running and swimming. And I can still remember it's kind of interesting to look back on it now when we started doing that. You know, I couldn't run a 5k, you know, I couldn't run a whole 5k.

though, and the first time we ever went and did a swim, probably swam a hundred yards. That's all you could do. And then I remember coming home from one day and I had my bike and I bought a little fitness bike and I took it out. I rode like 10 miles and I was like excited. I told my wife, was like, I just rode 10 miles. That was great. And so, you you look back in time and you say perspective. So it was, was these little bitty steps that were occurring and they were milestones at the time.

But just, I guess, put it in perspective, my longest bike ride to date now is 127 miles. And I've done two full Ironmans. So I've done swam 2.4 miles, biked 112, ran two marathons with the Ironman. And we just, actually just this last Sunday, I just finished another marathon. We did the Disney Dopey challenge, a buddy of mine, which is a 5k, 10k half marathon and a full marathon in four days. And so it's.

Jollie (09:06)
Yeah, that's fair.

Curt Campbell (09:28)
When you look back and you see these little bitty early steps, these little milestones that occurred, it's actually pretty interesting and fun to kind of think about how far you've come in it. mean, for me, I always look back and say, it was all these little steps, right? And I think at the time I had good help and support from some friends and my wife and trying to push and say, Hey, you know, let's do these little things. But for me, it was about just little things. started working out at home.

Just doing pushups and setups, right? And I remember starting and I'm like, oh, I'm to do five pushups. Okay. Well that's easy. Right. And most people can do that. Right. You can do five. Okay. Well let's do five for today. And two days from now we'll do five more and two days from now then we'll do five more. And you just slowly build these habits, right? These little baby steps of building habits and, you know, that's now progressed into a full, you know, I'm a full training regiment that I do and stay, stay in pretty much all year round. have a general training.

regiment that we stay on and stay healthy and become, it's really become more of a lifestyle. You know, I look, I say, look back at these little baby milestones, but they were so big at the time and they meant so much at that time to go do these little things and then just build off of that.

Jollie (10:37)
Yeah, what did, yeah, was funny as you're talking there, I'm like, nobody ever does just one triathlon. Right? Yeah. My first one was a sprint too, way back in 2011. And so how much time from that first 30 days where you lost those seven pounds, you lost 70 pounds. then how far after that first 30 days was that first sprint?

Curt Campbell (10:57)
Well, just to let you know, my first one was actually not a sprint. I signed up for the sprint, but my first triathlon was a half distance. And, and, that was because I hadn't had every intention of doing the sprint, but I got a little bit crazy with it I really enjoyed the training and partway through the training, Natalie and the other people that knew me, they're like, Hey, you're getting to your past to sprint. You need to do something more. The sprint won't challenge you. need to do something more. So.

Jollie (11:03)
that's right, that's right, you did tell me that, yeah.

Curt Campbell (11:25)
Um, they, they talked me into end up doing the half was my first, how much time I think. So it's a little bit, I guess there's a little bit of a break in there because COVID happened during that time. So we had in 2019, started lost weight, uh, into 2020. And then, uh, we did the first, uh, the first triathlon was I believe the fall of 2020 that it was one in Kerrville. think it was the fall of 2020. Yeah.

It may have been 21, but it was in that range about a year to a year and a half, think, starting to lose weight to when we got to doing a triathlon. I think it actually may have been 21. I was 21.

Jollie (12:07)
You were, you were pretty athletic and active when you were younger, did, do you remember like when Natalie asked you to do that first triathlon? Like you thinking, like, what were you thinking? Like, okay, I can do it. Or you're like, no, I can't do a triathlon or anything like that.

Curt Campbell (12:23)
No, I was a little bit, I was a little bit hesitant. was definitely something out of my comfort zone at the time. Uh, you know, it did, you know, it was kind of a community thing. There were a group of us doing it. And so it was fun. That was, that was what I think I really enjoyed was the, uh, you know, I was training with Natalie and a friend of mine, uh, Jack and training together. Another gentleman was training with us too. And so that, that being part of that group really helped, I think, you know, to kind of.

handling those kinds of trepidations or fears of doing a triathlon. Yeah.

Jollie (12:57)
When you're doing it with somebody, it just makes things so much easier. Yeah, it totally does.

Curt Campbell (13:02)
Getting

a support group is a good, is a big, for me, and I think for lot of people having that support group, and I there's a lot of really good groups out there that provide a lot of support. know, for example, we just did that Disney marathon and there's a run Disney group and there's a lot of very supportive people in there. You can find good community in a lot of places.

