Speaker 1: Gaby Race and Desmond Howard got me fired up in
Speaker 1: this episode, inspired to train and eat and breathe and
Speaker 1: recover and live smarter and better. Both my icon of
Speaker 1: guests turned fifty this year. Nobody can believe that either
Speaker 1: wonderm at that age, and they come at it from
Speaker 1: different perspectives. Volleyball and football are very different sports, but
Speaker 1: they also have a lot in common. They've learned what works,
Speaker 1: and they're really generous about sharing it with other people.
Speaker 1: And you don't have to be closing in on fifty
Speaker 1: or past it to get a ton out of their
Speaker 1: wisdom and their experience. You know, I wasted a lot
Speaker 1: of years. I don't believe in regrets, but if I'm
Speaker 1: being honest, for years I was sort of unfit. I
Speaker 1: loved working out. That wasn't a problem, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: that smart about it, and they didn't get the results
Speaker 1: that I wanted. I didn't eat very smart. I didn't
Speaker 1: drink smart. I would drink a lot more tequila and
Speaker 1: mescal than wine and whiskey. It makes a difference. You
Speaker 1: can look it up on the road. I didn't sleep
Speaker 1: nearly enough when I got injured early in my life.
Speaker 1: I didn't rehab properly at all, and I paid the
Speaker 1: price that all turned around. I got three surgeries in
Speaker 1: two years, two in the shoulder area, one in the knee,
Speaker 1: and this time I attacked the physical therapy. I turned
Speaker 1: weakness into strength and actually got stronger after the surgeries
Speaker 1: and established a mind body connection, and that has been
Speaker 1: really important in my life. But in my early years,
Speaker 1: I certainly wish that I had listened to people as
Speaker 1: sharp and passionate as Gabby and des are. We are
Speaker 1: the ones that create the limitations. I do it to myself.
Speaker 1: I'm not different than anyone else. I'm my own worst enemy.
Speaker 1: I'm the one who creates these boundaries because I'm a
Speaker 1: right to try something new, and just to remind people that,
Speaker 1: you know, being willing to try something new and having
Speaker 1: you know, and they even talk about neural plasticity trying
Speaker 1: these new things. It's like you're never going to regret that,
Speaker 1: and also put yourself in environments where people are supporting
Speaker 1: you when you're doing something new. The fact that I'm
Speaker 1: very competitive too, I mean I'm extremely competitive, So if
Speaker 1: I see something, I just automatically look at it as
Speaker 1: a challenge and then the competitive nature of me takes over.
Speaker 1: So I think one of the one of the best
Speaker 1: pieces of advice to that I've heard I got from
Speaker 1: my mentor was you know, work smarter, not harder. You're
Speaker 1: gonna enjoy my conversation with Dez coming up later. We
Speaker 1: had some good laughs about the old game days and
Speaker 1: his love affair with donuts. Gabby is a former Florida
Speaker 1: State seminole, was a pro volleyball star and an international model,
Speaker 1: and always created platforms to promote wellness and fitness ideas.
Speaker 1: The Gabby ri Show on Apple Podcasts take some really
Speaker 1: deep dives into fascinating topics. Her husband and business partners
Speaker 1: a legend to Giant Waves, surfer adventurer Laird Hamilton's, and
Speaker 1: together they're raising three daughters and splitting time between Malibu
Speaker 1: and Hawaii. So earlier this year a milestone that freaks
Speaker 1: out a lot of people. I didn't feel great about
Speaker 1: turning fifty. How did you approach it emotionally and physically
Speaker 1: as that date was getting nearer and then when it
Speaker 1: hit you know, I actually, to be honest, I remember
Speaker 1: forty being a lot more uncomfortable for some reason I
Speaker 1: don't know, than fifty. And and I also think that
Speaker 1: between forty and fifty I had a lot of things happened,
Speaker 1: especially as a parent, that really kept me focused on
Speaker 1: things that were really important, but also weirdly with a
Speaker 1: new level of surrender. If I might say this, like
Speaker 1: you get to certain places in your parenting where you, uh,
Speaker 1: you you learn to surrender. But you know it's like
Speaker 1: almost everything, um is okay, I'm gonna work hard and
Speaker 1: do the best I can, and like what are you
Speaker 1: gonna do past that? And the other thing I have
Speaker 1: learned that I think is really important is not to
Speaker 1: spend too much time on things that are so out
Speaker 1: of my control, Like I'm not going to stop time.
Speaker 1: And so one thing I've really tried to do a
Speaker 1: lot of in my life is when I really know
Speaker 1: I can't really change it, or it's something that like
Speaker 1: New Yorkers would say, it is what it is, right,
Speaker 1: it's like what are you gonna do? You're gonna torture yourself.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, could I be my most badass self
Speaker 1: right now? Let's go. And the other last thing, too,
Speaker 1: is I'm always reminded I can't be younger today. But
Speaker 1: in some weird way, there's something I could do to
Speaker 1: be better, for sure. But yeah, I wasn't like, also,
Speaker 1: let me frame it up and not. I wasn't like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, isn't it awesome I'm fifty? I was like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: that's kind of weird. When did how did that happen?
Speaker 1: I certainly and gracefully accept that I'm fifty. I have
Speaker 1: three daughters. Um, you know, the other thing that's interesting
Speaker 1: is when you're biologically sort of not in that prime
Speaker 1: spot anymore. There's no better way to learn about that
Speaker 1: as a mother than when you have three daughters and
Speaker 1: you watch them all blossom sort of into that. And
Speaker 1: so that what that does is you talk about acceptance.
Speaker 1: She goes, Yes, I'm I'm not at that part of
Speaker 1: my life at stage anymore. But I have a lot
Speaker 1: of desires or dreams or I'm highly motivated to train
Speaker 1: hard and do things, and so why shouldn't I even
Speaker 1: if I'm a mom or fifty or someone's wife. Well,
Speaker 1: acceptance is important. You seem to be lined up with that.
Speaker 1: Does defiance play a part? Saying that I'm not going
Speaker 1: to listen to every signal and my body is sending
Speaker 1: me Because some times the body is telling you to
Speaker 1: pack it in, to quit, to not commit in the
Speaker 1: same way you have in the past. What what role
Speaker 1: does that sort of defiance play for you? You know,
Speaker 1: you'll You've talked to a lot of athletes, and you
Speaker 1: know that no one ever plays You always play in
Speaker 1: pain or discomfort of some type. No one's life is
Speaker 1: ever fully perfect. I think part of living is part
Speaker 1: of being able to move forward and continue towards progress
Speaker 1: and growth even when you have things that are uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: be it personal or physical. And I think that for
Speaker 1: me personally, what I have learned the difference is when
Speaker 1: it's hard and when I'm hurting myself, And so I
Speaker 1: try really hard on my training not to hurt myself,
Speaker 1: but by all means, I certainly go towards hard um
Speaker 1: pretty often. Yeah, I mean beach volleyball and volleyball in
Speaker 1: general incredibly rigorous sports. Sometimes people get caught up in
Speaker 1: the trappings of the sport don't realize what hard ass
Speaker 1: work it is to to move around and get up
Speaker 1: and down in the sand. I may describe the workouts
Speaker 1: that you went through when you were sort of in
Speaker 1: the in the peak days of your professional career, well,
Speaker 1: I mean like every athlete, you'll hear I know so
Speaker 1: much more today. Uh in my training, I wish I
Speaker 1: was as sophisticated then as I was now. But certainly
Speaker 1: my volleyball was very sophisticated, probably like three or four
Speaker 1: hours in the sand. And then you're doing land training
Speaker 1: to enhance your performance. Um, so whether it's versions of
Speaker 1: pliometrics and and uh different types of the year, whether
Speaker 1: you're maintaining during your competing time, or you're trying to
Speaker 1: build strength and endurance in preparation for your season. But
Speaker 1: you know what's interesting is I've gotten older and been around.
Speaker 1: But the only thing I always want to remind athletes, um,
Speaker 1: young or old, is if you're in a repetitive sport.
Speaker 1: Every sport has repetitive motion. UM, part of your training
Speaker 1: should be unwinding what you're winding up all the time,
Speaker 1: and unfortunate our training oftentimes he continues to reinforce those patterns.
Speaker 1: And so one thing I have learned is i've gotten older,
Speaker 1: is I can work really hard, but I just need
Speaker 1: to work hard in a different direction because I've been going.
Speaker 1: Your sport takes you by nature. You know, if I'm
Speaker 1: a picture by nature, this is what I'm doing. These
Speaker 1: are my mechanics, right, So it's just it's just um,
Speaker 1: you know, and I didn't do like breath work. I
Speaker 1: didn't do active recovery. When I was competing. I would
Speaker 1: take a day off, but I didn't. Maybe you get
Speaker 1: worked on. But the other thing is reminding people, especially
Speaker 1: as they age, to participate in their recovery. So whether
Speaker 1: it's stretching or breathing or getting a sauna or swim
Speaker 1: in a pool, that it isn't just Okay, I took
Speaker 1: the day off, but do stuff to actually boost your recovery.
Speaker 1: For sure. You mentioned a couple of things. Are there
Speaker 1: other specific things that you wish you knew then that
Speaker 1: you knew now that involved, if not training harder, but
Speaker 1: training smart. What would you like to tell yourself from
Speaker 1: a couple of decades ago, Hey, Gabby, this is what's
Speaker 1: really important that you don't know yet. That flexibility and
Speaker 1: stretching is so incredibly boring. If you're not naturally good
Speaker 1: at it, you shy away from it. When you have
Speaker 1: long levers and you're jumping athlete. Normally you're not good
Speaker 1: at it, But to do it because you might save
Speaker 1: yourself a lot of headache. Um, I listen, I think
Speaker 1: I have an artificial need because of a lack of
Speaker 1: hip and ankle mobility and tight quads that were like
Speaker 1: beef jerky. I don't think there was anything wrong with
Speaker 1: my knees right, and so I would have definitely said,
Speaker 1: I know it sucks, and it takes an extra ten minutes.
