June 2, 2025 • 52 mins
What drives someone to contemplate ending their life at nearly 550 pounds, and what unexpected insight transforms that same person into someone who loses over 300 pounds? Drew Maness, an information security professional with 25 years of experience and former elite water polo player, takes you through his journey from rock bottom to remarkable transformation.
Drew opens his heart completely, revealing how he walked into a motel room in August 2022 with the intention of taking his life. Trapped in a body that caused constant, excruciating pain and believing he had exhausted every possible weight loss method, he had reached his breaking point. What happened next changed everything.
With raw honesty, Drew shares his breakthrough realization: what if he approached his body like a computer system to be hacked? This shift in perspective led to a revolutionary approach to weight management that finally worked after decades of struggling. His most powerful innovation? A cyclical diet framework that rotates different nutritional approaches throughout the week, preventing the metabolic adaptation that dooms most diets to failure.
The podcast delves into Drew's strategic use of supplements to combat inflammation, his experiences with GLP-1 medication, and the life-changing moment he realized his struggles weren't about willpower at all. This revelation freed him from the depression rooted in self-hatred that had plagued him for years.
Beyond weight loss techniques, this episode examines the complex relationship between our subconscious thoughts, perceived failures, and physical health. Drew's story isn't just about losing pounds—it's about gaining self-forgiveness and understanding the true nature of his struggle.
Whether you're battling weight issues, fascinated by innovative approaches to health challenges, or simply drawn to stories of remarkable human resilience, Drew's journey offers profound insights that challenge conventional thinking about weight loss, willpower, and personal transformation. Listen now to discover how a hacker's mindset might hold the key to solving your own seemingly impossible problems.
Discover daily tips and updates on the Hacking Fat Man journey. Follow on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for transformation deep dives and more insights.
Link to download the Hacking The Fat Man Diet, Schedule and Supplements
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Drew Maness (00:02):
Hi, I'm Drew Maness and welcome to the first
episode of Hacking the Fat man.
This podcast is my journey from550 pounds to what I hope will
be 175 pounds.
I'm currently sitting at 233,having lost over 300 pounds over
the last few years.
Before I get started, I have atrigger warning.
In this episode specifically,I'll be talking about my eating
(00:24):
disorders, my depression and mysuicidal ideation, which some
may find distressing.
If you're interested in none ofthat but want to know about the
diet, please go to episode two.
In episode two, I will becovering the diet in depth, so I
look forward to seeing youthere.
(00:50):
In August 2022, I walked into amotel room attached to my
favorite dive bar from collegewith the full intention of
taking my life.
This presentation is how I wentfrom sitting in that room
weighing almost 500 pounds,about to end my life, to
standing in front of you today,now down over 300 pounds and
feeling great.
I'm not going to spend a wholelot of time in that room, but I
will give us some background ofhow I got there.
But before I get us out of thatroom, let me give you the
(01:18):
background, just for context.
So, hi, I'm Drew, I'm a hacker.
0x99 is my handle.
I'm also an informationsecurity professional.
I spent 25 years mostly inmedia and entertainment, first
as part of Disney's firstinformation security team, then
on to Technicolor, universalMusic and Activision Blizzard
most recently, where I was theirbusiness information security
officer.
I'm currently now the seniordirector of SEARCH, which is a
(01:39):
security engineering,architecture, risk compliance
and human.
It's a combined SECARC GRCfunction for a company called
Avid Exchange.
I was also a former high schoolwater polo player and swimmer
and I'm giving you this ascontext.
I didn't just play water poloand swim, I did it at the
highest level of the sport.
In the early 80s, when I was inhigh school, the center of US
(02:03):
water polo was in California,specifically in Southern
California and, I could probablyargue, orange County and even
down to my league that I playedin.
A number of the coaches in myleague that I played against
went on to coach the US men'sand women's national team.
A number of players went on toplay for the team and there was
(02:23):
a while there.
I knew almost every single USnational team member.
I also coached for a few years,first at my alma mater in Costa
Mesa.
We won, they won.
I had really nothing to do withit.
In 87, they won the CIFchampionship and in 1990, I went
to Laguna Hills High Schoolwhere I took over the boys and
(02:43):
girls swimming and water poloprogram and the boys team won
CIF in 1990 and I was namedOrange County Coach of the Year,
swimming Coach of the Year bythe Orange County Register.
The next year, in 91, wefollowed up but we came a few
points short and only maderunner-up.
But I was again named OrangeCounty Coach of the Year,
Swimming Coach of the Year bythe Orange County Register.
(03:06):
Which leads me to the firstquestion I usually get.
How the hell does someone withthat knowledge get to be 550
pounds?
And I'm going to tell you itwas because I did not recognize
my depression.
I did not recognize what Iactually thought about myself
and I'll get into that a littlebit more.
I really didn't know I haddepression.
(03:29):
If you'd asked me as I waswalking into that room if I was
depressed, I would tell you no,even though I probably did have
a hint that I might have alittle bit of depression.
See, as an athlete and I'm alsoan elder Gen X.
See as an athlete and I'm alsoan elder Gen X.
We're taught to ignore ourfeelings.
We're taught to tell our mindto shut up and move on, and
(03:51):
that's what I was doing.
So whatever was going on in mysubconscious, I was just
ignoring it.
During my swimming days I hadsome skill not a whole lot.
I know that I'm not theprototypical water polo player,
but I was really good at oxygen.
Using oxygen, I could dounderwater three laps, 75 yards.
(04:12):
I also had.
My endurance was off the chart.
In fact, one time in college wehad this get out swim where I
had to do three laps underwaterto get out of workout and I hit
the 50, pushed off and proceededto pass out underneath the
water.
Luckily, most water polo playerand swimmers are lifeguards, so
(04:35):
I had about 30 lifeguardsjumping in trying to save me and
I'm here now.
Thank you guys, thank you.
I'm bringing this up because mysubconscious this whole time,
even though I played polo, I wasgood my subconscious hated me
and told me I was weak, I waslazy, I was pathetic, I was a
(04:56):
wimp, and a lot of it stemmedfrom the fact that I couldn't
control my weight.
I've struggled with my weight,even while I was a swimmer.
I was always heavy through theyears, and even though I was
doing the same workout as theGreek Adonis is sitting next to
me, I still had a couple ofpounds.
Let me show you.
(05:16):
So I'm lucky that I haven'tbeen overweight.
My entire life I have been thin.
There have been times I've beenthin, but let's get to what's
going on there.
So kindergarten through secondgrade, I'm your normal average
size kid.
In third grade I couldn't findpictures for third and eighth
grade, I think, because that wasa period where I was really
(05:39):
overweight and anyway.
So I have Cartman there forthird grade.
Third grade is where when myweight started coming on when I
started eighth grade, I've gotButterball there and my
teammates are laughing right now.
I was four foot nine.
I was four foot nine, 150pounds at the start of eighth
(05:59):
grade and this guy shows up andhe tells us that he started
starting a water polo club atthe high school next door and if
any of us wanted to go join theclub we didn't have to do PE.
I had no idea what water polowas, but if I didn't have to go
into that hell, that is themiddle school locker room and
(06:19):
change, sign me up for it.
So I went and signed up forwater polo.
The 8.5 there, that's themiddle.
That's the winter formal ineighth grade and I'll stand by
that tuck selection any day ofthe week.
That was rocking.
That still is rocking.
I'd still wear it today.
At this point I'm now 5'2 and150 pounds.
(06:39):
Fast forward a couple years into10th grade.
I'm 5'9 and 150 pounds.
Sounds great.
Drew, you've got it all incontrol.
The problem is is I did allthat with anorexia and bulimia.
I went three weeks straighttrying to do without eating.
It's a fantastically horribleway to try to work out or to
(07:04):
become a better player, but yetI did it and it was.
You can't keep doing that,right, you can't keep doing.
At least I couldn't keep doingthe anorexia and the bulimia.
Bulimia is horrible.
So by the time I hit my senioryear with the 12th grade which
is those pictures up there I hadgotten weight back, and so I
(07:24):
graduated high school at about225 pounds.
The picture right there, the1985 picture, is my own Chico's
water polo team.
We actually took that pictureat the beginning of the season,
even though it says we were thePacific League champions.
So I'm sitting there at 225.
I then start losing weight goingback and doing things.
(07:46):
This time in 87, I get down to175 pounds.
This is me standing with myyounger brother having a
conversation about why he'sgetting caught punching people
and getting kicked out.
Notice, I didn't tell him tostop doing it.
I told him to stop gettingcaught doing it, but this is the
last picture of me under 200pounds.
(08:06):
This is 1987.
And this drew.
Well, he's gotten a littlesmarter.
Anorexia is not something I cancontinue to do.
I do need to eat something.
So I decide to eat somewherebetween 500 and 1200 calories.
