The Sevan Podcast - #31 - Doctor Nick

Episode Date: May 8, 2021

The Sevan Podcast EP 31 - Doctor Nick and Brian Friend The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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it's a little taco meat you gotta let it out let it out for the world to see you you better have like a menorah or a cross or some shit dangling from that no i don't feel the need to wear anything like that no jewelry dr nick hi hello how are you today savon i'm good i um i quit drinking coffee two or three weeks ago now and i've done like five podcasts without a bathroom break it's not just coffee i quit it's caffeine and i i'm i'm convinced i'm convinced what why why'd you quit oh caffeine um you know my life has always gotten better when i give things up you know so like you have you have five motorcycles and you get rid of four and then

you're spending a lot less time with registration and at the DMV and with like taking bikes to the shop. And you have four girlfriends and you get rid of three. And all of a sudden you're spending a lot less time on the phone. And so just my whole life has always gotten better when I give things up. And I would I would wake up every morning and that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to drink coffee. So I thought, OK, I'll mix this up a little bit. And, uh, I'll quit drinking coffee for a year. I already quit, um, sugar, refined carbohydrates, uh, nuts, seeds. So I'm just like, all right, let's just go. What else can I give up? I'm not giving up my three boys or my, or my wife.

Yeah. I don't know if I can fall in line. I'm with you on the garbage, the sugar, the, the, but coffee specifically black coffee, you know, with, the sugar, the, the, but coffee specifically black coffee, you know, with, with the, there have been innumerable amount of benefits that have been found. And I think the most important one for, for people like us, crossfitters is that I specifically drink black coffee. I walked into the gym drinking black coffee. I started drinking it 30 minutes before the strength session because coffee is an, is an ergogenic. It makes you one to five percent stronger and it causes fatty acid uh not fatty acid metabolism but fatty acid uh uh uh liberation

so essentially it it causes the adipose tissue to be broken down in a triglycerol fatty acids which then your muscles can metabolize during your strength session. So it doesn't help that much with fat loss, but even one to 10% extrapolated over a year, extrapolated over 10 years is huge. So I don't drink it with any sugar, no creamer, none of that crap, just black coffee. And I specifically do not do it when I wake up. It's only 30 minutes before the gym. And on the days that I don't. Oh, we lost your audio we lost your audio did you lose his audio brian yep i will say this do you know how happy people are that they heard dr nick just say that just now they're like thank god he's he unfucked that crazy guy seven on a quick caffeine

yeah yeah i mean that was horrid people hate to pay people hate to people hate to hear me say that that i quit drinking caffeine so you just saved a bunch of people they're like oh yeah yeah the doctor knows someone's crazy that's good um ergogenic what did you say it's ergogenic but what was the word you use and what's it mean so so it just means performance enhancer um obviously that is a legal performance enhancer, not like steroids. But anything that's an ergogenic helps you with performance, whether it's sports or CrossFit or the gym. All I care about is that it helps me deadlift 10 to 15 to 20 more pounds, helps me clean more, helps me snatch more. I don't even know that I should be.

This isn't being recorded right now, right? Oh, it is. But we don't have. But we can we can we can crop out anything you want no it's fine i just i have some secrets at the gym that i don't like revealing uh dr nick let me interrupt you for a second brian i'm getting a message it says this computer is brian's computer is not allowing riverside to record please make sure they refresh the refresh the page to continue recording. Would

you mind refreshing your page? Sure. Banish for a second. Thank you. So when I ride the assault bike now, the first three minutes are significantly harder now that I don't drink coffee. And I really like your tactic because, but I was drinking like two to 10 cups a day and it was getting out of control. I was basically drinking coffee as a, as a meal supplement, you know? And, uh, and I put heavy cream in it and it, it, it's just a break I'm going to take. Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. I thought about drinking it before every podcast because I think I'm better when I'm, when I'm hopped up a little bit. every podcast because I think I'm better when I'm, when I'm hopped up a little bit. And, and Siobhan, that makes complete, I mean, coffee is a stimulant, right? I mean, it's, it's something that, so I do intermittent fasting. I don't know if you want to get into that or not, but intermittent fasting combined with coffee. I remember in the past, like I think a year ago,

before going into podcasts, I would make sure that I was between 18 hours fasted and 20 hours fasted. And then I would also drink black coffee. I mean, it is, coffee has so many benefits, right? I'm over here talking about fat loss and stronger, but even from a negative standpoint, it has benefits that you have noted, right? You have subjectively noted that you feel better going into a podcast. That's not, that's not, that's not, you know, hokey nonsense. That's. That's a feeling that has been ratified by you, I'm sure, over the duration of many podcasts. So that's something I've noticed. And listen, all I would tell you is, and I do the same with my patients, just make sure that your coffee, that you're ending it at a time that it does not disrupt your sleep because our coffee's half-life

it has a very extended half-life has so the half-life of any substance is the amount of time that it takes either your liver or your kidneys or your body in general to break it down to 50 of its constituents so the half-life of caffeine specifically is pretty long. It can range from like five to 10 hours in some people. So as long as you're stopping drinking your coffee by about noon, so it does not, well, I'm assuming you go to bed at the same time other people go to bed, 9, 10, 11 PM. But as long as it's not interfering with your ability to go to bed, drink up. As long as it's black and it doesn't have a bunch of sugar and crap, absolutely drink up. It's good stuff. Brian, your recording is working.

I don't have any problems sleeping and I never had any problems sleeping, but something has changed in my sleeping. That's for sure. When I wake up, I feel a little – I don't know how to explain it. Maybe like I slept a little more sound. I slept a little more sound. But anyway, it's good. It's an easy experiment to, you know, it's, it's fun experimenting with your body, obviously, especially in ways that, you know, you're not hurting it. So, but, but, but you're tempting me. I feel like starting up the coffee machine right now. Someone's like, are you going to give your coffee machine away? Oh, no, I'm not

that committed. I might go back. I don't know. Nick, what's your last name? Noboiza. Noboiza? Yep. And what kind of name is that? It's a Nigerian name. And did you not like that question?

Yeah, you got very serious. No, no. No, okay. You know me well enough, but I am never very serious unless I'm talking with my patients, and you're not my patient. So I'm just looking around. I like to maintain situational awareness, you know. Okay. And because when I saw Dr. Nick, I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's his first name.

And why do you go by your first name? Because ever since med school, it's been very difficult for patients to pronounce that, Savan. And to be completely honest, I remember even before technically I had the MD in med school, I would walk into a room. I don't know. I was rounding on a patient. I needed to figure out their status for the day. And they would fixate. They would perseverate, as us doctors love to say. So perseverate means they just will just focus on my name. Like, Oh, where's your name from? How do you say it? Oh, help me with it. Break it down. And I'm like, I remember in med school thinking like, I have 20 patients to see. I don't have time for this. Call me Nick. Let's move on. So, Hey, and when, and when you have a tough name, people, um, and I'm, I'm speaking about, when someone has a tough name, I kind of shy away from them, even if I don't want to.

So let's say I want to engage you and you're Dr. Neboisa. I might not. I'll be like, oh, shit, I'm not saying that. So I'm just not going to talk to him because I don't want to screw that up. So, yeah, totally, totally valid. And, you know, no one ever says my name right. And not never, but rarely. And I've had friends say my name. No, Sevan.

Sevan. Sevan. There, you said it. Yep. Sevan. Okay. I'm sorry. I guess I'll say it. No, no, no. But I had a friend get really mad at me one time. They heard me introduce myself to someone and I go, I'm Sevan. And she goes, I've been calling you Sevan for the last five years. Why didn't you correct me? I'm like, yo, when you got a name like Sevan, you stopped correcting people way, way early in the game. I've always been very surprised by people who get super anal about their name and very upset when people mispronounce it. And I'm like, are you that attached to it? I mean, I understand it's your name, but like it's it's not a big deal. So, you know, people people are allowed to get emotional about what they want to get emotional about.

Think of the psychological implication of Brian. His last name is Friend, Brian Friend. You know, that's changed the course of his life. Like it's, it's probably made people nicer to him, right? I very, very frequently am treated very well by the TSA agents at the airport. Yeah. I think that's a very valid test of all the people too. So it's so funny guys in Ohio, one of the gyms that I used to drop into not primarily train up But drop into was this gym called friendship CrossFit and I remember from my first day of going there I always thought to myself. I mean with a name like French across it

Everyone in the gym is gonna be super nice and down to earth and blah blah blah So yeah, I totally get your last name Brian. I just feel like people are gonna you know I just I can't imagine you being angry for the life of me, Brian. You, you, you're not allowed to get angry ever. Well, not everyone loves the name though. My, my mom and my sister both legally changed their names to suit, suit some of their spiritual studies and abandoned the name friend. Wow. Okay.

That's surprising. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe they should have chosen whatever language they chose they should have whatever you know their new last name is it should mean friend at least to keep some consistency right did they brian no no no they wanted a clean clean disconnect from that um dr nick why what um what is your specialty in medicine? I'm primary care. I was family medicine trained. So I run the gamut from kiddos, children, to adults, to the geriatric population. When I was in residency, I used to deliver babies.

