September 30, 2020 • 48 mins
David Garcia was one of Tom’s very first interviews. An amazing real-life success story, he not only lost over 160 pounds but succeeded in maintaining his weight for many years thereafter. Now, exactly a decade since he started his incredible transformation, David returns to Fitness Disrupted to discuss how he, like so many others, finds himself struggling with his program. Listen to this incredibly honest interview and hear as Tom and David discuss the all-too-common issues of motivation, confidence, fear and more after you have achieved the initial success with your program, and the strategies David is following to get him through these obstacles and take him to the next level.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of I Heart Radio.
I am Tom Holland and this is Fitness Disrupted. So
back when I first started this show, I interviewed a
friend of mine who became a friend through the business.
(00:21):
We met many years ago, and I've interviewed him many
times because he is exactly what you need to hear about.
It is a success story unlike most because David lost
an insane amount of weight at a hundred and sixty
pounds and he kept it off for ten years, over
(00:43):
ten years. And back when I met him, he was,
you know, deep into his success and we became friends,
and I interviewed him and and again. He is one
of the first interviews I did on this show, So
if you want to go back, if you missed that one,
my first interview with David Garcia, super helpful. I interviewed
(01:04):
him for prior shows as well, different shows I had
before Fitness Disrupted, because that's what I bring to you.
I bring to you the science, I bring to you
my experience, and I bring to you success stories because
there's no greater way to learn how to achieve something
than from someone who has actually done it. Let me
say that again actually done it now, like so many
(01:26):
fitness people out there who were born with it when
it comes to genetics or sound like they know what
they're talking about, faking it to make it, and that
is unacceptable in an industry where it's about health and
wellness and you can actually really hurt people if you
don't know what you're doing. So a success story like
David's is so valuable on so many levels. But here's
(01:49):
the really interesting thing. David has an amazing blog, Keep
it Up with David, and he posted recently, really recently,
that he was struggling after ten years of losing an
incredible amount of weight and not only keeping it off
but becoming a competitive stair climber. So it affected him
(02:10):
positively in so many ways because I always talked about
how it's not just about weight. Yes, it's important to
lose weight and to be a healthy weight, but there's
so much more involved. But when I read that he
was struggling, I immediately contacted him and said, I need
you back on the show. I need you back on
the show. And at first I was worried he'd say
(02:31):
no because reading this blog post, he's not in a
great place, which is exactly why I needed him to
come back, because so many of you have reached out
to me. I've I've heard this for decades. You find
success and then you find your way back, falling into
those old habits. And so the question commonly is how
(02:53):
do I find that motivation again? How do I stay
on track? And that's why I did the show that
there is no perfect We're gonna talk about that. But
I needed to talk to David again because this is
going to be so helpful for so many of you.
And he he said, when I contacted him, he said,
what's the what's the show going to be about? I
(03:14):
want to prepare, And I said, I read your blog post.
That's all you need to know. I don't want you
to prepare. I want this to be an honest conversation
as if you were a client of mine back in
the day, and we're gonna talk about it. It's gonna
be honest. So after ten years of incredible success, he's struggling,
(03:36):
and we're gonna talk about how he gets back on track.
How you get back on track, or how you start.
It's all connected and there is no perfect quick break.
When we come back, my friend David Garcia. We'll be
right back and we are back, Yes, with my friend,
(04:09):
good friend, David Garcia. Now, I just told David I
didn't want to. You know, sometimes i'll do a little
pre interview, we'll talk right before we start recording the interview.
I told him I didn't want to, and he gave
me a look. But I want this, David, to be
as honest and raw. Not that it's not right, but
like this is this is a great It's such a
(04:29):
great topic and you are the perfect person to talk
about it. And I said during the intro, David, I
read your blog post and I was like instantaneous, I
need to talk to him, and I want to do
it on the show because you're gonna help so many people.
We're gonna talk about it and we're gonna go through
it right. So before we do that, because there are
definitely people who probably haven't listened to the show we
did at the start and you should, I'm gonna have
(04:50):
David just give his you know, elevator pitch. Incredible story.
I alluded to it in the intro. David, but tell
people you know your success and and then we'll get
to where we are now. Yeah, no problem, all great
to see you, Tom. I think it's been around a year.
This is true. Is this podcast a year old? You're
absolutely right. You were one of the first, as I said, Yeah, exactly,
that's nuts. But um, always good to see you and
(05:10):
talking with you. I love catching up with you and uh,
and it's an honor being back on this show. Yeah,
I listened to that first episode, but in a nutshell
or the earlier episode, I suppose, but in a nutshell.
I started in twenty ten to lose weight. I was
over four hundred pounds at the time, just over four
hundred pounds. I worked with an amazing mentor, Richard Simmons,
(05:32):
who helped me keep accountable and and uh, he helped
me accountable when I wasn't doing that for myself. And
and long story short, over about a year, I lost
a hundred and sixty pounds and I've kept it off,
most of it off ever since. It's been a decade.
And so fast forward ten years right to to today
(05:53):
and your recent blog post. You you've had some life changes, right,
You've moved, You've done a bunch of things. I toyed
with the idea of just reading at David, but I
think we'll just talk about your blog post. So the
gist if it was you're struggling right you're you're in
a new place and you're in a new time, and
and just tell people where you are right now. Yeah,
I'm definitely struggling. Um, and the blog post of time
(06:14):
is referring to that, you're referring to Tom Is at
keep it Up David dot com, so you can go
there and check it out for yourself. But um, that
blog I've had for ten years, I started in September
and I have on my calendar. I marked on my
calendar when my tenure anniversary was because I thought I'd
make a big deal of on my on my website.
It's certainly a really big milestone. Ten years of um
(06:35):
of sort of weight loss, success in maintenance, and ten
years of embracing a really healthy lifestyle is something that
I really want to celebrate because it's been a lot
of hard work and it's been a big focus of
my life. And at the and the on top of that,
ten years of sharing that publicly without any sort of veils,
without any sort of filters, um and being honest about
(06:57):
my journey, about the good times and the bad times,
I think that's also worth celebra writing. And so I
sort of a long time ago, I put that date
on my calendar. September is a tenure anniversary of the
blog and what it represents and all that it represents
in my life. And as that day got closer, I
realized I didn't really feel like celebrating, and it's um
and I felt really crummy about a lot of things.
(07:18):
And it's because over the past few months my weight
has been has been creeping upward. I feel like I've
lost control over things that I had such a such
a tight grip on previously, and for so long, I
feel like my momentum had slowed and reversed course and
I was um and I was just sort of none
(07:41):
of the wheels were clicking, none of the wheels were turning.
I mean, I mixed the metaphors here, but things weren't
clicking for me in a way that they were and
it was frustrating and it was and it's a difficult.
And so instead of putting together this celebratory ra Ra
blog post, I decided that I needed to be honest
with myself and I needed to um, I need to pivot.
I needed to make a change. It needs to make
(08:01):
a bunch of changes actually, and so that's what that
blog post is, and we can sort of go through
them one by one. I imagine that's what you have planned. No,
not planning anything, and I'm not waiting. I'm gonna take
you off script, is my goal. Yeah. Um, but yeah, Tom,
you mentioned that there have been changes in my life.
And I bought a house and I moved a couple
(08:22):
of months ago. I got a promotion at work, into
a into a new team, into a new role. That's
been very you know, interesting and challenging and all the
wonderful things that a promotion provides, but most certainly change.
I think that I've been suffering. Uh, suffering is the
wrong word, but I've I've been challenged by our current
(08:43):
conditions because it's been I've been very, very race focused
for the past number of years, six seven years, and
now I'm in a position where the races that I
like to do, which we talked about last time, racing
up stairwells and skyscrapers, they're just not happening. It's not
something that can be done in a pandemic. And um,
and so that has had an impact on my on
(09:06):
my health because I really look forward to those races
that keep me on track, They keep me in check,
they keep me focused, they keep me working towards something,
and I don't really have that to the point that
I could a year ago, or even in January February
of this year, when I had multiple races that I
that I competed in. So um so, yeah, things have
changed and I and I haven't changed. I've struggled to
(09:29):
change with it or to evolve with it in a
way that is beneficial to my health. And now I'm
in a place where I don't want to be and
I need to muscle myself back into a place where
I want to be again. And thank you first of
all for sharing. Like you said, you are the rarity
in so many different ways, but the ability and willingness
to be so honest is everything. Like I almost expect
(09:50):
you to David, to say like I'm not ready to
talk about this or I don't want to talk about
this right now, I'm not, you know, And so thank
you for that. And just so you know, as someone
who's been friends with you for such a long time, now,
when I read that post, I thought, it's the difference
between being right in it and then you know, being
someone like a coach outside it. I was like, holy cow,
ten years you did it for ten years, right, So
(10:11):
you frame it in like that you don't feel great
because you're not exactly where you want to be. But
I look at it like, and from an exercise physiology standpoint, David,
you had ten years of amazingly healthy living, right. So
I have to say that to you right off the bat,
and I don't I don't know if you kind of
know that, but don't kind of you know, obviously you're
not feeling it the way I feel it for you,
(10:32):
and that's an incredible thing. So I just want to
say that to you as an outsider like you maybe
not exactly where you want to be. And I just
did a show recently on not being perfect like you
did an incredible ten years, right that that's that's a
decade of living healthy and running ups there. So yeah,
we all have And and by the way, you can
say suffering, you could be suffering, right, That's okay. I'm
(10:56):
the last person that ever wants to admit I'm suffering
is an endurance athlete. But but does that surprise you
for me to say that to you like it's ten
years David that you killed it. I appreciate that, and
I and you're not the only one that's that's shared
that sentiment and I and I certainly do think that often.
But it's it's, uh, I know that part of my
issue is mindset, and I know that part of it
(11:17):
is um I think I say in that post, you know,
I I fixate on a bad choice, on one bad choice,
rather than the ten or fifteen excellent choices that I'm
making any given day. It's it's something that I need
to work on, and I it certainly doesn't hurt to
hear it again. And so I appreciate you for sharing that,
and yeah, it's something that I'm working on. Yeah, for sure.
(11:38):
It's amazing to me, right because that's the show I
just did about not being perfect, and I listen't you know,
we all have different struggles, but part of that show, David,
was I was that person too when I was doing
the natural bodybuilding, when I wanted to be perfect, when
that was actually the goal of it, right, was distilled water,
not regular water. But you would have that one meal
or that one you know, candy bar, and then you
(12:00):
would throw. I would throw the whole day away to go, Okay,
I'm gonna start again tomorrow, because the whole day is ruined.