Yes, I invented or discoveredmyself micro fasting back in 87.
But by 1990, the weightstarting to come back on.
(08:30):
That's my swim team, my CIFchampionship swim team there.
And by 93, I was over 250.
That's me with my buddy Kurt.
By the time I got married in 98, I'm over 300 pounds.
But in 2003, and I'll get tothis in a second in 2003, before
(08:50):
my kids were born, I startedworking out and this is the
closest I came as an adult toactually solving my weight
problem.
The problem there with him isso he's micro fasting, he's
using keto, he's using a bunchof other techniques that I'll
talk about here later, but I wasalso working out quite a bit
(09:10):
and I discovered that every timeI stood up from my desk I was
doing four miles a day walkingand every time I stood up from
my desk my knee would lock up,would lock up and I ended up
having a torn meniscus and mydiet just went out the window.
And this was another profoundlesson that I learned was you
can't out-workout your diet.
(09:31):
If you're working out to loseweight, you're doing it wrong.
You should work out to itbecause you enjoy it.
You could work out to becomebetter, stronger, faster, do a
sport better, but tospecifically lose weight,
because there'll be times thatyou become injured.
And then what You've got tolearn to control your diet and
this was what I learned there.
(09:52):
Fast forward 10 years.
I'm now 375 in 2013.
The picture on the far rightthere is me with Brian Krutzkamp
.
He was coaching the Stanfordclub team at the time and he was
one of my very first studentsteams that I coached for.
(10:12):
Fast forward another 10 years,almost 10 years, july 2022.
So I've mentioned that I camein in August 2022 to kill myself
.
This is the only picture I haveof me at weight at peak weight,
I'm estimating now I was over500, close to 550 pounds, and
(10:35):
you may ask why do I estimate?
It's because there's no scalesthat really weigh anything over
450 pounds.
They're just not, at least theones I could afford.
The next picture is November2022.
This is me after the incidentand after the diet started
(10:57):
working.
At this point, I thought I hadlost about 50 pounds, which I
did, but I didn't realize howmuch weight I had gained during
COVID, and I'll get to that in asecond, and I'll get to the
rest of the pictures in October23.
Through now, this is just meover the years, just showing you
that it works and I actuallydid lose the weight.
(11:20):
Which leads me to the secondquestion I always get what was
it like to be over 500 pounds?
Well, absolutely nothing likethose stupid morning shows where
they put on the weight, thesamurai suit, and say, oh, I've
gained 100 pounds.
Oh, it's so hard to move.
In fact, what it's like to be500 pounds is you don't really
(11:40):
feel the weight, it's moreanaerobic, it's more.
You're just tired, existing.
I tell people, it's like mile21 of a marathon, where you are
about to die, you're about topuke, you're about to collapse.
Yeah, that's what it's like tobe 550 pounds and move.
(12:03):
The other thing is pinching.
I remember a lot of pinching,mostly because your balloon's
all over your body.
So whether you're wearing socks, it would have to pinch your
legs.
If you're wearing a belt, ithas to pinch your stomach and
your arms, and it was justpinching all over the place.
My knees hurt and I had reallybad gout.
And if you never had gout,imagine taking a big, large roof
(12:24):
nail or spike and putting itunderneath your heel or your big
toe and have it jammed in everytime you moved.
Yeah, it's not good, it feelsbad.
So if you do want to know whatit's like to be over 550 pounds,
go run a marathon wearingclothes two sizes too small for
you At mile 21,.
Start pinching yourself all overyour body and place a nail
(12:46):
underneath your foot.
That is what I was experiencing.
That was just waking up.
God forbid if I had to move.
So a little bit of context andbackground of where I am.
I've estimated I've lost.
Prior to starting the diet inAugust 2022, I had lost over a
(13:08):
thousand pounds.
My problem is I gained 1250.
And every time at that point,in 22, everything I tried any
diet I used to try.
Keto was my favorite.
The second I thought aboutlosing weight.
My gout would flare up and itwould go from foot to foot.
One week it'd be this foot.
I'd have maybe a week off.
Next week it'd be the otherfoot.
(13:32):
The third question I usually get, though, is what would I say to
Drew sitting in that room?
And this is a little bit hardfor me to answer, because I've
got to answer it in twodifferent ways.
I knew, and I've known all myentire life, that suicide is a
permanent solution to atemporary problem.
But what happens if you don'tthink it's temporary anymore?
(13:56):
I literally had gotten to thepoint where I thought I could no
longer lose weight, that I wasjust going to continue to get
fatter, continue to have pain,and the pain from opening my
eyes.
The second that mile 21 hit.
That was level five on thatpain scale you see at the
hospital, and the more I movedthroughout the day, it would go
(14:17):
to level 10.
And it really just became forme sorry, I'm getting a bit
emotional it became too much.
I couldn't.
My life was just pain, that'sall I had, and I couldn't take
the pain anymore.
So, as I mentioned, I walkedinto that hotel room in August
(14:38):
2022.
I had spent the whole entireday drinking with my good
college and high school friends.
I actually helped set it up.
I spent months setting this up.
It was the end of lockdowns,covid, and we were going to have
a party to celebrate all theparties that we missed over the
lockdown.
So I get done.
(14:59):
I walk in they drop me off.
I walk in the hotel room.
I walk in, they drop me off.
I walk in the hotel room and Iremember sitting on the bed,
much like I am now, with myhands crossed and my arms
resting on my knees, andthinking about what I was just
about to do, and I paused for asecond to think about my kids
and my family and what I wasgoing to do to them.
(15:22):
And then I remember okay, andI'm not making up this next part
, this is what I remember rightafter that.
So I remember thinking about mykids.
I remember saying okay, and thenext thing I know I'm laying
(15:43):
down with my back on the bed, myfeet in exactly the same spot
they were, my hands claspedexactly as they were, like I
just fell straight back.
It was morning and the sun wascoming up, and it was that deep
sleep where you don't reallyknow who you are or where you
are or what you are.
And I remember opening my eyesand instantly mile 21, pinching
(16:09):
pain, level five and I'm pissed.
What the hell just happened?
How am I still here?
This was not the deal.
I had spent all this time doingit.
Now I'm going to pause for asecond there, and I've thought
about this over the years is ifI was so set on doing it, why
(16:31):
didn't I just do it at thatpoint after I woke up?
I don't have an answer to that.
All I know is at that time,when I woke up, I needed to get
out of that room, so I grabbedeverything, got in my car and
drove home.
The drive home.
My subconscious is having afield day with me, and this
(16:53):
happens over the next two weeks.
This is where I start realizingmy subconscious wants to kill
me.
My subconscious hates me, andif you ever want to know what my
subconscious actually, I'mgoing to scroll back here for a
second.
Come on, drew, if you ever wantto know what my subconscious
thought about me, take a look atthat picture.
(17:15):
That is exactly what mysubconscious felt.
I was, I was fat, I was lazy, Iwas a wimp.
I was you name it.
I was a wimp, I was you name it.
My subconscious was telling meit.
(17:36):
So I'm starting to listen towhat my subconscious is actually
saying.
And it's sitting there and it'sit's just pounding me.
You are, you are so pathetic,drew, you can't even kill
yourself.
You are such a wimp, you aresuch an.
You're a fucking joke.
Pardon my language, but that'sreally what was going on in my
head.
(17:56):
So, two weeks later, I'm sittingon the couch and I'm debating
on whether I'm going to makeanother run at this Again.
I'm still in pain, I'm stillhurting.
I can't take this anymore.
I literally cannot take thepain anymore.
And just at that moment, myyoungest son starts walking down
the stairs and I get thisthought from the other side of
my head, who'd been silent allthese years?
(18:17):
But this thought on the otherside of my head goes you've
saved, you've done good, you'vesaved him a lot of pain.
And that's when brain bias orcognitive dissonance, whatever
you want to call it kind ofkicks into place, because I
remember when my kids were bornfor the first time in my life, I
(18:37):
knew for 100%, absolute factthat I'd run into fire to save
them.
I would jump in and take abullet, not saying I wouldn't do
that for you.
I more than likely would dothat for you, but for my kids I
knew absolutely I would do it.
And this thought goes on moreand says well, isn't it your job
as a father to save them frompain?
(18:58):
And that if that meant yousticking to your pain or taking
the pain to save them pain,isn't that what you're supposed
to do?
And that was like someonepunched me in the gut.
So at that point I make adecision okay, I'm going to
stick around.
I obviously cannot keep doingwhat I'm doing.
(19:20):
I'm going to make my life justslightly, a little bit better
every day.
Well, okay, now what do I do?
As I'm coming to this thoughtof okay, I'm going to stay here,
I'm going to make my life alittle bit better.
As my friends know, I lovewatching random documentaries.