I don't know, I've delivered over 100 babies. I just don't do that anymore because we could get into that. But trust me, you don't want to be a doctor who deliver babies. I don't know. I've delivered over 100 babies. I just don't do that anymore because we could get into that. But trust me, you don't want to be a doctor who delivers babies. I got in trouble, a little bit of trouble last week or a couple days ago because on the podcast, the other podcast I do, I mentioned that the preferred form of birth is vaginal and it's a better birth than C-section. And I triggered some people. Hey, in myinal and it's a better birth than c-section and i triggered some people hey it's my opinion it's the 100 truth it's like wait but why why did it trigger people i mean that's not because i wouldn't disagree with that because people immediately think that you're judging them and it's not that i'm judging them or people want to defend the

status quo that you know like hey some people have to have it and it's a it's a it's a rabbit hole but i do believe in my opinion from the research i've done it's not vast but more people have c-sections if if 100 people have c-sections at least 51 of them didn't need it and and that's my opinion and i think it does a disservice to the health of the baby. Sure. So now in the hospital, we often try something called a VBAC after the first C-section, after a mother delivers a child with the first C-section. So VBAC stands for vaginal birth after C-section. It isn't always successful, but I mean, to be honest, I, I, I agree with you. I remember, I can't tell you all the things anymore because like I said, I used to, I'm far away now from delivering babies.

But for example, when you have a vaginal childbirth, you're one. And this is just, what's so amazing about the human body, the mom pushing the child out, um, uh, with, with a vaginal birth actually helps the lungs to activate because when the baby is inside the womb, those lungs, they're not functional. They're flooded in fluid. And I mean, the baby doesn't need that in the womb. You have the umbilical cord that's applying the baby with everything it needs. But obviously in its transition out to the, to the, to the real world, those lungs need to become functional. So one of the functions of all that vaginal compression as the baby is being delivered is to actually push fluid out from the lungs and help that child transition to being able

to breathe in normal air. That's just one, that's just one example,, Sivan. So in my mind, I absolutely agree with you. I think that from a kind of holistic standpoint, that is the most natural type of birth. Anyone who thinks that you're judging them because you say that, I mean, listen, we live in a world where, I'm sorry, there are like too many snowflakes, too many people who are like, you know, way too concerned about what other people think about them. I mean, I'm sure you didn't even say it in a judgmental way, but they want to assume that and they're going to run with it. And then you're going to cause a shit storm. So whatever it is, what it is.

Two, three things. That's amazing. So that also explains why any women who are wondering why their vaginas are so small and the babies are so big. I mean, it's functional. It starts up the lungs. Because you think we give birth to smaller babies so they came out easier. Those women are, man. I've seen four births and the women are, it is a miracle.

It's life changing. It's life changing just to witness it. It was amazing. It's life-changing. It's life-changing just to witness it. It was amazing. I loved every single one. You mentioned in your – oh, by the way, anyone who wants to see a VBAC birth, there's an incredible picture on Dr. Nick's Instagram, and I'll put a link to that.

And you can see he posted a while back a picture of a baby coming out of a VBAC birth. Maybe it's so long ago you don't remember, but it's incredible. They're pulling the baby out, and you can see he posted a while back a picture of a baby coming out of a VBAC birth. Maybe it's so long ago you don't remember. But it's incredible. They're pulling the baby out and you can see the baby's head and a little bit of its torso. You don't remember that? Are you talking about the one where they're in the amniotic sac and it hasn't been ruptured yet? Oh, I don't think so unless I didn't look at the picture closely. I just saw the human body.

You have some incredible posts on there. You have that one post where someone's cut open and you can see their heart beating. You have the other one where the skin's missing on the top of someone's hands, and you can see them opening and closing their hands. But there was a picture of a baby, and it said V-back birth. Isn't this fascinating or something? And it's a baby. Was that baby in at Saksdale? To be honest, I don't remember that post. Okay. Okay. I can, I can tell you from

what you're telling me that that must've been years ago because I actually had a number of people reach out to me even years ago and tell me like, please stop posting these pictures, especially the one with the hand, the one with the heart. They were like, it's just, and I get it. I'm personally not the type I can see. Obviously I've seen human beings in some pretty messed up situations and it doesn't, I doesn't affect me. However, my mistake is in thinking that all that blood and gore doesn't affect other people. And it does. So I stopped, I stopped posting those things. I, it must've been some years ago. I liked it. I vote. If you're taking a poll, I like it. I have no issues with the inside of the human body. I'm not squirmish at all.

It's fascinating. We're fortunate that we're in a day and age where we can actually look inside of our body. You mentioned, this goes back to what you were saying about snowflakes. You mentioned about the balance between empathy and candor in one of your posts. And it's a very important topic, I think, today. And sorry, I know I'm digging stuff out. I went through your entire Instagram. Empathy and candor. And there's something in there also about people who seek sympathy. And you talk about the importance of listening to people, and words not yours but not necessarily feeding like listen to them hear them but don't support their their own negative maybe or yeah their negative mindset don't give them

affirmation that they're in a good space and that they should dwell in that you know like how how is that being a doctor that must be a very very delicate balance it is it is and that's why i tell people all the time uh savon hey i'm let me this is i'm totally going to go down another route here but now every time i say your word i'm sorry every time i say your name i'm actually thinking about how to say uh we uh, we, uh, maybe, maybe just say it, just say it. Um, but no, to answer your question, I think that, and other physicians have said this and I completely agree being a good doctor is, is a lot of people are thinking it's, oh, it's all education. And yeah, sure. We go to school a lot, but I think a lot of it is just being able to talk to people,

right. Being able to get people to open up to you. Um, sometimes being somebody's therapist, other times being, you know, somebody's psychiatrist and prescribing something if you absolutely need to, um, other times, hopefully being somebody's, uh, maybe not their personal trainer, but hopefully you can show them the door to a CrossFit or any other avenue of fitness that they want. Yeah. And to answer your question, I think that it's absolutely, you just have to listen well to a patient, right? Because all too often you will have people indulging in exactly what you implied. So I don't remember what posts, I'm sorry. I don't even know how many posts I have. And sometimes can't remember all this stuff I've said. However, from what you just said, is that the way I think now? Absolutely. So I'm going to,

I'm going to ratify whatever you just said, because that sounds like something I would say. And essentially I just don't believe in a victim mindset, right? In a victim mentality, we all have gone through shit in our lives in one way or another. And, um, kind of, we, we can't, we can't, uh, we can't belabor that point, right? We can't be freaking pigs in the mud and just roll around in that and just, and just fixate on that, at least in my opinion. Um, so sometimes to get out of that position, you need to talk to somebody who is not going to be accepting of that mindset, somebody who is not going to want to strengthen and reinforce that mindset of yours, but it's going to listen, right? It's going to be attentive, but it's going to offer you an alternative, uh, an alternative

perspective that you didn't necessarily think of. And then hopefully give you, viewpoint that will strengthen you going forward that will that will embolden you that will make you not make you but encourage you to be better a year from now as opposed to stuck in the same place that you are so yeah I think yeah it's a delicate balance but you you just you you just do it man I don't know how else to say it. There needs to be candor. You need to be honest, but you definitely need to sympathize and then kind of help them out of that, help them out of that drudgery.

I mean, even if you're their doctor, right? I will say that that is harder some places than others, right? So I'm currently a doctor on SteadyMD where I see patients all around the United States. And my appointments are, I think my shortest appointment has been 30 minutes. My longest appointment has been two and a half hours. And that time is crucial, Saban. And why is it crucial? Because a doctor in the office who has to see 30 patients a day does not have time to listen to you. They don't have time to empathize with you. They don't have time to indulge every nuance of your situation.

They're going to be very straightforward. You may look at them and be like, wow, this guy's a jerk. He's being crass. He's cutting me off. But it's kind of the name of the game in that situation so i think that when you do have more time with patients absolutely empathize sit down talk to them understand where they're coming from the whole time in your brain be thinking about how can you help them reframe thing i think that's a perfect word re listen everyone has a frame that

they view things through right so so it doesn't matter doesn't matter if you're in the shit and if things are bad for you, if you're not able to reframe those things appropriately and look at them from another angle and then kind of make a plan to get out of that. You keep opening up new doors and i keep wanting to go back to some old ones um what is steady md so steady md is uh we are a medical group that is based online um i'm sorry i just cramped my hamstring just cramped we did some our wad today was crazy. I'm sorry. First guest with a live on air cramp, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Nick, Dr. Nick pickle juice to Dr. Nick, please. All right. All right. Um, so yeah, city of B is a, uh, um, online. Uh, it's a medical group like any other medical group.

It's like we are entirely online. We're comprised of I think 30 or 40 doctors right now, all very much involved in physical activity, whether it's CrossFit or marathon training or triathlons or rock climbing. We are all very active. And we believe ultimately in having smaller patient panels. And the reason why I say that is because the average primary care doctor out in the clinic out and about that you go and see has two to 3000 patients on their panel. Wow. They have two, they're seeing two to 3000 patients over the course of a year. How much time? I mean, you should not be shocked when it seems that they don't have that much time for you. So we have maybe a tenth to one fifth of the amount of patients and we give them more time as it pertains to being

responsive to them and helping them from a holistic standpoint. Many of us fundamentally believe in activity and encouraging our patients to move more, to eat well, to make better choices from a stress management standpoint, from a sleep standpoint. I'm huge on sleep myself. And I think it shows. I literally had a patient yesterday. I saw a 48-year-old. Where was she? She lived somewhere in California who was coming to me because her

doctor was telling her to quit. She had an abdominal, at least from what she told him, she had an abdominal strain. It's just a strain. Like you rest a couple of days, it'll be fine. She went to her doctor. What did her doctor say? Oh, how'd you get that strain? I got it with CrossFit. You need to quit CrossFit. Here are some exercises that you can do for your core at home that are much, much safer than CrossFit. You should quit that. Now, this woman is telling me, this is our first appointment. She's like, it was at that point that she realized that she needed a new doctor because, you know, she's in her 40s. She's significantly overweight.

