Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Mindful Muscle Podcast with my co-host, Jody Dolo. How are you doing today? I'm great. Thanks, Jio. Jio and I are two friends that have collectively lost and maintain 140 pound weight loss. And we fell in love with the process of bettering ourselves. And on Mindful Muscle, we're here to show people that it is possible. And you can do it without being crazy restricted. Tell them about the sponsor we're working with. If you are like me, where you prefer doing certain tasks like cardio or housework with a beat, but you want to get more caught up on your favorite podcast like Mindful Muscle, perfect solution is called Podbeat_App. It allows you to listen to any podcast or even audiobooks and still have a musical tune to it. You can pick any genre that you'd like. You can still hear the message of the podcast or the audiobook and still have that beat to help make the task go along. So it's definitely the perfect solution for me. And I'm sure it'll be a perfect solution for many others. So definitely give them a try. And if you check them out, let them know that Mindful Muscle Podcast sent you our guests is named Matt Gluckman. He's been a personal trainer for the past 10 years. He's overcome personal adversities, including social anxiety, addiction, and digestive diseases. This has shaped his perspective and training philosophy to fit the needs of clients who are looking for more than just physical transformation. Welcome to the show, Matt. How are you today? Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity. Awesome. Look, when we connected on that podcast group, I really was intrigued by your journey, because not too many men are willing to show vulnerability about issues they have had, especially things like social anxiety. What triggered it? And what was that time in your life like? Question, I'm not exactly sure what triggered the start of it, because I can just remember growing up this happy, go lucky kid and not having a care in the world. And then chores and responsibilities kick in. That's probably what anxiety kicks in. But yeah, I remember it really kicked in the high gear when I went to college, stepped out of my comfort zone, going from a small school 60 people in my graduating class to enrolling, which is Northeastern University in Boston, and I think enrolling at the time is like 20,000, 25,000 people. So it definitely became like a number in the crowd. And I'd say that's where it really kicked up more intensely. And it was like paralysis by analysis, like just overthinking things in situations so much that it had me just stuck and locked into place and going to class. I could muster that here and there. But even that was hard. And then going to the gym, like I was able to find some friends to go to the gym. And so what were other ways that it would manifest itself? How did it affect the rest of your life? It definitely impacted my ability to make friends or really any quality, meaningful relationships at the time. I would say that they were like single layered friends. They were friends that you went to have a drink with went to the gym with. And it wasn't really much deeper connection because it was really hard for me to talk to people or open up about myself or showcase who I was. And it definitely manifests itself into like nervous behavior, whether that was like racing thoughts or speeding through things. Because I just think this pool of anxiety came up. But then this kind of this hyper vigilance would also speed me up. And I might be rambling and co not coherently staying on topic. And then I'd say it definitely also led to some depressive episodes because of feeling trapped or stuck. Okay. And so obviously here you are thriving. I've seen your Instagram and I've seen your think fitness life website. Plenty of blogs there. What helped you get over it? Thank you. It's not just one thing, right? If it was just one secret, I think we'd all be shouting it from mountaintops or everyone could hear it. But we'd be millionaires. It's a combination of a lot of different tips and secrets. If I look back, I would say that a big part. Because I think my life could be summed up by this Mark Twain quote of, Oh, my life is filled with such catastrophes, most of which never happen. Like so much of my suffering and pain came from my own mind. The more I started to sink my teeth into that, the more I was able to start to let go of some of those maladaptive beliefs and start to make room for different thought processes and beliefs that we're going to serve my overarching goal and life vision for myself. And I think another piece was movement definitely. I think I'm a firm believer that emotions that are buried alive never die. And energy isn't created or destroyed it's transferred. So sometimes when we lock things in and hold things in, we need an outlet. And for me, physical movement and the gym was the start of that. Which then I was able to create other things to become my outlet. And I didn't need to just be like single focuses and only lifting weights would provide me that piece if that makes sense. Okay, no, and I'm glad because obviously this is a fitness podcast. We also deal