Jollie (13:20)
Yeah. Yeah. Online. don't know how many like on Facebook hiking groups I've joined, whether it's like rim to rim to rim and Grand Canyon are here. There's a pretty active online San Antonio hikers community. Yeah. It's, it's pretty neat. right. So let's see. You're, pretty tall. How tall are you? Yeah. Six three. Okay. So you start highest was two 54. What are you down to now?

Curt Campbell (13:38)
SOS63

Well, I'm up a little bit. I'm about 190 now. So I put on probably about, six or eight pounds, but I feel like my wife will tell you later. She's like, you got a little too skinny. And then I've put on some muscle since then as well. You know, so I feel like I'm pretty, I'm pretty lean, but I've definitely put on some muscle now. And I focus on that a little bit more of my training with some weight training for triathlon, but I probably, I stay around 190, 192.

Jollie (14:08)
very good. And all the health problems, high blood pressure, all that kind of stuff. What about your job?

Curt Campbell (14:13)
Blood

pressure medicine. don't use the CPAP machine anymore. My doctor, when I go to him, he touts and he runs me around and say, look, look at what this guy did. The doctor I go to, he always has an assistant, a college, someone in medical school that's learning. And every time I go in there, he's like, this is, this is like best patient. You would recognize him if you would have seen him. It's kind of funny to look back and my kids and I joke about it, but.

Jollie (14:33)
That's cool. That's got to be good feeling.

Curt Campbell (14:41)
We'll go through old pictures and you know, people don't recognize me when I see them. I mean, I've looked very different from my old pictures from just, you know, five, six years ago. you know, in the face because it's a big difference.

Jollie (14:55)
So I'm assuming all that joint pain is gone too.

Curt Campbell (14:57)
Yeah, I mean, guess I'll say for the most part, I mean, I have the aches and pains of training, but they're not bad pains.

Jollie (15:06)
Very good. So let's talk about, kind of dive into what a typical week looks like for you. What are you doing to add all those pounds of muscle?

Curt Campbell (15:16)
Yeah, right now, so I'm in a transition period right now. So last week we just did the marathon. So I was in a block, training block for marathon, from about November to just last week, I was doing probably about 40, I was probably averaging about 40 miles a week running. Uh, we would, we run, uh, run every, with a group of guys, run Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Monday and Friday are off days. And then, and we'll do about six.

It's over 26 to eight miles on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, then Saturday and Sunday are long runs. And so usually they're 10 to 15 miles on Saturday and Sunday. So that was our marathon block. Usually I'll do a strength training or some other thing like that on a Monday or Friday. Also combined with stretching and yoga. And then of course I do, you know, I'm 47 years old, so stretching is pretty much an everyday thing. Yeah.

So there's some, some degree of stretching and yoga pretty much every day. Really? It just feels good. know, I got, got in the habit of, I think I go home in the evening, we'll have dinner. The kids will want to watch something on TV. So we have a big area rug. so it, we'll usually do some stretching while we're watching TV. my youngest daughter, some, a lot of times we'll lead my stretching sessions for me.

She's like, okay dad, it's time to stretch. She'll go on, she goes on her phone and finds a little stretching thing and she's like, okay, we're going to do this. So we'll do some yoga together. And it just kind of builds into the day. It's not something separate that I have to go into another room or leave the family. My wife loves yoga and, and, so she, and Pilates. So she's also usually down there stretching with us as well.

Jollie (17:08)
That is so cool. Wow. I love that. All right. We're going to try that with my seven year old. We've tried to incorporate it into bedtime routine, but you know how it goes with little one. So we might try it earlier in the evening. I love that.

Curt Campbell (17:21)
Yeah. She, mean, she, Colleen really loves it and she gets kind of into it and she enjoys, she enjoys being the one to come up with the routine. Right. So she comes up with the stretching. And then I do usually like I'll do, and I go up and down depending on the, my training intensity. But when I'm not in a, the peak of a block, I'm usually doing pushups and some sort of ab work thought four to five days a week. And again, it's usually sitting at home, like in the living room and just kind of.

slide off the couch and get on the carpet and I'll do some level. usually do about three sets. So it's about, it's 20 pushups. again, my daughter does this with me too. So I let her kind of pick sometimes, but we'll to do like flutter kicks or some sort of a crunch. And those will be like 20 or 40 of those. But I usually end up with somewhere about, uh, uh, you know, somewhere between 75.

about 80 pushups in it and then, a hundred crunches or some set of flutter kicks or something like that. But we usually work, usually doing abs and, and, pushups just in the evening, just for a little block.

Jollie (18:38)
And then how many minutes, just roughly, do you think you spend stretching?