She has a family history a prolific family history of diabetes of type 2 diabetes and she knows that she needs to do something right so she she conjured up the the courage the the spirit and walked into her local affiliate and has found something that she enjoys doing And now you have some doctor telling her, despite the fact that I guarantee you, if we were to trend multiple, you know, multiple from her physical attributes to multiple biomarkers, I would guarantee you if we were to trend them from the time that she started CrossFit, she's slowly but surely improving, right? But that doctor doesn't see any of that. All that doctor sees, sees unfortunately is all the nonsense they've heard about CrossFit and pop culture and they're encouraging her to quit so setting a B Docs specifically I know it's not just me it's probably

literally all 40 something of us we like to whether it's CrossFit or rock climbing or I don't know freaking pickleball. We want to encourage people to continue doing what they enjoy doing. And then essentially we're about presenting alternatives when they have an injury, where, you know, present a solution, a therapy and present a temporary alternative. For example, if somebody came to me who was cross-feeding

and they're like, yeah, doc, I can't do an air squat anymore. I'm going to, at least myself, I'm going to encourage that they scale appropriately, you know, and, and don't kind of don't do anything that will exacerbate that injury. I'm not going to tell them, don't go to the gym. I mean, can you row without pain? Have fun on the, have fun on the erg. Can you, can you, I don't know, bike, can you hit the assault bike without pain? You know, there, there are. Can you can you I don't know, but can you hit the assault bike without pain? You know, there are alternatives you can do. I don't think the solution is to ever tell anybody to stop doing what they love.

So going back to your question, yeah, studying is just a very different. We're very in the fact that we understand where patients are coming from. understand where patients are coming from. We have the time to help them improve their life in a holistic way, focusing on prevention as opposed to, you know, I would argue that most doctors, especially specialists, are reactive instead of proactive. Now, listen, I'm not over here saying there's anything wrong with emergency medicine doctors or cardiothoracic surgeons. No, there's nothing wrong with that. They have their place in society.

What I am saying is that there should be a much greater emphasis placed on prevention throughout society. I mean, why do we have the diabetes epidemic that we have? You know, we have it because there is not this emphasis that is being placed on preventing type 2 diabetes so when sorry brian when you met when you you said something really really powerful there to me when as i climbed the the the food chain when i was working at crossfit and then finally i was running the entire media team there were like 70 people working for me and one of the other executives pulled me aside. I had said something.

I don't remember exactly what I said. He goes, hey, you can't say that anymore. And he goes, why? He goes, because like people, the higher you up in the food chain, when you say stuff, people will jump. You have to understand that every little movement you do now shakes your boat, shakes the entire boat. When you're just a guy on the bottom, you say something, it's okay.

It doesn't rock the whole boat. And it requires a whole different level kind of awareness. And you said something really, really big there. Doctors are at the top of the food chain. And for a doctor to tell her to stop doing CrossFit from the top of the food chain is a complete lack of awareness. Yeah. And you even said, yeah, you, you recognize the confidence and the hurdle she had to make as an obese woman in her forties to walk into a CrossFit gym. That's no joke. At that point, you've like, you've really, you've really, um, you know, uh, you've crossed a big barrier. That's a huge accomplishment in itself and that's a i really appreciate that that's that's a significant point i think yeah how difficult is it sorry how

difficult is it to to get a steady md doctor if you want one it's not difficult you go to the website you sign up um so so we have a quiz a steady and be quiz that asks you about your daily habits, meditation, exercise, your nutrition. If you follow Whole30, paleo, keto, any of that. And then on the back end, it's essentially cross matching you against doctors who are familiar. We may not live your lifestyle, but we're familiar with your lifestyle. For example, I've done stints of keto in the past. I still do intermittent fasting. So I'm aware of kind of many different nutrition types, um, and that it appropriately matches you with the top three doctors that you match with. Um, and then you can select amongst those three doctors, you can select who you'd like. And all those doctors who are presented to you are licensed to practice medicine in your state. So I can't be everybody's doctor.

I currently have about, I think, high 20s or low 30s medical license in terms of a medical state medical licenses so um kind of the implication is steady and being will match you with a doctor who has a license to practice medicine in your state who most closely aligns with your lifestyle and how do you really quickly so to go back to what you were saying absolutely agree with that i think i think what you were told when you were working your way up crossfit well that's profound right and i think that that's exactly why listen man i have my opinions i have general opinions on on everything but i very much am able to separate and compartmentalize in my brain the difference between um my opinions that are objective and that are evidence-based and those that are simply opinions that you know that if you and I have a really good

discussion you could absolutely change my mind on and you know with that said whether it's on my Instagram or otherwise I'm very or to my patients I'm very very careful of saying something black and white to my patient or saying something black and white on Instagram. Um, that especially may be contentious, right? If it's a contentious opinion that is not necessarily verifiable, it's not necessarily backed up by evidence. Good luck getting me to say it. I'm not, I'm not going to say that because so, so my undergrad, I didn't even. OK, so my undergrad is mechanical engineering. Right. So I have a BS in mechanical engineering from Michigan State University.

And I think that because of that, right, I am very data driven and very like I don't I don't care about anyone's opinions. So if you're not able to show me verifiable data, I will tell you in your face of like, get lost. I truly don't care. So, you know, in my opinion, I think that I would agree with what you were told. The higher up you go, you cannot just say things, especially, and that's why this is my biggest issue with social media people. I don't know, Paris Hilton, whoever, who has millions of Instagram followers, right? And then they're just talking out of their, you know what, and saying random things. And I'm like, you have no idea how much damage you just did based on a tenuous opinion that if I sat down across from you

and asked you to rationalize to me, you would not be able to explain the rationale in a way that I could not destroy. And you just simply because you have a platform, you just propagated that amongst millions of people. So, yeah, I think, you know, what's what's his name? Peter Parker's dad said it best, right? With great responsibility or with great power comes great responsibility. And, you know, whether you're rising the ranks in CrossFit or a doctor or the freaking president of the United States, you need to recognize your duty, your responsibility

to check your mouth before you open it without sound and logical reasoning and the data to back it up. I don't remember if it was Allen Iverson or Charles Barkley, but early on in their careers, one of them said, hey, I don't want to be a role model or shit. Maybe it was Tupac. I can't remember. And at the time I was young and I remember thinking, yeah, fuck that.

Everyone can be themselves. You don't have to be a role model. But as I've gotten older and wiser, we are all role models, whether we like it or not. And I've used this example before. You light up at a cigarette in a room and you're telling everyone in the room that smoking is okay. You eat donuts with your friends and you're telling everyone eating donuts is okay. It's just how we are as creatures. We're just reflecting each other, mirroring each other, trying to fit in. And we're all role models for each other, mirroring each other, trying to fit in. And, uh, we're all role models for each other.

Especially, especially kids, right? And you, I don't have kids yet. I know you have kids, but that's especially why, I mean, they, they are super impressionable. So you need to keep it, you know, before you just do something off a whim, you need to be very careful about what you're doing around children. Cause you don't want to be the wrong role models for them. I haven't had a drink in eight months and the other day i heard my son telling um i don't remember who but oh yeah my dad drinks beer all the time i'm like and he's six and i haven't had a drink in eight months and he's still he thinks i drink he thinks i drink beer yeah i called him over and say yo i don't drink beer you knock that shit out he goes

yeah you do i'm like nah nah i quit that shit i quit that shit he's like oh and then he goes why i'm like i just makes me fat it's got sugar in it he's like okay okay that made sense not just not not just not just sugar but phytoestrogens did you know that that people who consistently drink beer especially you know voluminous amounts of beer they have lower testosterone than people who don't which is why it's so hilarious when i'm out with friends and they're trying to get me listen i'll drink i have no problem drinking but anyone who knows me knows i won't drink that much they don't understand why i understand why because i'm trying to do everything i can to keep my testosterone up snatch as as much as possible in the gym, clean as much as possible.

Like I don't care about getting drunk and, you know, taking up phytoestrogens with you people. That's just me. In the early years when I would hang with Greg a lot, we would drink a shit ton of Coors Light. I mean we drank so much Coors Light. We drank Coors Light every single day, every single event, tons of Coors Light. And then one time him and I were at a Starbucks and there was a doctor there just sitting there and he had some manual that you guys have. It's like a 40-pound giant book and he's looking through it and Greg walks over to him and goes, what are you doing? And the guy starts talking.

He's like, I'm looking at the relationship between yeast and nucleic acid and type two diabetes. And he starts in him and Greg start having this conversation. And I think a lot of this stuff that I'm talking about is also in a book called The Fat Switch written by. God, the guy had a funky name like Richard Dick or seriously something like that. It was a trippy name. But but from that day on, so we walked away from that conversation and Greg goes, I'm never drinking another beer ever again. And I'm thinking to myself, are you crazy? You drink five to 50 beers a day.

There's no way you're stopping. And he did. He switched to Tito's and soda, but he never, ever drank another beer again. And of course, since I hang out with him, I never drank it. I stopped drinking beer too. Stefan, you were very close. Richard Johnson. Yeah, Richard Johnson.

I'm telling you, the guy's name is Richard Johnson. Can you imagine that name? Dick Johnson. Yeah, Dick Johnson. That's awesome. Oh, that's funny. It's like his parents hate him or love him. I know, right?

Yeah, no, I remember hearing what the anecdote you just brought up in the interview with Greg that you had back in the day. And yeah, that's super impressive. You know, can I just say, by the way, man, I miss Greg. I think the first time I met him was at a DDC. And was it 2018 or 2019 and um yeah that man can captivate an audience and speak with authority and yeah definitely uh hope he's doing greg if you're watching this miss you i hope you're doing well he's doing great he he is he's living the dream he obviously um my, I believe, I speak to him frequently, and I believe he misses, he wants to keep, he really enjoyed talking about health.