with the mental aspect of things. What then gravitated you towards putting your passion into fitness you've been training for over 10 years. What made that click? Great question. I would say necessity became the mother invention for that one because I was a psych undergrad. And I went to school, they had a co-op program. So part of the schooling experience, you'd be in class for a semester, you could find a real essentially. And the psych department was really competitive. So all of the co-ops, most of them were unpaid. So I was always having to work or you can let the fire under me so to speak. Okay, I got to get out there and make money for myself to support what I want to do. And so then it led me into door to door sales is my first job out of college. And then I ended up knocking on my next boss's door and started selling real estate in Newbury street in Boston. I was living the high life. I did that for about a year and a half, two years. And it just really burned me out. Like it was easy come easy go. And it wasn't it was a grind for sales. It's a law of averages. You're dealing with a lot of failure. One time I was in the gym just thinking about man, I really need to connect like what I love to do with what I'm good at. And sales is people skills. I think it's paying attention. It's a good presentation. It's enthusiasm. It's listening. And in that endeavor, door to door sales really helped me overcome a lot of the last lingering bit of some of my social anxiety. The big factor there was just adding that element of something that I loved and that I was passionate about that I was selling versus just some random product or apartment. Yes, because then it was that much more tangible for the person I'm talking to see how much I really love this area, this industry, this field, and then I can translate over and they can start to love it for themselves. Yes, I've been in sales many times. And what I do for a living is a form of sales. If they don't see that you're passionate about it, if they don't see that you actually live what you're preaching, no pun intended in my case, they're gonna see right through it. Are you a Celtics fan? Oh, I'm actually in Utah now, but I am a Celtics fan. Celtics fan to three up, baby. I the year that I went to Boston, it was when they got Garnet. Oh, yeah. Paul Pierce. And I was like, wow, these are three greats and they don't have rings. This is going to be the year. And sure enough, they did it. They got their championship. Amen for that. Good repeat. Yes, let's start a new dynasty. And Jody, jump in here. In with your typical client, what makes you different from other personal trainers? Probably the conversations that I have alongside of the workout. It's it really is important. Don't forget why we're there in the first place to move, get the body feeling well, and make some sort of deposit into the piggyback account of what your goals are, whether that's more mobility, more strength, more muscle losing weight, rehabbing injury. You still want to make sure we're going in that direction. Right. But and probably I was really influenced by Scott Cochran. He was the highest paid strength conditioning coach. And he was the first person to talk about like emotional and mental health along with his athletes. So he talked about sitting down with his athletes, understanding what their triggers were, what their home life was, what were their other stresses that were the reality that they were living with instead of just like taking a hammer and being like, Oh, it's just all about discipline. And if you don't do it, something internally is wrong with you. He integrated it. He molded it into a way that was best for the athlete and the individual. And I've always loved that. So I really think what makes me different, just my attention to detail, and the conversations that I'll partake in with my clients. I always like to help people let go of their stresses or worries for that day in our sessions. And I think that goes a long way. I was listening to an interview of Kobe Bryant and somebody asked them the question, how has your leadership changed? This is already past retirement before he passed away. And he said, one thing I had to learn is that as a young leader with no family, I used to look at other people and be like, y'all lazy, y'all don't want to be in the gym 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And then he understood as he gained the family, they know these people are just as committed, but there are responsibilities in life that transcend work, even basketball. And he understood as he grew up that, yes, people can be wholly committed. But if you don't understand their wives or what they're going through in their personal life, you can be as effective as a leader, or in this case, as a coach. So that's a great point that you spend that time looking for ways to enhance them just beyond moving the weights. Yeah, I think that's a really important piece to remember, because you look at the most successful people and from the outside looking in, and even I did the same when I was younger, right? Oh, they have it so easy. They have no stress in their life. And it's no, they've just learned how to