I have CuriosityStream on allthe time and at this particular
(19:45):
time I was watching this episodeof the show called Dynamic
Genomes and Dynamic Genomes.
What it was about was that youknow, when I was a kid, we were
taught that we only use 2% ofour DNA, that the other 98% was
what they called junk DNA.
Well, dynamic genome wasshowing us that that's no longer
(20:05):
the case, that we know thatthis other 98% is what they call
non-coding DNA, which means itdoesn't do this stuff, but it
helps turn gene expression orepigenome on or off, and
specifically it was talkingabout at this.
Second, if your father,basically, was a glutton when
(20:27):
you were born, he passed on oneof these toggle switches that
made you 20% more likely to gainweight on less food.
And that surprised me, becauseI used to joke that I just
stared at a peanut butter andjelly sandwich I'd gain weight.
I'm not lying.
(20:48):
Yes, I was a fat swimmer.
I was eating less than them,the Greek Adonises, but yet I
was still heavy.
And so suddenly I have thisthing where I bet you that's
turned on.
I bet you I have that.
And then, looking at it, I waslike, oh, toggle switches, zeros
and one that looks familiar.
(21:09):
And I remember making a jokethat well, too bad, the human
body isn't a computer, because Ihave yet to find a computer
problem I couldn't solve.
And I stopped for a second andwent yeah, you know what?
You've never really approachedthis as a computer problem.
You've never really unleashedyour computer mind on your body,
on your weight problem.
So I at that moment I decided,yeah, I'm going to start doing
(21:36):
it.
I mean, it was obviously I hadno idea how to operate this
thing.
But it gets me to my nextquestion is why do I call it
hacking the fat man?
And it's really hacking the fatman because I unleashed my
hacking thought process on mybody and have found success with
(21:57):
it.
As I mentioned, it's obvious Idid not know how to operate this
machine.
I realized I had no idea whatit is or what it's supposed to
be doing.
So the first thing of hackingis you gather information right,
and information isn't aboutjust what it is, it's about
what's it telling you.
So error messages are valuableor could be valuable.
(22:18):
So what do I think this isgoing on and why do I think it's
going on?
So the first hack I had,looking at the error messages in
my body, was I knew that gout.
Gout was a serious problem, butgout wasn't just by itself.
I had inflammation problems, Ihad allergies.
So I really went afterinflammation and I started with
(22:43):
three supplements for theinflammation Beets, good for
inflammation.
Cinnamon, good for inflammation.
And then my younger brothertold me about tart cherry, which
is great for gout.
Now, this was not a miraclecure.
I didn't take the first coupleof supplements and it all went
away.
But what I noticed was, after aperiod of a couple of weeks or
(23:04):
a month, was my gout attacks andthe inflammation were getting
less, maybe less severe.
They weren't lasting as longand the period between them
started growing, and it'sprogressed to the point now
where I can't even remember thelast time I actually had a gout
(23:25):
attack.
The other thing I noticed afterthis was starting was that my
clothes were fitting a littlelooser, that I had started
losing.
I hadn't even started a diet.
The only thing I've added wasthose three supplements, and
it's entirely attributed to thefact that I was moving better.
(23:45):
I could get up and move, I wasin less pain.
So I'm going to stop here andI've got a question for all of
you.
I'm assuming some of you haveworked out, some of you have
most everyone has worked out.
Do you do the same workoutsevery single day?
No, you don't do the sameworkouts every single day, and
(24:10):
the reason is if you try to dothe same workout every single
day, your body gets used to it,so the benefit of doing it
starts to be less and less andless.
The body just starts going yep,yep, I'm used to that and
doesn't give a real benefit ofit.
You need to change it up.
Keep the body guessing.
So why do we diet the same wayevery day?
(24:30):
Why do we I'm on keto, I'm onMediterranean, I'm on the Miami
diet.
You pick it, weight watcherswhy do we try to diet the same
way every single day?
It's crazy.
This talk started both from thefact that I wanted to understand
how I got out of that room, butalso to make sure I understood
(24:53):
why the diet was actuallyworking and continuing to work.
The idea of the diet, the fulldiet, started from what I have
learned from previous failures.
As I mentioned, at this point Ihad lost over a thousand pounds
.
I had tried every single dietunder the sun.
(25:16):
Once you look at that, though,most diets are pretty much the
same.
It's a ratio between fat,protein and carbs, and whether
it's keto, which is heavyprotein, zero carbs, some fat,
or the Mediterranean, which ishigh carbs, a little bit of
(25:39):
protein, very little fat, youcan put them together by this
ratio.
So diets I've tried.
I know you can't read that,it's small on my screen too.
The first one was low fat,nonfat Stupidest diet ever in
the entire world.
I'm not going to spend a wholelot of time on it, you're just
replacing fat with sugarCompletely asinine.
(26:02):
First diet I actually did.
I started this at the Atkins.
It was called Atkins when I wasin the 80s, but it's
effectively keto and I did thatin my teens.
A lot of that in 87, thatpicture I showed you where I was
micro-fasting.
It was pretty much aAtkins-heavy kind of diet.
(26:25):
The Zone Diet I discovered outof Stanford Swimming back in the
mid-80s they were using it.
This is your 40% carbs, 30% fat, 30% protein, and then modify
the ratios.
Yeah, that's right.
(26:45):
I've also tried theMediterranean diet.
Love it, it's good.
I actually consider theMediterranean I call that a
modified zone to have moreprotein.
So instead of being carb heavy,the zone is initially carb
heavy.
Switch that around and have itprotein heavy.
Doctors, health Care, great diet.
(27:06):
I felt awesome on it, almostimpossible to stay on.
So Dr Sears developed this dietand it's hardcore vegan, no
animal protein at all, and theworst part was no oil.
Do you know how many thingshave oil in them Salsa bread,
(27:26):
there's a bunch of things thathave oil in it and it made that
diet absolutely impossible.
But the good thing I learnedout of that diet was it's
physically impossible to eat2,000 calories of raw green
vegetables a day.
You have to start in themorning and you would never get
even close to 2,000 calories.
(27:46):
The other one I call it the sumodiet, but so sumo wrestlers.
So micro fasting good right,but if you go micro fasting and
you eat 7,000 calories, you'regoing to look like a sumo
wrestler.
Now I hated breakfast.
Every time I ate I got sleepy.
So that micro fasting that Iwas doing to lose weight ended
(28:08):
up being the sumo wrestler diet,and you could tell from the
pictures.
That's exactly what I did tomyself.
I would eat seven, not seven.
I'd eat about five to 6,000calories at night just before I
went to bed.
Remember, eating makes me go tosleep and I ended up looking
like a sumo wrestler.
The other one I'm going to addhere is the juice cleanse.
This was something in the earlyaughts that became popular.
(28:30):
I actually really enjoyed thejuice cleanse because it's
really just add citric acid orjuice to your water and vitamin
C is a very my body operates onvitamin C, so I actually did
well on this and I'll talk alittle bit about how I use the
juice cleanse coming up.
So from these past experiences,I started developing the diet.
(28:58):
So I'm taking the threesupplements.
I'm going to start implementingthe diet and I had a couple of
issues.
Still right, if I took keto too,if I stayed in ketosis too long
, my gut would flare up, so Icouldn't do keto all the time If
(29:20):
I wanted to.
You know, lose weight, fastingis good, but fasting is
technically keto and you canonly do that so long as well.
And I also got into reasons whymy diet failed.
One was sticking to the samething over and over, even in
keto diet.
I got tired of bacon.
How do you get tired of bacon?
(29:41):
But by eating the same thingover and over again it gets
boring.
The other one that hit me a lotfailure was travel.
Especially with the Dr Searsdiet, when you travel, getting
access to the food can beproblematic, and traveling
(30:03):
almost always caused me problems.
So I came up with some ideasaround what this diet framework
should look like.
First thing is it's not really adiet, it's a life cycle change.
I have to.
Not only can do it, I need towant to do it.
It needs to bring me joy, whichmeans I need to eat things that
(30:24):
bring me joy.
It should be as simple asbreathing, if it's, if it gives
you joy.
It's pretty simple, right, and Idon't want to plan.
I don't want to do any realplanning.
Right, and I don't want to plan.
I don't want to do any realplanning.
I have no idea what I wanttoday or when I wake up, I have
no idea what I'm going to havefor dinner.
Right now.
I won't know until I get up tomake dinner what I'll eat.
(30:47):
There's no meal prepping.
I hate meal prepping.
I know some of you love it.
Good on you.
I'm not meal prepping.
Again, coming back to the factthat I don't really know what
I'm going to eat, so why am Imeal prepping?
There's also no tracking ofcalories.
I do it all kind of on guessinga little bit, but I build in
(31:12):
buffers for it.
So I start with 1,800 caloriesas my max instead of 2,000.