Speaker 1: And you have here and there to go and places
Speaker 1: to you know, go to and people to see. Take
Speaker 1: the time and do it. You seem really at piece
Speaker 1: as you should be with where you are now. But
Speaker 1: many athletes I've talked to go through almost some morning
Speaker 1: phase when they understand that peak condition that they took
Speaker 1: great pride in being able to achieve. They're not going
Speaker 1: to be there again. It's gonna have to redefine maybe
Speaker 1: what peak condition is. But that's really difficult for a
Speaker 1: lot of athletes, whether it's an endurance sport or a
Speaker 1: or a contact sport. A lot of men have expressed
Speaker 1: that to me, did you go through any sort of
Speaker 1: period like that? Uh, you know, yes and no. Mostly no,
Speaker 1: because let's face it, I played beach volleyball and that's
Speaker 1: a very small platform. So I always had my eyes
Speaker 1: on the horizon. I was always really well aware of
Speaker 1: the limitations, and so I was always doing many things.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't really because I didn't love volleyball. It
Speaker 1: was because I had. I was like, I did all
Speaker 1: those things to to support my habit of playing volleyball.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't like a basketball or football where it's
Speaker 1: like all in and then all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: look up and you're like, you know what happened. But here,
Speaker 1: this is what I say to a lot of athletes.
Speaker 1: I will have athletes to come and train with us.
Speaker 1: And I had a kid form played Clemson football, double
Speaker 1: knee surgeries. He's done and probably talented enough could have
Speaker 1: at least had a shot in the NFL. But it's
Speaker 1: not gonna happen, right, And I said, I always try
Speaker 1: to remind athletes you're like a loaded gun. You just
Speaker 1: have to pick your next target, you know, And to
Speaker 1: not think that that's all who you are, that is
Speaker 1: your identity. No, that is something that you, as the
Speaker 1: individual person, chose to express yourself. And within that there
Speaker 1: was camaraderie. There was hard work. There was learning. If
Speaker 1: you were lucky enough to have a good coach, there
Speaker 1: was some interesting mentorship um. And then there was competing
Speaker 1: at this high level, that frequency that like when you
Speaker 1: get to touch it once in a while, you're like, man,
Speaker 1: this is all pistons firing. But we can do that
Speaker 1: in other places in our life. We just have to,
Speaker 1: you know, recalibrate, redirect that action. UM. And having said that,
Speaker 1: I think it's also important for an athlete to be
Speaker 1: reminded what a great thing that you got to experience
Speaker 1: something at that high level. Now, if there is a
Speaker 1: reminiscent and there's something sad about it, but how lucky
Speaker 1: for you that you got to experience something at such
Speaker 1: a high high level. And now what do you want
Speaker 1: to do? Because I think we don't give ourselves enough credit.
Speaker 1: I don't mean athletes, I just mean human beings that
Speaker 1: if you really were willing to work hard and work
Speaker 1: towards a goal and work with other people, UM, that
Speaker 1: in this next phase, they can do it. But they
Speaker 1: just have to, you know, put effort towards what is
Speaker 1: that One of the companies you and your husband are
Speaker 1: involved with, XPT fascinates me stands for extreme performance training,
Speaker 1: and the extreme is an interesting definition of how you
Speaker 1: guys define extreme because it really is so well rounded
Speaker 1: and so holistic, and we'll cover some of the things
Speaker 1: that are under the x XPT umbrella. But what we
Speaker 1: was sort of the reason behind putting this company together
Speaker 1: and combining the various things you guys were expert in
Speaker 1: from breathing, moving, recovery well. So we didn't really even
Speaker 1: want to do this. But a girl I used to
Speaker 1: compete with who then UM was a very dear friend
Speaker 1: of mine since and then we we never really played together,
Speaker 1: but we played at the same time, and then we
Speaker 1: started working together. She watched us for like ten years
Speaker 1: doing in this training, especially the pool training, and then
Speaker 1: we incorporated heat nice and then started learning about breathing
Speaker 1: UM and this really through whim Hoff. And then there's
Speaker 1: a great book for anyone who wants to read it,
Speaker 1: even just people have to sit their desk all day long,
Speaker 1: called The Oxygen Advantage by a gentleman named Patrick McCune,
Speaker 1: which will tell you why you should be nose breathing
Speaker 1: all the time. UM. And she's like, you have to
Speaker 1: share this with other people, and we were like, we
Speaker 1: don't know anything, and how are you gonna people fly
Speaker 1: around from around you know far and spend to a
Speaker 1: tough days with us, but anyway, it was born out
Speaker 1: of that, and the pillars of that are breathe, move
Speaker 1: and recover. So obviously Laird being a surfer and Lay's
Speaker 1: sort of the creative impetus for all of this. He's
Speaker 1: the most curious and we'll try things if it makes
Speaker 1: sense and mess around with it. So breathing, imagine first
Speaker 1: a big wave surfer. There's something extra right, like oh,
Speaker 1: they're held under and like the you know, the precious
Speaker 1: breath if you will. But really, once you get into
Speaker 1: the practice of breathing, you realize how most of us
Speaker 1: are not doing it correctly. So that's and that's the
Speaker 1: essence of life. Okay, we can do without food and
Speaker 1: water and all these things for quite a long time.
Speaker 1: Breathing air not so much so movement. You know, we're
Speaker 1: physical beings. We just need to move our bodies. And
Speaker 1: even with an XPT, we're not here to tell you
Speaker 1: how to move. We will make suggestions, but ultimately it's
Speaker 1: getting people to be like, huh, how do I want
Speaker 1: to move? You know some people back I can't even
Speaker 1: step inside a gym, and you go, great, there's a
Speaker 1: million ways to do it, and then recovery, which is
Speaker 1: what I alluded to earlier, which is like actually the
Speaker 1: boosting or the supporting of your recovery, be it through
Speaker 1: stretching or breath work or getting mobility or self care.
Speaker 1: Like there's a great program called by a woman named
Speaker 1: Joe Miller. I don't have anything to do with it.
Speaker 1: I just know it's a great resource called Yoga Tune Up.
Speaker 1: And she basically will teach you how to scrape every
Speaker 1: part of your body and get you know your your fashion,
Speaker 1: get everything unlound that you can do, and she has
Speaker 1: a whole kit and it's pretty genius and and so
Speaker 1: getting people to be responsible for their recovery. But if
Speaker 1: you talk to Laerd, it's like it also means get
Speaker 1: to better early. It also means try to eat well.
Speaker 1: It also means don't fill your time and your brain
Speaker 1: with a bunch of crap. And it also means like,
Speaker 1: how are your relationships Like when you really talk to him,
Speaker 1: he's talking about the flywheel, And so we wanted to
Speaker 1: present that because I think the idea of sharing and
Speaker 1: saying well, we've been in this this seems to be
Speaker 1: working for us and our friends, but also reminding people
Speaker 1: that if we talk to them in a year, maybe
Speaker 1: things that we're learning or sharing will be different. Because
Speaker 1: I think that's the other thing, is reminding people not
Speaker 1: to ping around, but to stay open minded to continuing
Speaker 1: to learn so that you can continue to adapt and improve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to dive into of looking forward to getting
Speaker 1: deeper and what you guys are doing. But adaptabilities what
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about. I'm glad you brought
Speaker 1: that up because obviously, with what we've been through with
Speaker 1: the pandemic, people are forced to constantly adapt with yoga
Speaker 1: studios and pools and gym's closed. What your program seems
Speaker 1: to do is to instill those skills in people that
Speaker 1: they can not focus on what they don't have, but
Speaker 1: what they're able to do and still get great results.
Speaker 1: That's got to be satisfying to see how people you've trained.
Speaker 1: Have you use that in the last four or five months. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's also trying to use the platform to connect to
Speaker 1: other people with each other so they can support one
Speaker 1: another on this online community right now, because the other
Speaker 1: side of this is I couldn't get it done every week,
Speaker 1: and I don't think LAIC could either without the support
Speaker 1: that we've created, and it's to remind people that very
Speaker 1: few people, even the greatest athletes I've ever met in
Speaker 1: the world, can get it done alone. So how do
Speaker 1: you put in place that system that makes you successful?
Speaker 1: Not that you should fly out of bed every day
Speaker 1: and be like I can't wait to get after it,
Speaker 1: but saying, okay, where would I fall short or fail?
Speaker 1: And how do I put a system in place so
Speaker 1: that I have the opportunity to be successful. You've got
Speaker 1: such strength and you describe intensity as a person. Not
Speaker 1: everyone who's gonna come to this or be listening to
Speaker 1: this is going to have those same qualities. They're not
Speaker 1: going to have an elite athlete background. What what do
Speaker 1: you say to people who who want to dive in
Speaker 1: but maybe they don't think that they have those qualities?
Speaker 1: Is insignificant quantity to really succeed at this. I always
Speaker 1: remind people that when we do stuff like this, like
Speaker 1: it isn't actually about Layard Night. It's about the individual
Speaker 1: person and so wherever they are, that's their baseline, and
Speaker 1: it's just about taking you to your best. Because I
Speaker 1: think at the end of the day would be like
Speaker 1: me comparing myself to Layard or I have kids. I've
Speaker 1: had guys come to my house that are twenty six
Speaker 1: year old guys in the NFL. Like, am I going
Speaker 1: to compare myself to them? No, I'm not. So. The
Speaker 1: whole thing is, and this is true to life, is
Speaker 1: how do we look inside of ourselves, be honest with ourselves,
Speaker 1: say Okay, I could probably do better, I could probably
Speaker 1: do more, I could probably push myself more. And also
Speaker 1: to remind people that we are the ones that create
Speaker 1: the limitations. I do it to myself. I'm not different
Speaker 1: than anyone else. I'm my own worst enemy. I'm the
Speaker 1: one who creates these boundaries because I'm afraid to try
Speaker 1: something new And just to remind people that, you know,
Speaker 1: being willing to try something new and having, you know,
Speaker 1: when they even talk about neural plasticity, trying these new things,
Speaker 1: it's like, you're never going to regret that. And also
Speaker 1: put yourself in environments where people are supporting you when
Speaker 1: you're doing something new. When people come to XPT, Lard
Speaker 1: and I always say we can find anyone who can
Speaker 1: show you how impossible it is. That's not what we're doing.