He really enjoyed spreading the truth. Right. And we are definitely in an environment today where the truth is not welcome if it offends someone's feelings. Heroes. Yeah. today where the truth is not welcome if it offends someone's you know feelings yeah so those of us who who you know it's impressive how much you go out on a limb being that you're still employed i'm not employed so shit i can go out on a limb all day but man it's it's a it's a tough world out there one of the most uh common uh communications i have daily common communications i have on instagram is people saying, thank you.

I'm so scared to say anything because I'll lose my job or my mom will hate me or my dad will hate me. It's a tricky world to navigate right now. Yeah, it is. And, yeah, I mean, I remember multiple people, especially on my Instagram, asking me about what I thought about Greg's comments when he said them. And I was like i'm sorry but listen this is all i have to say about that this and then we'll move on but you know i've lived my entire life being a black man and what that is the ability to be very astute and picking up from people through nonverbal body language and verbal communication,

whether or not they are racist or whether or not they have some prejudice in them. And I've talked with Greg enough times. Like that man is not raised. He was essentially hung out to dry based on BS. Okay. Did he say something that was crass? Yes. But this is Greg Glassman we're talking about. He says, OK, he says stuff that's crass all the time. There's, you know, that's not that doesn't mean that it's racist. So, yeah, it is. It is what it is. But I'm glad it was considered.

It was considered crass when he told the world to stop eating carbohydrates 20 years ago. Right. People threatened his life for that. Yeah. Seriously. I mean yes yes yes crazy right i mean 20 people don't realize especially you know people who are you know under 30 how old are you dr nick sorry did i ask you that already 36 37 37 um 37 um that's the age

i always tell people they start getting old. Sorry. That's that. And you know why that is? That's when you have to be fit because you have to get you have to warm up like a mofo starting at 37. Warm up starts to get crazy. Because I because I said, I walked into the gym today. Yeah. Prove me wrong. And it started starting my bench press.

Like, if you don't believe me. Oh, I'm not talking about bench press is a warmup. I'm talking about, I'm talking about like, you like, like before I could just take in. Yeah. Yeah. Air squats. Like before I would just go at Cindy, I would just walk into the garage and I would do 20 rounds of Cindy. I would just, I would game it one a minute and I would be like 20 rounds. Now my poor ass has to ride the assault bike for 10 minutes before I start Cindy.

So now it's kind of weird. You got to kind of have to be fitter to be older because you got to be covered in sweat before you're going to do whatever that is, 150 air squats and all those pushups and that mess. Yeah, it's a mess. And really, the only people who lost out is the world. Greg didn't lose out. He got rid really the only people who lost out is the world. Greg didn't lose out.

He got rid of the company at the perfect time. He's got hundreds of millions of dollars and in, and, and we don't have someone yelling at us from the treetops, stop eating sugar, stop eating refined carbohydrates and get moving. Why? Because from something, a post I saw on your Instagram,

91% of all pharmaceuticals are for the treatment of chronic disease. Yeah. And it's like, yeah. Is that amazing? Yeah, that blew me away. Actually, I picked my mom had cataract surgery today. Here's mad love to doctors. Man, they did a cataract surgery on her.

I picked her up an hour later. She can see better. I mean, it's just nuts what medicine can do. Unfortunately, when she was done, they offered her a Coke, a Sprite and a juice. But other than that, it was amazing. You think that's bad? I mean, you should see the shit that's served in hospital cafeterias, not just to patients, but to doctors.

Let's even take it a step further. In residency, I remember, so, you know, resident doctors, we have a residence lounge. What type of food do you think was available in the residence lounge for resident doctors? Skirt steak, Brussels sprouts, and for dessert, there was cold milk. Yeah, no. Try Skittles, gummy bears, potato chips,

just all types of crap. And here's the thing. I'm not going to sit here and be a hypocrite and tell you that I didn't eat it. I absolutely ate it. And here's the reason why. Anytime anybody who knows about the relationship between ghrelin and leptin and other other hormones associated with satiety and hunger knows that your hunger, when you are sleep deprived, good luck avoiding. No, no, no. When you are sleep deprived and there is garbage around you, there's garbage food, good luck avoiding it. And in residency, I mean, we're paid pittance. It's essentially nothing. You're overworked. You're sleep deprived, whatever. You're a budding doctor. I'm sorry. You're a, you're overworked you're sleep deprived whatever you're a budding doctor i'm sorry you're

you're a new doctor you have to go through this like every other doctor in the past has so you now essentially are are put in an environment that i use this word on my instagram as well you are put in an obesogenic environment so it's no wonder that so many doctors graduate residency and they've put on 15 20 even more pounds right it's no wonder that so many doctors, graduate residency, and they've put on 15, 20, even more pounds, right? It's no wonder that so many doctors these days are overweight themselves and obese and feel like they are completely out of place recommending lifestyle changes to their patients. Because the crap that's served in hospitals, not just to patients, but also to doctors, I mean, it does more harm than good.

That's all the crap in your hotel room when you get back to your hotel room at 11 o'clock at night. You turn on the TV and all of a sudden your hunger starts pounding. And the next thing you know, you've eaten the box of Pringles that you haven't had in 20 years, all the gummy bears, the chocolate-covered almonds. Not if you're stocked up with Sogo snacks. Right. It's a snack that i feed my kids it's a it's a it's a beef stick there's no sugar in it it's a grass fed it's from new zealand i'm i i i started feeding my kids that stuff and then i reached out to the guy who owns the company it's a small farmer in uh iowa so i always i always

push their product i'm always like i always try to give them tons of love i i honestly i replaced like uh protein bars with that so like you know if i was gonna be out for several hours whatever i just throw a protein bar in my bag and then if you know i need something i have something but now i usually just throw one of those in there so it's so good like because i want to try that it's it's s-O-G-O? Yeah, S-O-G-O. And I don't make any money on it, but because I've been so supportive of them, they gave, if you use three plain brothers, you get 10% off on your order. And I would only get the plain beef, me personally.

I've tried their other ones. It's not my cup of tea. Okay. I'll give it a shot. I like it. Dr. Savant, can I go back to this? Yes. I'm genuinely interested in this SteadyMD because I rarely go to the doctor.

I usually go about every three years or so. And I always have the same feeling there. And kind of like you said, I'm just kind of being pushed through and whatever. And I'd asked you how easy it is to get a steady MD doctor on your end. Do you guys have the liberty to say like, Hey, you know, I feel like I have enough patients right now. I don't want to take any more on. Yep. I can completely right now, the time that we're talking right now, I blocked off the appointment last week when we talked about, you know, this potential time, I just blocked it off. So yeah, I can stop taking patients at any time. To be honest, I've

already kind of, I'm at the point where I alternate doing that. I have a lot of patients. So I will sometimes block my calendar because I don't ever want to get to the point where I have so many patients that I cannot give appropriate care at an appropriate response time to my current patients. I just, that, that would annoy me to no end. Even, even when I was a doctor in the office, I can't tell you how many times it annoyed me that a patient would come in, you know, and they would be like, Hey, Dr. Nick, you know, I want to, I want to address my high blood pressure.

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19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. But I want to address it with lifestyle changes and I would really appreciate if you help me with this. And I only have 10 minutes. I mean, and I'm new. Oh crap. It's 310 right now by 320. I have to see another patient. It's 310 right now by 320. I have to see another patient. So I'm over here, you know, talking a hundred, a mile a minute. Um, and, uh, and I'm not able to give them the time that I know in my head are, are there, are there things that I would recommend for this patient before putting them

on lisinopril before putting them on hydrochlorothiazide before putting them on any, you know, any number of medications, yes, there are many things that we can do, or that we should at least try before, before medications, right? Some people get this impression, oh, Dr. Nick is anti-med. I'm not. What I am is anti-people not giving appropriate lifestyle changes a chance over an appropriate enough duration, assuming that risk is low, right? And the person isn't about to stroke out or have a heart attack. If somebody comes into me with a blood pressure of 220 over 110, I'm absolutely putting that person on medication immediately because you could have, are you kidding me? You could have an aortic dissection. You could have a stroke. You could have a heart attack

at that blood pressure. But if somebody comes to me with, I don't know, 145 systolic, 145 over, over 85, over 90, I'm going to recommend there are so many other, I could get you exercising. I could fix your sleep. I could fix your stress. I could tell you to stop eating the processed junk that you're consistently eating, right? I mean, there are just so many things. And to be honest, more often than not, I mean, I think percentage-wise on a basis of probability, sleep is where most Americans could benefit, could improve things. And that would have a dramatic effect on so many aspects of their life. But still, I mean, hell, we live in America. I am not under any illusion of how many people eat crap on a daily basis and believe that it's good food.

Do you have any theories about why sleep is so bad? Is it too broad a question? No, no. I think it's because, I mean, hell, we live in a very fast-paced society that is all about productivity and all about, you know, maximizing the time that you have awake. And there is a certain part of it that's ignorance, that is straight-up ignorance, right? For example, I'll give you guys a fact right now that I can almost guarantee you don't know. Do you know that those who consistently, um, have poor sleep, uh, and have had poor sleep for many, many years, four to five hours a night have a much, much greater, um, uh, chance of developing Alzheimer's dementia into their geriatric years. I had, I had heard that. That's something about that happens in the, in the latter part of your sleeping. My mom was just telling me recently washes your brain. She probably follows you on

Instagram. Yeah. Something that, that washes your brain. She says, she goes, get enough sleep. I go, why? She goes at the end, your brain gets washed. I'm like, all right. That's a trippy thought. I think, you know, I've had this experience a lot, especially when I was in school, where there'd be people who are feeling pressed by a deadline. Oh, I've only got four hours to get this thing done. And, you know, I have the same deadline. And I would just feel like if I sit down right now and try to crank through these four hours of work, I'll have a product, but it won't be good when I know if I take two hours and sleep and wake up, I'll get way more done and create a much better product in the next two hours than I would have if I forced myself to work those four hours. But I think there's a fear. People are afraid to do that.