Gives me a little bit of bufferthere, and then I just kind of
judge from the meal.
I've been doing this a lot.
I can know that that meal wasabout 500, 600 calories, which
is the perfect spot for me thatI try to hit on.
Every meal is about 500 to 600calories.
(31:34):
The other thing and this goesback to the anorexia side was
that I can only do one day oftrue fasting.
That means not eating anythingand maybe one or two days of
micro fasting.
I'm not going to keep trying topush myself longer than that,
(31:55):
even though I may feel like it.
Vegetables are free, but it'simportant to understand what a
vegetable is.
Tomatoes are a fruit, corn is aseed.
When in doubt, stay with yourgreen leafy vegetables.
And also that from a puredietician standpoint, 1,800
(32:19):
calories or whatever yourexpenditure is for the day.
Do less than that and you'lllose weight.
It gets better if you spreadthe calories that you have out
over the day and includingbreakfast.
Well, I've told you I hatebreakfast.
I've actually added in thejuice diet because it's about
(32:39):
five to 10 calories per drink inthe morning to help me get
started, not only with thebreakfast getting calories in my
system.
Also, my supplements havecalories in and of themselves
and I have morning supplementsand evening supplements and I'll
get to those in a bit, but ithelps me spread out the calories
, helps me keep the body, evenon fast days doing the juice,
(33:02):
fast the body from totallytrying to save every calorie
right Again, keeping my bodyguessing.
And then the final point Ireally need to stress is we're
going to slip, we're going tomess up, we're going to eat too
much, we're going to dosomething, forgive yourself.
There's no reason to beatyourself up.
(33:23):
The only thing that matters isyou in the next second.
You can't change anything inthe past, but you can change
what you're about to do andthat's where you need to stay
and keep your mind there.
So if you messed up in the past, just move forward.
The real thing and this is wherethe schedule comes in and the
(33:48):
real change is I schedule mytypes of diet throughout the
week On Mondays and I start onMonday.
Mondays are fast days for me.
I'm just not going to eat.
I'll do the juice cleanse, I'lltake my supplements, but I try
to start the week off with yes,I should be losing weight now.
The next Tuesday and maybe intoWednesday, depending on how I'm
(34:08):
feeling.
I go into micro fasting Tuesday, definitely micro fasting
Wednesday, if I'm not reallyhungry.
I'll probably micro-fastWednesday and Thursday or later
in the week into Friday, I gointo a keto diet, so
(34:33):
protein-heavy, very little,carbs very little and some fat.
Further on in the week, asFriday, saturday, as we're
getting into it, I, I go into azone diet, a modified zone.
So I'm protein heavy in themodified zone again, kind of
still keto, but I can add if Iget rice or fries with my steak,
I'm fine.
Uh, and I and I did this onpurpose, because fridays,
saturdays, even thursdays, tosome extent sund Sundays, are
(34:55):
the days we have family events,we have go out for work events,
so I wanted to be able to enjoythem without feeling like, hey,
you know what I'm, you know I'mon a diet, I can't, I can't go
that.
Oh, it's going to be hardbecause everyone else is eating,
I don't have to worry aboutthat.
I can enjoy myself as long as Istay under 1800 calories and be
(35:16):
good to go.
And then Sunday it really I useSunday as a what happened in
the week.
So if I was good, sunday may bea normal day.
If I feel like I was bad duringthe week not bad, but maybe ate
a little bit more than I wantedto, I may do a lighter Sunday
as well.
Again, the whole point of thisschedule is to give you
(35:38):
flexibility in your diet, andI'm not specifically sticking to
one type of diet.
I may wake up on a Tuesdaymorning micro fasting, but for
some reason I'm craving.
I have some craving ofsomething right.
So micro fasting to me isbetween 500 and 1200 calories,
and whatever the craving is.
(35:58):
You want donuts?
Have 500 calories of donuts,you're fine.
You're going to feel like crap,but you're fine.
Most of my cravings usually aresomething else.
I'll get a craving for lasagnaor spaghetti or something like
that, but as long as I staybetween 500 and 1,200 calories,
(36:19):
I'm micro-fasting.
I'm good to go, and the same istrue for the rest of the time.
If it's Wednesday or Thursdayand I'm supposed to be doing
keto but I want the steak andfries, I'll have the steak and
fries.
That's not keto, that's themodified zone, but I'll go ahead
and have them because I feltlike having them.
The point is it's got to bringme joy and it's cannot feel like
work.
(36:40):
The other big hack I did wasI've talked a little bit about
the first three tart, cherry,cinnamon and beets.
Those were the first threesupplements I've done, but I've
since added a bunch of them andif you you read through this
list and I'm going to put thisin the supplement list in an
(37:00):
attachment that you can download, but the first three and if you
read through all of these,they're almost all going for
inflammation, because I still,even to this day, struggle with
inflammation.
Gout's gone but I stillstruggle with swelling in my
legs and some other places.
The hydroxy methylbutyrate,which I hadn't talked about
(37:22):
before, hmb that's a rock stardrug or not drug, but supplement
.
So what HMB does is it protectsmuscle, regardless of whether
you're losing weight or gainingweight, and what I mean by that
is normally when we lose weight,our body will burn on average
about the same amount of muscleto fat, right?
(37:45):
So 50% of your weight loss isfat, 50% is muscle.
The problem with losing muscleis muscle burns calories.
So if you're losing weight,they're losing muscles.
That means tomorrow you'regoing to just existing, spend
less calories.
H and B will protect the muscle, keep you from burning it as
(38:07):
part if you're losing weight andmake you burn more fat.
That's awesome.
If you overeat, if you overconsume H andMB instead of your
body, again it's about 50-50,maybe a little bit more fat, for
me specifically.
So if you overeat, hmb makesyou have create more muscle
(38:31):
right and have less of thatcalories go into fat.
So it's a dual-sided thing.
Rockstar, I highly recommend it.
I'm doing well Again with allthese supplements.
I am not a doctor.
I am not even a medicalprofessional.
I am someone who's hacking hisbody.
So take it for what it is.
Make sure you talk to yourdoctor or pharmacist with any of
(38:53):
the supplements that you take.
K2 and D3, those are just.
I discovered K2 from takingantihistamines.
I couldn't take more than oneantihistamine a day or every
other day, because if I took itfor two days in a row, I would
(39:16):
get restless leg syndrome.
And K2, or, yeah, k2, d3, and acouple other ones I'll
highlight them, and turmeric isone of them are good for helping
solving the restless legsyndrome problem.
And if what restless leg is isespecially when you're going to
sleep, your legs twitch likethat.
(39:36):
Now, imagine gout and you'regoing to sleep.
Your legs twitch like that.
Now imagine gout and you'retrying to go to sleep and I
couldn't keep taking theantihistamines because it would
cause it.
So K2, d3, good solid stuffAgain, they help with
inflammation.
Omega-369 is your fish oils Goodthere?
(39:58):
Turmeric I talked to a littlebit.
Vitamin C absolutely lovevitamin C and magnesium
glyconate is also on the listand again, it does really help
with improved sleep and anxietyreduction.
(40:19):
In addition, I've addedglucosamine, chondroitin I
should learn to say these thingsright which is for my knees my
knees are bad and as well as thecollagen, the same.
The lactobacillus planetariumwas part of that restless leg
syndrome solution.
I've since also added carotene,philostin and nicotinamide
(40:48):
ribenside, and I've also TMG,beta carotene, hydraulic acid
and Zyrtec.
Now that I've solved my restlessleg syndrome, I can now take an
antihistamine daily.
So I take Zyrtec daily.
So that's the diet and thehacks with the supplements.
(41:12):
So I've covered the diet.
I've covered the diet, I'vecovered the schedule, covered
what got me into the room, whatgot me out of the room, um, but
there's one item, one more hack,I need to address.
So, before I got into thespecifics of the diet, we I had
taken you up to about me innovember 2022, which is that
(41:33):
picture there that drew?
He's lost 50 pounds.
He's feeling good.
In fact, he's feeling so goodhe went and got a haircut for
the first time in three years,bought new clothes and actually
went out to a work dinner.
I continue to lose weight overthe next few months and I'm
feeling so good that I decidedto go in and get my physical
(41:57):
that I hadn't had in three years.
The last time I had a physicalwas January 2020.
And I had weighed 425 pounds.
I was so confident I was prettysure I already lost all my
COVID weight.
I'm good.
I was expecting to weigh 425pounds.
I walk into the doctor's office,I stand on the scale and I'm
(42:18):
479.
And it hits me, I had been wellover 500, closer to 550, maybe
even over 550 pounds.
If I think, I've lost 50 to 75pounds and I'm now sitting at
479,.
That was bad.
And then the news got worse.