And what you and I both learned, because you wouldn't
have been successful for ten years, is that you don't
throw the whole day away. So what you're saying is
you still are struggling with that beating yourself up for
that one slip, for that one bad choice. Yeah, and
I and and you're right. It it's so easy to
(12:24):
like open those floodgates and say, Okay, well you know
I I made a bad decision at four pm, so
what the hell does the rest of the day matter?
And um, and I have found myself falling and you know,
falling down that rabbit hole and just following it up
with with bad decision over bad decision. So it's it's
putting those things in practice is equally as difficult, you know.
(12:49):
It's recognize them as one thing, putting them into practices
an other thing. And so for for me, it's I
leaned back to to sort of my basics, and my
basics are that I want to find something. How I
got started on this to begin with ten years ago,
was I want to find something that I can do
better tomorrow that makes me a little bit healthier tomorrow
that I'm not doing today, and I need to do
that every single day, and then once that sort of
(13:10):
becomes habit, then I can incorporate a second thing and um,
and there's just sort of and that's how you build momentum.
It's not gonna it's not gonna find you. You need
to go find it and um. And so in this
case right now, I appreciate you saying it's it's how
how great it is that I'm sharing all this so honestly,
but I didn't share it, And so I had figured
out a plan because I don't really want to wallow
(13:32):
in misery and I don't really wanna It's not about
having a pity party. I don't want to share all
this struggling without having a way out of it. And
so that was important to me, um, being honest, sharing
where I'm at, and also identifying that I've identified those,
you know, some things that I can do. Um. And
(13:53):
for me, it was I needed to do a better
job of tracking my progress. And there's a couple of
ways that I do that I know you're familiar with
that I I literally have a chart on my wall
that I made with graph paper and um and like
painters tape and a marker and I and I literally
have a chart of my weight loss. It goes back
ten years. It's about five pages long. It stretches, you know,
(14:13):
four ft down my wall on like five or six
different pieces of graph paper. And I moved a few
months ago, and I never hung it up. And you know,
part of it at the beginning is just it just
slips through the cracks because I had a thousand things
to unpack and you know, and home improvement projects that
I prioritized and stuff like that. And then a couple
of weeks ago, I realized it's it's not there, and
(14:34):
I'm and I'm suffering because of it. I'm I'm struggling
because of it. Something I used to look at every
single day. It's a visual reminder of what I've done
and what I've accomplished. And without that visual reminder, I'm
I'm sure I'm making decisions that I might not otherwise
have made. So over the weekend that chart went up.
It's now where I see it every single day. I
keep a calendar. Also, I'm very old school and very
(14:55):
analog with all this stuff. I if I can do
something with a pen and paper, I'll do it over
you know, some sort of technology. But I literally have
a calendar, a monthly planner, where every day I write
down the workout after I complete it. I want to
know what I've done, and it helps me plan because
I don't like to repeat anything two days in a row. So, UM,
so I finished my workout, whether it's cardio, or whether
it's strength training, or whether it's a hike with my
(15:17):
dog or whatever it is. I write it down, and
then at the end of the month, I go through
and I calculate, UM, I worked out five days this month.
My goal is six workouts a week and then one
rest day. So I track all that. On the end
of the month, I see if I've hit that goal
of of six workouts every week. If I hit that
goal of um, I'm sorry. I also log every mile
(15:39):
that I accomplished, whether it's running or whether it's on
a cardio machine that tracks distance like a bike or something,
or whether it's I'm a hike with my dog. I
take all those miles and I add them up, and
I have a running total where I have sixty five thousand, hundred,
six hundred miles sort of logged at this point over
the course of six or seven years, and I hadn't
and I hadn't done that. I hadn't updated that in
(16:01):
since May. So, like things with things that were a mainstay,
things that were tent poles in my own personal program
that I developed over ten years, we're starting to to um.
I was starting to slack on them. And so over
the weekend again I went through, I have all that
data from the past four months, three months or whatever
it was, and I went through and like bust out
(16:23):
my calculator and I started crunching numbers and and that's
the stuff that I love, and that's the that's where
like my sort of my my nerd light shines through
because I love crunching those numbers and I'd love creating
that data and looking back and celebrating that success. And
if I'm not celebrating that success, then um, then I'm
not inspired to keep going. And I think that I
(16:43):
saw the results of that lack of inspiration because I
wasn't making the best choices that I could. And then
completely coincidentally, at my my company started a thirty days
of Wellness Challenge and and basically there's were those of
us that are participating our challenged day to do something.
Sometimes it's food based or movement based or mindset based.
(17:04):
Every day there's a challenge and you earn points by
completing them and it's a contest and the very and
the day one day one of thirty days of wellness,
and the challenge was to set goals. And there were
three goals that I had to set. One to be
accomplished within thirty days, wanted to be accomplished within six months,
and want to be accomplished within one year. And I
realized at that moment that it's been a it's been
a while years since I've had a healthy fitness related
(17:27):
goal apart from the general goal of being as healthy
as I can and keeping the weight off, which is
actually certainly a big enough goal as it is, but
it's not something that necessarily drives you to take individual, specific,
timely realistic actions on a daily basis. So now I
have three goals that I'm working towards. Uh And in
the first thirty days, which I'm now fifteen days in,
(17:49):
I wanted to accomplish five stair workouts because I haven't
been on stairs since February, and with the lack of races,
I've sort of left training on them slide. And regardless
of whether or not I have a stair based coming
upstairs are such an incredible way to exercise with so
many health benefits, and so I wanted to get back
into that. So I have two of my five under
(18:09):
my belt. The third workout this month on stairs is
going to happen in about an hour and a half
when I when I make it to the gym. Um
that one will be on a StairMaster. The first two
I went to my local high school and they have
uh you know, a high school football stadium with good
sized bleachers with aisles that have forty steps, a couple
(18:30):
of ales and fifty two. So I my first two
workouts towards that goal were was there on those on
those um on those bleachers. And so I have my
thirty day goal, my my six month goal is to
get back into racing. It's a lot harder now there
are fewer races. I'm gonna have to lean on five
ks and ten ks, which I've done plenty of in
my life. I don't um, I don't I prefer stair races,
(18:53):
but that's sort of less of an option. So finding
five ks and ten ks, I want to sign up
for UH five in the next six months. I don't
need to complete all five in the next six months,
and that's simply because winter is coming and that there
may be less options for actual races, you know, So
if I sign up for them, even if they happen
in the spring, having them on the calendar is the
point because then I stay focused that I'm working towards something,
(19:16):
that I am mindful of my prs and how I'm
training and all those things that have benefits to my
health above and beyond just the workout. So um, that's
my six month goal is to just find and sign
up for races, and then my year long goals to
drop fifty pounds. And it's pounds that that have crept on,
not just in the past few months, but over the
past couple of years, where I may not have focused
(19:38):
on ten pounds over the course of one year or
two years that I've gained, but that's what happens over
you know, as time passes, so it's more or less
a reset. So that goal is certainly number based. It's
fifty pounds in one year. But the idea behind it is,
this goal is gonna get me involved in the stuff
that I was doing in year one when I lost
(19:59):
the it initially that I may have slacked on, or
that I may have that I may not be doing
as diligently as before. This goal will help me incorporate
so many of the other smaller, daily, weekly, monthly things
that I think I need to UM sort of ramp
back up on. It sounds like you've gotta figure it out, David.
You know, you know. It's the planning, as you know,
(20:21):
like planning is one thing, intention is one thing, and
executing is another. So you know, so far, so good.
It's it's early on. I'll tell you I haven't weighed myself.
I'm um, I'm afraid to do it. At this point,
I will. I want to UM. I want to sort
(20:42):
of feel more comfortable that I'm on the right track,
not from a scale perspective, but like how I'm feeling
and how I'm and how I'm embracing these habits that
I want to set. And once i feel like I'm
more involved in this process and once it feels more
routine and um part of my life again. Then I'm
going to step on that scale, and I want to
(21:02):
use that number to motivate those habits to UM to
grow even more. I'm afraid that if I step on
that scale too early, it's it's going to be paralyzing. Two,
it's going to have an adverse effect, and so the
scale will come UM I need. I just it's not
the right time. And I think that's actually pretty pretty
(21:24):
important to me because I know, um unfortunately the effects
that some things have on my mindset and my mental health,
and I want to set myself up for success. And
that's something that I recognize that I can do in
the very very very short term stay away from the scale.
On the longer term, it's going to be instrumental to
measuring that third goal of fifty pounds in a year,
(21:44):
But in the beginning, I just need to stay away
for a little bit longer. And see, I love that
you know that, David, because you know so much of
what I talk about here is you know, I look
at the science and the research, right and and that
was always a tough one for me, or a tricky
one was the weighing every day. And you look at
the research and people who weigh themselves more frequently obviously
are more consistent in keeping weight off. But I love
(22:05):
that you know that that comes with certain caveats, right,
that for you that's so helpful. There's so many people
it's like it's not the right time, even though you
know you're gonna you could you could argue that you're
setting the bar high or lower, whichever way you want
to look at it. But you know what works for you.
And what's so interesting to have this conversation with you.
This is the first time we've been here, and so
you've been successful. You have coping strategies that you know
(22:28):
work that you just outlined, one so specific to you,
and that's why it's so helpful to others who are
gonna hear this, listen to this, and here your approach,
and you know there was so much you just went through.
I love you know, if people listen to the first
show we did, you know the way you achieve success
was everything I believe in, right, the small steps and
and and measuring. And you just said, like you're all
(22:49):
about the number of workouts per month, And I love that.
It's consistency, right, It's not how many cowards you burned
it's not. It's it's this just consistency and frequency. And
then you talked about you know you're gonna do five
or six stair workouts. It's consistency and frequency. It's it's
you know, keeping it simple and doing what works for you.
But it's so interesting to hear you know, I think
(23:11):
deep down, I know, deep down you're at a different
place because when you started this journey, you didn't have
the success that you've had now. So you know you
can do it right and you know what works for you,
and you're gonna do that on your own terms, in
your own way, at your own pace, and it's so
helpful to so many people. How do you feel mentally now?
I feel like I'm embarking down the right path. And
(23:35):
it's funny that the things that I was afraid of
ten years ago are still the same things that I'm
afraid of now. Can you talk about those things? Yeah?