My experience has always been that most people will just want to push through, push through, push through instead of taking that. Sometimes it's only 20 minutes that you need. Just go sit on the couch, take a quick nap. Your productivity and efficiency will escalate. I'm that person. I can't do it. If I have something I have to do that's due the next day, my sleep. It's crazy. If I'm lying in bed and I just lie down, I'm like, oh, and I love lying down.

Isn't that amazing? When you go to lie down, you're like, holy crap, I'm here. Isn't that amazing when you go to lie down and you're like, holy crap, I'm here. And then if I'm thinking – if I close my eyes and I'm starting to focus on my breath and I'm doing all my – starting my deep meditation, try to stay awake as long as I can, and a question pops in my head, don't forget to ask Dr. Nick about his max back squat. I have to get up and write that down or else I'll hear it rattling in my brain all night. But literally the second I come right in my notebook and go lie back down, it's done. And so like, I can't, I can't, I can't, that's a talent you have, Brian. That's cool that you can do that. You trust yourself. I don't trust myself. I would think I'll, Oh, I'll start panicking that I'm

going to oversleep. I'm going to panic that I'm not going to do it. It's something it's actually, I'm not going to do it. Something. It's actually. Here's the solution. Keep your eyes closed. Stay on the bed. Grab your iPhone because you have something called stereogenesis that we all have, which means that you can identify the button on an iPhone without necessarily seeing it. Grab your phone with your eyes closed.

Hold down the Siri button. Say, hey, Siri, remind me to ask Nick what his max back squat is and it'll do it. And you don't have to get up. You don't have to listen. There are solutions. Nick, you're not giving me the sympathy I need. You're not giving me the sympathy. I mean. Oh, he froze damn he might still be able to hear us uh dr nick so your instagram is the fittest doc did you is that um self-proclaimed like the the king of pop or like i'm the self-proclaimed parenting expert or did you actually enter the open Did you enter the open and actually become the fittest doc? I have to address this in every podcast.

I get tired of that. So let me throw that back in your course. Let me ask you a quick question. If my Instagram was called the fittest Nick, how would you interpret that when you see it? The fittest Nick, how would you interpret that? I would think that maybe this guy did some sort of command search on the CrossFit Games Open and was like, look for all the Knicks. And he's like, holy shit, I'm the fittest Knick. You know what I mean? Or something like that.

But I probably wouldn't have even gone there. Yeah. What I'm getting towards is that there is ambiguity. I realize that now when so many people think this. There's ambiguity in the term the fittest doc, right? What I mean by bringing up the fittest Nick is that at any time, all of us should be aspiring for better, should be, should be aspiring for a better version of yourself. So sure. I could call my Instagram the fittest Nick. I'm always trying to be a better Nick or go with my title. So that's, that's what it means. It does not mean anything. Yeah. Yeah. If I wasn't a cross for, if I wasn't

a CrossFitter, I probably wouldn't have even asked the question because I wouldn't have made that connection. Okay. So what were you going to say? The fittest doctor? What? Yeah. Bias. Yes. No, no. I was just, no, I'm just going to say Julie Foucher is the fittest doc. If you, if you want to go by the title of who is the fittest doc in the United States, I'm sure probably there's someone else by now at this point who is fitter than Julie Fouché. Maybe not. I don't know. But yeah, she's the fittest doc in my mind. To answer your question, I didn't get to do the Open this year because I was stuck in Michigan

while Denver, Colorado, where I live, had a snowstorm that completely impeded my ability to get home. I didn't have a CrossFit affiliate locally because CrossFit Shift, shout out to CrossFit Shift in Michigan, in Lansing, Michigan, closed down due to monetary issues. And I didn't have my rope. My rope was at home because I was under the impression that I would get home in time to complete 21.1. Lo and behold, the Denver International Airport

was closed down for, I think, two to three days because we have the biggest snowstorm that we've ever had. No, no, no. The biggest snowstorm, the fourth biggest snowstorm in history. And yeah, so to be honest, Yvonne, I'm saying this much more cool-headed

now than i was when when it when this was happening i was like super anxious i wasn't anxious about it i was i was angry about it i was like this is bs like i can't do the open this year because i can't get home this is such nonsense but you know what's done is done. I implore whoever the fittest male doctor is who's in the 35 to 40 category to just come. You live in San Diego, California? Denver, Colorado. And do not relegate it to, do not limit it by age. Like let's let whoever wants.

Okay. Whoever the, I implore whoever the fittest male doctor is or female, fuck it. Nick's open. I implore whoever the fittest male doctor is, or female, fuck it, Nick's open, find this dude and take his title from him. Just find him in his CrossFit gym and be like, yo, Nick. And you know, Nick's 6'3". How much do you weigh, Nick? What are you, 6'3", 6'4"?

I'm 2'23". So yeah, so he's 6'3", 6'4", 2'23". And you know the guy who's going to come in the room who has the titles probably like 56 175 and film that and let's do a series let's do a series on that you just walk in there and call him out he's like on the roller he's like who the fuck are you and you're like i'm the fittest doctor and i'm you're calling yourself the fittest guy. Why did you choose the profession of doctor? And isn't – you said something about you have a BS in engineering. Isn't that – don't you need like biology or something like that, stuff with O-Chem?

Like how did you make that transfer and why did you become a doctor? Exactly what you just said happened, right? So in between engineering school – or I'm sorry, in between finishing engineering and starting medicine, I took all the pre-med classes. To be honest, O-Chem, I hated O-Chem. O-Chem just destroyed me, kicked my butt. But yeah, I took all the requisite classes. And so to answer your question, I always, from childhood, I always wanted to be a doctor. The reason I went the engineering route is because in high school, I was offered a full-ride scholarship that was entirely contingent on me picking any branch within engineering. But as long as I picked any branch within engineering, they were like, hey, we'll pay 100% of your undergrad. And I knew at that point in high school that I wanted to go to medical school.

But I also knew that free, there's nothing better than free. So I was like, all right, you know, the next four years are going to suck. Engineering is not going to be easy. It's going to suck, but it's free. So grind through it, you know, finish it, finish it well enough, finish it with a high enough GPA, with a good enough results that med school, med schools look upon it favorably. And I'm very happy that that's exactly what happened.

So, yeah, I just to answer your question further, I just always wanted to be a doctor because I'm nerdy like that. I love just kind of breaking. I love the way that, I mean, so Vaughn, we live in 2021 and do you realize how much it's just blows my mind that we are so advanced as a society, yet there is more research coming out on the human body on a daily weekly basis. And we are learning new things all the time. Right. And I think that's absolutely fascinating that, that we don't know that the thing that we know the least in this world where we have mastered and conquered so many things from physics to construction, to all types of things, the thing that we know the least

is our, is our body. Right. And I remember, uh, so, so going back to your podcast with Greg, uh, back in the day, he was talking about how he basically with CrossFit, he was challenging the status quo because all of these people thought that, hey, we have a system that makes people fit, yet you have CrossFit coming out of the woodworks and developing stronger, more capable, more resilient athletes than can be proven otherwise so much so that the ceo of crossfit at that time literally said hey if you believe you can create a better athlete or if you believe you have a better athlete you can skip the open you can skip regionals at the time like i will give you a ticket to the games like your athletes good enough

or better than the athletes that our training modality creates let's you a ticket to the games. Like, if your athlete's good enough or better than the athletes that our trading modality creates, let's go to the games. Prove it, right? Put up or shut up, right? It's all about data. It's not about your ego and what you say. So I think ultimately that kind of, yeah, I just think, you know, that's pretty important. By the way, that's how I also feel about the current so-called pandemic. I feel like, like, like, show, show me, show me the healthy people who are dying.

Like, just show them to me. And I posted it on Instagram three times. I want someone to show me one healthy person who's died. And so far, I've received three pictures, two of them, two, three people, two of my debunked one. I'm not sure if there's a young man in New York, 17 years old. He looks healthy. The article is vague. It's from the New York times, which is notorious for lying. But, um, there's, you can find hundreds of articles where they say the person who died was healthy. And then you scratch the surface, start doing Google searches, Google images.

And my favorite one, and you make a post about this according to, you made a post, does the name David Neiman ring a bell to you? You made a post about his J curve, about how if you don't exercise, you know, you're more susceptible to sickness and dying from COVID. And then if you exercise moderately, it dips, and then the curve goes way up for extreme athletes. And I have a little bit of issues with that because we'll get to that in a second. But it's fascinating.