The doc looks at me and tellsme I've gotten an abdominal
(42:39):
hernia and I need to get itoperated or else it's going to
cause me a lot of problems.
And he sends me to a surgeonwho tells me I'm too fat to
operate on.
She recommends putting me onZepband and Manjaro, or Manjaro,
which is now called Zepband.
So this is March 2023.
This is actually me on the wayto the surgeon and I weighed 469
(43:04):
pounds at the surgeon's office.
So even between the January theend of January physical to the
early March surgical appointment, I had lost an additional 10
pounds.
I had lost an additional 10pounds.
So in March 23, I start takingMajaro Zetbound.
Now I'm going to stop here fora second because it's not on the
(43:26):
slides.
I didn't bring up that I'vebeen taking Zetbound.
I'm going to sit here and tellyou that Zetbound is the
greatest drug mankind's evermade and I'm going to get into
why here in a second, because Idon't want people just
dismissing the diet because, oh,you took Zetbound.
Of course the diet worked.
That's not it.
I've just finished describingthat I had lost almost the
initial 100 pounds off the dietwithout the Zetbound.
(43:50):
Zetbound helps it helpsfantastically, but I have tried
every diet, pill or substancethat you can imagine and you can
blow through it.
I've seen people blow throughgastric bypass where they
continue to eat and gain theirweight back, even though they've
cut out half their intestine.
So in March 2023, I startedtaking Manjaro and Zetbound.
(44:14):
I noticed that my appetite wasless and I start to lose weight
or continue to lose weight overthe next couple of weeks and
months.
But I ended up down in SanDiego for a company event and
I've mentioned in the past thattravel can sometimes knock me
off my diet.
But also work stress orpersonal stress is another
reason diet fail, and I got bothdown in San Diego.
(44:37):
I'm having some problems atwork, I'm frustrated and I'm
traveling and I just decided toorder my meal.
Now, my meal, my comfort meal,my my go-to just screw it, I'm
going to eat whatever I wantmeal was a McDonald's double two
double quarter pounders withcheese, two large fries and two
Diet Cokes.
I order this meal, I get itsent to my room and I take the
(45:01):
first two, three bites of thefirst quarter pounder and then,
for the first time in my entirelife, my body says, hey, you
know what, you're good, youdon't need to eat anymore.
And I'm shocked.
I am literally sitting theregoing what the heck is this?
(45:22):
I had never been satisfiedeating something before, never.
I had been full right whereliterally I could not put
something else in there, butthat sense of satisfaction okay,
you're done, you don't need toeat anymore.
It was shocking.
And I've talked to others whohave struggled with weight their
whole life, who've been on anOzempic or other GLP-1, 2 drugs,
(45:46):
and they've all said the samething, that they never had a
sense of satisfaction eating.
And this is important.
Well, actually.
And this is important, well,actually.
I'll get to why it's importanthere.
Coming up so let me pause for asecond here and old, little old
(46:10):
school slouch trap or flame warhere, that sense of satisfaction
is important because if you'rea thin person and you're making
recommendations on what aoverweight person should do,
like oh I don't know, oh, youknow, what you need to do is
just eat a little bit and wait20 minutes to see if you're
still hungry.
I've just told you that I'venever had a feeling of
satisfaction, so I'm alwayshungry, I was always hungry, so
(46:33):
that advice doesn't work.
So I want you all to know, ifyou've thinned and never
struggled with your, with yourweight, you don't get to give
advice to to us anymore, becauseyou're literally a genetically
advanced creature.
You're a chimpanzee trying toexplain to a frog or a
salamander how to climb a tree.
It's not the same, we're notthe same.
Just support me in my weightloss, support others in their
(46:56):
weight loss, but you don't needto give advice because what you
experience is not what weexperience.
At this point I'll stop my getoff my soapbox and let's get
back to the talk.
So what is this feeling ofsatisfaction?
I literally took the whole bagof food and I threw it in the
(47:19):
trash can.
And this is where it suddenlyhit me was it had nothing to do
with my willpower.
It had nothing.
I actually had strong willpower.
The fact that I had was able tofluctuate my weight If I got
the sense of satisfaction.
It made dieting so much easierand it allowed me to forgive
(47:42):
myself.
I realized it was a chemicalimbalance.
Some doctor may argue with methat it's not chemical, but it
doesn't matter.
Whatever this drug is doing togive me that sense of
satisfaction helped solve mydepression, because my
depression was directly rootedin the fact that I could not
control my weight, that I didnot have the willpower to
(48:04):
control my weight.
And then I found out that ithad nothing to do with willpower
.
I would hate myself.
I hated myself so much for thatlack of willpower or control
that I just detested myself.
You can see from that picturethat I showed you on the
(48:26):
driver's license one I wouldderive all of my self-worth from
external things, from being awater polo player or a swimmer
or being really good incomputers or the friends that I
kept and talked with.
But discovering this, mydepression just melted away
(48:50):
because I know I could forgivemyself.
It was a disease.
It was outside of my controlmyself.
It was a disease.
It was outside of my control.
So this brings us to today.
Now, actually, today is June1st 2025.
That's the picture of me lastmonth that I took there
(49:18):
no-transcript.
I hope to again.
My goal is to reach 175.
I'm hoping that you stickaround and join me on this
journey as I continue to loseweight and get it all down.
And that completes the firstepisode of Hacking the Fat man.
Thank you for joining me and Ihope to see you in episode two
(49:38):
and further on down the.
Hi, I'm Drew Maness and welcome to the first
episode of Hacking the Fat man.
This podcast is my journey from550 pounds to what I hope will
be 175 pounds.
I'm currently sitting at 233,having lost over 300 pounds over
the last few years.
Before I get started, I have atrigger warning.
In this episode specifically,I'll be talking about my eating
(00:24):
disorders, my depression and mysuicidal ideation, which some
may find distressing.
If you're interested in none ofthat but want to know about the
diet, please go to episode two.
In episode two, I will becovering the diet in depth, so I
look forward to seeing youthere.
(00:50):
In August 2022, I walked into amotel room attached to my
favorite dive bar from collegewith the full intention of
taking my life.
This presentation is how I wentfrom sitting in that room
weighing almost 500 pounds,about to end my life, to
standing in front of you today,now down over 300 pounds and
feeling great.
I'm not going to spend a wholelot of time in that room, but I
will give us some background ofhow I got there.
But before I get us out of thatroom, let me give you the
(01:18):
background, just for context.
So, hi, I'm Drew, I'm a hacker.
0x99 is my handle.
I'm also an informationsecurity professional.
I spent 25 years mostly inmedia and entertainment, first
as part of Disney's firstinformation security team, then
on to Technicolor, universalMusic and Activision Blizzard
most recently, where I was theirbusiness information security
officer.
I'm currently now the seniordirector of SEARCH, which is a
(01:39):
security engineering,architecture, risk compliance
and human.
It's a combined SECARC GRCfunction for a company called
Avid Exchange.
I was also a former high schoolwater polo player and swimmer
and I'm giving you this ascontext.
I didn't just play water poloand swim, I did it at the
highest level of the sport.
In the early 80s, when I was inhigh school, the center of US
(02:03):
water polo was in California,specifically in Southern
California and, I could probablyargue, orange County and even
down to my league that I playedin.
A number of the coaches in myleague that I played against
went on to coach the US men'sand women's national team.
A number of players went on toplay for the team and there was
(02:23):
a while there.
I knew almost every single USnational team member.
I also coached for a few years,first at my alma mater in Costa
Mesa.
We won, they won.
I had really nothing to do withit.
In 87, they won the CIFchampionship and in 1990, I went
to Laguna Hills High Schoolwhere I took over the boys and
(02:43):
girls swimming and water poloprogram and the boys team won
CIF in 1990 and I was namedOrange County Coach of the Year,
swimming Coach of the Year bythe Orange County Register.
The next year, in 91, wefollowed up but we came a few
points short and only maderunner-up.
But I was again named OrangeCounty Coach of the Year,
Swimming Coach of the Year bythe Orange County Register.
(03:06):
Which leads me to the firstquestion I usually get.
How the hell does someone withthat knowledge get to be 550
pounds?
And I'm going to tell you itwas because I did not recognize
my depression.
I did not recognize what Iactually thought about myself
and I'll get into that a littlebit more.
I really didn't know I haddepression.
(03:29):
If you'd asked me as I waswalking into that room if I was
depressed, I would tell you no,even though I probably did have
a hint that I might have alittle bit of depression.
See, as an athlete and I'm alsoan elder Gen X.
See as an athlete and I'm alsoan elder Gen X.
We're taught to ignore ourfeelings.
We're taught to tell our mindto shut up and move on, and
(03:51):
that's what I was doing.
So whatever was going on in mysubconscious, I was just
ignoring it.
During my swimming days I hadsome skill not a whole lot.