I can. I'm afraid of failing. And it's it's something
that I struggle with in many parts of my life,
above and beyond my health and fitness. It's I recognize
(23:55):
that I set an extraordinarily high bar for myself and
iroach things with if it's not gold, it's a fail.
And I try to embrace the like you know that
that mindset of don't let perfect get in the way
of good. And there are times where I'm better at
that than others, but it's something that I have to
keep focused on because it doesn't come naturally to me,
and so um and so I think about how crummy
(24:21):
I've felt so many times in the past few weeks
and a few months leading up to this sort of moment, uh,
this epiphany of I need to do something different, I
need to make some changes, And I think about how
if these changes don't work, or if I don't execute
the way that I want to execute, I'm afraid that
I'm gonna feel even worse and the ramifications will be
(24:41):
even worse, and that there will be this sort of
snowball effect that I that I can't that I can't
pull myself out of so um. You know that's the
sort of stuff that that makes me not want to
get out of bed. You know, every once in a while, Sure, Uh,
I worry about um. You know, I sort of think
of about in regards to my mental loth I think
(25:05):
about I feel like I'm sort of in this hole,
and I feel like, Uh, there are sometimes where I
just keep shoveling, shoveling my way out. But if you've
ever fucking been in a hole, you can't shovel your
way out. You just make the whole bigger. And uh.
And so I worry that I'm that has put together
(25:26):
as I may have sounded in the past ten or
fifteen minutes. I feel like, ultimately I'm ill equipped. And
I feel like, ultimately, uh, I don't have the willpower
or I don't have the strength, or I don't have
the strategy, or I don't have the perseverance to reach
those goals that I outlined. And when that happens, I
(25:46):
know that I just need to take a step back
and not think about the whole, and not think about
the shovel and just think about the two things that
I'm gonna do that day, the three things that I'm
gonna do tomorrow that will continue to set me up
for success. And I need to sort of disregard the
big picture and focus on the now and focus on
the moment. And um, that's hard. It can be hard.
(26:08):
It's uh, I don't know if when when some things
aren't going right, it's it's easy for me to extrapulate
and come up with stories and tell myself and come
up with versions of my life where everything is failing,
even though it's not, even though all signs point to,
(26:31):
as you've acknowledged in this conversation, so many signs have
pointed to I've had a lot of success. I know
how to do things, I know how to operate, I
know how to move forward in my life in a
way that benefits me. And yet when things don't seem
to be going my way, all of that is like
just lost in the ether because what's not going right
(26:54):
is so powerful to me and so um present and
so uh in the moment right now that it makes
things challenging. Sure, and it's okay to say that, right.
I mean the way you took out the word suffering,
that that that's okay. Like just the pandemic alone, David,
I mean the number of things that's what I brought
up that you moved. There's so many different factors and
(27:15):
there is no perfect and you know, you know all this.
One of the problems with speaking with you is you're
too smart, Like you know, you know all this stuff
and you know what to say like, you're the guy.
A psychologist goes, I gotta a problem with this guy.
But I can only say from an outsider's perspective, like
how proud I am of you ten years and knowing
things like the incredible benefit you gave yourself healthwise and
(27:35):
psychologically over ten years. Right, So I know it's it
just sounds, it's you know. All that I'm gonna say
to you, We're gonna say it anyway. I'm just gonna
say that, right, is that we all have these months.
And you know, that's what I love about endurance raising, David,
is everyone suffering in an iron man in our own way, right.
And I love that you even said And this is
(27:56):
how unique you are that you weren't even gonna put
that post uptil you kind of had things ready to
go right until you had your plan. But you're discounting
your honesty regardless because it's so helpful to so many
people to hear what you just said. And you know,
the difference, again, I would argue, is ten years of
success and coping strategies that have worked. Right, You're not
(28:19):
starting at the start line. You know. People always say
to me, oh, I've read this article that says, if
I stopped exercising, it's as if I never started to
begin with. I go, that is complete BS, right, And
we all go through those times. And you know, I
got my deep dark moments and I just run a
lot farther, David, And you know, UM, I just want
to reinforce that to you. And this is exactly why
(28:41):
I knew I had to reach out to you and
and and know how powerful this is going to be
for so many people. I have no doubt in my
mind that you're gonna be successful, right, I'm no doubt,
but I think you just and you know that you
just have to be easier on yourself. You know you've
got to go easier on yourself that as you said
perfectly that you know you get so down when those
(29:02):
moments happen, and and that's everybody, right. But what you've
proven is that you can do it for ten years
and that you know three or four or five months,
six months, it's it's not going to be the be
all end all. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, It's
it's one of those things that I honestly won't won't
(29:22):
tire of hearing. And then maybe that sounds nar stassistic
to be like, oh yeah, I keep keep telling me
how awesome I am. But it's one of those things
that I definitely that I definitely it's not that I forget,
but it's something that I, um. Now, everyone needs to
hear it, David. Everyone needs to hear it over and over.
And you know, I know a lot of times it
(29:43):
just sounds like yeah, but you don't get it right,
you don't get where I am. Now I totally do uh.
And you know, exercise has literally gotten me out of
those dark moments like that's what I use, that's that's
what it is for me. And you know, one day
I'll put that story out. But yah, in a different way,
I know where you are right, so um. And and
(30:05):
a difference too between now and you know today and
ten years ago is you don't have me watching you,
so I am gonna be reaching out to you and
making sure and helping. And that's a different thing too,
is that that you know, just social support. We all
need that, right, we all need to reach out and
say hey, I can't do it. I don't want to
do it all on my own. I want to hear
(30:25):
that and it's okay, and you should hear it because
you earned it, David. You earned it, and you have
the strategies now. Even though I know a lot of
times we go, I've been there, you go. I don't
care how much I've done. This sucks right now, right, So, uh,
what do you think going forward? I mean, you have
so many plans in place, and I think a huge
part of it for you too, David, is the no racing,
(30:47):
the note racing, and and maybe you find a different
version of that. I'm getting ready to run across the
Grand Canyon and back, David. I'm not trained, but I
need that for my head, right. I need that you
go because there's no Iron Man, there's no marath And
I know if I don't go to something really stupid
because I was suffering with the workout too. We all do.
(31:07):
But but you beat yourself up a little bit more recently,
and you've got to give yourself all that kind of
leeway to say I moved. There's a pandemic, I'm not racing, Okay,
things are going to be perfect for a little while. Yeah, yeah,
I um like you. I use exercise to pull myself
out if it feels so good to be active, and
(31:28):
it feels so good to do things that, um, that
I know I can do or that sometimes still to
this day surprised me. I hadn't been on stairs for
seven months, and I went to the high school. I
went to that football those bleachers, and I had and
I and I had no expectations. I was like, I'm
just gonna see how this goes. And spent seven months
like I'm a little rusty. We'll see what I accomplished.
(31:50):
And I banged out forty eight climes of aisles of
different heights, and I total two steps. And I took
the time to add that up. I took the time
to track all that and I left there and I thought,
holy ship, like, it's I'm in shape. I I I'm
not starting from the start line, as you just said,
(32:13):
I have a base level of fitness. That's um, that's
pretty remarkable. And uh, and I cried. I sat in
the car and I and I cried a little bit
after that workout because I was expecting nothing. Maybe that
was a mistake. Maybe I should have given myself a
little more credit going in and acknowledged um, and acknowledged
that I that I am, that I can be a
(32:34):
beast when it comes to this sort of stuff um
and uh, and served as a good reminder that I've
just slipped a little um and I need to embrace
that more because that's you know, you're right, That is
all it is. And it's never what I think. It's
never what my mind goes to. My mind goes to, Uh,
I'm I'm perpetually one week away from being four dred
(32:57):
pounds and and immobile and in active and completely sedentary.
And that's not the case at all. But I beat
myself up because that's what I assume and that's what
I think. And I so when I have these moments
of um, when I have these moments of oh, what
did I just do in the last fifty minutes or
fifty five minutes or however long it was at that bleachers,
(33:18):
I did a lot. And I did something that a
lot of people would never even attempt or even have
the desire or the wherewithal to think that they could
climb nearly eight steps and fifteen minutes and go down
eight hundred steps. I was the worst part is going
down all those press. People don't realize that right going
down steps, steps, going up steps is awesome from a
(33:38):
health but from a health benefit. But who would have
thought that, David right, I mean when you first started,
did you have any concept? No? No, not at all.
Where are we six months from now? We're always six
ronths from now with the sea, it's uh it's October,
or yeah, it's October. So November, Sember, April, April, six months,
it's gonna be spring. I'll I will be doing those
(33:59):
races that I will been signing up for. I will
have definitely a couple under my belt already, probably more
than a couple. One of my favorite races that I've
ever done is in Illinois in two weeks, and it's
a race through a corn maze. If five k through
a corn maze, and I freaking love mazes. That's my
one of my other hobbies is drawing them, and so
to run through a corn maze for three point one
(34:20):
miles is like my dream morning. So they're actually doing
it live again this year with all sorts of really smart,
socially distant safety measures in place, where there's gonna be
one person entering the maze starting the race like every
thirty seconds, I think, and it's all scheduled out. Everything
is sent in advance, so you don't need to interact
with anyone. You can show up. You know, I'll know
(34:41):
I don't have my time yet, but I'll know that
I'll be starting at you know, exactly ninety eight and
thirty seconds or whatever it is, so i can show up,
warm up, stretch, and just start running when I need to.
And so I'm excited about that. And I'm gonna be
doing another virtual run at some point in October. I
think I have the ability to do it at my
own convenience, which is how all virtual races happen. You
(35:04):
commit to running a five k or a ten k
and perhaps submitting your time and paying the registration fee,
and you know, you get you get your swag bag
in the mail um and all that stuff. But so
I'll probably do that. I'll probably you know, I'm not
gonna do it the same weekend as the corn As
five k. I'll probably do that a weekend or two after.
So I have a couple of things that I've already
(35:25):
put on my calendar that I've committed to, so that
will help me sort of build that momentum of racing.
I hope to be well on my way in six
months to those fifty pounds lost, which was one of
my goals. I hope to continue. You know, the stair
workout goal was a thirty day goal, but I hope
to continue um doing that. You know, moving forward, I
(35:49):
think that I'll might not the cadence may have to
change because of winter and because of snow and ice
on steps which makes them extraordinarily dangerous. Um And I
don't know if I have an indoor stair option this
winter with pandemic in Michigan. So you know, that's an
opportunity to continue to adjust and evolve. And there's always
(36:09):
stare you know, step mills at the gym. That's what
I'll be using tonight, and I can continue to use those.