Speaker 1: We're not here to show you that we can crush you.
Speaker 1: We're here to usher you and guide you into your experience.
Speaker 1: That's it. It's such an interesting collection of folks that
Speaker 1: seem to drop by your house and train, whether it's
Speaker 1: in California or Hawaii. And and what what an eclectic
Speaker 1: interesting group, not all athletes and other figures, some famous people,
Speaker 1: some not famous people. I mean that must be really
Speaker 1: interesting to have that kind of collective energy and really
Speaker 1: different mindsets together. What have you gotten from people who
Speaker 1: maybe have far lesser athletic backgrounds, but but they have
Speaker 1: their own experiences? What have you learned from them when
Speaker 1: they come hang out with you? Guys? You know, we
Speaker 1: have a lot. I always tell the people we do these,
Speaker 1: like you know, meet and greets in them beginning, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I know, you're all alpha's in your own world. So
Speaker 1: if it's a CEO person or a hedge fund or
Speaker 1: a VC guy or you know, I've had a lot
Speaker 1: of ladies that will say, oh, it was my whatever
Speaker 1: birthday and I gave myself a present. Um. And what
Speaker 1: you see is one common thing UM is the ability
Speaker 1: to stay curious and to try UM. And also like
Speaker 1: we let's say Alpha's right, so we have a lot
Speaker 1: of alpha's. Everyone's more spectacular than the next right that
Speaker 1: comes to the house. And we always say leave your
Speaker 1: sword at the door, right, like we're all just you know,
Speaker 1: getting through and making it and um, you know, so
Speaker 1: humility and just the openness to not knowing everything and
Speaker 1: to trying new things. Um. And that's what you realize
Speaker 1: that myself and a seventy year old woman with the
Speaker 1: twenty five year old boy young man, we could share
Speaker 1: that value and we could connect better than people who
Speaker 1: would appear to be more similar to us. Because when
Speaker 1: people are open minded and curious and willing to say
Speaker 1: I'm scared, but I'll try it. Um, we can you
Speaker 1: can connect. The holistic approach of your company is what's
Speaker 1: impressive to me. There are people who believe that all
Speaker 1: improvement is interconnected, that improvement in one area is by definition,
Speaker 1: improvement in the whole. How does that come into play
Speaker 1: for you guys where when it's is very there's very
Speaker 1: much a mental I don't know if you call it
Speaker 1: a spiritual component, but that goes with the physical. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think it depends on your approach, right.
Speaker 1: I think if you're moving in a way and eating
Speaker 1: in a way that supports you sets you up to
Speaker 1: the opportunity to probably form better, whether it's in your relationships,
Speaker 1: at your work, dealing with your own personal issues, whatever
Speaker 1: that is. But I don't know that it's a guarantee
Speaker 1: because I know a lot of high performing people that
Speaker 1: can move better than anyone on the planet, any perfect diets,
Speaker 1: but they also use it as an escape and something
Speaker 1: to control. And so that's where we fall short if
Speaker 1: we go like, well, I have my calories and I
Speaker 1: did my forty eight minutes and my heart rate was this,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, you're trying to control your life
Speaker 1: through your moving and eating versus I'm going to do
Speaker 1: all of this because it makes me a better person,
Speaker 1: and it also sets me up to be fertile ground
Speaker 1: for like, Okay, now I can really tackle the hard stuff.
Speaker 1: That's interesting it that I guess the idealized versions that
Speaker 1: all improvement is connected. But you're saying a lot of
Speaker 1: people wall it off. How how would you help them
Speaker 1: to sort of break that down and have whatever you're
Speaker 1: trying to impart that have a positive effect in the
Speaker 1: rest of their life. I just think it's the invitation
Speaker 1: to say we're not perfect, and we can't control everything,
Speaker 1: measure everything, time everything out, weigh everything out, and that
Speaker 1: life is incredibly messy. And if you choose, especially to
Speaker 1: be entangled, which means relationships of any kind, then if
Speaker 1: you want to like sprinkle in some kids and like,
Speaker 1: you know, do all that that, it's like it's messy
Speaker 1: and it's and you're upside I'm upside down a lot
Speaker 1: of the time. You know, I'm a mom, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know what's always going on. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: they say that that part of our existence is entanglement,
Speaker 1: that really we awaken in these entanglements. And so I
Speaker 1: guess what I would say, because I believe everybody has
Speaker 1: their path, is to make the invitation to say, okay,
Speaker 1: it seems like you have you're in charge of that
Speaker 1: pretty good. Now you want to take on do you
Speaker 1: want to go to the next level, in the next
Speaker 1: grade or become a professor, which is to like get
Speaker 1: messy and try to improve um in the areas that
Speaker 1: UM are not only scary, but they're impossible to be
Speaker 1: good at. Like no one's ever going to say like, wow,
Speaker 1: you're a great parent, not really like it's all you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying like, like to be a human
Speaker 1: being and to say I'm gonna show up every single day.
Speaker 1: I'm unsure. I'm scared. I don't even know what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: and no one at the end of the day is
Speaker 1: gonna be like, great job, and here's the metrics. Now
Speaker 1: I'm interested. That's a good mic drop. But I want
Speaker 1: to circle back on a couple of things. I don't
Speaker 1: want to bog this down into breathing, but it's something
Speaker 1: that fascinates me because I am a whim half disciple
Speaker 1: you mentioned him, and and it's it's as simple as
Speaker 1: sort of breathing and then learning to hold my breath.
Speaker 1: Then very proud that I've gotten to five minutes and
Speaker 1: can do it consistently. What you guys are teaching that
Speaker 1: was way more um sophisticated than that, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's literally learning how to use your muscles in your body.
Speaker 1: It's to to do the fundamental thing that we humans
Speaker 1: do well. I don't think I don't know about sophistication
Speaker 1: because I appreciate like women himself is, you know, can
Speaker 1: do all these studies and works with Dr Huberman and
Speaker 1: has done all like you can control a lot, so
Speaker 1: he but the thing about women is also women is
Speaker 1: sort of like a showman in a certain way. But
Speaker 1: what's amazing is that has actually created a breathing movement.
Speaker 1: You know whom has done that? So for us? Because
Speaker 1: if it's one thing, if you're whim but if you're
Speaker 1: going to be communicating with people and teaching people, especially
Speaker 1: like give me a guy from Boston who runs a
Speaker 1: hedge fund, um, you know, breathe and you know, like, motherfucker,
Speaker 1: isn't gonna totally work right, Like it's like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: here's the science on what happens when you mouth breathe
Speaker 1: like a free diver, you scrub your CEO two. Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? What that means is then the
Speaker 1: oxygen that's actually in your blood stream, the only way
Speaker 1: it can be absorbed into the cells and tissues is
Speaker 1: for your CEO two to be high. So how do
Speaker 1: we do that? We knows, breathe and so then and
Speaker 1: break it down from there, like you know, we do
Speaker 1: a lot of hypoxic training in my pool. What happens there?
Speaker 1: You're getting you say to someone, Okay, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: meetings for the day, you have an early day. How
Speaker 1: do you, how do you use the breath to up
Speaker 1: regulate to go into your sympathetic Okay, you've had a
Speaker 1: hell of a day, you're stressed out, you're getting ready forbid.
Speaker 1: What breathing patterns can you use to go into your
Speaker 1: parasympathetic and try to get a rest all night sleep
Speaker 1: because that's the only time you recover. So we try
Speaker 1: to approach it more like that. But see, I think
Speaker 1: it's all hands on deck. So if you've got a
Speaker 1: guy like whim and he's turning on millions of people
Speaker 1: and they're like even conscious of their breath, I think
Speaker 1: that's a wind. Both of your lives been so intertwined
Speaker 1: with nature. Explain why you think that exercise and whatever
Speaker 1: nature connects with people is better than the fluorescent light
Speaker 1: of a gym. What do our bodies get out of
Speaker 1: being outdoors when we're trying to achieve fitness? Well, I
Speaker 1: mean the sun alone, And I would encourage people if
Speaker 1: they don't definitely don't have to believe me. Just do
Speaker 1: the research on sunglasses because so much is stimulated and
Speaker 1: cute through our eyeballs from sunlight, for production of melatonin
Speaker 1: and things that will impact our sleep later and for
Speaker 1: vitamin D and other things. Right, So I think, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, our natural system, our biology is quite beautiful
Speaker 1: and quite harmonious with our our natural environment. And you
Speaker 1: know we're on computers, were in cars, where we live,
Speaker 1: in cities, what have you. And I totally respect that.
Speaker 1: But the fact is it doesn't take away from who
Speaker 1: we are biologically and um, some of some of those things.
Speaker 1: So being out in nature, even your skin has you know,
Speaker 1: photoreceptors on it, So with the light, you're picking up
Speaker 1: things about the light, um, you know, through your through
Speaker 1: your skin. So for example, why you want to sleep
Speaker 1: in a dark room even if you had a mask
Speaker 1: on and not have any lights on, it's because your
Speaker 1: skin is still aware of the light. Um and natural
Speaker 1: lighting versus fluorescent lighting. I mean how that imp hacks
Speaker 1: your overall emotional well being anxiety and hormones and everything else. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a real thing. So if people, unless they're skiing
Speaker 1: on a mountain or like riding vehicles where they need
Speaker 1: to protect their eyeballs, I would encourage them to go
Speaker 1: without sunglasses, especially outside, as often as possible. And um,
Speaker 1: people say, well, my eyes are sensitive in the glare,
Speaker 1: and it's like Okay, they're not. I have green eyes,
Speaker 1: and it's about a practice. And it's also about the
Speaker 1: the eye dilating and constricting all the time, not just
Speaker 1: being in one state. That's how you keep your eyes strong.