transform all that baggage, all the stress in life into a way that feeds them and fuels them. So I think it's always important to remember to, you got to integrate these negative feelings or these emotions. You can't just hold on to the good and resist the bad and be starry-eyed and age of Aquarius type of deal. You have to learn to integrate. Absolutely. Now, do you have clients that struggle with social anxiety? That's a good question. I don't currently know. I think everybody is pretty good socially. But I've definitely had clients who were on the spectrum, or who had Asperger's, or I can think of one in particular couple or couple cases of some programmers, like computer engineers, who didn't like the social setting of the big gym environment. And yeah, I think it was really helpful to just know what they're going through mentally and emotionally. And just try to like maybe go to a small section in the gym, have our little space, but then always just keep it light and not let them not let their mind get the best of them. Because I think a lot of it comes down to you can't always believe everything you think. And your mind is a terrible master, but a better servant. You can get ping ponged away from your present by letting those fears and anxieties take hold of you. You mentioned we spoke about your social anxiety, but you also mentioned in your biography that you dealt with some addiction, what type of addiction was that? Yeah, I think it is fair. Think about it again, I think it's fair to say more of like addictive behavior, rather than just a straight addiction, right? Because there are people who are like strongly physically addicted to substances, and I don't want to undermine what they're going through. But definitely, because I just was going through such, I created my own hell. And I held on to so much anger and resentment after my parents got divorced really, and I was so cynical, and just so arrogant in my teens and early 20s. Anything that that ended up making me feel good, I would just do to the nth degree. So there was probably a good year of my college career that I blacked out probably like every weekend, because I never knew the stop button. And then it would pour into like drinking during the week and blacking out during the week and missing classes. My first semester in Northeastern, I was put on academic probation, because I had a 1.5 GPA, I had to withdraw from classes, I had I failed some classes, I know showed some classes, because I was just so focused on trying to operate as a human being. I didn't have any good feelings except for when I maybe drank or smoke some weed or had sex. And those became my personal addictions in terms of the addictive behavior. I mean, it's no different than people who are obese just going to food for comfort. You were looking for outlets that in the long term are destructive if not held in control. Obviously, even good things, I gained most of my weight eating healthy food. I was just over consuming. Right. So it wasn't like I was indulging in Snickers all day long. I was just over eating healthy food. And so did that lead to your digestive issues? Because I'm curious about that. Many people don't talk about it. I think the alcohol did enough damage on my system to basically I had a genetic predisposition to have this disease more prevalently than others, because it does run more in Jews. And I'm half Jewish. So I think that did there was that underlying layer, but then the alcohol exposed it. And then I would try to cover up things with duct tape, try to eat really healthy Monday through Thursday. And then Friday, Saturday, Sunday came around and I was binge eating ice cream and cookies and all the bad stuff. But make up for it by going back to the clean eating on Monday. So yeah, I think a combination of just really pushing things to the limit exposed that that. And then I think stress on top of it helped open it up because it was right when I was going through about breakup, I was going through career changes. I just had that epiphany of like, I want to move towards training rather than staying in this sales job that has no fulfillment. So I think it was a combination of things. But yeah, I think I did the damage with alcohol with a lot of sugar, and then a lot of stress really just opened it up and got my first flare. Was there an official diagnosis? Yeah, so I was fighting it. Pig head and stubbornness. And it was the day that I, and I was actually prepping for an all natural bodybuilding show at the time too. And I wasn't, we can't read the label when you're in the jar, I should had someone overseeing me a little bit. Because I was under under nourish. The day of my show, I probably went to the bathroom 30 times, like not even exaggerating going to the bathroom to just pass blood, like nothing else, but just blood in the toilet. So then I knew I had to check myself in the hospital. It wasn't going away. And yeah, so then they diagnosed me and a team of doctors and five, six different medications and two weeks in the hospital. And yeah, 10 years in the making of going through a journey with that to get to a better balance with it all. Okay, and so how do you balance your nutrition