It's not the same as racing up actual stairs, but
it engages all the muscles and get your heart right
up and then you get a lot of the same benefits.
In six months, hopefully I will be on my way
to I will have accomplished the first two goals to
do the stairs and to register for races and potentially
(36:33):
race in a couple of them already, and I'll be
well on my way to the third. And hopefully this
process will have opened my eyes to additional goals that
I may not even be aware of right now, but
that I will embrace and continue to work towards. That's awesome,
you know. Uh. And and finishing up with that, you
know we talked about last time, how who would have
thought you would be running upstairs ten years later? And
(36:55):
who knows what you'll be doing ten years from now,
and I guarantee you it will be something that neither
you nor you know would ever have thought. Right, So
let's just end with this, David, So what what what
advice would you give? So people are listening and you
I don't think you realize, especially what you're keeping up
David as a million views, over a million views already, right,
and that's insane, one point two million, David. So I'm
(37:16):
just gonna, you know, pat you on the back a
couple more times and just say, you know, you're not
that person that you were ten years ago, and you
know you are influencing people in ways you do not know,
and you know, I hope you realize that. I think
you do. I know you do. And here's another opportunity
for you to do that again and in such a
powerful way, which is why I had to talk to
(37:37):
you again and I know you'll be successful. You've already
proven it, right, and I'm gonna keep giving you those
you know, paths on the back because we all need them,
and you know, especially when you know we go through
these times that we all go through. So what would
you give that advice someone who who was you ten
years ago? What advice would you give that person today
who's starting out who says, I don't even think I
(37:58):
can do what David did to start with. The advice
that I would give someone starting off right now is
figure out those things that you can do that are
that you can incorporate into your life and your daily
routine and your schedule, because those are the things that
you're gonna stick to, if you, you know, go and
and read an article or buy a book, or look
at a website that has some outrageous plan that requires
(38:19):
you to work out outdoors, you know, three hundred forty
days a year, and you live in the north where
there's winter and there's rain and there's snow, and there's
all these things that will make that per hit if
that's not the plan for you, So you need to
figure out what you can do that's that's right for
you and you need to start small. And it's something
that I'm gonna be doing over the next few weeks
and months. And it's again and it's something that people
(38:42):
can do on their own. So it's Hey, if you
live in a if you live in an apartment building
on the second or the third floor, what is it
going to take to avoid that elevator. Maybe you can't
avoid it all every time because you're bringing in groceries
or you know, or have a stroller, a baby stroller
that you need to get down to the sidewalk. But
maybe every day you take those stairs. You you start
(39:04):
by eliminating one elevator, then you take those stairs instead
um or you know, and then once after a week
or two of doing those stairs once, maybe you do
them twice. Maybe you find a way to incorporate one
or two additional servings of fruits and vegetables into your diet.
If that's not something that you naturally lean towards in
your current routine, and what does that look like? What
(39:24):
does it look like to replace a snack with carrot sticks,
or to replace uh um, a beer with water, or
you know, you need like you can turn to books
and podcasts like this one and websites and articles and
all that stuff for all sorts of great ideas and
great resources, but you need to be able to adapt
them and figure out what's going to work for you,
(39:45):
and take a look at what your patterns are and
what your routine is and what's gotten you to where
you are right now, and then figure out how to
make slight incremental changes to those and then stick to them.
Don't do everything at once. You're not gonna be successful
if you're like, Okay, tomorrow, I'm gonna start some drastic program.
Like people have success with keto and paleo and some
(40:08):
of the more restrictive diets, but they ease themselves into it.
And I'm not saying that those diets are good or
bad for you time you may have other opinions. I'm
not an expert, and I'm not I don't have the
education that you have. But if you wake up one
day and you're like, Okay, I'm gonna cut out all
of our fine sugars and all blue coos and all
everything and no carbs whatsoever, then you're gonna, you know,
(40:28):
make it maybe a day before you're tucking into a
giant bowl of pasta. Because that's not what your body
is used to, that's not what your body can handle
that abrupt of a change. So you need to sort
of cutting out all carbs, like cut out one's neck,
cut out um one, soda, cut out one uh, you know,
take a sandwich and make it into a salad and
then cut out that bread one, you know, for one
(40:50):
meal a day. So it's things like that, you know,
use the resources that you have available, use the ideas
that you're getting from the people around you, and the
um and that are available, you know, and and books
and online and all that, but like most importantly, take
a look at what you're doing and what you can
change and identify those changes and make them and then
stick to it and build from there. Thank you. It's
(41:12):
so helpful, David, for so many people. And you know
your message of small steps and not doing it all
at once is you know, one reason we connected so
quickly and one reason you are so successful. And I
just want to thank you again. This is not easy
and you, you know, are phenomenal and I feel so fortunate,
as I say, every time we speak to to know you,
and I know that you're gonna help so many people
(41:34):
with this show. As well, and I want you to
go listen to the first show I did with David.
I want you to go to his site to keep
it up. David. Did I say that right? Keep it
up David dot com. That's right, and that's that's my
handle on all this on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook.
So keep it up, David. That's all you needs to remember.
At a dot com or searching on Twitter or Instagram
(41:54):
or Facebook, you'll find me. David. I just want you
one final time too. I know it's hard like to back,
but ten years of just awesomeness of doing the incredible
things psychologically and physically for yourself, you're gonna You're gonna
do it again. You know you're gonna do it again.
And this show is all about allowing ourselves to not
be perfect, right and and to know that none of
(42:16):
us are. And there we all go through those dark parts.
And what I learned through my racing is you just
get through them. You go slowly, you don't beat yourself up,
and you've gotten through them all. I've gotten through them all.
We've got a percent success rate, right as they say, David,
and being successful at getting through And so thank you
for for sharing, and uh, I look forward to seeing
(42:37):
you take it that next level because you did the
toughest part and now, yes it's tough, I would argue,
and I know that I'm you know, not going through
exactly what you're going through. But I can't wait to
see you on the other side of this, and you're
gonna be that much stronger and we're gonna have another
conversation in six months and and we're gonna have the
success story from there. So thank you because your story
is is going to be so powerful. So for so
(42:58):
many people, there's no perfect intagram world, right we think
there is. Everyone looks perfect and we're all like, you know,
a mess on the inside, uh every now and again.
So so thank you. What's the workout for today? Were
you off to? Uh? StairMaster? This is the first time
going to this particular gym and the pandemic, so I
don't know if there's gonna be My plan is StairMaster.
If there are limits to it, time wise or line
(43:19):
sport or whatever that may need to adapt. But it's
it's a cardio days and I would like to do
stars awesome. We'll have fun and so great catching up
and and just thank you again for sharing, thank you
for having me Tom, and thank you in general for
highlighting stories like this, because I think a lot of
people UM with a platform like this would focus solely
on the successes and um and the inspiration for people
(43:40):
looking back afterward. And so it means a lot to
me that you're willing to spend the time to talk
to someone who's still in the midst of it, who's
who's come a long way, but it's still in the
midst of it, because I think that you're right, people
need to hear those stories. These are the stories that
I'm most interested in when I'm looking for inspiration. I
don't care about the winner of the marathon. I want
to hear about the people that did it for the
first time, that are that overcame something to get there,
(44:03):
that are pushing through something that I haven't experienced before,
but have come through on the other side stronger because
of it. So I appreciate you allotting the time that
you have a lot of and spent with me to
talk about this. Thanks is all from me to you,
So thank you, and UH, I look forward to catching up.
Go do that workout and UH we will talk again soon.
All right. I can't wait so great catching up David Garcia.
(44:25):
We will be right back after this short break and
we are back. I just want to thank David Garcia
one final time. These shows with guys like David Garcia,
(44:47):
and there there aren't many, I hope, are so helpful.
I kind of him. It's a tough show to do.
It's a tough show to do because I know how
much David has accomplished, and you know, we all struggle,
and even the perfect person or the one you think
isn't struggling, everybody is struggling. And you know, we all
(45:09):
need to hear that we've done good things. And David
for ten years, you know, lost an incredible amount of way,
kept it off and competed and he's going through a
rough patch and we all do. And his honesty is
so refreshing and tough to listen to. But I know
(45:31):
he's gonna come out of it the other side, and
I know he's gonna be stronger. I I talked about
my races every race I do. I know at the
finish line, I'm a different person, and my most the
special races are not the ones I went the fastest
or did the best in they're the ones with the
biggest challenge. And you know, I would argue David has
(45:51):
been so successful, you know that can be an issue.
He's gotten through so many challenges, and I know he's
gonna he's gonna come out even wronger and I look
forward to speaking with him again in six months. But
I knew that I had to bring the show to
you right away, because again, we are in crazy times,
crazier than normal, and a lot of people are suffering,
and a lot of people have fallen off their fitness
(46:13):
and nutrition plans, and a lot of people are beating
themselves up. Many of you who are listening, many of
you who reached out and listen, I'm not this has
been It's tough for everybody, and we're all suffering in
different ways. But we control what we can. And that's
why I asked David to give his advice at the end,
(46:34):
and that's why I end every show the same way,
no matter how tough the situation is, no matter what's
going on, we all control three things, how much we move,
what we put into our mouths, and our attitudes. And
as David just illustrated, the attitude is so crucial because
(46:58):
the attitude, our beliefs are talk either helps that movement
and that eating or it goes against us. So that's
why I do the shows on the psychology. That's why
I talk about self efficacy. That's why we talk about
that internal monologue we all have, and that's why we
(47:20):
take small steps. And that's why I do this show
because when you go on fat diets, when you go
on bad exercise programs that are flawed from the start,
that doesn't help you at all. And so small steps
and give yourself room to not be perfect. If you
(47:42):
were successful before, you will be successful again. You have
the tools, you have the coping strategies. It may take
a little time, and it often does, but you will
get through it. Just keep moving forward. Thank you for listening.
Please rate the show if you have not yet already
done so, we subscribe to the show and if you
(48:06):
need to reach out questions comments. Tom h Fit is
my Twitter as well as my Instagram Tom h Fit Again,
check out David Keep it Up David dot com for everything,
his blog post, his social media Keep it Up David.