Speaker 1: But also it's a joke about two parts of your
Speaker 1: brain or outside of your skull, and it's your eyeballs.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I've never heard it described that way,
Speaker 1: you know, just anecdotally. I mean, I like to climb
Speaker 1: mountains and hike, and the sunglasses are often a part
Speaker 1: of that. But I've just found recently just taking them
Speaker 1: off and letting the real light in unless the glare
Speaker 1: is really causing you problems. I mean, I felt better.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. Maybe that's based on what you
Speaker 1: just described. And I've started to use them only when
Speaker 1: absolutely necessary, if it's off of snow. And I didn't
Speaker 1: know that was the reason, but I think that's part
Speaker 1: of it. I think it just sets our brain and
Speaker 1: our whole chemistry in a certain way. And also I think,
Speaker 1: you know, if you talk about nature, when we walk
Speaker 1: in nature, are we use our eyes to look where
Speaker 1: we're stepping? I mean, there's so many nuanced things that
Speaker 1: are occurring they're so good for us, um that uh,
Speaker 1: I know it's easy to overlook. The last component is recovery,
Speaker 1: which has a lot of different aspects. UM. One of
Speaker 1: the more dramatic is obviously the ice bath. UM. My
Speaker 1: other guest, Desmond Howard's says ice baths are torture, they're
Speaker 1: they're not for him. And I said, look, whatever works
Speaker 1: for you and recovery, you need to figure that out.
Speaker 1: Would I be shamed if I came to your place
Speaker 1: and didn't sit in the ice bath and tough it out,
Speaker 1: because I know that's Listen, the cold shower thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: the cold shower is to an ice bath like a
Speaker 1: propeller plane is for a fighter jet. I mean it's
Speaker 1: ice bets your extreme. It is. I will remind people that, actually,
Speaker 1: I think the sauna is the king ultimately for recovery.
Speaker 1: I think heat chocked proteins and some other benefits that
Speaker 1: you get from really sitting in a sauna over the
Speaker 1: long run, even your cognitive function, prevention of Alzheimer's and
Speaker 1: all calls mortality. There's a lot of data showing how
Speaker 1: high that is, so he is certainly important. I think
Speaker 1: what's interesting about the ice is Besides, obviously there's hormone
Speaker 1: regulation and mood enhancement and certain things that actually happened.
Speaker 1: Um and for women, you know, we can get into
Speaker 1: brown fat and sometimes that motivates them and all of that.
Speaker 1: But um, there's something about doing something that you're actually
Speaker 1: a little uncomfortable with, Like I'm not I don't go
Speaker 1: in the ice and be like, oh yeah, party in
Speaker 1: the ice. I'm like the fact there we go. There's
Speaker 1: something about working on that where you're like, I'm uncomfortable
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna have to stay calm. That feels really
Speaker 1: important to me. Now, if anyone does use a nice stuff,
Speaker 1: I want to remind them not to do it directly
Speaker 1: after heavy lifting. Um, it's important to have that destruction,
Speaker 1: that inflammation, all of that that we do when we
Speaker 1: bang iron, and so the ice can stunt that a bit.
Speaker 1: So what I remind people is that the ice, like
Speaker 1: if somebody came out football practice and they were running okay,
Speaker 1: but if you know or if you separate it as
Speaker 1: a separate practice, but definitely don't go from a performance
Speaker 1: type of training where you're trying to get gains like
Speaker 1: weightlifting and go into a nice stuff because you have
Speaker 1: a unique perspective on this with with your own experience
Speaker 1: and layers experience. Are there any differences in this process
Speaker 1: of adapting and accepting but defying just enough? Uh? The
Speaker 1: fitness aspect of fifty plus between men and women, is
Speaker 1: there a fundamental difference or is that is there a
Speaker 1: generalization that's not worth making there? No, I think gets different,
Speaker 1: but maybe not for the obvious reasons. I think obviously
Speaker 1: men have more testosterone, and so there's something interesting. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think a woman, if she is taking care
Speaker 1: of herself pretty well, um, you know, you can perform
Speaker 1: for a really long time. I mean, but they do
Speaker 1: have more of that hormone. You know, listen, let's honor
Speaker 1: the testosterone. You know, it's like it's a real thing.
Speaker 1: But I think something else that maybe a woman falls
Speaker 1: vulnerable to that a man may be less, is the
Speaker 1: aging part, Like we're more I feel I could be
Speaker 1: wrong from my perspective, is sometimes we're more conscious, self
Speaker 1: conscious of that we're getting older. And for men, they
Speaker 1: continue they they're not the young bull anymore. So they
Speaker 1: have to manage that. We don't have to manage that, right, Um,
Speaker 1: but they sort of it doesn't occur to them like
Speaker 1: well does my skin look pretty? And like all this
Speaker 1: stuff where for women beyond on who we are as athletes.
Speaker 1: If we if we uh don't make peace with that,
Speaker 1: I think that that's another addition to our story. To
Speaker 1: what degree is making peace Gabby tuning out the external stuff,
Speaker 1: the static what society tells us, and giving much more
Speaker 1: credency your InterVoice, And how do you wrestle with that?
Speaker 1: If you do? I think it's both and I think
Speaker 1: it's the life that you try to build. So then
Speaker 1: what you're looking to is you go, huh, how and
Speaker 1: what other ways do I contribute as a person? So
Speaker 1: I have knowledge that I didn't have TI years ago
Speaker 1: or um, you know, I used to joke that I
Speaker 1: have a couple of guys on the XPT staff. They're
Speaker 1: very they're incredibly smart. Um, but they're like thirty five, right,
Speaker 1: big strong, healthy, good looking guys, And I think to myself,
Speaker 1: and not that it ever mattered, but in that moment,
Speaker 1: it's like, it doesn't matter if they want to sleep
Speaker 1: with me, like I'm in a way their boss, right,
Speaker 1: And so I think in a way for women sometimes
Speaker 1: it's too it's to understand that we have so much
Speaker 1: to contribute, and yes, at a time when we're supposed
Speaker 1: to be biologically signaling, like if that's your choice that
Speaker 1: you're gonna make babies, then you're gonna your skin is
Speaker 1: gonna look a certain way, your lips are gonna certain way.
Speaker 1: Then you move into a different phase of your life,
Speaker 1: you don't you're done with that, right and so we
Speaker 1: have other things uh to give and contribute, And you
Speaker 1: can always be an athlete. That's why it's so important
Speaker 1: to take care of yourself. And the other great thing
Speaker 1: is there's things I have now is a person that
Speaker 1: I wish I had as an athlete, which was I
Speaker 1: wasn't I it was very hard to be competitive and
Speaker 1: then not somehow didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings. Right,
Speaker 1: Like here you are in your early twenties and you
Speaker 1: have this weird thing of like my job is to
Speaker 1: go out and you know, get somebody, and um, then
Speaker 1: there's a part of me as a girl that's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that was a struggle, you know. And now, believe me,
Speaker 1: I have lost that because I've learned Listen, I'm never
Speaker 1: gonna make everybody like me or make everybody happy. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stop trying, and so the energy goes into
Speaker 1: a different direction. So I think that's why it's kind
Speaker 1: of cool to be stay in sports and stay in
Speaker 1: athletics or trained, because I always say, sometimes I do
Speaker 1: drills today and I'm really like, literal, go, this is
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do. And I respond like a fifteen
Speaker 1: year old boy, you know, like I'm defiant, I roll
Speaker 1: my eyes and I'm playful or obnoxious. And that's because
Speaker 1: in that moment, I'm just being an athlete and having
Speaker 1: fun and exploring the female, the male sides of myself
Speaker 1: and enjoying that. Um So I think that that ends
Speaker 1: up being overriding for sure. Fifties and a milestone, there
Speaker 1: are other milestones ahead. Do you look ahead at all?
Speaker 1: Or or are you just in the present? Do you
Speaker 1: warrant wonder and worry about potential limitations that are inevitable
Speaker 1: down the line. I mean I always joke like, how
Speaker 1: are like Laird's going to be with an old lady?
Speaker 1: And then I think, I'm myself, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be with some old guy, you know, Like I we
Speaker 1: joke about that, like I think about that and I
Speaker 1: go weird okay, Um. I think I'm always looking understanding
Speaker 1: the landscape ahead just a little bit about as far
Speaker 1: as like where, what kind of what part of the
Speaker 1: landscape would you like to end up on? So you're
Speaker 1: never sort of just floating around. But I think that
Speaker 1: I know that if I do the work most of
Speaker 1: the time, it's not I'm not perfect. I missed my workouts,
Speaker 1: so I might need a piece of cake or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't know, um, but if I'm really showing up
Speaker 1: and doing the work, that I probably will be led
Speaker 1: in the right way as long as I'm really trying
Speaker 1: to listen to my own inner compass and really be
Speaker 1: diligent about keeping the noise out, um. Because then you'll
Speaker 1: find that people are like, how did you get there?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. I just listened
Speaker 1: to myself and trusted myself that this is where I
Speaker 1: was going to belong and and and learn how to
Speaker 1: you know, reorient when you aren't in the right spot.
Speaker 1: I think it's really wise adaptability, and it's many forms.
Speaker 1: I want to ask just a couple more things. One,
Speaker 1: if someone is not predisposed to accept all this, they
Speaker 1: don't see immediately the value let's say they've been sedentary.