now? How do you deal with that and nutrition overall? In conjunction with modern medicine, I definitely modified, I actually worked with the somatic sensory coach for a year. And we determined that essentially, my nervous system didn't have a platform to rest on. And I was hyper vigilantly jumping from issue to issue or stress to stress. And it would exhaust my system. And it would lead to chronic inflammation. And so it's like, inflammation isn't bad, stress isn't bad, but that word chronic, that's when it can start to have the negative effect of the compound effect, right, like little bit of damage over time builds up. And so reestablishing my nervous system and doing guided breath work. And I still do 10 minutes at just some breathing first thing in the morning just to really get myself centered. But yeah, I do take it's called a salamine. It's basically like a time release advil for your digestive system to help keep the information down. Pop I did that. I know my forearms didn't get any bigger, but it did make me like one I think another big impact was I tried the whole 30. And it was so eye opening to see how I could feel when I stopped eating the crap and the processed and the excess sugar added sugar things. So I think we can get into places where in any area of life where we flood our senses and starve our sensitivities. And in the process of learning about this disease, I did start to eat more and two with my body, whereas previously, I wouldn't if I like it, I'm going to eat it. I don't stop eating until the plate is empty or I feel absolutely horrible about myself. So I think just having temperance, building temperance into my everyday life, going back to eating more plant based and real foods and fruits and vegetables in conjunction with modern medicine. And like I said, adjusting the way my perceived mental state was causing some of these issues, that makes sense to a holistic approach. Yeah, yeah. And like we said in the beginning, so it wasn't just one thing, it was a combination of a few different things that helped me get out of that bad cycle. In your bio, you mentioned that you are, you would like to talk about self care methods and mindset shifts, I'm interested in that, especially as somebody that also struggles with social anxiety and overthinking, a lot of things that you have said. In fact, I even have a book on my desk right now that says don't believe everything you think. I love that quote, that quote itself helps me get out of falling for some of the lies that my mind would continue to tell me. And I think whether it's medication or meditation, you need something that gives you a little bit of a pause, because we got to remember like we're human beings and learn that physiology. And I think that kind of takes it away from the added anxiety of, oh, it's just me, it's okay, this is human behavior. And I think understanding, like I was a psych undergrad, and I think doing that helped me learn about me more than anything else, but it's also helped me work with clients. And some of those fundamentals are, we really only have four basic human emotions, right? It's anger, fear, sadness, and joy. Without the gate, three out of four of those are not the most enjoyable experiences. But it's like knowing that even in itself is okay. So it's not just me, like, I just have to learn to turn the weeds into compost from my garden and plant seeds for more joy in my life. And it surprisingly puts you back in the driver's seat. I think a big aspect was just learning so many different things from other walks of life, like hearing a quote, quotes were so important for me because they're like aphorisms. They're like little bits of knowledge and a small amount of information that can that you can apply in real time. And sure, you might need to write it down. So you remind yourself, I don't believe everything you think, I had that on a sticker on my mirror for a while, because I needed to remind myself. But then in conjunction with some other things, like, Jill neuroscientist, Jill Bolty Taylor learned that or taught us that an emotion lives in our neural circuitry for about one and a half, two minutes, unless we fuel it with further thinking, and we can sometimes live in it for decades. So the right. So the meditation or medication gives you that pause to separate from the antecedent behavior and consequence, right, that kind of that thought, that feeling and that action. And when it's maladaptive, when it's leading you to action that doesn't align with your goals that you want to do, then it's something that you need to probably cut down or let go of 80% of the thoughts that you're going to have today are the same ones you had yesterday. And I think those kind of these types of frameworks, I think help people start the process of catching and identifying what's not serving them and letting go of it or investigating into it and and finding the belief that you're holding on to that's holding you back. And then it makes room for more things to blossom into your life that can be more joy providing and humor providing. I think another important framework that I learned was from Jack Cornfield meditation Buddhist psychologist. And it's the