It's David Garcia and thank you for listening. I hope
you enjoyed the show that was some honest, honest talk
(48:26):
and thank you for listening. I am Tom Holland. This
is Fitness Disrupted. Believe in Yourself. Fitness Disrupted is a
production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(48:47):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of I Heart Radio.
I am Tom Holland and this is Fitness Disrupted. So
back when I first started this show, I interviewed a
friend of mine who became a friend through the business.
(00:21):
We met many years ago, and I've interviewed him many
times because he is exactly what you need to hear about.
It is a success story unlike most because David lost
an insane amount of weight at a hundred and sixty
pounds and he kept it off for ten years, over
(00:43):
ten years. And back when I met him, he was,
you know, deep into his success and we became friends,
and I interviewed him and and again. He is one
of the first interviews I did on this show, So
if you want to go back, if you missed that one,
my first interview with David Garcia, super helpful. I interviewed
(01:04):
him for prior shows as well, different shows I had
before Fitness Disrupted, because that's what I bring to you.
I bring to you the science, I bring to you
my experience, and I bring to you success stories because
there's no greater way to learn how to achieve something
than from someone who has actually done it. Let me
say that again actually done it now, like so many
(01:26):
fitness people out there who were born with it when
it comes to genetics or sound like they know what
they're talking about, faking it to make it, and that
is unacceptable in an industry where it's about health and
wellness and you can actually really hurt people if you
don't know what you're doing. So a success story like
David's is so valuable on so many levels. But here's
(01:49):
the really interesting thing. David has an amazing blog, Keep
it Up with David, and he posted recently, really recently,
that he was struggling after ten years of losing an
incredible amount of weight and not only keeping it off
but becoming a competitive stair climber. So it affected him
(02:10):
positively in so many ways because I always talked about
how it's not just about weight. Yes, it's important to
lose weight and to be a healthy weight, but there's
so much more involved. But when I read that he
was struggling, I immediately contacted him and said, I need
you back on the show. I need you back on
the show. And at first I was worried he'd say
(02:31):
no because reading this blog post, he's not in a
great place, which is exactly why I needed him to
come back, because so many of you have reached out
to me. I've I've heard this for decades. You find
success and then you find your way back, falling into
those old habits. And so the question commonly is how
(02:53):
do I find that motivation again? How do I stay
on track? And that's why I did the show that
there is no perfect We're gonna talk about that. But
I needed to talk to David again because this is
going to be so helpful for so many of you.
And he he said, when I contacted him, he said,
what's the what's the show going to be about? I
(03:14):
want to prepare, And I said, I read your blog post.
That's all you need to know. I don't want you
to prepare. I want this to be an honest conversation
as if you were a client of mine back in
the day, and we're gonna talk about it. It's gonna
be honest. So after ten years of incredible success, he's struggling,
(03:36):
and we're gonna talk about how he gets back on track.
How you get back on track, or how you start.
It's all connected and there is no perfect quick break.
When we come back, my friend David Garcia. We'll be
right back and we are back, Yes, with my friend,
(04:09):
good friend, David Garcia. Now, I just told David I
didn't want to. You know, sometimes i'll do a little
pre interview, we'll talk right before we start recording the interview.
I told him I didn't want to, and he gave
me a look. But I want this, David, to be
as honest and raw. Not that it's not right, but
like this is this is a great It's such a
(04:29):
great topic and you are the perfect person to talk
about it. And I said during the intro, David, I
read your blog post and I was like instantaneous, I
need to talk to him, and I want to do
it on the show because you're gonna help so many people.
We're gonna talk about it and we're gonna go through
it right. So before we do that, because there are
definitely people who probably haven't listened to the show we
did at the start and you should, I'm gonna have
(04:50):
David just give his you know, elevator pitch. Incredible story.
I alluded to it in the intro. David, but tell
people you know your success and and then we'll get
to where we are now. Yeah, no problem, all great
to see you, Tom. I think it's been around a year.
This is true. Is this podcast a year old? You're
absolutely right. You were one of the first, as I said, Yeah, exactly,
that's nuts. But um, always good to see you and
(05:10):
talking with you. I love catching up with you and uh,
and it's an honor being back on this show. Yeah,
I listened to that first episode, but in a nutshell
or the earlier episode, I suppose, but in a nutshell.
I started in twenty ten to lose weight. I was
over four hundred pounds at the time, just over four
hundred pounds. I worked with an amazing mentor, Richard Simmons,
(05:32):
who helped me keep accountable and and uh, he helped
me accountable when I wasn't doing that for myself. And
and long story short, over about a year, I lost
a hundred and sixty pounds and I've kept it off,
most of it off ever since. It's been a decade.
And so fast forward ten years right to to today
(05:53):
and your recent blog post. You you've had some life changes, right,
You've moved, You've done a bunch of things. I toyed
with the idea of just reading at David, but I
think we'll just talk about your blog post. So the
gist if it was you're struggling right you're you're in
a new place and you're in a new time, and
and just tell people where you are right now. Yeah,
I'm definitely struggling. Um, and the blog post of time
(06:14):
is referring to that, you're referring to Tom Is at
keep it Up David dot com, so you can go
there and check it out for yourself. But um, that
blog I've had for ten years, I started in September
and I have on my calendar. I marked on my
calendar when my tenure anniversary was because I thought I'd
make a big deal of on my on my website.
It's certainly a really big milestone. Ten years of um
(06:35):
of sort of weight loss, success in maintenance, and ten
years of embracing a really healthy lifestyle is something that
I really want to celebrate because it's been a lot
of hard work and it's been a big focus of
my life. And at the and the on top of that,
ten years of sharing that publicly without any sort of veils,
without any sort of filters, um and being honest about
(06:57):
my journey, about the good times and the bad times,
I think that's also worth celebra writing. And so I
sort of a long time ago, I put that date
on my calendar. September is a tenure anniversary of the
blog and what it represents and all that it represents
in my life. And as that day got closer, I
realized I didn't really feel like celebrating, and it's um
and I felt really crummy about a lot of things.
(07:18):
And it's because over the past few months my weight
has been has been creeping upward. I feel like I've
lost control over things that I had such a such
a tight grip on previously, and for so long, I
feel like my momentum had slowed and reversed course and
I was um and I was just sort of none
(07:41):
of the wheels were clicking, none of the wheels were turning.
I mean, I mixed the metaphors here, but things weren't
clicking for me in a way that they were and
it was frustrating and it was and it's a difficult.
And so instead of putting together this celebratory ra Ra
blog post, I decided that I needed to be honest
with myself and I needed to um, I need to pivot.
I needed to make a change. It needs to make
(08:01):
a bunch of changes actually, and so that's what that
blog post is, and we can sort of go through
them one by one. I imagine that's what you have planned. No,
not planning anything, and I'm not waiting. I'm gonna take
you off script, is my goal. Yeah. Um, but yeah, Tom,
you mentioned that there have been changes in my life.
And I bought a house and I moved a couple
(08:22):
of months ago. I got a promotion at work, into
a into a new team, into a new role. That's
been very you know, interesting and challenging and all the
wonderful things that a promotion provides, but most certainly change.
I think that I've been suffering. Uh, suffering is the
wrong word, but I've I've been challenged by our current
(08:43):
conditions because it's been I've been very, very race focused
for the past number of years, six seven years, and
now I'm in a position where the races that I
like to do, which we talked about last time, racing
up stairwells and skyscrapers, they're just not happening. It's not
something that can be done in a pandemic. And um,
and so that has had an impact on my on
(09:06):
my health because I really look forward to those races
that keep me on track, They keep me in check,
they keep me focused, they keep me working towards something,
and I don't really have that to the point that
I could a year ago, or even in January February
of this year, when I had multiple races that I
that I competed in. So um so, yeah, things have
changed and I and I haven't changed. I've struggled to
(09:29):
change with it or to evolve with it in a
way that is beneficial to my health. And now I'm
in a place where I don't want to be and
I need to muscle myself back into a place where
I want to be again. And thank you first of
all for sharing. Like you said, you are the rarity
in so many different ways, but the ability and willingness
to be so honest is everything. Like I almost expect
(09:50):
you to David, to say like I'm not ready to
talk about this or I don't want to talk about
this right now, I'm not, you know, And so thank
you for that. And just so you know, as someone
who's been friends with you for such a long time, now,
when I read that post, I thought, it's the difference
between being right in it and then you know, being
someone like a coach outside it. I was like, holy cow,
ten years you did it for ten years, right, So
(10:11):
you frame it in like that you don't feel great
because you're not exactly where you want to be. But
I look at it like, and from an exercise physiology standpoint, David,
you had ten years of amazingly healthy living, right. So
I have to say that to you right off the bat,
and I don't I don't know if you kind of
know that, but don't kind of you know, obviously you're
not feeling it the way I feel it for you,
(10:32):
and that's an incredible thing. So I just want to
say that to you as an outsider like you maybe
not exactly where you want to be. And I just
did a show recently on not being perfect like you
did an incredible ten years, right that that's that's a
decade of living healthy and running ups there. So yeah,
we all have And and by the way, you can
say suffering, you could be suffering, right, That's okay. I'm
(10:56):
the last person that ever wants to admit I'm suffering
is an endurance athlete. But but does that surprise you
for me to say that to you like it's ten
years David that you killed it. I appreciate that, and
I and you're not the only one that's that's shared
that sentiment and I and I certainly do think that often.
But it's it's, uh, I know that part of my
issue is mindset, and I know that part of it
(11:17):
is um I think I say in that post, you know,
I I fixate on a bad choice, on one bad choice,
rather than the ten or fifteen excellent choices that I'm
making any given day. It's it's something that I need
to work on, and I it certainly doesn't hurt to
hear it again. And so I appreciate you for sharing that,
and yeah, it's something that I'm working on. Yeah, for sure.
(11:38):
It's amazing to me, right because that's the show I
just did about not being perfect, and I listen't you know,
we all have different struggles, but part of that show, David,
was I was that person too when I was doing
the natural bodybuilding, when I wanted to be perfect, when
that was actually the goal of it, right, was distilled water,
not regular water. But you would have that one meal
or that one you know, candy bar, and then you
(12:00):
would throw. I would throw the whole day away to go, Okay,
I'm gonna start again tomorrow, because the whole day is ruined.