Speaker 1: Let's say they may be given up hope on being
Speaker 1: fit and well at whatever stage their life, then this
Speaker 1: is complicating you. Everybody is different, But is there a
Speaker 1: an overarching pep talk that you would boil down for
Speaker 1: someone in that position? I think it's you know, listen,
Speaker 1: I always say this. If if I say to you,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, you need to move and you need
Speaker 1: to eat well, I can. I can show you how
Speaker 1: to do everything. I could lay it out for the map,
Speaker 1: I could even take you, but until you figure out
Speaker 1: why it's important to you, until it becomes a value
Speaker 1: to the individual person. So what I would first say
Speaker 1: to somebody is, Okay, do you think you need to
Speaker 1: do that because you think you're supposed to want to
Speaker 1: do that, or do you understand the value the value
Speaker 1: of taking care of your health and things like that,
Speaker 1: um And then getting them to their whether it's for
Speaker 1: relationships or what have you write and then it's just
Speaker 1: reminding them just a little at a time. It isn't
Speaker 1: about taking the whole thing and going to the top
Speaker 1: of the mountain. It's going hey, listen, today, the best
Speaker 1: we got is a fifteen minute walk and we take
Speaker 1: out our worst eating habit just want not stop eating everything.
Speaker 1: Just take the one thing that you do that you
Speaker 1: know you is really the worst thing and eliminate that
Speaker 1: and just start there, um and then and and then
Speaker 1: remind people that we do need like our brothers and
Speaker 1: sisters to to schedule with us to help us be successful.
Speaker 1: That if you're going to do what, you really have
Speaker 1: to create a small plan. Um. But I always am
Speaker 1: curious with people, and I say, like, you keep your
Speaker 1: houses clean, you clean your cars, you give your car
Speaker 1: the right fuel. Ultimately, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: besides our relationships, the most valuable thing that we own
Speaker 1: is our health. And I don't know if it's like
Speaker 1: having been an athlete where you get injured and you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I can sit on the
Speaker 1: toilet on my own and walk across the room because
Speaker 1: of my knee or my this or my back, that
Speaker 1: you like, I don't need to lose that to understand,
Speaker 1: Um that it's but it's see, but see, it's a
Speaker 1: value to me. That's why I do it. So really
Speaker 1: it's got to start there. And when people don't have hope, UM,
Speaker 1: I think it's the time when you lean in when
Speaker 1: you're just not sure, but you know it's the right direction.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll tell you something really quick. So I
Speaker 1: have a friend who who's in the Navy Seals. Second
Speaker 1: day of Hell Week, guys are sitting on the beach
Speaker 1: looking the sunset and the most amount of people are
Speaker 1: leaving as the sun's going down. They're sitting on the
Speaker 1: beach and they and they hear the bell ringing, one bell,
Speaker 1: the bell, the bell the guys when they quit, and
Speaker 1: the guys are on the megaphone going the A teams
Speaker 1: coming because they have three teams that run the run
Speaker 1: the challenges. They're the alphics are coming. You're gonna be
Speaker 1: so cold, it's gonna be a long night. The reason
Speaker 1: they got for the first day was adrenaline. The second night,
Speaker 1: he said, you can't believe I go. What happened? He goes.
Speaker 1: The fear of what was going to happen destroyed so
Speaker 1: many of these guys. And so what I would also
Speaker 1: say to these people is when you feel that way,
Speaker 1: just move forward. And most of us we make it through.
Speaker 1: The suffering and the imagination is far worse than the
Speaker 1: suffering in reality. Right, if you can just get people
Speaker 1: to understand that just just keep leaning into it, and
Speaker 1: I give you my word. And there's not many things
Speaker 1: I would stand on that that well we can get there,
Speaker 1: and that and that the individual person is worth it,
Speaker 1: and it's them reminding themselves. I'm worth it, and I'm
Speaker 1: important and I need and this is uncomfortable and I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna go into it. Well, thanks, I'm inspired, I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot, fired up. I'm ready to go outside
Speaker 1: of nature and do a workout and maybe even a
Speaker 1: nice bed. You might have even convinced me about that.
Speaker 1: I can get the courage if you're like a real
Speaker 1: man and stuff you. Thanks for being an example to
Speaker 1: too many people female and male appreciate you. Oh well,
Speaker 1: thank you. It's listen. If making it to fifty, and
Speaker 1: that's the other thing for people, just remember it's it
Speaker 1: is really truly the gift of another year. And when
Speaker 1: we're eighty, we're going to look back and think, oh
Speaker 1: my god, look how young we were at fifty. So
Speaker 1: let's not waste the whole hell of a lot of time.
Speaker 1: Time is precious, and we appreciate Gabby for being generous
Speaker 1: with hers You can follow her on Instagram at Gabby
Speaker 1: Reese and the Gabby rees Show is on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Desmond Howard, he's probably working out right now. We're riding
Speaker 1: his bike around Miami or blending some new smoothie recipe
Speaker 1: or brewing some exotic tea. Does has become even more
Speaker 1: passionate about his health and about sharing ideas with others
Speaker 1: since hitting the Big five Oh this spring. On Instagram,
Speaker 1: his hashtag twenty one at fifty connects with people. He
Speaker 1: goes live each Wednesday evening for wellness Wednesday. Of course,
Speaker 1: in football, he was a Heisman Trophy winner at Michigan
Speaker 1: Super Bowl m v P for the Packers. He is
Speaker 1: a dear friend and a colleague and a mainstay of
Speaker 1: course on ESPN College Game Day for many years. So, Desmond,
Speaker 1: my friend, as this milestone in your life approached, I've
Speaker 1: left that in the rear view mirror. What was your
Speaker 1: psychological and physical approach to turn in the Big five
Speaker 1: OH this year? I'll tell you what CF because Um,
Speaker 1: I've been working out consistently. UM. I was excited about it.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately for me, it happened during the pandemic, so I
Speaker 1: couldn't have like the all out celebration that I wanted. Um,
Speaker 1: but psychologically I was excited, but I was happy. I
Speaker 1: was happy because I'm in a good place. I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm in a good place, you know, especially mentally
Speaker 1: and physically, and I wanted to start to just share
Speaker 1: my mental state and my my physical state with people
Speaker 1: because they had a lot of people they didn't believe
Speaker 1: I was fifty. You know, there's which is a good thing. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I took it as a compliment and they said, no,
Speaker 1: you can't be fifty, and um, so I felt good
Speaker 1: about it outside of the fact that I couldn't have
Speaker 1: like a big celebration, but it was good to celebrate
Speaker 1: with the people on on my Instagram. As an approach,
Speaker 1: does you know that age goes from being four in
Speaker 1: the first number to a five? It's traumatic for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Make a great point. The better shape
Speaker 1: here in, the better you feel about yourself and your life,
Speaker 1: the less of an impact negatively these milestones have. Did
Speaker 1: you do things in your forties knowing that you're about
Speaker 1: to hit that fifty miles and it's just a number,
Speaker 1: but it can be a lot more than a number
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. No, you're exactly right, and
Speaker 1: it's it's it is a milestone. And I guess in
Speaker 1: my forties I started to prepare myself just physically for
Speaker 1: being a healthier person. And it actually, see if it
Speaker 1: started before I got in my forties. I was about
Speaker 1: thirty nine years on thirty eight thirty nine, and I
Speaker 1: went to the doctor and it's regular check up, and
Speaker 1: when I got my blood work back, and the doctor
Speaker 1: told me that my cholesterol was starting to creep up.
Speaker 1: My my LDL numbers were starting to um creep up
Speaker 1: a little bit, and he wasn't comfortable with that. So
Speaker 1: obviously most doctors, as you know, they want to put
Speaker 1: you on some type of pill to control it, and
Speaker 1: I was against that. So I decided to just try
Speaker 1: to alter my eating habits. Um. You know, I have
Speaker 1: a sweet tooth. Um, I'm guilty of that. I have
Speaker 1: a sweet tooth. At that point, I probably could eat
Speaker 1: a dozen Crispy cream donuts, you know, with in a
Speaker 1: matter of a couple of hours, and I even think twice. Um,
Speaker 1: So I knew I had to give up that type
Speaker 1: of of of of sweet our minetory. Everything is good
Speaker 1: in moderation for me, So I wouldn't eat it does
Speaker 1: if I will still get some doughnuts. I was there
Speaker 1: those days when they just delivered those donuts. You you
Speaker 1: were a notorious doughnut eater, so on college game day
Speaker 1: they would know that and here would come this box
Speaker 1: of donuts. I'm thinking Desmond's gonna share. Now. That was
Speaker 1: basically for you exactly. You remember those days, oh man.
Speaker 1: So how tough was it to say, Hey, I'm getting
Speaker 1: this from my doctor, I'm taking this seriously, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make a fundamental change and how I'm taking care of
Speaker 1: my body. You know, it wasn't very difficult. Um. The
Speaker 1: challenges came later on when I would travel with game
Speaker 1: day that those were the really challenges for me. Um.
Speaker 1: As far as like I said, I didn't stop cold turkey.
Speaker 1: I was gonna eat doughnuts. I just wouldn't eat them
Speaker 1: as often or as as many. Um So, but I
Speaker 1: still got sweet tooth. So I just started to practice
Speaker 1: the whole philosophy and everything is good in moderation. Um.
Speaker 1: But then traveling with game they that became the challenge
Speaker 1: for me. Because you're going to some of these small
Speaker 1: college towns. They don't have the best options as far
Speaker 1: as trying to eat healthier, and and that's what I
Speaker 1: was doing. I was I was on the quest eat healthier.
Speaker 1: So keeping that type of eating habit consistent became the challenge.