Our baseline for what health is in this country is completely out of whack. It's completely out of whack. Someone walking around with 40 pounds overweight, people are thinking is healthy around with 40 pounds overweight people are thinking is healthy 100 pounds overweight people are thinking is healthy it's like no human being not even big yolk dr nick can walk around carrying two 40 pound bags of dog food all day and uh and expect his him to be okay he's gonna have shoulder injury back injury like this is they're gonna be they're going to be, they're going to be consequences, right? Yes. That number one, you can see, and furthermore consequences that you can't see in terms of internally, right. Right. Risks, risk, you know,

across a myriad of diseases and pathological processes that are, that are being increased. So sure. You know, I do. I see your points there. I would, in general, tend to agree with that, which I don't even remember what posts you're talking about, but obviously, you know, I made that post myself. I got COVID March of last year. There's a super fit girl at our gym. Her name is Danny. I go. She like CrossFit. She's a beast. She goes to like powerlifting competitions and just takes goal place, you know, squat, bench press from other girls. And she's not a powerlifter. She's a CrossFitter, right? Anyway, my point is that at about the time that she, that I got COVID, she also got COVID. And I remember she was over it within a week or two. For whatever reason,

I definitely remember that it took me about a week to get over the really bad symptoms. But it took me a month in total to get over the shortness of breath, the intermittent myalgias and other symptoms. However, here's what's important. Danny and myself were never admitted. We never even went to urgent care. We never even went to urgent care. We never even went to the emergency room. We didn't need to. Was it something that we could, because of our fitness level, that we could absolutely overcome on our own? Yes, it was. And diet. And diet. More importantly, diet, right? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So, so, um, you know, do you, uh, uh, is, are Danny and I only two, two data points? Yes. Um, however, the, the data that I've seen

on COVID and especially the people that it kills are people with a significant amount of comorbidities, right? From diabetes diabetes to hypertension to to the list goes on um and those are the people who uh who are affected most so i think you know the issue is kind of you know what you said the the definition in this country of health is ridiculous the the the um physical capacity that the uh capability for fitness that so many people harbor is sad, right? The average man, I watched a YouTube video yesterday where I guess men's health or like one of these magazines essentially quantify the average man and the average man can only get one pull-up right and and has so many other so many other markers uh in terms of um i don't know bench press or waist circumference the average man in this country is

biases themselves towards disease biases themselves towards chronic disease and it's and it's simply you can sit here and tell me all day because trust me i can tell you in my history that i've had people people like to do this self-pity and rationalization and victim mindset nonsense so much i've had people tell me you know when i was in my 20s like oh the only reason you you know your fit is because you're in your 20s okay okay cool um or the only reason you're fit is because of your genetics. I have bad genetics, right? When people bring up genetics to me, I'm like, how the hell, like, how do you know that? First of all, not just, we shouldn't just be talking about genetics. If you want to go down that road, let's talk about epigenetics, right? So that is the,

the choices that your daily lifestyle makes on DNA methylation of your genes and essentially turning on and turning off certain genes. Do you want to talk about genetics? Let's talk about nutrigenomics. What's nutrigenomics? The impact that the food that you eat physically has on your genes, right? So you can sit here and boo-hoo and talk about your genetics left and right and oh boo you know poor me i'm in a you know i'm in a bad situation or you can you can embolden yourself and do something to change it and make yourself more resilient and make yourself so that if you come across covid you're still able to to fight it off um and and hopefully go about your life but you know it's uh yeah we we um from a fitness standpoint i i very much believe in the the crossfit health definition of health which is the um the the sickness

wellness fitness continuum you know what i'm talking about yeah sure do sure do someone just sent me someone just sent me a dm the other day that they brought that up. They're in med school, and they brought that up to their professor, and they just got ridiculed. They said that the professor just berated them, that fitness has no place in medicine. And it was crazy. Brian, before you go, I just want to say one thing. Dr. Nick, you say in one of your posts, diabetes does not not run in your family it runs in the habits you learn from your family i mean as long as we quantify that with type 2 diabetes and not sorry sorry thank you thank you yeah yeah then yes i absolutely

stand by that it runs in the habits more often than not when I have a patient with, yesterday I saw a gentleman who was, I kid you not, 6'9", 400 pounds. Like with most times that a doctor sees a patient the first time, they take a thorough history. Part of the history taking is family history. Pretty much everybody in this man's immediate family was also significantly overweight by his own admission, right? family was also significantly overweight by his own admission. Right. So we have to, we have to be able as a society to, um, understand and not necessarily shy away from the impact that our family, the impact that those closer, not even just our family. Right. But what's the whole quote about, um, you know, show me your five closest friends and I'll tell you who you are. about, you know, show me your five closest friends and I'll tell you who you are. It's the same with family. Like this isn't rocket science, right? Your habits, if you're making the wrong choices

with your friends or you're not enthusiastic, but you're not emboldened enough to look at your family's habits and be like, nah, I'm not that I'm gonna make different choices then you are gonna get what you deserve and until you make the right choices you know that that's not gonna change that's not that's not the world's fault that's not the fault of genetics that's not the fault of any other thing that you choose to ascribe a claim to it is your fault because of the choices you made. Nick, you said something a little while ago, and I think that a lot of people recognize when you see someone who's clearly overweight or unhealthy, there's a lot of internal stuff going on too.

I think it's important to acknowledge the inverse of that. I coach at a gym, a CrossFit gym gym and a lot of people that work out regularly are very interested in their outward physical appearance and don't necessarily realize that no matter whether they're seeing the changes that they want to see in the time frame they want to see them externally there's a lot going on internally and that's one of the reasons why i actually do go to the doctor so infrequently is because when I go, I get the full gamut. I'll get the blood work. I'll get all of it. And I want to see how that changes, not month to month, but over years. And then, you know, now it's gotten to the point where it's

pretty, just pretty consistently, like just in the sweet spot on pretty much every metric. And so I want to keep it there. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're completely right. I have a lot of CrossFit patients across the country who have chosen to make me their doctor. And that's one thing that they always do exactly what you just said. They choose to order a number of labs at which I'm probably going to order on them anyway, but they're very vocal about wanting them. And it's important, right? You need to be able to trend. People like to act like things like high blood pressure, diabetes just come out of nowhere. They don't. Diabetes is always, there's always a precedent there of pre-diabetes. And over the years, you slowly see it ticking up until it hits 5.6. Now they're pre-diabetic.

You give them a couple more years. They pack on a few more pounds. They choose to not emphasize sleep. They choose to not exercise. Boom. Now their hemoglobin A1C is 6.5 and they're quantified as a diabetic. And, you know, they want to act like, oh, diabetes just came from nowhere. No, it didn't. It was there.

It was creeping up on you. Unfortunately, you did not see the importance. You were not vigilant in going to your doctor and being the word I use earlier, preemptive, right? You weren't trying to, you, you're, you're, you're of a reactive mindset. You're not of a preventative mindset. Um, because if you were, you would want to preempt things and and kind of turn the ship around so to speak before before something bad happens so diabetes is not diabetes is not the flu people you didn't catch it from your kid right it's it's not like you like you did it to yourself. This is not an infectious disease. Right, right, right.

If your doctor – sorry, Brian, go ahead. I was going to change the topic. If a doctor doesn't address diet as treatment plan, it's time to speak – it's time to seek a second opinion. If your doctor doesn't address diet as a treatment plan, it's time to seek a second opinion. That's something else I saw on your – yeah. seek a second opinion. That's something else I saw on your – yeah. And that's really amazing because I can remember my dad being sick in the hospital and he had an infection, an E. coli infection and it was scary. And they couldn't stop it.

And he was in there for like two weeks and finally – and I asked the doctor, I'm like, hey, is there anything he should be doing with his diet that's different that would make him stronger? Anything you should – the doctor goes, diet has nothing to do with this. he should be doing with his diet that's different, that would make him stronger? The doctor goes, diet has nothing to do with this. This was before I was involved with CrossFit. I was like, okay, cool. You can just eat whatever you want.

He's like, yeah. Now, in hindsight, I'm like, God, that's... Yeah, you're right. Even if there wasn't something he could do, what a great opportunity for him to say, not necessarily with this, but these are some things I would recommend to make him stronger in case this comes back to fight it the next time. I'm not even saying that there's a cure for E. coli through eating more oranges or, you know, but come on, man. It's like, that's the opportunity.

Remember what Nick said earlier is that when you're in that cycle, you don't have the time to engage in the conversations when the time to have those conversations comes up. I like what Nick said. No, Brian, I disagree. Here, that is not time. This is ignorance. These doctors truly, fundamentally believe that exercise has no place in helping a patient with this, that diet has no place, right? And why? It's because for whatever reason, some doctors are stuck in dogma. They're stuck in doctrine. They're stuck in things that they've been taught in medical school that were potentially incorrect. And as opposed to being flexible and malleable in their thoughts and realizing that, I'm sorry, but I will argue with anyone. The diet has an effect on everything in your life.

So many things in your nutrition, I'm sorry, so many things in your life are secondary to your nutritional choices. I don't believe in being perfect. I'm not over here saying I'm perfect, right? I believe in the Pareto principle, right? I believe in the 80-20 rule and kind of making the right choices most of the time. right choices most of the time. So yeah, fundamentally, listen, we have an issue in the medical culture, I believe in healthcare with these type of beliefs that remember what I said earlier, that the doctors need to realize the power that they have in their words and not say things that, I mean, you know, with Siobhan's example, you, that was a very clear opportunity to, to instigate a change that would have lasted over the rest of, of, of their life. But instead you want to embolden, you want to embolden their ability to make poor choices and be able to easily shrug off any arguments to the contrary by simply saying, oh, my doctor told me it was fine.

I'm going to keep doing it. You know, like that's a pretty good argument to just say, oh, my doctor told me because that's, you know, because of the. Dude, that's half the internet. What are you, a doctor? My doctor told me that's half the internet. And it is crazy when I, you know, people at the gym, you'll know this, of course, Nick, from your profession. And, but they, when they see you day after day at the gym and you're their coach and they just start telling you things sometimes. And it's so, it's so crazy.

The things they'll say, Hey, I had a, I had a doctor's appointment or I took my kids to this doctor's last week and whatever. And they said this to me, what do you think about that? And they'll ask me that because they trust me because they know I live a generally healthy lifestyle and whatever. And they're starting, people are asking these questions. But what I, what I was, I'm really glad you interrupted me and disagreed with me on that point. But I think that the thing that I was noticing, you talked about this earlier when you had some woman who came to you with a question or she's kind of said, I want to try to change my lifestyle habits to improve whatever. And I think recognizing that when that question comes up or what Savan asked is, hey, is this okay for him? If you're a doctor and someone's asking you that question, they're opening the door.