And what you and I both learned, because you wouldn't
have been successful for ten years, is that you don't
throw the whole day away. So what you're saying is
you still are struggling with that beating yourself up for
that one slip, for that one bad choice. Yeah, and
I and and you're right. It it's so easy to
(12:24):
like open those floodgates and say, Okay, well you know
I I made a bad decision at four pm, so
what the hell does the rest of the day matter?
And um, and I have found myself falling and you know,
falling down that rabbit hole and just following it up
with with bad decision over bad decision. So it's it's
putting those things in practice is equally as difficult, you know.
(12:49):
It's recognize them as one thing, putting them into practices
an other thing. And so for for me, it's I
leaned back to to sort of my basics, and my
basics are that I want to find something. How I
got started on this to begin with ten years ago,
was I want to find something that I can do
better tomorrow that makes me a little bit healthier tomorrow
that I'm not doing today, and I need to do
that every single day, and then once that sort of
(13:10):
becomes habit, then I can incorporate a second thing and um,
and there's just sort of and that's how you build momentum.
It's not gonna it's not gonna find you. You need
to go find it and um. And so in this
case right now, I appreciate you saying it's it's how
how great it is that I'm sharing all this so honestly,
but I didn't share it, And so I had figured
out a plan because I don't really want to wallow
(13:32):
in misery and I don't really wanna It's not about
having a pity party. I don't want to share all
this struggling without having a way out of it. And
so that was important to me, um, being honest, sharing
where I'm at, and also identifying that I've identified those,
you know, some things that I can do. Um. And
(13:53):
for me, it was I needed to do a better
job of tracking my progress. And there's a couple of
ways that I do that I know you're familiar with
that I I literally have a chart on my wall
that I made with graph paper and um and like
painters tape and a marker and I and I literally
have a chart of my weight loss. It goes back
ten years. It's about five pages long. It stretches, you know,
(14:13):
four ft down my wall on like five or six
different pieces of graph paper. And I moved a few
months ago, and I never hung it up. And you know,
part of it at the beginning is just it just
slips through the cracks because I had a thousand things
to unpack and you know, and home improvement projects that
I prioritized and stuff like that. And then a couple
of weeks ago, I realized it's it's not there, and
(14:34):
I'm and I'm suffering because of it. I'm I'm struggling
because of it. Something I used to look at every
single day. It's a visual reminder of what I've done
and what I've accomplished. And without that visual reminder, I'm
I'm sure I'm making decisions that I might not otherwise
have made. So over the weekend that chart went up.
It's now where I see it every single day. I
keep a calendar. Also, I'm very old school and very
(14:55):
analog with all this stuff. I if I can do
something with a pen and paper, I'll do it over
you know, some sort of technology. But I literally have
a calendar, a monthly planner, where every day I write
down the workout after I complete it. I want to
know what I've done, and it helps me plan because
I don't like to repeat anything two days in a row. So, UM,
so I finished my workout, whether it's cardio, or whether
it's strength training, or whether it's a hike with my
(15:17):
dog or whatever it is. I write it down, and
then at the end of the month, I go through
and I calculate, UM, I worked out five days this month.
My goal is six workouts a week and then one
rest day. So I track all that. On the end
of the month, I see if I've hit that goal
of of six workouts every week. If I hit that
goal of um, I'm sorry. I also log every mile
(15:39):
that I accomplished, whether it's running or whether it's on
a cardio machine that tracks distance like a bike or something,
or whether it's I'm a hike with my dog. I
take all those miles and I add them up, and
I have a running total where I have sixty five thousand, hundred,
six hundred miles sort of logged at this point over
the course of six or seven years, and I hadn't
and I hadn't done that. I hadn't updated that in
(16:01):
since May. So, like things with things that were a mainstay,
things that were tent poles in my own personal program
that I developed over ten years, we're starting to to um.
I was starting to slack on them. And so over
the weekend again I went through, I have all that
data from the past four months, three months or whatever
it was, and I went through and like bust out
(16:23):
my calculator and I started crunching numbers and and that's
the stuff that I love, and that's the that's where
like my sort of my my nerd light shines through
because I love crunching those numbers and I'd love creating
that data and looking back and celebrating that success. And
if I'm not celebrating that success, then um, then I'm
not inspired to keep going. And I think that I
(16:43):
saw the results of that lack of inspiration because I
wasn't making the best choices that I could. And then
completely coincidentally, at my my company started a thirty days
of Wellness Challenge and and basically there's were those of
us that are participating our challenged day to do something.
Sometimes it's food based or movement based or mindset based.
(17:04):
Every day there's a challenge and you earn points by
completing them and it's a contest and the very and
the day one day one of thirty days of wellness,
and the challenge was to set goals. And there were
three goals that I had to set. One to be
accomplished within thirty days, wanted to be accomplished within six months,
and want to be accomplished within one year. And I
realized at that moment that it's been a it's been
a while years since I've had a healthy fitness related
(17:27):
goal apart from the general goal of being as healthy
as I can and keeping the weight off, which is
actually certainly a big enough goal as it is, but
it's not something that necessarily drives you to take individual, specific,
timely realistic actions on a daily basis. So now I
have three goals that I'm working towards. Uh And in
the first thirty days, which I'm now fifteen days in,
(17:49):
I wanted to accomplish five stair workouts because I haven't
been on stairs since February, and with the lack of races,
I've sort of left training on them slide. And regardless
of whether or not I have a stair based coming
upstairs are such an incredible way to exercise with so
many health benefits, and so I wanted to get back
into that. So I have two of my five under
(18:09):
my belt. The third workout this month on stairs is
going to happen in about an hour and a half
when I when I make it to the gym. Um
that one will be on a StairMaster. The first two
I went to my local high school and they have
uh you know, a high school football stadium with good
sized bleachers with aisles that have forty steps, a couple
(18:30):
of ales and fifty two. So I my first two
workouts towards that goal were was there on those on
those um on those bleachers. And so I have my
thirty day goal, my my six month goal is to
get back into racing. It's a lot harder now there
are fewer races. I'm gonna have to lean on five
ks and ten ks, which I've done plenty of in
my life. I don't um, I don't I prefer stair races,
(18:53):
but that's sort of less of an option. So finding
five ks and ten ks, I want to sign up
for UH five in the next six months. I don't
need to complete all five in the next six months,
and that's simply because winter is coming and that there
may be less options for actual races, you know, So
if I sign up for them, even if they happen
in the spring, having them on the calendar is the
point because then I stay focused that I'm working towards something,
(19:16):
that I am mindful of my prs and how I'm
training and all those things that have benefits to my
health above and beyond just the workout. So um, that's
my six month goal is to just find and sign
up for races, and then my year long goals to
drop fifty pounds. And it's pounds that that have crept on,
not just in the past few months, but over the
past couple of years, where I may not have focused
(19:38):
on ten pounds over the course of one year or
two years that I've gained, but that's what happens over
you know, as time passes, so it's more or less
a reset. So that goal is certainly number based. It's
fifty pounds in one year. But the idea behind it is,
this goal is gonna get me involved in the stuff
that I was doing in year one when I lost
(19:59):
the it initially that I may have slacked on, or
that I may have that I may not be doing
as diligently as before. This goal will help me incorporate
so many of the other smaller, daily, weekly, monthly things
that I think I need to UM sort of ramp
back up on. It sounds like you've gotta figure it out, David.
You know, you know. It's the planning, as you know,
(20:21):
like planning is one thing, intention is one thing, and
executing is another. So you know, so far, so good.
It's it's early on. I'll tell you I haven't weighed myself.
I'm um, I'm afraid to do it. At this point,
I will. I want to UM. I want to sort
(20:42):
of feel more comfortable that I'm on the right track,
not from a scale perspective, but like how I'm feeling
and how I'm and how I'm embracing these habits that
I want to set. And once i feel like I'm
more involved in this process and once it feels more
routine and um part of my life again. Then I'm
going to step on that scale, and I want to
(21:02):
use that number to motivate those habits to UM to
grow even more. I'm afraid that if I step on
that scale too early, it's it's going to be paralyzing. Two,
it's going to have an adverse effect, and so the
scale will come UM I need. I just it's not
the right time. And I think that's actually pretty pretty
(21:24):
important to me because I know, um unfortunately the effects
that some things have on my mindset and my mental health,
and I want to set myself up for success. And
that's something that I recognize that I can do in
the very very very short term stay away from the scale.
On the longer term, it's going to be instrumental to
measuring that third goal of fifty pounds in a year,
(21:44):
But in the beginning, I just need to stay away
for a little bit longer. And see, I love that
you know that, David, because you know so much of
what I talk about here is you know, I look
at the science and the research, right and and that
was always a tough one for me, or a tricky
one was the weighing every day. And you look at
the research and people who weigh themselves more frequently obviously
are more consistent in keeping weight off. But I love
(22:05):
that you know that that comes with certain caveats, right,
that for you that's so helpful. There's so many people
it's like it's not the right time, even though you
know you're gonna you could you could argue that you're
setting the bar high or lower, whichever way you want
to look at it. But you know what works for you.
And what's so interesting to have this conversation with you.
This is the first time we've been here, and so
you've been successful. You have coping strategies that you know
(22:28):
work that you just outlined, one so specific to you,
and that's why it's so helpful to others who are
gonna hear this, listen to this, and here your approach,
and you know there was so much you just went through.
I love you know, if people listen to the first
show we did, you know the way you achieve success
was everything I believe in, right, the small steps and
and and measuring. And you just said, like you're all
(22:49):
about the number of workouts per month, And I love that.
It's consistency, right, It's not how many cowards you burned
it's not. It's it's this just consistency and frequency. And
then you talked about you know you're gonna do five
or six stair workouts. It's consistency and frequency. It's it's
you know, keeping it simple and doing what works for you.
But it's so interesting to hear you know, I think
(23:11):
deep down, I know, deep down you're at a different
place because when you started this journey, you didn't have
the success that you've had now. So you know you
can do it right and you know what works for you,
and you're gonna do that on your own terms, in
your own way, at your own pace, and it's so
helpful to so many people. How do you feel mentally now?
I feel like I'm embarking down the right path. And
(23:35):
it's funny that the things that I was afraid of
ten years ago are still the same things that I'm
afraid of now. Can you talk about those things? Yeah?
I can. I'm afraid of failing. And it's it's something
that I struggle with in many parts of my life,
above and beyond my health and fitness. It's I recognize
(23:55):
that I set an extraordinarily high bar for myself and
iroach things with if it's not gold, it's a fail.