Curt Campbell (18:42)
Most evenings I bet it's 30 minutes. Sometimes it probably gets a little bit more.

Jollie (18:46)
Oh,

wow. That's true. So many people say that aren't active or, you know, they're thinking about losing weight and they talk to somebody who's exercising like, I don't have any time to exercise. think you've just, man, hopefully you've given a lot of people a great idea, especially if you've had, you know, kids of any age, no matter if they're seven or 17, anywhere in between, or you don't have kids at all. You know, maybe it's just your partner, your spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever.

That's good family talk.

Curt Campbell (19:17)
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's what it is for me. And I don't like, you know, leaving and being separate from them. we kind of hang out and you know, nights I might be stretching by myself or sometimes my wife wants to stretch a little bit more than I do. she'll, she'll be stretching there, but we'll all be in the same room together, know, and there might be something on the TV we're watching or, know, it's, but we're all kind of doing it together and the girls are stretching as well.

Jollie (19:44)
I

love that. All right. Let's shift to your diet. Tell us how you're eating and yeah.

Curt Campbell (19:50)
So, um, my diet right now is still, still, after whatever it has been almost five and a half years, still, I still do a shake. Um, and I use some stuff protein. use a protein from Arbonne and a fiber from Arbonne, but then I, I usually, my typical shake is, uh, some sort of protein, some sort of fiber. Uh, I use a hemp powder, a Maca powder, chia seeds and, uh, uh, let's see the other one I do. There's another.

Anyway, and so I mix my shake usually with some frozen fruit. We'll just get frozen fruit from the grocery store and then use that in a blender and blend it up. That's my breakfast every morning. I do a lot of my, I kind of do a lot of my trainings in the morning. So I'm an early person. So a lot of it's, we do a lot of our running is at 5 a.m. So usually what I'll do is I'll get up.

and I'll have a banana and maybe a little bit of some nut butter. And then I'll go do my training session and then I'll make my shake and I'll have my shake after training. And that'll be my morning.

Jollie (20:54)
five or you meet your buddies at five? All right.

Curt Campbell (20:59)
We get up at about four. It usually, it might have been around nine. Yeah. I'll probably pass an outbush at most days.

Jollie (21:00)
Oh wow, outstanding. What time do you go to bed?

I got it. get it. Nine o'clock's a good time. Yeah, I'm up at five every day, so I hear you.

Curt Campbell (21:13)
All right. And then lunch, usually try, I mean, it's usually trying to find, it's harder sometimes if you're eating out. We get some, there's a lady here in Bernie that makes meals that Natalie orders them, but I reimburse her for it. We kind of split the cost on them, but there are some good healthy meals typically that we eat here at the office. Or if I go out to a restaurant or something, I'll get something. But I'll typically, I always try to find something that stays on the sort of a whole 30 general. Yeah, I'm not perfect. We cheat a little bit. There's, you know, I like eating, I like food. So.

You try to eat some, some stuff, but I do notice one of the biggest things for me is I really pay attention to, I don't count calories. There was a time for a short time I did just to be just out of interest to kind of check how many calories I was ingesting. What it really made me do is just be aware of, especially at fast food places or restaurants. And it's, it's nice that they give you the calorie counts, but some of the stuff is so high.

that you really got to be careful what you order. So I'm aware of like the calories, but I really try to stay away from things that have like processed sugar is a big thing. So when we go shopping or I'm looking for something to eat, I try to stay away from anything that has processed sugar. And once you start paying attention to that, it's very, it's amazing to me how much sugar is added to a lot of things. And you look at, cause they always tell you on the label, how much it's added sugar. And it's amazing how much in a lot of products is just added sugar. And a lot of it's from very little gain, right?

You know, there's some good, there's a lot of good products out there that are comparable that don't add the sugar and they taste great. Yeah.

Jollie (22:44)
Yeah, that's one of the easiest ways to like start with. it's kind of crazy. A lot of people have no clue, but the American Heart Association only recommends 25 milligrams a day of, or 25 grams, milligrams, one of those things of added sugars a day. And man, you could blow through that like in a morning and a snack. It's pretty crazy.

Curt Campbell (23:02)
The other big, I mean, I kind of going back in time a little bit, but the other big change I made when we changed our diet, you know, for like, I, when I was eating unhealthy, I had a lot of, I drank a lot of coffee and sweet tea. And so I had, and coffee was to me, at least looking back on it was basically a vehicle for sugar. You know, it wasn't, I wasn't drinking black coffee. was putting stuff in it. The coffee I was drinking most of time wasn't good quality coffee. It was just a vehicle for sugar.