I know that I'm not theprototypical water polo player,
but I was really good at oxygen.
Using oxygen, I could dounderwater three laps, 75 yards.
(04:12):
I also had.
My endurance was off the chart.
In fact, one time in college wehad this get out swim where I
had to do three laps underwaterto get out of workout and I hit
the 50, pushed off and proceededto pass out underneath the
water.
Luckily, most water polo playerand swimmers are lifeguards, so
(04:35):
I had about 30 lifeguardsjumping in trying to save me and
I'm here now.
Thank you guys, thank you.
I'm bringing this up because mysubconscious this whole time,
even though I played polo, I wasgood my subconscious hated me
and told me I was weak, I waslazy, I was pathetic, I was a
(04:56):
wimp, and a lot of it stemmedfrom the fact that I couldn't
control my weight.
I've struggled with my weight,even while I was a swimmer.
I was always heavy through theyears, and even though I was
doing the same workout as theGreek Adonis is sitting next to
me, I still had a couple ofpounds.
Let me show you.
(05:16):
So I'm lucky that I haven'tbeen overweight.
My entire life I have been thin.
There have been times I've beenthin, but let's get to what's
going on there.
So kindergarten through secondgrade, I'm your normal average
size kid.
In third grade I couldn't findpictures for third and eighth
grade, I think, because that wasa period where I was really
(05:39):
overweight and anyway.
So I have Cartman there forthird grade.
Third grade is where when myweight started coming on when I
started eighth grade, I've gotButterball there and my
teammates are laughing right now.
I was four foot nine.
I was four foot nine, 150pounds at the start of eighth
(05:59):
grade and this guy shows up andhe tells us that he started
starting a water polo club atthe high school next door and if
any of us wanted to go join theclub we didn't have to do PE.
I had no idea what water polowas, but if I didn't have to go
into that hell, that is themiddle school locker room and
(06:19):
change, sign me up for it.
So I went and signed up forwater polo.
The 8.5 there, that's themiddle.
That's the winter formal ineighth grade and I'll stand by
that tuck selection any day ofthe week.
That was rocking.
That still is rocking.
I'd still wear it today.
At this point I'm now 5'2 and150 pounds.
(06:39):
Fast forward a couple years into10th grade.
I'm 5'9 and 150 pounds.
Sounds great.
Drew, you've got it all incontrol.
The problem is is I did allthat with anorexia and bulimia.
I went three weeks straighttrying to do without eating.
It's a fantastically horribleway to try to work out or to
(07:04):
become a better player, but yetI did it and it was.
You can't keep doing that,right, you can't keep doing.
At least I couldn't keep doingthe anorexia and the bulimia.
Bulimia is horrible.
So by the time I hit my senioryear with the 12th grade which
is those pictures up there I hadgotten weight back, and so I
(07:24):
graduated high school at about225 pounds.
The picture right there, the1985 picture, is my own Chico's
water polo team.
We actually took that pictureat the beginning of the season,
even though it says we were thePacific League champions.
So I'm sitting there at 225.
I then start losing weight goingback and doing things.
(07:46):
This time in 87, I get down to175 pounds.
This is me standing with myyounger brother having a
conversation about why he'sgetting caught punching people
and getting kicked out.
Notice, I didn't tell him tostop doing it.
I told him to stop gettingcaught doing it, but this is the
last picture of me under 200pounds.
(08:06):
This is 1987.
And this drew.
Well, he's gotten a littlesmarter.
Anorexia is not something I cancontinue to do.
I do need to eat something.
So I decide to eat somewherebetween 500 and 1200 calories.
Yes, I invented or discoveredmyself micro fasting back in 87.
But by 1990, the weightstarting to come back on.
(08:30):
That's my swim team, my CIFchampionship swim team there.
And by 93, I was over 250.
That's me with my buddy Kurt.
By the time I got married in 98, I'm over 300 pounds.
But in 2003, and I'll get tothis in a second in 2003, before
(08:50):
my kids were born, I startedworking out and this is the
closest I came as an adult toactually solving my weight
problem.
The problem there with him isso he's micro fasting, he's
using keto, he's using a bunchof other techniques that I'll
talk about here later, but I wasalso working out quite a bit
(09:10):
and I discovered that every timeI stood up from my desk I was
doing four miles a day walkingand every time I stood up from
my desk my knee would lock up,would lock up and I ended up
having a torn meniscus and mydiet just went out the window.
And this was another profoundlesson that I learned was you
can't out-workout your diet.
(09:31):
If you're working out to loseweight, you're doing it wrong.
You should work out to itbecause you enjoy it.
You could work out to becomebetter, stronger, faster, do a
sport better, but tospecifically lose weight,
because there'll be times thatyou become injured.
And then what You've got tolearn to control your diet and
this was what I learned there.
(09:52):
Fast forward 10 years.
I'm now 375 in 2013.
The picture on the far rightthere is me with Brian Krutzkamp
.
He was coaching the Stanfordclub team at the time and he was
one of my very first studentsteams that I coached for.
(10:12):
Fast forward another 10 years,almost 10 years, july 2022.
So I've mentioned that I camein in August 2022 to kill myself
.
This is the only picture I haveof me at weight at peak weight,
I'm estimating now I was over500, close to 550 pounds, and
(10:35):
you may ask why do I estimate?
It's because there's no scalesthat really weigh anything over
450 pounds.
They're just not, at least theones I could afford.
The next picture is November2022.
This is me after the incidentand after the diet started
(10:57):
working.
At this point, I thought I hadlost about 50 pounds, which I
did, but I didn't realize howmuch weight I had gained during
COVID, and I'll get to that in asecond, and I'll get to the
rest of the pictures in October23.
Through now, this is just meover the years, just showing you
that it works and I actuallydid lose the weight.
(11:20):
Which leads me to the secondquestion I always get what was
it like to be over 500 pounds?
Well, absolutely nothing likethose stupid morning shows where
they put on the weight, thesamurai suit, and say, oh, I've
gained 100 pounds.
Oh, it's so hard to move.
In fact, what it's like to be500 pounds is you don't really
(11:40):
feel the weight, it's moreanaerobic, it's more.
You're just tired, existing.
I tell people, it's like mile21 of a marathon, where you are
about to die, you're about topuke, you're about to collapse.
Yeah, that's what it's like tobe 550 pounds and move.
(12:03):
The other thing is pinching.
I remember a lot of pinching,mostly because your balloon's
all over your body.
So whether you're wearing socks, it would have to pinch your
legs.
If you're wearing a belt, ithas to pinch your stomach and
your arms, and it was justpinching all over the place.
My knees hurt and I had reallybad gout.
And if you never had gout,imagine taking a big, large roof
(12:24):
nail or spike and putting itunderneath your heel or your big
toe and have it jammed in everytime you moved.
Yeah, it's not good, it feelsbad.
So if you do want to know whatit's like to be over 550 pounds,
go run a marathon wearingclothes two sizes too small for
you At mile 21,.
Start pinching yourself all overyour body and place a nail
(12:46):
underneath your foot.
That is what I was experiencing.
That was just waking up.
God forbid if I had to move.
So a little bit of context andbackground of where I am.
I've estimated I've lost.
Prior to starting the diet inAugust 2022, I had lost over a
(13:08):
thousand pounds.
My problem is I gained 1250.
And every time at that point,in 22, everything I tried any
diet I used to try.
Keto was my favorite.
The second I thought aboutlosing weight.
My gout would flare up and itwould go from foot to foot.
One week it'd be this foot.
I'd have maybe a week off.
Next week it'd be the otherfoot.
(13:32):
The third question I usually get, though, is what would I say to
Drew sitting in that room?
And this is a little bit hardfor me to answer, because I've
got to answer it in twodifferent ways.
I knew, and I've known all myentire life, that suicide is a
permanent solution to atemporary problem.
But what happens if you don'tthink it's temporary anymore?
(13:56):
I literally had gotten to thepoint where I thought I could no
longer lose weight, that I wasjust going to continue to get
fatter, continue to have pain,and the pain from opening my
eyes.
The second that mile 21 hit.
That was level five on thatpain scale you see at the
hospital, and the more I movedthroughout the day, it would go
(14:17):
to level 10.
And it really just became forme sorry, I'm getting a bit
emotional it became too much.
I couldn't.
My life was just pain, that'sall I had, and I couldn't take
the pain anymore.
So, as I mentioned, I walkedinto that hotel room in August
(14:38):
2022.
I had spent the whole entireday drinking with my good
college and high school friends.
I actually helped set it up.
I spent months setting this up.
It was the end of lockdowns,covid, and we were going to have
a party to celebrate all theparties that we missed over the
lockdown.
So I get done.
(14:59):
I walk in they drop me off.
I walk in the hotel room.
I walk in, they drop me off.