Speaker 1: And then you get the big dinners. You know, we
Speaker 1: would go out to dinner and then I mean it's
Speaker 1: like a it's like a king's um spread. Sometimes we
Speaker 1: would go out Friday nights. But then and just sitting
Speaker 1: there and watching certain members of our crew just go
Speaker 1: at it. You're not gonna name herb streets name. Now,
Speaker 1: I know what you said. Man, healthy habits on the
Speaker 1: road for a lot of people who travel for whatever
Speaker 1: their bob is is super challenging. I want to get
Speaker 1: back in a little bit later to so what you
Speaker 1: put in your body? You are a chef master, with
Speaker 1: the smoothies, with the tease, a lot of interesting things
Speaker 1: that kind of go into your overall wellness program. But
Speaker 1: I do want to backup. So you you retire an
Speaker 1: O two, so there's eighteen years between retirement and turning fifty.
Speaker 1: How was your general state of health? You mentioned you
Speaker 1: had some health issues that doctors addressed in your forties.
Speaker 1: What about working out? Because one one thing I've heard
Speaker 1: from the lead athletes. When they retire, what messages with
Speaker 1: their head is they know they will never be in
Speaker 1: that kind of shape again, and sometimes they just give
Speaker 1: up because they know they can't be what they once were.
Speaker 1: How was that for you wrestling with that reality? Well,
Speaker 1: I continue to work out, probably not as much or
Speaker 1: as intense as intensely as I used to when I
Speaker 1: played football, but I would. I would work out. My
Speaker 1: setback came when I actually had a meniscus tear, and
Speaker 1: so once I had to have that repair. I've never
Speaker 1: ever had any surgeries below the waste, never and so
Speaker 1: that was the first time I had um hurt my
Speaker 1: knee where I had to have surgery and that set
Speaker 1: me back. So then coming back off surgery and then
Speaker 1: doing the rehab, you know, first of all, your body
Speaker 1: is not the same because you know you're up put
Speaker 1: on the shelf for a matter of months. And dealing
Speaker 1: with that rehab and then trying to get back in shape,
Speaker 1: that was a challenge because I wanted to run outside,
Speaker 1: but my doctor he was against that. My my pt
Speaker 1: physical therapist he was against that. So then I had
Speaker 1: to make an adjustment. So I started to use the
Speaker 1: elliptical machine more because says there's low impact on your
Speaker 1: knees and the bike. So I had to make an adjustment.
Speaker 1: As far as Mark Cardio, you know, you want to
Speaker 1: get your body back in shape, but you want to
Speaker 1: do it the right way. So I couldn't run outside anymore.
Speaker 1: I could barely, you know. I wanted to do sprints.
Speaker 1: You know, they said, you know, we limit the spress
Speaker 1: maybe ten but no, you know, three miles five mile runs,
Speaker 1: not nothing like that. So I would start to do
Speaker 1: interval training on the elliptical or on a spin bike,
Speaker 1: meaning I would go maybe thirty seconds hard on the
Speaker 1: elliptical and then thirty seconds you know, just normal. And
Speaker 1: I would do that maybe twelve or fifteen times. So
Speaker 1: that was to simulate a sprint. And I would do
Speaker 1: the same thing with the bike. So early on, because
Speaker 1: of the surgeon I had on my knee, my body
Speaker 1: who didn't feel the same and kind of you know,
Speaker 1: a guy out of shape, and it was a challenge
Speaker 1: now mentally to get back into some sort of shape. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think athletes have so much experience with injuries. You
Speaker 1: you said you hadn't had a knee before. But what
Speaker 1: I found is the more experience you have with injuries,
Speaker 1: sometimes that knowledge can be a negative to your mindset
Speaker 1: because you know what it takes to get back off
Speaker 1: an injury. And people who have never been injured before.
Speaker 1: I watched their reaction, they're scarcer here some uncertainty, but
Speaker 1: I also watched the reaction whether it's on the football
Speaker 1: field or or just the general public when they've had
Speaker 1: repeated injuries. And I've been there, you know what it
Speaker 1: takes and how much work it is to get back
Speaker 1: to where you were. And what was there a low
Speaker 1: point when you thought, des, Hey, you know I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna be able to be as active in retirement as
Speaker 1: I thought before you figured out how to manage the injury. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe so, because it was like I was going
Speaker 1: through the motions. It's like I'm going I'm working out,
Speaker 1: but not with the definitive purpose in mind, Like I'm
Speaker 1: just going through the motions. And when you're going through
Speaker 1: the motions, see, you're not going to see the results
Speaker 1: that you want. You know, you know what you want
Speaker 1: to look like. I know what I used to be,
Speaker 1: but I'm not getting to that point. So it's extremely
Speaker 1: frustrating because I'm you know, going through the motions. I'm
Speaker 1: going through pt UM trying to make these alterations. Now,
Speaker 1: like you said, this is early now, this is this
Speaker 1: is UM. You know, two thousand to two thousand three,
Speaker 1: this early. So I haven't made the adjustment meant to
Speaker 1: the yet to um change my eating habits and the
Speaker 1: change my my my my workouts and things that nature.
Speaker 1: So early on it was a challenge because even though
Speaker 1: I was still working out, I wasn't seeing the results
Speaker 1: that I wanted. Yeah, that mind body connection UM is
Speaker 1: something that an athlete understands, maybe from a young age
Speaker 1: those of us who are non athletes. My injuries helped
Speaker 1: me to establish a mind body connection that I didn't
Speaker 1: have before. So you know, you have to attack the
Speaker 1: weakness when you're doing physical therapy to get back to
Speaker 1: where you were. But I found I was able to improve,
Speaker 1: not just get back, but improve. And I think that
Speaker 1: the value of physical therapist, man, it's it's there right
Speaker 1: there with surgeons, I think in terms of the importance
Speaker 1: of coming back. You know, when you were in your
Speaker 1: forties and approaching fifty, were there figures for you that
Speaker 1: were inspirations. I don't know if they're ex players or
Speaker 1: people from other walks of life. For people should wait
Speaker 1: a minute, here's what's possible at fifty and beyond. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be inspired by what they're doing. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what I have. And I'm gonna go back to
Speaker 1: talk about the physical therapist because you did hit a
Speaker 1: good point. That's a very excellent point actually, because they
Speaker 1: are so important, their essential, and a good PT is
Speaker 1: the remedy to to overcoming any injury that you've had,
Speaker 1: any surgeon that you've had, and I've had a great
Speaker 1: PT here. And the thing is you walk into some
Speaker 1: of these offices and they have like the jerseys of
Speaker 1: some of the professional athletes who they've helped. So so
Speaker 1: just imagine. Okay, so now I'm a professional former professional athletes.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, Okay, I know this guy. I know
Speaker 1: that guy. I know this guy, and it gives me
Speaker 1: confidence that this guy knows what he's doing. And some
Speaker 1: of these guys I can, you know, I can reach
Speaker 1: out to them and ask him about out the PT.
Speaker 1: Guy I remember doing uh PT, Oh man, what was this?
Speaker 1: It must have been like oh six and uh it
Speaker 1: was some professional guys in there, and I think that
Speaker 1: just helps me. But then I started to think, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not just professional athletes and me's just regular people
Speaker 1: who have surgery. This must make them feel like really
Speaker 1: good though, because they're getting the type of physical therapy
Speaker 1: that the people who they watch, like this guy who
Speaker 1: plays for the Heat or this guy who plays for
Speaker 1: the Dolphins, of these guys right here who played for
Speaker 1: the Miami Hurricanes, the same type of physical therapy at
Speaker 1: their game. So I think that, you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: uh I meant to add. I meant to say that
Speaker 1: they're very essential to overcoming things physically but also mentally
Speaker 1: to the way that they approaching. And you walk into
Speaker 1: these places and you see all these jerseys up there,
Speaker 1: and you're like, Okay, I'm in the right place. This
Speaker 1: guy knows what he's doing. I can totally relate to that.
Speaker 1: I saw all the jerseys the people that operated on
Speaker 1: on each of my shoulders and my knee have had
Speaker 1: the three surgeries in the last two years, and I
Speaker 1: looked at that wall and I tried to get a
Speaker 1: sense of how fast they were able to come back,
Speaker 1: what things they did. And I know that I'm not
Speaker 1: an elite athlete, but if I could attack it with
Speaker 1: the same mindset as though I'm trying to get back
Speaker 1: on the ice or back on the field. UM, I
Speaker 1: thought that would be helpful, and I think that's good advice.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a huge believer. I try to be a
Speaker 1: pie piper for for the the power of physical therapy.
Speaker 1: When you see guys days in the sport that you
Speaker 1: used to play him Tom Brady use forty three and
Speaker 1: the way he has sort of reshaped his physical training. Tara, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's forty six year old t o running a four
Speaker 1: four to forty against Tyreek Hill. When you when you
Speaker 1: saw that kind of thing, is is it now possible,
Speaker 1: through more knowledge and training, to to be elite like
Speaker 1: that much later than it used to be? I believe
Speaker 1: it is. Um you know you have, I mean the tech,
Speaker 1: the technology that we're dealing with now is so or
Speaker 1: advance and where where it was, especially when I played football. UM,
Speaker 1: the knowledge of nutrition and different ways to to train,
Speaker 1: whether it's dumbbells, whether it's UM bands, different things in
Speaker 1: the way that they affect you by Because I know
Speaker 1: that Tom Brady is really big on the band system.
Speaker 1: He loves the bands, and you know, you could take
Speaker 1: them anywhere that you want. You know, you're using your
Speaker 1: hotel role. You don't necessarily need like the heavy weights.
Speaker 1: And that's his trick. I mean, that's his key to success.