RAIN analogy, RAIN. So the first step is to recognize, all right, I'm thinking about the past, I'm really depressed about the past, or I'm thinking about the future, I'm really anxious about tomorrow. And then A is allow, right, because what we resist persists. And I think this comes back to the point I made earlier, if I can't just resist negativity and cling to positivity, it just doesn't work that way. So you do have to allow those emotions to fulfill you and not say, Oh, I don't want to feel that I don't want to feel that don't let it in. That's no, this is a real thing. Like, it's actually happening to you allow it to be a part of you. And then you can start to investigate into it. When you investigate into it, you start to say, Oh, like, I got really anxious in that moment, because I didn't feel worthy enough to be around these people. And why didn't I think why was I thinking that? Oh, because I have this viewpoint that I'm a loser, or I'm not good enough, or why would anyone want to be around me? And then the end is you like rain, you let it move past you. It's not attachment, you separate yourself from it. So you can think of rain kind of washing these emotions away from you and then getting out of you. It's like, we say, I'm anger, right? I'm angry. No, you're not those emotions, you're just experiencing them. And when you can start to do that process over and over again, it starts to become something that you witness versus something that takes hold of you and steers you. Yeah, there's a notion in my line of work that, you know, be angry, but do not sin. In other words, yes, we see things that are horrible, we can be angry at that, but we're not going to let them take our rational thought and have them master us. We control our emotions on other aspects. It's about examine yourself, right? Every day I like to end the day analyzing my day, the good, the bad, the indifferent, and to see how I can improve the next day actually helps me sleep better too. Yeah, because you can put it down, you put it on a piece of paper and it doesn't bog your mind up while you're trying to sleep. That's a great point, because I did a little exercise like that. And I think this is really good for anyone who feels like they're in cyclical behavior that's holding them back. And it's from the Stoics, you write good, better, best, and those are your prompts. And you just write down what you did good that day, what you could have done better, and then what you need to be at your best. And for me, after doing that for 10 days, I look back and every single time when I was reading the best, it said, I need to laugh more. That's what I need to do to be at my best. And so just dawned on me, okay, I can recognize it, but I'm not taking any action towards trying to make that happen. But when I actually did, it worked, believe it or not. But I also back to what you said to about emotions. I like to give people this little visual, like emotions are like driving with a child. You can't let them grab the steering wheel, but you can't stuff them away in the trunk either. Although we wish we could. Or sometimes, yeah, just grab the steering wheel, take us wherever you want. So you mentioned earlier that you're half Jewish, is that correct? And were you half Jew just in the sense physical or religious as well? To answer your question, in a short way, I was just by bloodline, right? Because in Judaism, your mom has to be Jewish for you to be accepted. And in Catholicism, your dad has to be Catholic to be accepted. So I was in purgatory. My dad was Jewish, and my mom was Catholic. So you had a wanted me. No, the reason I bring it up is because although I'm not Jewish, I do have point eight Oscar Nazi Jew in my DNA. I'm a Sabbath keeper. And so I keep the Sabbath according to the Old Testament, which is sundown Friday to sundown Sabbath. And so I wanted to see if you kept no work. I do peek in electronically a little bit, but I don't do any social media thing for my podcast or anything like that. How do you view rest? How do you incorporate rest because it's important? What's your philosophy on rest? Like, for example, I rest every Sabbath. And so that's my rest day. And I think there's so many great traditions that come from religions. And actually, like every religion has some sort of period of fasting involved. It's for health, but it's also for thinking about what you have and what others don't. And so you're fast, you should give what you would have during your fast to the poor, right? The needy. But the way that I view rest is, it's definitely by age group, right? Because when we're younger, we can get hit and keep going. As we get older, we need to be putting more energy into that recovery side. So we'd say the sympathetic nervous system versus the parasympathetic nervous system, the sympathetic is your fight and flight, your parasympathetic is rest and digest. Big one for me is getting a good night's sleep. I'm like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde between getting a good night's sleep and getting terrible sleep. So that one is like step one, plus if they could put all the benefits from something into a pill, it would have been sleep, but they