I walk in the hotel room and Iremember sitting on the bed,
much like I am now, with myhands crossed and my arms
resting on my knees, andthinking about what I was just
about to do, and I paused for asecond to think about my kids
and my family and what I wasgoing to do to them.
(15:22):
And then I remember okay, andI'm not making up this next part
, this is what I remember rightafter that.
So I remember thinking about mykids.
I remember saying okay, and thenext thing I know I'm laying
(15:43):
down with my back on the bed, myfeet in exactly the same spot
they were, my hands claspedexactly as they were, like I
just fell straight back.
It was morning and the sun wascoming up, and it was that deep
sleep where you don't reallyknow who you are or where you
are or what you are.
And I remember opening my eyesand instantly mile 21, pinching
(16:09):
pain, level five and I'm pissed.
What the hell just happened?
How am I still here?
This was not the deal.
I had spent all this time doingit.
Now I'm going to pause for asecond there, and I've thought
about this over the years is ifI was so set on doing it, why
(16:31):
didn't I just do it at thatpoint after I woke up?
I don't have an answer to that.
All I know is at that time,when I woke up, I needed to get
out of that room, so I grabbedeverything, got in my car and
drove home.
The drive home.
My subconscious is having afield day with me, and this
(16:53):
happens over the next two weeks.
This is where I start realizingmy subconscious wants to kill
me.
My subconscious hates me, andif you ever want to know what my
subconscious actually, I'mgoing to scroll back here for a
second.
Come on, drew, if you ever wantto know what my subconscious
thought about me, take a look atthat picture.
(17:15):
That is exactly what mysubconscious felt.
I was, I was fat, I was lazy, Iwas a wimp.
I was you name it.
I was a wimp, I was you name it.
My subconscious was telling meit.
(17:36):
So I'm starting to listen towhat my subconscious is actually
saying.
And it's sitting there and it'sit's just pounding me.
You are, you are so pathetic,drew, you can't even kill
yourself.
You are such a wimp, you aresuch an.
You're a fucking joke.
Pardon my language, but that'sreally what was going on in my
head.
(17:56):
So, two weeks later, I'm sittingon the couch and I'm debating
on whether I'm going to makeanother run at this Again.
I'm still in pain, I'm stillhurting.
I can't take this anymore.
I literally cannot take thepain anymore.
And just at that moment, myyoungest son starts walking down
the stairs and I get thisthought from the other side of
my head, who'd been silent allthese years?
(18:17):
But this thought on the otherside of my head goes you've
saved, you've done good, you'vesaved him a lot of pain.
And that's when brain bias orcognitive dissonance, whatever
you want to call it kind ofkicks into place, because I
remember when my kids were bornfor the first time in my life, I
(18:37):
knew for 100%, absolute factthat I'd run into fire to save
them.
I would jump in and take abullet, not saying I wouldn't do
that for you.
I more than likely would dothat for you, but for my kids I
knew absolutely I would do it.
And this thought goes on moreand says well, isn't it your job
as a father to save them frompain?
(18:58):
And that if that meant yousticking to your pain or taking
the pain to save them pain,isn't that what you're supposed
to do?
And that was like someonepunched me in the gut.
So at that point I make adecision okay, I'm going to
stick around.
I obviously cannot keep doingwhat I'm doing.
(19:20):
I'm going to make my life justslightly, a little bit better
every day.
Well, okay, now what do I do?
As I'm coming to this thoughtof okay, I'm going to stay here,
I'm going to make my life alittle bit better.
As my friends know, I lovewatching random documentaries.
I have CuriosityStream on allthe time and at this particular
(19:45):
time I was watching this episodeof the show called Dynamic
Genomes and Dynamic Genomes.
What it was about was that youknow, when I was a kid, we were
taught that we only use 2% ofour DNA, that the other 98% was
what they called junk DNA.
Well, dynamic genome wasshowing us that that's no longer
(20:05):
the case, that we know thatthis other 98% is what they call
non-coding DNA, which means itdoesn't do this stuff, but it
helps turn gene expression orepigenome on or off, and
specifically it was talkingabout at this.
Second, if your father,basically, was a glutton when
(20:27):
you were born, he passed on oneof these toggle switches that
made you 20% more likely to gainweight on less food.
And that surprised me, becauseI used to joke that I just
stared at a peanut butter andjelly sandwich I'd gain weight.
I'm not lying.
(20:48):
Yes, I was a fat swimmer.
I was eating less than them,the Greek Adonises, but yet I
was still heavy.
And so suddenly I have thisthing where I bet you that's
turned on.
I bet you I have that.
And then, looking at it, I waslike, oh, toggle switches, zeros
and one that looks familiar.
(21:09):
And I remember making a jokethat well, too bad, the human
body isn't a computer, because Ihave yet to find a computer
problem I couldn't solve.
And I stopped for a second andwent yeah, you know what?
You've never really approachedthis as a computer problem.
You've never really unleashedyour computer mind on your body,
on your weight problem.
So I at that moment I decided,yeah, I'm going to start doing
(21:36):
it.
I mean, it was obviously I hadno idea how to operate this
thing.
But it gets me to my nextquestion is why do I call it
hacking the fat man?
And it's really hacking the fatman because I unleashed my
hacking thought process on mybody and have found success with
(21:57):
it.
As I mentioned, it's obvious Idid not know how to operate this
machine.
I realized I had no idea whatit is or what it's supposed to
be doing.
So the first thing of hackingis you gather information right,
and information isn't aboutjust what it is, it's about
what's it telling you.
So error messages are valuableor could be valuable.
(22:18):
So what do I think this isgoing on and why do I think it's
going on?
So the first hack I had,looking at the error messages in
my body, was I knew that gout.
Gout was a serious problem, butgout wasn't just by itself.
I had inflammation problems, Ihad allergies.
So I really went afterinflammation and I started with
(22:43):
three supplements for theinflammation Beets, good for
inflammation.
Cinnamon, good for inflammation.
And then my younger brothertold me about tart cherry, which
is great for gout.
Now, this was not a miraclecure.
I didn't take the first coupleof supplements and it all went
away.
But what I noticed was, after aperiod of a couple of weeks or
(23:04):
a month, was my gout attacks andthe inflammation were getting
less, maybe less severe.
They weren't lasting as longand the period between them
started growing, and it'sprogressed to the point now
where I can't even remember thelast time I actually had a gout
(23:25):
attack.
The other thing I noticed afterthis was starting was that my
clothes were fitting a littlelooser, that I had started
losing.
I hadn't even started a diet.
The only thing I've added wasthose three supplements, and
it's entirely attributed to thefact that I was moving better.
(23:45):
I could get up and move, I wasin less pain.
So I'm going to stop here andI've got a question for all of
you.
I'm assuming some of you haveworked out, some of you have
most everyone has worked out.
Do you do the same workoutsevery single day?
No, you don't do the sameworkouts every single day, and
(24:10):
the reason is if you try to dothe same workout every single
day, your body gets used to it,so the benefit of doing it
starts to be less and less andless.
The body just starts going yep,yep, I'm used to that and
doesn't give a real benefit ofit.
You need to change it up.
Keep the body guessing.
So why do we diet the same wayevery day?
(24:30):
Why do we I'm on keto, I'm onMediterranean, I'm on the Miami
diet.
You pick it, weight watcherswhy do we try to diet the same
way every single day?
It's crazy.
This talk started both from thefact that I wanted to understand
how I got out of that room, butalso to make sure I understood
(24:53):
why the diet was actuallyworking and continuing to work.
The idea of the diet, the fulldiet, started from what I have
learned from previous failures.
As I mentioned, at this point Ihad lost over a thousand pounds
.
I had tried every single dietunder the sun.
(25:16):
Once you look at that, though,most diets are pretty much the
same.
It's a ratio between fat,protein and carbs, and whether
it's keto, which is heavyprotein, zero carbs, some fat,
or the Mediterranean, which ishigh carbs, a little bit of
(25:39):
protein, very little fat, youcan put them together by this
ratio.
So diets I've tried.
I know you can't read that,it's small on my screen too.
The first one was low fat,nonfat Stupidest diet ever in
the entire world.
I'm not going to spend a wholelot of time on it, you're just
replacing fat with sugarCompletely asinine.
(26:02):
First diet I actually did.
I started this at the Atkins.
It was called Atkins when I wasin the 80s, but it's
effectively keto and I did thatin my teens.
A lot of that in 87, thatpicture I showed you where I was
micro-fasting.
It was pretty much aAtkins-heavy kind of diet.
(26:25):
The Zone Diet I discovered outof Stanford Swimming back in the
mid-80s they were using it.
This is your 40% carbs, 30% fat, 30% protein, and then modify
the ratios.
Yeah, that's right.
(26:45):
I've also tried theMediterranean diet.
Love it, it's good.