And I try to embrace the like you know that
that mindset of don't let perfect get in the way
of good. And there are times where I'm better at
that than others, but it's something that I have to
keep focused on because it doesn't come naturally to me,
and so um and so I think about how crummy
(24:21):
I've felt so many times in the past few weeks
and a few months leading up to this sort of moment, uh,
this epiphany of I need to do something different, I
need to make some changes, And I think about how
if these changes don't work, or if I don't execute
the way that I want to execute, I'm afraid that
I'm gonna feel even worse and the ramifications will be
(24:41):
even worse, and that there will be this sort of
snowball effect that I that I can't that I can't
pull myself out of so um. You know that's the
sort of stuff that that makes me not want to
get out of bed. You know, every once in a while, Sure, Uh,
I worry about um. You know, I sort of think
of about in regards to my mental loth I think
(25:05):
about I feel like I'm sort of in this hole,
and I feel like, Uh, there are sometimes where I
just keep shoveling, shoveling my way out. But if you've
ever fucking been in a hole, you can't shovel your
way out. You just make the whole bigger. And uh.
And so I worry that I'm that has put together
(25:26):
as I may have sounded in the past ten or
fifteen minutes. I feel like, ultimately I'm ill equipped. And
I feel like, ultimately, uh, I don't have the willpower
or I don't have the strength, or I don't have
the strategy, or I don't have the perseverance to reach
those goals that I outlined. And when that happens, I
(25:46):
know that I just need to take a step back
and not think about the whole, and not think about
the shovel and just think about the two things that
I'm gonna do that day, the three things that I'm
gonna do tomorrow that will continue to set me up
for success. And I need to sort of disregard the
big picture and focus on the now and focus on
the moment. And um, that's hard. It can be hard.
(26:08):
It's uh, I don't know if when when some things
aren't going right, it's it's easy for me to extrapulate
and come up with stories and tell myself and come
up with versions of my life where everything is failing,
even though it's not, even though all signs point to,
(26:31):
as you've acknowledged in this conversation, so many signs have
pointed to I've had a lot of success. I know
how to do things, I know how to operate, I
know how to move forward in my life in a
way that benefits me. And yet when things don't seem
to be going my way, all of that is like
just lost in the ether because what's not going right
(26:54):
is so powerful to me and so um present and
so uh in the moment right now that it makes
things challenging. Sure, and it's okay to say that, right.
I mean the way you took out the word suffering,
that that that's okay. Like just the pandemic alone, David,
I mean the number of things that's what I brought
up that you moved. There's so many different factors and
(27:15):
there is no perfect and you know, you know all this.
One of the problems with speaking with you is you're
too smart, Like you know, you know all this stuff
and you know what to say like, you're the guy.
A psychologist goes, I gotta a problem with this guy.
But I can only say from an outsider's perspective, like
how proud I am of you ten years and knowing
things like the incredible benefit you gave yourself healthwise and
(27:35):
psychologically over ten years. Right, So I know it's it
just sounds, it's you know. All that I'm gonna say
to you, We're gonna say it anyway. I'm just gonna
say that, right, is that we all have these months.
And you know, that's what I love about endurance raising, David,
is everyone suffering in an iron man in our own way, right.
And I love that you even said And this is
(27:56):
how unique you are that you weren't even gonna put
that post uptil you kind of had things ready to
go right until you had your plan. But you're discounting
your honesty regardless because it's so helpful to so many
people to hear what you just said. And you know,
the difference, again, I would argue, is ten years of
success and coping strategies that have worked. Right, You're not
(28:19):
starting at the start line. You know. People always say
to me, oh, I've read this article that says, if
I stopped exercising, it's as if I never started to
begin with. I go, that is complete BS, right, And
we all go through those times. And you know, I
got my deep dark moments and I just run a
lot farther, David, And you know, UM, I just want
to reinforce that to you. And this is exactly why
(28:41):
I knew I had to reach out to you and
and and know how powerful this is going to be
for so many people. I have no doubt in my
mind that you're gonna be successful, right, I'm no doubt,
but I think you just and you know that you
just have to be easier on yourself. You know you've
got to go easier on yourself that as you said
perfectly that you know you get so down when those
(29:02):
moments happen, and and that's everybody, right. But what you've
proven is that you can do it for ten years
and that you know three or four or five months,
six months, it's it's not going to be the be
all end all. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, It's
it's one of those things that I honestly won't won't
(29:22):
tire of hearing. And then maybe that sounds nar stassistic
to be like, oh yeah, I keep keep telling me
how awesome I am. But it's one of those things
that I definitely that I definitely it's not that I forget,
but it's something that I, um. Now, everyone needs to
hear it, David. Everyone needs to hear it over and over.
And you know, I know a lot of times it
(29:43):
just sounds like yeah, but you don't get it right,
you don't get where I am. Now I totally do uh.
And you know, exercise has literally gotten me out of
those dark moments like that's what I use, that's that's
what it is for me. And you know, one day
I'll put that story out. But yah, in a different way,
I know where you are right, so um. And and
(30:05):
a difference too between now and you know today and
ten years ago is you don't have me watching you,
so I am gonna be reaching out to you and
making sure and helping. And that's a different thing too,
is that that you know, just social support. We all
need that, right, we all need to reach out and
say hey, I can't do it. I don't want to
do it all on my own. I want to hear
(30:25):
that and it's okay, and you should hear it because
you earned it, David. You earned it, and you have
the strategies now. Even though I know a lot of
times we go, I've been there, you go. I don't
care how much I've done. This sucks right now, right, So, uh,
what do you think going forward? I mean, you have
so many plans in place, and I think a huge
part of it for you too, David, is the no racing,
(30:47):
the note racing, and and maybe you find a different
version of that. I'm getting ready to run across the
Grand Canyon and back, David. I'm not trained, but I
need that for my head, right. I need that you
go because there's no Iron Man, there's no marath And
I know if I don't go to something really stupid
because I was suffering with the workout too. We all do.
(31:07):
But but you beat yourself up a little bit more recently,
and you've got to give yourself all that kind of
leeway to say I moved. There's a pandemic, I'm not racing, Okay,
things are going to be perfect for a little while. Yeah, yeah,
I um like you. I use exercise to pull myself
out if it feels so good to be active, and
(31:28):
it feels so good to do things that, um, that
I know I can do or that sometimes still to
this day surprised me. I hadn't been on stairs for
seven months, and I went to the high school. I
went to that football those bleachers, and I had and
I and I had no expectations. I was like, I'm
just gonna see how this goes. And spent seven months
like I'm a little rusty. We'll see what I accomplished.
(31:50):
And I banged out forty eight climes of aisles of
different heights, and I total two steps. And I took
the time to add that up. I took the time
to track all that and I left there and I thought,
holy ship, like, it's I'm in shape. I I I'm
not starting from the start line, as you just said,
(32:13):
I have a base level of fitness. That's um, that's
pretty remarkable. And uh, and I cried. I sat in
the car and I and I cried a little bit
after that workout because I was expecting nothing. Maybe that
was a mistake. Maybe I should have given myself a
little more credit going in and acknowledged um, and acknowledged
that I that I am, that I can be a
(32:34):
beast when it comes to this sort of stuff um
and uh, and served as a good reminder that I've
just slipped a little um and I need to embrace
that more because that's you know, you're right, That is
all it is. And it's never what I think. It's
never what my mind goes to. My mind goes to, Uh,
I'm I'm perpetually one week away from being four dred
(32:57):
pounds and and immobile and in active and completely sedentary.
And that's not the case at all. But I beat
myself up because that's what I assume and that's what
I think. And I so when I have these moments
of um, when I have these moments of oh, what
did I just do in the last fifty minutes or
fifty five minutes or however long it was at that bleachers,
(33:18):
I did a lot. And I did something that a
lot of people would never even attempt or even have
the desire or the wherewithal to think that they could
climb nearly eight steps and fifteen minutes and go down
eight hundred steps. I was the worst part is going
down all those press. People don't realize that right going
down steps, steps, going up steps is awesome from a
(33:38):
health but from a health benefit. But who would have
thought that, David right, I mean when you first started,
did you have any concept? No? No, not at all.
Where are we six months from now? We're always six
ronths from now with the sea, it's uh it's October,
or yeah, it's October. So November, Sember, April, April, six months,
it's gonna be spring. I'll I will be doing those
(33:59):
races that I will been signing up for. I will
have definitely a couple under my belt already, probably more
than a couple. One of my favorite races that I've
ever done is in Illinois in two weeks, and it's
a race through a corn maze. If five k through
a corn maze, and I freaking love mazes. That's my
one of my other hobbies is drawing them, and so
to run through a corn maze for three point one
(34:20):
miles is like my dream morning. So they're actually doing
it live again this year with all sorts of really smart,
socially distant safety measures in place, where there's gonna be
one person entering the maze starting the race like every
thirty seconds, I think, and it's all scheduled out. Everything
is sent in advance, so you don't need to interact
with anyone. You can show up. You know, I'll know
(34:41):
I don't have my time yet, but I'll know that
I'll be starting at you know, exactly ninety eight and
thirty seconds or whatever it is, so i can show up,
warm up, stretch, and just start running when I need to.
And so I'm excited about that. And I'm gonna be
doing another virtual run at some point in October. I
think I have the ability to do it at my
own convenience, which is how all virtual races happen. You
(35:04):
commit to running a five k or a ten k
and perhaps submitting your time and paying the registration fee,
and you know, you get you get your swag bag
in the mail um and all that stuff. But so
I'll probably do that. I'll probably you know, I'm not
gonna do it the same weekend as the corn As
five k. I'll probably do that a weekend or two after.
So I have a couple of things that I've already
(35:25):
put on my calendar that I've committed to, so that
will help me sort of build that momentum of racing.
I hope to be well on my way in six
months to those fifty pounds lost, which was one of
my goals. I hope to continue. You know, the stair
workout goal was a thirty day goal, but I hope
to continue um doing that. You know, moving forward, I
(35:49):
think that I'll might not the cadence may have to
change because of winter and because of snow and ice
on steps which makes them extraordinarily dangerous. Um And I
don't know if I have an indoor stair option this
winter with pandemic in Michigan. So you know, that's an
opportunity to continue to adjust and evolve. And there's always
(36:09):
stare you know, step mills at the gym. That's what
I'll be using tonight, and I can continue to use those.