Now they're ready to receive the information. And if you don't have either the doctrine or the time to interact with them when the moment comes, that's where the lost opportunity is. Yeah. So in medicine, we have there's something I'm pretty sure I'm pronouncing it right, it's called the five stages of change, right? And the first kind of place, the first thing to do is essentially what you just said. You have to investigate where someone is. My gentleman who, actually, no, not the six foot nine, but I saw another patient yesterday from California who smokes. He CrossFit, but he smokes. He doesn't smoke cigs. He smokes cigars and he smokes hookah. So a good doctor. I used to love a hookah. Anyway, go on. Yeah.

Oh, God, the nicotine rush was insane. Right. Yeah. And that's what I'm saying. I feel like you can't be a doctor who just sits here and tells someone, stop hookah, stop cigar smoking. That's poison. Just stop it because I say so, right? I believe that's a very authoritarian kind of dictator role that a doctor is trying to play. At, at least in my opinion, I may be wrong, but in my opinion, a good doctor will instead investigate where you are. Okay. You smoke. Yeah. Yeah. I smoke doc. How long have you smoked since 18? Okay. How do you feel about that? And then you're my, my job is to shut up and listen. Right. And then if they tell me it's something I don't like, I wish I could quit.

Then just like Brian said, that's them opening the door for me to talk to them about it. Right. I treat obesity the same way when I see a patient's height and their weight and their BMI, assuming that they don't have a lot of muscle on them. Then I will investigate how they feel about their weight. If they don't, if they're not at a place where they want to address their weight, it is not my responsibility. I am not God. I cannot, I'm not going to have a judgmental perspective on you. I'm just going to sit back and wait for you to hit rock bottom and wait for you to hit that place where you're like, Dr. Nick, I want your help. And then I'll be there. Right. So I, you know, you have to always investigate where people are. And just like Brian was saying, that was an opportunity. I mean, your father,

Savan, you said that was your father, correct? Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Your, your, your father was opening the door, right? That was, that was opening the door and saying, Hey, talk to me about this. You know, I'll, I'll change because I'm at that place mentally. And the doctor did not realizing that that was an opportunity that was being presented to shut the door. And I mean, that's now that's lost, you know, and, you know, med school is not notorious for teaching nutrition, right? Nope, absolutely not. They do not. They teach minimal nutrition in med school. And that's why everything I know is what I is what I myself, is what I have experienced myself, and what I taught myself just from learning and taking courses and being open-minded and obviously a good amount of CrossFit health and going to GDC and CrossFit in general. and CrossFit in general, you know.

It's really nice, by the way, for a doctor who has created their body as a fine-tuned machine and then experiment with it and share that experimentation, especially someone as open as you. You know, like what you were saying about caffeine, you know, not only is that data-driven, but you have your experience. And so we all are laboratories. Within safety, especially as we get older, we should experiment with it. We should experiment with not eating for 12 hours. We should experiment not eating for 24 hours. We should experiment only eating carrots for a day like this. It's your body like play with it. You know, I'm not saying you try to set the world record for most

cigarettes smoked. I think that's a little negligent, but, um, but we should experiment. You, there's another great line. You said, the first sign of disease is not caring what you eat. And that's along this same theme. It's like, wow, that is such a, am I sick, doc? I don't know. Do you care what you eat? I mean, what a great diagnostic tool. Yeah. Yeah. Especially as you know, Siobhan, I mean, how many people eat fast food and eat processed food, right? And love what I call the middle aisles at Walmart and all the superfluous junk that they can find there. And yeah, people, it just loads. Listen, like I told you, I'm not perfect. I know my weakness. My weakness when it comes to food are things like gummy gummy bears are things that have a lot of sugar, whether Oreos or whatnot. So guess what? That's why you will not find that, that crap in my home because I'm not trying to tempt myself to, to, to go eat that. Now, if it's midnight or 1am and for whatever reason, I chose to stay up to 1am and, and that stuff is in front of me,

am I going to be much more, I mean, now it's a game of willpower. Am I going to be up to 1am uh and and that stuff is in front of me am i going to be much more i mean now it's a game of willpower am i going to be able to fight it off who knows but ultimately i try to avoid or if i'm not avoiding indulging very little in the things that that that i enjoy right i used to love and i still love haribo gummy bears, Albany's gummy bears. Um, I, I, I'm not, I'm not perfect. I love that stuff. And the only, the only way I stay away from it is to physically put it as far. I don't understand people who buy this junk like Oreos and chips and then have it in their home and then expect, Oh, I'm going to start a diet or I'm going to eat less. I'm going to eat less of this, right? I'm going to restrict how much I eat. I'm going to eat 10 chips instead of the entire bag. That's not how things work. I'm sorry. At least not for me either. Yep. Right. Right. If the bag is there and I'm tempted and

I'm hungry, I'm going to destroy that bag. I used to be, I guarantee you people in Ohio remember this. I used to be the person who would do CrossFit comps in Ohio at various gyms. And after the comp, I would hit three or four workouts at the comp. And then I would reach into my bag and pull out a five pound bag of Haribo gummy bears. Ooh, those are so good. And you would see me walking around a comp, my shirt off, sweating, just digging into this bag of Haribo. Five pounds, right? right like i'm sorry that's stupid at least in my mind i'm like why why was i doing this why was that my choice but

hey it's okay with age comes experience and knowledge so it's it's it's a journey it's a journey people you know i i have to always remind myself it took me 15 years of knowing not to eat sugar to finally get off of sugar. And I made incremental steps every single, you know, every, every single day, I just worked on it, you know, all of a sudden, there's one day where you just stop saying, No, I'm not going to have dessert anymore for dinner. And then the next time you're like, Okay, I'm never going to eat cereal again. And like, you just slowly try to, to work those things out. And it's what you said like so i when i say i haven't had a drink in eight months i've been places where people are drinking wine and i'll have a sip

but if i but i don't bring a bottle of wine home to my house because if i do i'm gonna drink it destroyed it absolutely yeah so i just don't bring it home yeah i used to i used to work with a lot of uh clients on and on nutrition a little bit and one of the things that I would do really early on, I would ask them, like, what's the one thing you eat that you kind of wish you didn't? And then they'd say whatever it is. And I'd ask them, do you have that at your house? Yes. And I said, okay, you got 48 hours to get rid of it. You can eat it all or throw it away.

But in 48 hours, it's gone and you're not bringing it back in your home. And if they weren't willing to do that, I just told them, then we're not going to move forward. That's one little thing I'm asking of you. And it's going to just, it's like a domino effect. Like you said, seven, it's a step in the right direction. Yeah. It's exactly what we talked about earlier. They're just not mentally in that place. They're verbally at that place where they tell you that they want to make a change, but if their actions don't align with the stuff that's coming out of their mouth, then they're wasting your time. They're literally wasting your time, right?

The last doctor we had on, I wore a collared shirt and the doctor showed up with no shirt on. That was Dr. Paul Saladino. He's the carnivore MD. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the podcast starts up. I'm like, oh my God. He's like, what? I'm like, yeah, yeah. So the podcast starts up. I'm like, oh, my God. He's like, what? I'm like, I wore a college shirt because I'm interviewing a doctor.

You don't even have a shirt on. And now look at Brian. He's got the college shirt on. Was he even local, Sivan? I follow him on Instagram. I think he's been out of the country, like in some African country recently. He came back from there. And now I don't know where he is right at the moment but he was in costa rica so he was poolside you

know total type a just overachiever he's poolside with his shirt off but he's got his computer and you can just tell like he claims he surfs and relax but i'm not buying a word of it he's a that guy just cranks stuff out yeah he's so you tell me tell me about i was never in the in the in the discussion for getting scholarships tell me this so you get really good grades in high school and you take your sat and um is is that common and someone saw your scores and we're like hey we want to recruit this kid. We want this kid or you applied there. And then they say, okay, we really liked your scores, but we're short of smart engineering majors. Like I've never, I didn't know that that was a component of scholarships where they would force you to, to study a certain discipline. How does that work?

Um, okay. This is going to school. So I'm going to try to remember it all, but essentially, essentially I got good enough grades. I was focusing on trying to get a scholarship just to lessen the financial burden on my dad. And, um, yeah, good son. Yeah. No, right. I, I applied to many places and got, we had my, my grades were good enough for the engineering opportunity. So, you know, they propositioned me and I considered it and I accepted it and then kind of went forward with it. Did you add, did you tell them, Hey, can I still get the scholarship if I go to med school? Or you're like, nah, I'm not even going to rock the boat. I'm just rolling. It was a very clear stipulation, um, in the offer that they wanted me to choose any field of engineering, right?

Biomedical, civil, mechanical, electrical. If I were to go back, I would probably have chosen biomedical. Because if I would have done biomedical, I would have not needed to do orgo to do all these kinds of classes that I needed to do after mechanical engineering. Orgo to do all these kinds of classes that I needed to do after mechanical engineering. But there, there's a, there's a, there's a, uh, there's a benefit. I, I, I, I won't belabor this, but I think that, I think that anybody who does mechanical engineering and starts CrossFit is at a significant advantage because every movement, they don't see it like other people see it. They see it as physics. It is physics in motion, obviously from a human body, from a biomechanical standpoint. And, you know, the whole time they're thinking about force vectors and, you know, moment arm of inertia

and all types of things that normal people aren't thinking about. But because they're thinking about it, they are going to be able to move much more weight with correct technique than people would otherwise. So sure, did I waste a couple of years doing mechanical engineering and now I wish that I did biomedical? Yes. uh and and now i wish that i didn't go biomedical yes but um do i love the advantage and the the mindset and the way of thinking that mechanical engineering has imparted upon me for crossfit absolutely did you have this theory before um matt fraser won the crossfit games

yeah because in fact in fact in fact i've literally told people, Matt Frazier, listen, I've watched him in interviews. He's a cool guy and he doesn't ever articulate it and verbalize it. But I guarantee you, if you live for that man, and he's around somebody else who's nerdy enough to understand engineering principles, I guarantee you he's thinking about all this stuff. I guarantee you that's why he moves so well because he understands everybody else is all focused on, oh, you have to have good technique because you know, if you, if you don't, it's, it's not as safe and, and blah, blah, blah. Listen, anyone who understands the movement understands that if you're not moving with proper technique, you are not going to be able to impart as much force on a bar or impart as much force on your body let's say with something like chest of our pull-ups or muscle ups you're not going to be able to move as well um or i'm sorry to do as well physically if you're not moving well so i'm a big believer in virtuosity and virtuosity is something that i think everyone should focus on but we live in a world where people would rather just move big weight and not necessarily focus on the mechanics of it all, right?