don't know how to figure it out. Another one is being able to operate at a high degree without spinning your wheels. I like using an algae of two cars driving down the road at 60 miles an hour. One's in like fifth gear, red lining their motor, and the other one's in like second or third gear and the motor's just chilling. I've meditation has allowed me to get to those states without losing my cool. That makes sense. And being able to operate under stresses and pressure and things like that. There's a great quote that's like, calmness without any activity is not true calmness. But calmness within activity is true calmness. I think being able to have that state and for me, that starts with just 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes of breathing. I also make sure I sauna once a week and I have an ice bath or cold plunge I like to do once a week. So those are definitely ways that I uptick my rest and and digest system internally. On top of that, staying hydrated, getting a well-balanced meal and having fun and join your days, enjoying your life, enjoying the people around you. I think it really goes without saying that's another way that we can recharge ourselves and refill our cups when we're pouring out to others. But you can't pour from an empty cup type of deal. I haven't done a cold plunge. No, I do hot. I don't think I'd want to, but I do hot and cold showers like where I go from one extreme of hot to the other extreme for the last 10 seconds of a shower and just wakes you up in the morning. What are some of the benefits for those of who do cold plunge? Because I've heard some of the negatives. But what are some of the benefits? I know a lot of the benefits are about autophagy and mobilizing our fat cells. And like I'm not the smartest person to be able to recall what like all the scientific benefits are. But I think a big piece for me. Okay, so one of the other major benefits real quick is we don't really have too many things that really constrict and contract on a cellular level the way that the cold does. We can expand with heat, which is good, but it's a cellular kind of house cleaning that your body is doing. And yet to remember back to what we, what Jody and I were talking about the different kind of perspectives. Remember that we are walking mitochondria evolution. We are, we have 30,000 30 trillion cells on our body. And in each cell, there's anywhere from 100 to 1000s of mitochondria in each cell. So you're trying to do minute benefits on a cellular level. And I think sauna and cold plunge really help that. But another piece that I wanted to bring up that I've noticed for me is different is I'm not the best meditator, right? Like I should have somebody with me. And so cold plunging is like anchoring you. It's like meditation with training wheels, because you can't like for the first minute or so, you cannot focus on anything else, except for just like breathing and staying saying, Oh crap, it's horrible. And you're focusing on your breathing and you're in the present moment, right? You're not thinking about like your past traumas, you're not thinking about ones for dinner. And then all the sudden, just the idea of you being cold goes away. And you're like, at peace. And you're like, wow, I can do this. And I can do anything that I set my mind to. So I think it helps me put little deposits into my confidence bank account and my self efficacy bank account. You know, you brought up meditation a couple of times, I meditate as well. But I do what it's called Western meditation versus Eastern meditation. It's more visualization, more cost to effect thinking like I put myself in different scenes. Like if I was talking to somebody and I didn't like how it goes, I try to relive it and try to incorporate better decisions. If for example, if I'm at the gym, I meditate on the proper form proper technique if I did something that was off. So I try to relive my life where Eastern meditation seems more of just clearing your mind. Would that be a correct analogy? Correct comparison, I guess? I think it's a little bit of both. I don't know the true definition of Western meditation. But I think Eastern does, it does start with that, right? Like you're just you are trying to clear your mind. But I think what people misconstrued is you're not just trying to sit there and push everything out to the side and just stay in this open state and clear mind state and cling to that forever. It's no, you're doing what you're doing, where something comes in, and you're allowing it and you're saying, okay, why am I feeling like that? Okay, anxious. Oh, fear because of tomorrow, big deadline or fear because I might have offended someone, you know, in this conversation previously. And then you might do exactly what you said of recollecting it and seeing how you would have wanted to maybe treat the situation better next time. And then you can get to close the book on it and go back to trying to focus yourself on your breath. So it's a little bit like housekeeping for the mind and being able to pause and get into a silent space allows you the opportunities to see what you need to address. Okay, in that sense, I think one of the ways they describe