Speaker 1: When he believes in you, you factor the nutrition, the technology,
Speaker 1: and now the different ways that you can train to
Speaker 1: to I guess give you the longevity that you're you're
Speaker 1: looking for in particular sports. It's really mind blowing. Back
Speaker 1: back when I played football. I remember when I was
Speaker 1: in Michigan CF. You know, if you had like an
Speaker 1: a c L that was career threatening, like an a
Speaker 1: c L back then, I was like, oh my gods,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be able to come back? Would you ever
Speaker 1: be the same Now? A c L is almost like
Speaker 1: an ankle spraining these days. I mean, it's so common
Speaker 1: and players are back on the field like that. So
Speaker 1: it just gives you an example of how far we've
Speaker 1: come as far as you know, technology, medicine, and physical
Speaker 1: therapy is concerned. You train yourself to play two of
Speaker 1: the most punishing positions in any sport receiver, kickoff returner.
Speaker 1: The collisions. You're training your body to be able to
Speaker 1: withstand collisions. Thankfully, you no longer have to train your
Speaker 1: body to do that. What what is your routine? Take
Speaker 1: people through kind of what you do on the physical side.
Speaker 1: We'll get to the mental side in a bit, but
Speaker 1: physically to sort of stay in peak shape at fifty now,
Speaker 1: you know. I like I like to mix it up. Um.
Speaker 1: I like to do bands, I do um free weights,
Speaker 1: um man, I've done some classes. This is a it's
Speaker 1: a class called s l T which is really a challenge.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's it's a challenge. So I like to
Speaker 1: mix up. Like the box too. I love boxing. I
Speaker 1: think boxing that's some of the most uh difficult training,
Speaker 1: um that's out there. I think boxes are in tremendous shape.
Speaker 1: I have a jump rope. I love the jump rope.
Speaker 1: I don't do any more roadwork. I can't do roadwork anymore.
Speaker 1: You're getting the ring with somebody, do you getting there?
Speaker 1: In spars, it's just you you you you do all
Speaker 1: the punching. And I used to not anymore, but I
Speaker 1: used to get in there with my guys. So I
Speaker 1: had a trainer. His name was Matt Bamonte and he's
Speaker 1: actually Matt Damon's trainer too, And uh, we all used
Speaker 1: to hang out and Matt Beamonte. He learned under Angelo Dundee. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so we used to have dinners together. Angelo was
Speaker 1: the greatest, loved loved him, you know, he rest in peace.
Speaker 1: But so he learned, he trained under Angelo, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I used to get in the ring, used to put
Speaker 1: on the head gear, and man, I missed those those sessions.
Speaker 1: But that's just like the best trains. I love to
Speaker 1: mix it up. I love to mixing up a lot.
Speaker 1: I've never seen you post on Instagram a boxing training thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe you have. I do see you post your bike
Speaker 1: rides all the time. You've come to cycling because I
Speaker 1: know that running is punishing on the knees, and like
Speaker 1: a lot of people our age, you look for lower
Speaker 1: impact cardio. But you get to be outside and you're
Speaker 1: living down there in Miami is a lot of beautiful
Speaker 1: places you can cycle. So talk talk to me about
Speaker 1: how important that is to what you're what you're doing physically.
Speaker 1: Now that's another element too. I like cycling. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a I said earlier. I like the liblical and
Speaker 1: the spin bike and cycling outside is just you know,
Speaker 1: first and foremost, it gets my mind right, Like I
Speaker 1: just this is me, the bike and my thoughts. Um,
Speaker 1: and you can just ride. And I like to take
Speaker 1: a course where there's you know, obviously a minimum out
Speaker 1: of traffic as far as cars are concerned. But when
Speaker 1: you get out there, Miami is beautiful. You know, I
Speaker 1: wrote on the beach um last week. Sometimes I'll go
Speaker 1: over the Key Biscne and ride over that bridge and
Speaker 1: I absolutely love it. You know, you can just keep going.
Speaker 1: I mean I can't. It's it's just know. It gives
Speaker 1: me the opportunity to reset. I normally do it on
Speaker 1: the weekends so I can reset. And uh yeah, this
Speaker 1: great car deal, a wonderful car deal. I was a
Speaker 1: guy who I think you know this, Like, I used
Speaker 1: to love watching toward the fronts right the Tour de
Speaker 1: France is like the best, and I would be amazed
Speaker 1: at those guys. Every day I would get up and
Speaker 1: watch it with my son and watching the mornings, like, man,
Speaker 1: that's just amazing that they can spend that much time
Speaker 1: on those bikes from the different stages and watching the
Speaker 1: pelotons and how you know the precision, how close they
Speaker 1: are and how they just stayed um so close to
Speaker 1: each other at those speeds mind blowing. I had the
Speaker 1: privilege watching a lot of Tour de France is up
Speaker 1: close and personal, and you're right, it is amazing. Recovery
Speaker 1: is one of the key things in that sport. How
Speaker 1: these guys do these five six hour rides and then
Speaker 1: do it again and it's over a three week period.
Speaker 1: Recovery is something for those of us at a certain
Speaker 1: age that's a challenge because you can have your peak days.
Speaker 1: You can go out, you can still have a great day,
Speaker 1: even if you're a non athlete like me, but you
Speaker 1: might feel it more the next day that you used to.
Speaker 1: You might struggle to figure out about recovery. What do
Speaker 1: you do to get your body back right and ready
Speaker 1: for the next work out. Well, I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: you know. When I played ball, people with well the
Speaker 1: trainers will always say you gotta getting ice tub and
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely against the ice tip. I felt like it
Speaker 1: was torture. I could not do ice Like if I
Speaker 1: was a five and anyone wanted to get the secrets
Speaker 1: out of me, just ice, I tell you everything. So
Speaker 1: I never was a big fan of getting into the
Speaker 1: ice tubs. It just didn't I couldn't do it. So
Speaker 1: what I would do is um not at an advanced age.
Speaker 1: Now what I do is I make sure I stretch afterwards.
Speaker 1: You have to give yourself time to stretch and stretch properly.
Speaker 1: Don't rush through a stretch. Stretch properly. I take bags
Speaker 1: of ice. I can do a bag or two of
Speaker 1: ice and put that on something and put it on
Speaker 1: like my hamstrings on my quase if they feel sore.
Speaker 1: That's junior varsity. A bag of ice is nothing like
Speaker 1: taking an ice bad plant. But you make you make
Speaker 1: a good point. People tell you things, here's what you
Speaker 1: have to do, here's the best way, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people do talk about ice baths, including the other
Speaker 1: guests on this podcast, Gabby Reese. But you have to
Speaker 1: figure out what's what's right for you. I mean, if
Speaker 1: it feels like torture and it's not working for you,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what other people say. Right, Oh, you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right. You have to do. You have to listen
Speaker 1: to your body and do what's best for you and
Speaker 1: the I guess. The great thing is there are a
Speaker 1: lot of different um examples out there to how you
Speaker 1: can't recover. So just trial and err, look at YouTube,
Speaker 1: look at a person who you respect and see what
Speaker 1: they're what they recommend, and then try and if it
Speaker 1: works for you, fine, if not, then move on. So
Speaker 1: that's that's why I do especially listen. We get you
Speaker 1: get up there in the age, you know, you gotta
Speaker 1: start making adjustments, you know, and thirties anymore. And so
Speaker 1: that's why I started to look at certain people and
Speaker 1: look at what they would do to recover. Started doing
Speaker 1: my own homework and my own research and figure it
Speaker 1: out what's best for me. But the most important thing
Speaker 1: you can do, like he said, and I've talked about
Speaker 1: this on my Wellness Wednesday, is listening to your body
Speaker 1: and do us better. That's for you. Yeah, you bring
Speaker 1: up a concept there that's really important to me and
Speaker 1: I think really important to everybody. There's there's different stages
Speaker 1: when you hit these milestones. One is denial. If you
Speaker 1: get past that, then I think it's the balance between
Speaker 1: defiance and acceptance. And I think acceptance has a negative connotation,
Speaker 1: even though people who study psychology understand that accepting things
Speaker 1: is really a part of you know, raising your consciousness.
Speaker 1: But we want to be defiant and say that I
Speaker 1: am not going to be defeated by the aging process.
Speaker 1: How do you balance off, you know, being defiant versus
Speaker 1: accepting the reality that you have to make adjustments. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my biggest challenge has been the fact that I'm very
Speaker 1: competitive too. I mean, I'm extremely competitive. So if I
Speaker 1: see something, I just automatically look at it as a
Speaker 1: challenge and then the competitive nature of me takes over.
Speaker 1: So I think one of the one of the best
Speaker 1: pieces of advice that I've heard I got from my
Speaker 1: mentor was you know, work smarter, not harder. As you
Speaker 1: get older, you have to learn how to work smarter,
Speaker 1: not harder. And I think that's what I've really applied
Speaker 1: to to my mental state now, because it's challenging where
Speaker 1: you're competitor and you say, okay, well this says I
Speaker 1: need to do this many reps and I want to
Speaker 1: do it at a certain weight. Now I have to
Speaker 1: make sure that. Listen, if I did it and say
Speaker 1: I used forty five pounds before and I'm struggling to
Speaker 1: get to my target, then I'll start to back down
Speaker 1: because you don't. You never want to compromise your form
Speaker 1: for waiting. You never because that's how injuries happen. So
Speaker 1: I understand if I'm at seven. Listen, I can't give
Speaker 1: you a perfect example that this isn't. I had a TRX, right,
Speaker 1: so listen. I got this TRX from uh an event
Speaker 1: I went to. Those are the straps you attached to
Speaker 1: your bars right there? You're there kind of body way.
Speaker 1: But it's a strap system, right, absolutely right, yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's all it's it's just body weight. So I'm using
Speaker 1: this TRX at my house. Never use the system before.
Speaker 1: And it comes with a video. So you have this video,
Speaker 1: you download and you play it. So I'm going through
Speaker 1: a full body workout. It says forty seven minutes full
Speaker 1: body work. I'm like, forty seven minutes. Signed me up.
Speaker 1: That's I do that every day. So I'm doing this
Speaker 1: workout CF and I'm done. That must have been a
Speaker 1: Monday night. Tuesday I was okay. Wednesday morning, I got
Speaker 1: to take my son's to school. I drop them off.