Is your foot in an appropriate tripod position when you're doing a back squat? Or are you leaning more to the right on the ball of your foot or more towards a little toe? Because here's the thing. or more towards a little toe, because here's the thing. If you're doing any one of those and you're not, you don't have an appropriate tripod, I guarantee you that if I put a force plate under your feet, you are not putting out the maximum amount of force your body is capable of because you're biomechanically constrained simply because you're not,

you're not, you're not positioned correctly. So yeah, I think Matt is acutely aware of this. Anyone who does any amount of engineering and goes into crossfit has a pretty significant advantage just like people who do gymnastics and go into crossfit have an advantage in my opinion people who do gymnastics and go into crossfit the reason why they kick so much ass is because all the things that an engineer can sure i can articulate and think about this stuff but they have a intuitive they have an intuitive sense of all the all the equations i can think of in my head

they don't need to know the equations they're able to intuitively know that when they get up on a bar or they get up on rings or or whatever else that there is there's bad movement and bad movement will often deliver bad results and then there's good movement and bad movement will often deliver bad results and then there's good movement and good movement will often deliver better results. I often say I wish I was a gymnast growing up and I never did gymnastics.

So the perfect storm would be a gymnast who's an engineering major. Yeah. And then just the ability to go to the pain cave. Forever. Forever. Forever.

Hey, I wrote that question down. I'm going to ask Matt that. So, Matt, Dr. Nick has this theory. Yeah, I can't wait to see what he says. He'll either shrug it off. We'll see. Let me just shut my mouth. Oh, no.

He loves geeking out on shit. I bet you he's fully going to erase it. Even if it's not true, he'll be like,ug it off we'll see let me just shut my mouth oh no he loves geeking out on shit i bet you he's fully gonna erase it even if it's not you'll be like of course of course he loves he loves he loves playing the nerd yeah um this what what i really we're we're coming to an end here and what i really wanted to talk about we never got to i was what i wanted to spend a significant amount of time just talking about your history because – and we'll circle back around hopefully in a few months. But I've always been intimidated by things like med school or things like that, and I would love to be curious how, as a young man, what it was like growing up in your family. What gave you the confidence and the hootspot to think you could do it? Was it for yourself?

Was it for your parents? Were you trying to prove something to the world? Were you just like Forrest Gump and just – it was just nothing and headed off in a direction so um maybe we can circle back around and and do a part two sometime yeah on that right now we're yeah okay let's do it let's do it I just know we're an hour and a half sure and that's a lot of time I I'll address the end of that first. Okay. Whatever. Essentially, I tell this to everybody. I fundamentally believe that anybody can go to med school.

Anybody can be a doctor. I don't think that it takes intelligence. It takes grit. It takes being able to get, because a lot of people have this mindset of, oh, you know, I want to go to med school because it takes 12 years. That's too long, right? And this isn't something that you just find. This isn't a mindset that you just find with people as it pertains to med school. It's a mindset that you see across society.

We as a society are obsessed with instant gratification, right? are obsessed with instant gratification, right? We don't want to put in the work over the long term and just put in the grind day after day to achieve some goal that is pretty much a guarantee five years, 10 years down the line. We're all about what can I do right now to get the results I want right now? And that's an issue with just people's mindset. I, I, I'm hell, I don't know. I can't give you a solution to that. But ultimately I think that anybody can go to med school. Anybody can be a doctor. It's just all it requires is being able to, to, to grind, to go to class, to study, to, to put your head down for 16 to 18 hours out of the day and study and kind of, you know, work to absorb the information. Because what did I tell you earlier, Saban, like a good amount of

being a physician is talking, is literally relating to people, is understanding. Sure, there are times when you need to know, you know, somebody is telling you some symptom and in the back of your head, you need to be aware of a differential diagnosis and what is likely their issue and then be able to treat it. But, you know, those times are not the preponderance of times. The preponderance of times are people just wanting some reassurance and wanting to ask you about something. And you you give them a suggestion, you give them a recommendation, you reassure them. So to answer your question, sorry, go ahead. Where does that grit come from? How did you learn that grit? Like, I don't think I have that grit. I have a different kind of grit,

but like I hear 16 to 18 hours a day reading and studying for 12 years, you know, where do you learn that? Is that at home? Is that, is that you have a pathology of something to prove to the world? Is it like, Oh, you're just so fascinated by, um, you know, I mean that, you know, that's Matt's thing, right? I mean, everyone has their own motivation. Um, what, what, what was it for you? Were you really, were your parents workaholics i mean that's for me that's why i have grit my parents were workaholics it's all i know oh yeah i can definitely tell

again factor my dad my dad was uh my dad is well he's retired now but he was a chemical engineer he uh uh he got his phd in chemical engineering and um so, yeah, you know, growing up, my dad was always the type of person to be like, study, get good grades. I was the type of person who like when I was a kid, I was like, I was like, screw school. I want to be a I want to be a soccer player. I want to like play soccer professionally. Right. And my dad kind of kind of pull the reins in and he didn't tell me i should stop playing soccer but he was very um uh forthright in saying that you know you should study that you should you should be intelligent you should get good grades you should educate yourself and you know i'm very

happy that he did did i hate it a lot growing up? Absolutely. Would I say, though, that it was a significant contributing factor to my current mindset? Absolutely. I think another contributing factor, to be completely honest, well, this wouldn't help with engineering and it helped a little bit with med school because I started it, I think, within first or second year of med school. But it's CrossFit. I mean, listen, all of us have been. Savant, the first time I did Murph, I remember it took me like an hour and six minutes. It was horrific. It was horrible. I hated my life, right? And multiple times during that hour and six minutes that I want to quit, yes, but I didn't quit. And I think that that's something that's

beautiful about CrossFit is a lot of people look at CrossFitters and CrossFit Games athletes, and they're obsessed with how they look and how they perform, but nobody gives credit to the gains, to the changes that have happened between their ears, right? To the fact that, you know, you can put most Games athletes in the worst situation and they will grit and grind it out until they're in a better situation, right? And I think that part of that is absolutely due to having so many wads over the course of your training crush you and you not give up and you being willing to just continue grinding forward until, you know, you finish that AMRAP or you finish, you know, you finish that four-time workout.

And then you have that sense of accomplishment. Like, damn, if I just put myself through that and, and, and finished it, there's nothing I can't do. So yeah, I think there's a, probably a certain amount of it that came from CrossFit also. Isn't it, isn't the workout amazing? Seven, I'd say, I'd say 70% of the workouts I do, 70% of the days I work out, I don't want to work out. So basically I'm getting dressed and the chatter starting in my brain and then I'm walking out to the garage and then I'm coming up with the workout. And I'm like basically convinced I'm not going to do it until I hit the button on the clock.

And then it starts counting down to 10 and all that shit goes away, right? But I listen to that nonsense seven out of 10 days. But never once have I completed a workout and been like damn i shouldn't have done that it's yeah like it's it's just crazy it's an incredible sense of accomplishment and actually every time i overcome that chatter it's like holy shit i just whooped the shit out of that so i'll i'll give you props because what you just said, I cannot do. I remember in what, 2013, 14, uh, when I used to live in Ohio and doing some, some workouts with Graham Holmberg, I remember at that time, as well as a Nick, your ranker. And I remember coming

across those two guys, games athletes. I realized that there's, they have something that like common people like me don't have. And that's the ability to work. I could not, like you just said, right? You walk into your garage and you press the button. I couldn't do that by myself day after day. I need the community. I literally need a gym. I need people around me who are pushing me to put out 101% or 102% for the day, as opposed to going to my garage or going to my, my personal

gym and putting out 75% and, and calling it good or not even 75%, but getting down there and saying, uh, I'm going to quit. And the beautiful thing about quitting when you're by yourself is that nobody else knows that you're quitting. So you don't have the internal. Yeah. So you don't have the internal shame and guilt that you would if you quit at an affiliate. So yeah, I'm very impressed that you can do that, that games athletes can do that. Because I'll tell you what, I am not working out by myself. I would much rather suffer with people around me. And this COVID response by closing so many gyms down has really put that challenge up to a lot of people.

And unfortunately, a lot of people have failed it. But like my wife really loves an affiliate. And she stopped going when all the gyms closed. And she hasn't started going back again. But she's built her own routine in our garage. But I can tell you it's the one thing she misses. Yeah, she absolutely thrived in that setting. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome.

That's awesome. Yeah. Well, thank you for your time. It was great talking to you. It blew by as fast as podcast I've ever done faster than anything I did with Josh or Matt or any guests. That was awesome.

We just blew through this. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I know I answered your question, but absolutely. I enjoyed the podcast as well.

So anytime you want to invite me back, I am totally down. I'll block my calendar for you and let's, let's get after it.