Western meditation is it's more active where Eastern is a little bit more passive. And it's how I heard it described. I think there's value in Western meditation, I'm not into Eastern for religious purposes and other reasons. But yeah, I think those who live a life of anxiety should take time to smell the roses basically. And slow life down and not let it overwhelm you because I think with anxiety, what happens is we let it all rush to us. And we don't stop and compartmentalize everything. And like you mentioned earlier, our own thinking gets in the way. And the quote from Mark Twain, right, they have the problems weren't even real anyway. And so we bring it upon. Yeah. When it comes to physical training, what are you more into Jodie's into CrossFit? I'm more into just straight bodybuilding. What do you personally like not what you teach your clients? What I've personally been into is the Olympic lifts that CrossFit has made more prevalent and top of mind for people. I've bounced around at different things in different periods of my life. I think it is a journey. And part of that journey is the layers of an onion and you get deeper and deeper into why you're staying consistent, why you're working out, what brings the joy and then finding more things that fit that joy. We've all probably been there. I have to do this today. And I don't want to do it. But I will go do it. I end up skipping. But long story short, I'm really into the Olympic lifts because they're perfect for my personality. It allows me that analytical side. But then when you're doing it, and Jodie knows you can't overthink because you're going to hesitate and slow yourself down anyway. So once you're grabbing the bar, it's go time. So for me, it works out really well for my personality because it's like a measure twice cut once. Yeah, I think you crossfitters and nuts anyway. And likewise, we think the bodybuilders are nuts. Hey, look how much weight they're moving. I do both. I do both. I am the weirdo that does body building on her own. And then does crossfit three times a week and I hear guff from both gyms. You can't wait either way. I like it. I like being. Yeah, I like that. Like I just did a competition at a bodybuilding gym. And I was one of the few teams that didn't have somebody vomiting during it. And I think that's because I do crossfit. So I like the world model that experience. Exactly. Yeah. And I think crossfit's great too, because it brings back to that community aspect. And if you look at like longevity and health, right, fitness, we're trying to improve our life, quality of life, length of life, they study these blue zones where people are living to 100 and densely populated areas. And one of the lowest common denominator factors is they're tied in with their community. I'm Seventh-day Adventists, which is Loma Linda. We're the longest. My wife did medical school in Loma Linda. And so we're the longest lived people in the world. One thing about those blue zones is that the other blue zones are actually declining, because they're letting American Western diet infiltrate their communities. Whereas for us, we don't let it infiltrate because part of the reason we are healthy and remain healthy is religious reasons, right? So you're not just going to trade that for American values if you really believe it. And so that's why our longevity maintains. And yes, blue zone right here. Yeah. Oh, all for it. Yeah. So like connect with community. But like you said, the diet, like most of the blue zones adopt more Mediterranean diet, which is more plants and fruits and vegetables, some grains, and then historically speaking, that they were farmed areas, and they would have protein, maybe like slaughter a chicken on the wheat. They weren't eating protein, you know, crazy, because it wasn't as available as it is now. I think the issue with people who eat meat, because I'm not one who I'm 100% plant based, but Jody knows I'm not one who's against meat. I think it's just sometimes like anything, right? Because I know some plant based people who try to promote health and they look like a skeleton walking, you know, they don't do any resistance training. They think it's all about cardio and all that. So you can get extremes. The only thing is that sometimes my wife being a medical doctor and we have a medical business is that some of them refuse to include vegetables and fruit. All they want is the bread and the meat, right, or the potato and the meat. And potatoes are good for you, but if that's all you eat, you know, you got to be balanced. And so I think that's the mistake a lot of people make, especially when it comes to fiber and meat eaters. Yeah, fiber gets a bad rap, right? But there's nothing nature made or God made that doesn't have sugar that also has a ton of fiber. Where does that exist? It's exists in the supermarket where we've stripped the fiber and just the sugar, just the sensory overload, make one to eat more, buy more. How are you familiar with Blue Zones? You brought it up, obviously, you were going to go somewhere before I interrupt it. Sorry. But how are you familiar with Blue Zones? Probably my deep dive with ulcer colitis, learning from Dr. Gundry, Mark