Gotcha. And so when we changed our diet, I pretty, I didn't have coffee, any coffee for about three years. Just completely went cold turkey, cut it all out. I've since had coffee here and there, but I maybe have a cup of coffee every couple of weeks. You know, I just don't drink coffee that much. Now I get, I do, there's some other things, some green teas and stuff that I do get caffeine through for, you know, so I'm not avoiding caffeine in general, but I just stopped drinking coffee because it became, it just became a habit.

You know, it was drinking that and then getting a bunch of sugar. I think that, that probably as much as anything also helped my weight change, you know, really cutting out sugars and how much sugar is, and then looking at that in a different food.

Jollie (24:10)
What about this one? I've been paying attention to alcohol lately for no other reason, just health effects and know, surgeon general just came out. He'd like to see a warning alcohol. Man, when I was really packing on the pounds, I drank a ton of craft beer. Cutting out that made things a lot easier. And man, I actually had my first non-alcoholic beer this past weekend. One of my buddies was doing the dry January.

and I asked him how it tastes. He's like, actually it's good. It's not like I have to try to get it down. It's just really good. So the next night I had one, went, wow, it really surprised me how good it was. So I don't know.

Curt Campbell (24:49)
Yeah,

well, it's interesting. Here's part of my story. I mean, I'm a, I used, I used to be a home brewer. I don't home brew anymore. Um, but I did that for years, a partner and a minority partner in a local brewery here. And I, I've always, I've always liked beer or loved beer. I still like beer, but I did change how much I drink. I don't drink very much beer anymore. And when I do, I've kind of gotten the habit of even when I go to the brewery, I always ask for half pours and I feel like that gives me.

You know, so I used to, I used to go in there and just, give me half pour of this or half pour of that. And now I'll have that. And that's, that's about where I'll stop. You know, and, kind of got to the point where I just don't feel like I need to drink that much beer. I, I do drink whiskey from time to time as well, but I probably swapped a little bit of my beer drinking with whiskey drinking. But yeah, the, you the beer is very heavy, right? So.

Jollie (25:39)
It was kind of self-limiting because I could only drink so much and then I got full, but I never thought about doing the half pours. So that's, that's a good tip. All right. So let's see here. What about snacks in between like breakfast and lunch or lunch and dinner? Are you snacking much or what are you eating there?

Curt Campbell (25:54)
I snack a little bit, like we've got some stuff in the office right now. I've got these little Aussie bites from Costco. They're real good. But my snacks are like granolas and they're healthy stuff. Fruits, nuts, usually. I do like some of the different bars. There's some different, I got the Bobo's bars and there's some other different products out there. Again, I think those are interesting too. Cause I look at, you look at some of those and there's some good brands out there, but if you're not careful, they add a lot of sugars too. So you gotta pay attention. There's not all.

health bars are healthy. You know, so, um, but you know, there's usually where I'm eating, you know, I have my shake in the morning. There'll be some snacking and then a lunch and then usually a nice dinner, but that's, that's obviously changed as well. Interesting enough for a long, for a while, my wife and I went kind of gluten free mainly because of her. has a gluten sensitivity. I do not, but what that made me do was kind of cut out.

some of the heavy carbs. And so I just didn't eat as much bread or heavy pastas, which pasta at home to a lot of lentil pastas, those type of alternative, alternative pastas, which tastes great and are a lot better. of going a little, had a little bit of a full circle there because at one point we were harder, more, more religious to the gluten free. then once you kind of start

We started paying attention. Some of the gluten free products are a little bit over-processed. So then you're like, well, it really is. You may be getting gluten free, but you're not actually getting a healthier product. If you go with some of the, especially some of the gluten free breads, they still add a lot of sugar to them. Especially if you go out to a restaurant and they want to charge you extra for a gluten free bun, but that gluten free bun is actually less healthy than a regular bread bun. You probably could have got there.

Jollie (27:41)
You

gotta be careful. Definitely. So, all right. Well, very good. Let's see. What about, this has been good stuff. So I appreciate that. You've given us some, and you've given me some, a couple of really good tips. Like doing the stretching and ab work, little exercising with the family early in the evening. I'm gonna try that and see who I can get on board and my family. And then the half pours. You have, what about just generally speaking, if somebody...

was like, has been thinking, I'm like, you know what? really, it's time for me to really change things up and try to get healthy. I want to be here as long as I can. And like, we're only here for a little bit of time. It makes it a lot easier and a lot better to live when we don't have all that other stuff dragging you down. What kind of tips might you share? How to get started? What kind of advice might you share?