Speaker 1: As I'm about to run to my car, my back
Speaker 1: spazzumed up for me. Just tach, it just just stopped
Speaker 1: me in my tracks. I'm like, oh man, what is that.
Speaker 1: It's a long story short. I called a chiropractor. He
Speaker 1: asked me how I had anything new. I was like, no, not,
Speaker 1: that's oh yeah, a couple of days ago, I did
Speaker 1: this TRX thing. He's like, that's what it is? I
Speaker 1: like really say yeah, he said, because that system you're
Speaker 1: you're suspended and you don't have any support for your
Speaker 1: back and if your technique or your form isn't correct,
Speaker 1: you can really heart yourself. You're exactly right. Used properly
Speaker 1: with good form can be really beneficial. And people are
Speaker 1: always searching and trying something new. But if they're not mindful,
Speaker 1: every rep and every exercise with the form stuff can
Speaker 1: be really damaging, especially when you're searching for answers and
Speaker 1: trying new stuff. That twenty one at fifty one for
Speaker 1: those of you who don't know Desmond's number at Michigan.
Speaker 1: What was the inspiration behind that hashtag and launching this
Speaker 1: program on Instagram where you could be an example for
Speaker 1: others and also get great feedback from a lot of
Speaker 1: your followers. The inspiration was the fact, like I said,
Speaker 1: we talked about the earl, I was hitting his milestone
Speaker 1: right now, I'm quarantined. Um, you can't really go out,
Speaker 1: you can't celebrate. So a couple of friends were saying,
Speaker 1: you know, you should do something on Instagram to try
Speaker 1: to celebrate your birthday. I was like, you know, that's
Speaker 1: a good idea, and so I came up this concept. Okay,
Speaker 1: twenty one at fifty because that was my number of Michigan.
Speaker 1: But I still felt young, Like I didn't feel like
Speaker 1: I was fifty. And I always tell people, um, you
Speaker 1: know you're you're getting older, but don't say you're getting old,
Speaker 1: because there's a difference. Getting old is a mind state.
Speaker 1: Getting older. Everyone's getting older. Only people not getting olded
Speaker 1: the people who ain't here no more. So getting older
Speaker 1: is better than the alternative, isn't it. So you braced
Speaker 1: for this, you want to celebrate your birthday, but then
Speaker 1: it becomes an expression of all the things that you
Speaker 1: can do physically. And people have really connected with that
Speaker 1: on Instagram. Yeah, it's really taken off, and um, you
Speaker 1: know I was really surprised by it. You know, you
Speaker 1: have people where they reach out and they want advice,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was just really, to be completely honest,
Speaker 1: just trying to share my lifestyle with people. This is
Speaker 1: these are the things that work for me. They may
Speaker 1: not work for you. But I'm gonna let you know.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna open my life up to you and show
Speaker 1: you a glimpse of what I do to keep myself healthy.
Speaker 1: And that was pretty much the motivation behind the two.
Speaker 1: And the response has been tremendous, you know, so the
Speaker 1: I started the Instagram Live which has been a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. Um the Wellness Wednesdays and I've had some
Speaker 1: some special guests on there and we we've enjoyed. There's
Speaker 1: been a lot of fun. I share, you know, my
Speaker 1: my workouts, my eating habits, um, the things I like
Speaker 1: to drink, uh, smoothie recipes, tease people. I'm sure people
Speaker 1: you know probably familiar with the guy name Rod Marcus
Speaker 1: Roger Mark Artist is a guy who's big in the
Speaker 1: culinary world. Not just because of tease. We also can
Speaker 1: get exotic um herbs and spices that a lot of
Speaker 1: these high end restaurants and very popular chefs like a
Speaker 1: Wolfgang Puck. These guys will using their recipes at their restaurants.
Speaker 1: What part does that play in your overall wellness and
Speaker 1: how does it play into the physical part the tease
Speaker 1: that you create and focus These are not regular teas.
Speaker 1: You should you should follow Desmond. You should see the
Speaker 1: kind of things he puts into water to to to
Speaker 1: make a tea to drink and the smoothies. What what
Speaker 1: part does that play in the overall wellness picture. It
Speaker 1: plays a significant part. First, I drink a lot of water.
Speaker 1: I do, But now I like, I like t I
Speaker 1: drink a lot of tea, and I believe that the
Speaker 1: the nutrients that you can get from certain teas are beneficial. Um,
Speaker 1: you know they're healthy for you, um low, low and
Speaker 1: zero calories, which is beneficial, which is great. It's only
Speaker 1: calories you might get come from however you choose the
Speaker 1: sweeten sweeten your teeth. But yeah, and so these non
Speaker 1: caffeine to tease, you're not You're not getting the boy
Speaker 1: I drink. I drink green tea during every podcast interview.
Speaker 1: But I'm getting that's a caffeine delivery system. Something tells
Speaker 1: me you're You're not about the caffeine and these teas
Speaker 1: you create, right, Yeah, yeah, you know, I'm a guy
Speaker 1: who needs caffeine. I really don't. So if it hasn't cool,
Speaker 1: if it doesn't, I'm good. But you know, I like,
Speaker 1: I like Maya teas and uh like oo long teeth,
Speaker 1: and I mean I have like probably in my pantry
Speaker 1: three shells filled with teas well. I think people who
Speaker 1: take this in and as you said, you started it
Speaker 1: sort of as maybe a one way thing, you sharing
Speaker 1: with others, but now they're sharing back and I go
Speaker 1: on your feet and there are people, hey, does that
Speaker 1: went out for this ride or look at this workout
Speaker 1: that I did. What's been the most gratifying or surprising
Speaker 1: aspect of that where you realize the impact you're making
Speaker 1: another people who are also going through the aging process.
Speaker 1: I tell you what, it's really funny when you hear
Speaker 1: about people who you're affecting that you didn't know you
Speaker 1: had any effect on, Like my my I give a
Speaker 1: perfect example. So my I have three brothers, right, two
Speaker 1: old or one younger, and my my oldest brother sent
Speaker 1: me a text message from my second you know, my
Speaker 1: other brother's wife, right, So come to find out that
Speaker 1: my older brother's Jonathan, now my brother Chad. His wife
Speaker 1: watches my wellness Wednesdays and she watches my Instagram and
Speaker 1: she mentioned the biking, but she didn't mention it to me.
Speaker 1: She mentioned it to my oldest brother Jonathan, and she said, yeah, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: I got chat out here riding bikes now because we're
Speaker 1: gonna catch up with Desmond. I was like a secret.
Speaker 1: They didn't even let me out there watching, but he
Speaker 1: said she sent him a video of my brother out
Speaker 1: there riding bikes with his wife, which was like it
Speaker 1: meant everything to me, Like if I can affect my brother,
Speaker 1: who like he's not, by any stretch of imagination, the
Speaker 1: guy who works out does any cardio, but for him
Speaker 1: to get out there because he's inspired by seeing me
Speaker 1: do it was it just warmed my heart. It was
Speaker 1: great to see. That's a great story. Now you gotta
Speaker 1: get Chad down there out of Cleveland out into Miami.
Speaker 1: You said you're competitive, You're gonna you're gonna raise him
Speaker 1: on bikes and leave him in the dust. Are you
Speaker 1: just gonna ride alongside him and be supportive? I would
Speaker 1: have to be supported. I'm not trying to break his will. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's great. I think when you realize you're
Speaker 1: affecting people that you never imagine when you put content
Speaker 1: out there, that's the best possible use of social media.
Speaker 1: So one at sixty, how do you think that will
Speaker 1: feel different ten years from now? Will you be able
Speaker 1: to do the same things with the same intensity, or
Speaker 1: will you have to make adjustments. I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: the funny thing is. I thought about that too, I
Speaker 1: really have. And you know, because for me, it's a
Speaker 1: lifestyle and I want to continue is lifestyle for the
Speaker 1: next ten, fifteen, maybe even twenty years if I if
Speaker 1: I can. And you know, we talked about cycling earlier.
Speaker 1: And when I'm on my bike, you know, I see
Speaker 1: people much older than myself. I see people who look
Speaker 1: like they're in their sixties, and you know, and they're riding.
Speaker 1: Maybe not at the same speed, but at least they're
Speaker 1: out there doing something, and that encourages me, uh in
Speaker 1: more ways than once. I know I can do that.
Speaker 1: As far as lifting is concerned, hey, no more of
Speaker 1: the heavy weights. You have to decrease the intensity, maybe
Speaker 1: lower the weights, but increase the reps. That's always an option.
Speaker 1: But I do continue. I do plan on continuing this lifestyle. UM.
Speaker 1: Still eating healthy, um, you know, drinking my my juices
Speaker 1: and my teas. Uh. I'm not gonna get away from
Speaker 1: my my my ment and my ginger tease, my my child.
Speaker 1: So I do think I'll be able to continue this
Speaker 1: for at least the next ten to fifteen years. I
Speaker 1: think it got more years than that. You man, you
Speaker 1: continue to be an inspiration, uh in, a great example
Speaker 1: to me as well as many others. And and thanks man,
Speaker 1: I appreciate your taking time and sharing your story and
Speaker 1: some of your tips and secrets. Oh Man, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. You're an inspiration to me too. I'm chasing you, buddy,
Speaker 1: chase somebody else. I'm just trying to hang on out here.
Speaker 1: But I hope you enjoyed listening to Votes and Gabby.
Speaker 1: I had great fun talking to both of them. Are
Speaker 1: grateful to them for their time. My thanks to my
Speaker 1: co executive producer Jennifer Dempster, producer Jason Wiko, and a
Speaker 1: good buddy Scott mckecker and for his guidance in this episode.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. If you'd like to comment on
Speaker 1: what you liked or maybe what you'd like to see improved,
Speaker 1: you can message me on Instagram at Chris Fowler. I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again soon