Sisson, Mark Hyman, Dr. Walter Wongo, and getting into more of the Blue Zones. If what I'm doing for people is supposed to improve their health, and this is our overarching goal, why don't I go learn from the people who are already doing it, right? Learning from the people who are living to 100, and not just in nursing homes, but are like up and about, walking, playing with their community, sitting on the floor and standing up. And so that's what made me do the deep dive and learn about Blue Zones. Okay. Yeah. And what I tell people, obviously, Seventh Day Adventists are the longest-lived people, but what they all have in common is not just the diet, it's the community, as we were talking about earlier, is the sense of taking time to smell the roses and enjoy life to get out of the stress. I tell people that I rest on Saturdays, and it's in a weight community, so I don't get into the religion too much, because out of respect to that. But it's not just that I rest from the physical weights. I also rest from, I don't look at work stuff. I don't look at paying bills stuff. I unplug from sports, from, you know, too heavy on the social media. I really take the data, not just get away from the weights, but to be proactive in nurturing relationships with God, with my family, my wife, my daughters, my friends, because let's face it, we got to work. Kids are in school, our husbands at work, wife is at work, but on Saturdays, all that is put aside by the entire family, and we just take 24 hours to concentrate on each other. So let me ask you- And it's a reminder too. Go ahead, go ahead. No, go ahead. I was just going to say, I think it connects us back to what we're here for anyway, is to sing, dance, play, laugh, enjoy. But you got to be profitable in order to be charitable. You got to be able to do what you need to do so you can do what you want to do. But I think it's such an under-looked aspect of health as being your sense of purpose, your sense of belonging, your sense of community, being around others. I had a good conversation with the guy at the gym the other day, and we were just talking about how much we'd love to still work out at the gym, because sometimes you're not feeling it, and sometimes I'll literally just sit on the bench getting ready, and I'm just absorbing the energy from the room. Wow, look at that girl getting after it. Look at that guy getting after it. It's galvanizing, right? It's contagious, and it makes me like, "Okay, I'm ready. I'm mustering up the energy and the courage. Here we go." Okay, in the few minutes we got remaining, if people wanted to contact you, what's the best way to reach you? So my website is ThinkFitnessLife.com. I have a contact form right on there. I always urge people, if we're in person, all the more better, always give consultations for free, first workout free, or ThinkFitnessLife on Instagram also, but that's why the best way for people to find us. Okay, Jody, any questions before I wrap us up? Yes, if you were to talk to the old you or somebody that's struggling with the mental health aspects that you went through, what nugget of hope would you give them, that it doesn't always have to feel that way? I'd probably just want to, it probably sounds so corny, but I would just really like to remind them, you can do it. You absolutely can build up the life you want to live. It might not be easy, and you won't do it alone, but you can do it. Integrate systems together. Synergy exists. The sum, or the greater together versus the sum of separate parts exists. The compound effect is real, so little bits of effort and time and energy in the direction you want to live consistently will build. Big doors swing on small hinges, so don't undervalue the small step of just getting up out of bed and making your bed. It can be as simple as just making that your habit first, and then building off of that. That's awesome. Thank you for being on the Mindful Muscle Podcast. Gio and Jodi, thank you so much. I hope we provided some helpful information to your listeners. Yes, I think we have so many unique perspective, and we've been missing some testosterone on the podcast besides mine. We've had a lot of women guessed, but it's good to have your voice and to hear a man be it vulnerable and open. I think too many men hide it behind a tough guy veneer, and I think the real tough guy understands that he is holistic and needs to address every aspect of his mind, body, and soul, and so I appreciate you opening up and sharing your wisdom with us. Absolutely, Gio. I had a great time. I do it again, and I think just to piggyback on that, yeah, men have higher failure rates, higher dropout rates, higher suicide rates, so I think it's important that we include the male voice, just not in a toxic manner. We have to learn to integrate with one another and lift each other up, because we have more in common than what separates us. Yep, amen for that. So thank you once again for those who are listening on the Mindful Muscle Podcast. Think Fitness Life is his Instagram, youadda.com, you get to his website, hit him up, free consultation, and a free workout. You can't beat it because free is always on the budget. God bless, take care.