It's not the same as racing up actual stairs, but
it engages all the muscles and get your heart right
up and then you get a lot of the same benefits.
In six months, hopefully I will be on my way
to I will have accomplished the first two goals to
do the stairs and to register for races and potentially
(36:33):
race in a couple of them already, and I'll be
well on my way to the third. And hopefully this
process will have opened my eyes to additional goals that
I may not even be aware of right now, but
that I will embrace and continue to work towards. That's awesome,
you know. Uh. And and finishing up with that, you
know we talked about last time, how who would have
thought you would be running upstairs ten years later? And
(36:55):
who knows what you'll be doing ten years from now,
and I guarantee you it will be something that neither
you nor you know would ever have thought. Right, So
let's just end with this, David, So what what what
advice would you give? So people are listening and you
I don't think you realize, especially what you're keeping up
David as a million views, over a million views already, right,
and that's insane, one point two million, David. So I'm
(37:16):
just gonna, you know, pat you on the back a
couple more times and just say, you know, you're not
that person that you were ten years ago, and you
know you are influencing people in ways you do not know,
and you know, I hope you realize that. I think
you do. I know you do. And here's another opportunity
for you to do that again and in such a
powerful way, which is why I had to talk to
(37:37):
you again and I know you'll be successful. You've already
proven it, right, and I'm gonna keep giving you those
you know, paths on the back because we all need them,
and you know, especially when you know we go through
these times that we all go through. So what would
you give that advice someone who who was you ten
years ago? What advice would you give that person today
who's starting out who says, I don't even think I
(37:58):
can do what David did to start with. The advice
that I would give someone starting off right now is
figure out those things that you can do that are
that you can incorporate into your life and your daily
routine and your schedule, because those are the things that
you're gonna stick to, if you, you know, go and
and read an article or buy a book, or look
at a website that has some outrageous plan that requires
(38:19):
you to work out outdoors, you know, three hundred forty
days a year, and you live in the north where
there's winter and there's rain and there's snow, and there's
all these things that will make that per hit if
that's not the plan for you, So you need to
figure out what you can do that's that's right for
you and you need to start small. And it's something
that I'm gonna be doing over the next few weeks
and months. And it's again and it's something that people
(38:42):
can do on their own. So it's Hey, if you
live in a if you live in an apartment building
on the second or the third floor, what is it
going to take to avoid that elevator. Maybe you can't
avoid it all every time because you're bringing in groceries
or you know, or have a stroller, a baby stroller
that you need to get down to the sidewalk. But
maybe every day you take those stairs. You you start
(39:04):
by eliminating one elevator, then you take those stairs instead
um or you know, and then once after a week
or two of doing those stairs once, maybe you do
them twice. Maybe you find a way to incorporate one
or two additional servings of fruits and vegetables into your diet.
If that's not something that you naturally lean towards in
your current routine, and what does that look like? What
(39:24):
does it look like to replace a snack with carrot sticks,
or to replace uh um, a beer with water, or
you know, you need like you can turn to books
and podcasts like this one and websites and articles and
all that stuff for all sorts of great ideas and
great resources, but you need to be able to adapt
them and figure out what's going to work for you,
(39:45):
and take a look at what your patterns are and
what your routine is and what's gotten you to where
you are right now, and then figure out how to
make slight incremental changes to those and then stick to them.
Don't do everything at once. You're not gonna be successful
if you're like, Okay, tomorrow, I'm gonna start some drastic program.
Like people have success with keto and paleo and some
(40:08):
of the more restrictive diets, but they ease themselves into it.
And I'm not saying that those diets are good or
bad for you time you may have other opinions. I'm
not an expert, and I'm not I don't have the
education that you have. But if you wake up one
day and you're like, Okay, I'm gonna cut out all
of our fine sugars and all blue coos and all
everything and no carbs whatsoever, then you're gonna, you know,
(40:28):
make it maybe a day before you're tucking into a
giant bowl of pasta. Because that's not what your body
is used to, that's not what your body can handle
that abrupt of a change. So you need to sort
of cutting out all carbs, like cut out one's neck,
cut out um one, soda, cut out one uh, you know,
take a sandwich and make it into a salad and
then cut out that bread one, you know, for one
(40:50):
meal a day. So it's things like that, you know,
use the resources that you have available, use the ideas
that you're getting from the people around you, and the
um and that are available, you know, and and books
and online and all that, but like most importantly, take
a look at what you're doing and what you can
change and identify those changes and make them and then
stick to it and build from there. Thank you. It's
(41:12):
so helpful, David, for so many people. And you know
your message of small steps and not doing it all
at once is you know, one reason we connected so
quickly and one reason you are so successful. And I
just want to thank you again. This is not easy
and you, you know, are phenomenal and I feel so fortunate,
as I say, every time we speak to to know you,
and I know that you're gonna help so many people
(41:34):
with this show. As well, and I want you to
go listen to the first show I did with David.
I want you to go to his site to keep
it up. David. Did I say that right? Keep it
up David dot com. That's right, and that's that's my
handle on all this on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook.
So keep it up, David. That's all you needs to remember.
At a dot com or searching on Twitter or Instagram
(41:54):
or Facebook, you'll find me. David. I just want you
one final time too. I know it's hard like to back,
but ten years of just awesomeness of doing the incredible
things psychologically and physically for yourself, you're gonna You're gonna
do it again. You know you're gonna do it again.
And this show is all about allowing ourselves to not
be perfect, right and and to know that none of
(42:16):
us are. And there we all go through those dark parts.
And what I learned through my racing is you just
get through them. You go slowly, you don't beat yourself up,
and you've gotten through them all. I've gotten through them all.
We've got a percent success rate, right as they say, David,
and being successful at getting through And so thank you
for for sharing, and uh, I look forward to seeing
(42:37):
you take it that next level because you did the
toughest part and now, yes it's tough, I would argue,
and I know that I'm you know, not going through
exactly what you're going through. But I can't wait to
see you on the other side of this, and you're
gonna be that much stronger and we're gonna have another
conversation in six months and and we're gonna have the
success story from there. So thank you because your story
is is going to be so powerful. So for so
(42:58):
many people, there's no perfect intagram world, right we think
there is. Everyone looks perfect and we're all like, you know,
a mess on the inside, uh every now and again.
So so thank you. What's the workout for today? Were
you off to? Uh? StairMaster? This is the first time
going to this particular gym and the pandemic, so I
don't know if there's gonna be My plan is StairMaster.
If there are limits to it, time wise or line
(43:19):
sport or whatever that may need to adapt. But it's
it's a cardio days and I would like to do
stars awesome. We'll have fun and so great catching up
and and just thank you again for sharing, thank you
for having me Tom, and thank you in general for
highlighting stories like this, because I think a lot of
people UM with a platform like this would focus solely
on the successes and um and the inspiration for people
(43:40):
looking back afterward. And so it means a lot to
me that you're willing to spend the time to talk
to someone who's still in the midst of it, who's
who's come a long way, but it's still in the
midst of it, because I think that you're right, people
need to hear those stories. These are the stories that
I'm most interested in when I'm looking for inspiration. I
don't care about the winner of the marathon. I want
to hear about the people that did it for the
first time, that are that overcame something to get there,
(44:03):
that are pushing through something that I haven't experienced before,
but have come through on the other side stronger because
of it. So I appreciate you allotting the time that
you have a lot of and spent with me to
talk about this. Thanks is all from me to you,
So thank you, and UH, I look forward to catching up.
Go do that workout and UH we will talk again soon.
All right. I can't wait so great catching up David Garcia.
(44:25):
We will be right back after this short break and
we are back. I just want to thank David Garcia
one final time. These shows with guys like David Garcia,
(44:47):
and there there aren't many, I hope, are so helpful.
I kind of him. It's a tough show to do.
It's a tough show to do because I know how
much David has accomplished, and you know, we all struggle,
and even the perfect person or the one you think
isn't struggling, everybody is struggling. And you know, we all
(45:09):
need to hear that we've done good things. And David
for ten years, you know, lost an incredible amount of way,
kept it off and competed and he's going through a
rough patch and we all do. And his honesty is
so refreshing and tough to listen to. But I know
(45:31):
he's gonna come out of it the other side, and
I know he's gonna be stronger. I I talked about
my races every race I do. I know at the
finish line, I'm a different person, and my most the
special races are not the ones I went the fastest
or did the best in they're the ones with the
biggest challenge. And you know, I would argue David has
(45:51):
been so successful, you know that can be an issue.
He's gotten through so many challenges, and I know he's
gonna he's gonna come out even wronger and I look
forward to speaking with him again in six months. But
I knew that I had to bring the show to
you right away, because again, we are in crazy times,
crazier than normal, and a lot of people are suffering,
and a lot of people have fallen off their fitness
(46:13):
and nutrition plans, and a lot of people are beating
themselves up. Many of you who are listening, many of
you who reached out and listen, I'm not this has
been It's tough for everybody, and we're all suffering in
different ways. But we control what we can. And that's
why I asked David to give his advice at the end,
(46:34):
and that's why I end every show the same way,
no matter how tough the situation is, no matter what's
going on, we all control three things, how much we move,
what we put into our mouths, and our attitudes. And
as David just illustrated, the attitude is so crucial because
(46:58):
the attitude, our beliefs are talk either helps that movement
and that eating or it goes against us. So that's
why I do the shows on the psychology. That's why
I talk about self efficacy. That's why we talk about
that internal monologue we all have, and that's why we
(47:20):
take small steps. And that's why I do this show
because when you go on fat diets, when you go
on bad exercise programs that are flawed from the start,
that doesn't help you at all. And so small steps
and give yourself room to not be perfect. If you
(47:42):
were successful before, you will be successful again. You have
the tools, you have the coping strategies. It may take
a little time, and it often does, but you will
get through it. Just keep moving forward. Thank you for listening.
Please rate the show if you have not yet already
done so, we subscribe to the show and if you
(48:06):
need to reach out questions comments. Tom h Fit is
my Twitter as well as my Instagram Tom h Fit Again,
check out David Keep it Up David dot com for everything,
his blog post, his social media Keep it Up David.
It's David Garcia and thank you for listening. I hope
you enjoyed the show that was some honest, honest talk
(48:26):
and thank you for listening. I am Tom Holland. This
is Fitness Disrupted. Believe in Yourself. Fitness Disrupted is a
production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(48:47):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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