Curt Campbell (28:34)
Yeah. I my, I think my advice is that, you know, it's, it's about consistency and it's just, it's a lifestyle change. So it's not something that you have to jump into wholeheartedly. know sometimes I talk to some people and you know, if, if, know, I kind of lay out, I'm getting ready to just, I'm ramping up now because I have a triathlon in a couple of months. I'm going to start a new block of training. And if somebody looks at my schedule and said, you get up at five.

five days a week to go run 10 miles, then that's crazy. I can't do that. It's like, well, yeah, I didn't think I could do that either. You know, you'd asked me six years ago, I think you're crazy. I would never do those things. But you know, when you starting, it was just little things. It was like, Hey, I'm going to do, like I said earlier, I'm going to do a couple pushups a couple times a week and, or I'm going to go for a little run. That's a mile, less than a mile. I may walk most of it, just getting that habit of

doing those activities and then over time, just continuing to build on that. You know, I guess the one thing we did, which was a hard, cold turkey was changing their diet. And that was driven by my wife and Natalie as our coach. But as far as the physical activity, that was a slow progression over time of building those habits of building a lifestyle where I'm doing a bunch and bunch of training and finding how that works within my life. Right. And how I can make sure that I have quality time with my kids and family, but yet.

And also still do training and, and, do those types of things. you know, they, they enjoy it now is obviously they got to go to Disney world and I got to do a run and they, uh, they like some of the races. They liked the races. We're to go to Galveston for a triathlon. That's their favorite one because they like going to the beach. so you can kind of meld those things into your life, but it takes time to build that and kind of develop those patterns. So I think my advice to anybody is you just don't get overwhelmed with.

the end, you just start with these little steps and build these building blocks. So, Hey, today I'm going to go walk. I'm going to walk outside for 15 minutes. Tomorrow might be 20 minutes. The next day might go back to 10 minutes. That's all I got. That's all the time I have or all that, all I can muster to do, but at least you're doing it and you're building that pattern and you're doing it you're building that.

Jollie (30:51)
Yeah, those tiny little exercise snacks, they add up. Yeah. It always cracks me up when, I don't know, just conversation or something, somebody hears that, you know, the kind of distances that you're doing more than me, but they say, like, I couldn't even run a mile. And I used to just let that go and kind of be sad, but now my normal reply is, no, you can't do a mile today, but you can absolutely do a mile. Just constant, gentle pressure.

a little bit more every day.

Curt Campbell (31:21)
Yeah. And I'll tell you, I've learned one thing I've definitely learned through all the sporting activities and triathlon is that you cannot judge somebody's ability by what they look like. know, there are all body types and all different physical abilities doing amazing things and doing things. You watch it like, what is my excuse? like, maybe we go do a triathlon and there's somebody that's doing it in a wheelchair or who lost their leg or one of the last one I was at.

full iron man there's a person who's blind who's got a guy that's leading them blind they're about to go do a triathlon full iron man triathlon and they're blind

Jollie (31:58)
I got a buddy that does that. those are cool.

Curt Campbell (32:00)
Yeah, I got nothing. I'm I got all my faculties and so I you know, there's and and I've seen people you look at him like that guy's not athletic Well, he just flew past me on the bike. So He's in a lot better shape than I am regardless of what I think that person looks like, you know, it's so it's It's amazing what people can do I think when they just you You kind of get that consistency and you build that base and you put your mind to it I think like you like you're saying I think

Jollie (32:24)
Build up some hap-

Curt Campbell (32:27)
When somebody limits themselves, that's just your mental limit, your admitting yourself. think everybody can run a marathon. Everybody can complete a marathon. Maybe you don't run every moment of it and you're not going to break any world records and you're not going to be winning the, you know, going to Boston, but you can do it. Everybody can do it.

Jollie (32:45)
So

that's probably a pretty darn good place to end. Good positive message. Man, this has been good stuff. I mean, we've talked quite a few times, but yeah, I've taken away a lot from today. thanks so much. I appreciate you. Yeah, this has been good. This has been good. Thanks for sharing your stories. All right. Well, have a good one. Appreciate you,

Curt Campbell (32:58)
Thanks for having me, it was so fun.

Alright, Jell-O.

Jollie (33:13)
Thanks so much for listening. Please rate and review the podcast on the platform of your choice so we can reach more people and more people are recommended this podcast. And if you really liked it, the single best way you can help us grow is by telling your friends. Now for all the legal stuff. The views and opinion expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. For my day job, I'm an employee of ABB and appear on this podcast on my own accord and not in the professional capacity as an ABB employee.

All viewpoints provided are my personal opinions and not intended to reflect those of my employer. If you have any questions or comments, please shoot me an email at jolly at interrupt hunger.org. Let's go spread some joy people.