I actually consider theMediterranean I call that a
modified zone to have moreprotein.
So instead of being carb heavy,the zone is initially carb
heavy.
Switch that around and have itprotein heavy.
Doctors, health Care, great diet.
(27:06):
I felt awesome on it, almostimpossible to stay on.
So Dr Sears developed this dietand it's hardcore vegan, no
animal protein at all, and theworst part was no oil.
Do you know how many thingshave oil in them Salsa bread,
(27:26):
there's a bunch of things thathave oil in it and it made that
diet absolutely impossible.
But the good thing I learnedout of that diet was it's
physically impossible to eat2,000 calories of raw green
vegetables a day.
You have to start in themorning and you would never get
even close to 2,000 calories.
(27:46):
The other one I call it the sumodiet, but so sumo wrestlers.
So micro fasting good right,but if you go micro fasting and
you eat 7,000 calories, you'regoing to look like a sumo
wrestler.
Now I hated breakfast.
Every time I ate I got sleepy.
So that micro fasting that Iwas doing to lose weight ended
(28:08):
up being the sumo wrestler diet,and you could tell from the
pictures.
That's exactly what I did tomyself.
I would eat seven, not seven.
I'd eat about five to 6,000calories at night just before I
went to bed.
Remember, eating makes me go tosleep and I ended up looking
like a sumo wrestler.
The other one I'm going to addhere is the juice cleanse.
This was something in the earlyaughts that became popular.
(28:30):
I actually really enjoyed thejuice cleanse because it's
really just add citric acid orjuice to your water and vitamin
C is a very my body operates onvitamin C, so I actually did
well on this and I'll talk alittle bit about how I use the
juice cleanse coming up.
So from these past experiences,I started developing the diet.
(28:58):
So I'm taking the threesupplements.
I'm going to start implementingthe diet and I had a couple of
issues.
Still right, if I took keto too,if I stayed in ketosis too long
, my gut would flare up, so Icouldn't do keto all the time If
(29:20):
I wanted to.
You know, lose weight, fastingis good, but fasting is
technically keto and you canonly do that so long as well.
And I also got into reasons whymy diet failed.
One was sticking to the samething over and over, even in
keto diet.
I got tired of bacon.
How do you get tired of bacon?
(29:41):
But by eating the same thingover and over again it gets
boring.
The other one that hit me a lotfailure was travel.
Especially with the Dr Searsdiet, when you travel, getting
access to the food can beproblematic, and traveling
(30:03):
almost always caused me problems.
So I came up with some ideasaround what this diet framework
should look like.
First thing is it's not really adiet, it's a life cycle change.
I have to.
Not only can do it, I need towant to do it.
It needs to bring me joy, whichmeans I need to eat things that
(30:24):
bring me joy.
It should be as simple asbreathing, if it's, if it gives
you joy.
It's pretty simple, right, and Idon't want to plan.
I don't want to do any realplanning.
Right, and I don't want to plan.
I don't want to do any realplanning.
I have no idea what I wanttoday or when I wake up, I have
no idea what I'm going to havefor dinner.
Right now.
I won't know until I get up tomake dinner what I'll eat.
(30:47):
There's no meal prepping.
I hate meal prepping.
I know some of you love it.
Good on you.
I'm not meal prepping.
Again, coming back to the factthat I don't really know what
I'm going to eat, so why am Imeal prepping?
There's also no tracking ofcalories.
I do it all kind of on guessinga little bit, but I build in
(31:12):
buffers for it.
So I start with 1,800 caloriesas my max instead of 2,000.
Gives me a little bit of bufferthere, and then I just kind of
judge from the meal.
I've been doing this a lot.
I can know that that meal wasabout 500, 600 calories, which
is the perfect spot for me thatI try to hit on.
Every meal is about 500 to 600calories.
(31:34):
The other thing and this goesback to the anorexia side was
that I can only do one day oftrue fasting.
That means not eating anythingand maybe one or two days of
micro fasting.
I'm not going to keep trying topush myself longer than that,
(31:55):
even though I may feel like it.
Vegetables are free, but it'simportant to understand what a
vegetable is.
Tomatoes are a fruit, corn is aseed.
When in doubt, stay with yourgreen leafy vegetables.
And also that from a puredietician standpoint, 1,800
(32:19):
calories or whatever yourexpenditure is for the day.
Do less than that and you'lllose weight.
It gets better if you spreadthe calories that you have out
over the day and includingbreakfast.
Well, I've told you I hatebreakfast.
I've actually added in thejuice diet because it's about
(32:39):
five to 10 calories per drink inthe morning to help me get
started, not only with thebreakfast getting calories in my
system.
Also, my supplements havecalories in and of themselves
and I have morning supplementsand evening supplements and I'll
get to those in a bit, but ithelps me spread out the calories
, helps me keep the body, evenon fast days doing the juice,
(33:02):
fast the body from totallytrying to save every calorie
right Again, keeping my bodyguessing.
And then the final point Ireally need to stress is we're
going to slip, we're going tomess up, we're going to eat too
much, we're going to dosomething, forgive yourself.
There's no reason to beatyourself up.
(33:23):
The only thing that matters isyou in the next second.
You can't change anything inthe past, but you can change
what you're about to do andthat's where you need to stay
and keep your mind there.
So if you messed up in the past, just move forward.
The real thing and this is wherethe schedule comes in and the
(33:48):
real change is I schedule mytypes of diet throughout the
week On Mondays and I start onMonday.
Mondays are fast days for me.
I'm just not going to eat.
I'll do the juice cleanse, I'lltake my supplements, but I try
to start the week off with yes,I should be losing weight now.
The next Tuesday and maybe intoWednesday, depending on how I'm
(34:08):
feeling.
I go into micro fasting Tuesday, definitely micro fasting
Wednesday, if I'm not reallyhungry.
I'll probably micro-fastWednesday and Thursday or later
in the week into Friday, I gointo a keto diet, so
(34:33):
protein-heavy, very little,carbs very little and some fat.
Further on in the week, asFriday, saturday, as we're
getting into it, I, I go into azone diet, a modified zone.
So I'm protein heavy in themodified zone again, kind of
still keto, but I can add if Iget rice or fries with my steak,
I'm fine.
Uh, and I and I did this onpurpose, because fridays,
saturdays, even thursdays, tosome extent sund Sundays, are
(34:55):
the days we have family events,we have go out for work events,
so I wanted to be able to enjoythem without feeling like, hey,
you know what I'm, you know I'mon a diet, I can't, I can't go
that.
Oh, it's going to be hardbecause everyone else is eating,
I don't have to worry aboutthat.
I can enjoy myself as long as Istay under 1800 calories and be
(35:16):
good to go.
And then Sunday it really I useSunday as a what happened in
the week.
So if I was good, sunday may bea normal day.
If I feel like I was bad duringthe week not bad, but maybe ate
a little bit more than I wantedto, I may do a lighter Sunday
as well.
Again, the whole point of thisschedule is to give you
(35:38):
flexibility in your diet, andI'm not specifically sticking to
one type of diet.
I may wake up on a Tuesdaymorning micro fasting, but for
some reason I'm craving.
I have some craving ofsomething right.
So micro fasting to me isbetween 500 and 1200 calories,
and whatever the craving is.
(35:58):
You want donuts?
Have 500 calories of donuts,you're fine.
You're going to feel like crap,but you're fine.
Most of my cravings usually aresomething else.
I'll get a craving for lasagnaor spaghetti or something like
that, but as long as I staybetween 500 and 1,200 calories,
(36:19):
I'm micro-fasting.
I'm good to go, and the same istrue for the rest of the time.
If it's Wednesday or Thursdayand I'm supposed to be doing
keto but I want the steak andfries, I'll have the steak and
fries.
That's not keto, that's themodified zone, but I'll go ahead
and have them because I feltlike having them.
The point is it's got to bringme joy and it's cannot feel like
work.
(36:40):
The other big hack I did wasI've talked a little bit about
the first three tart, cherry,cinnamon and beets.
Those were the first threesupplements I've done, but I've
since added a bunch of them andif you you read through this
list and I'm going to put thisin the supplement list in an
(37:00):
attachment that you can download, but the first three and if you
read through all of these,they're almost all going for
inflammation, because I still,even to this day, struggle with
inflammation.
Gout's gone but I stillstruggle with swelling in my
legs and some other places.
The hydroxy methylbutyrate,which I hadn't talked about
(37:22):
before, hmb that's a rock stardrug or not drug, but supplement
.
So what HMB does is it protectsmuscle, regardless of whether
you're losing weight or gainingweight, and what I mean by that
is normally when we lose weight,our body will burn on average
about the same amount of muscleto fat, right?
(37:45):
So 50% of your weight loss isfat, 50% is muscle.
The problem with losing muscleis muscle burns calories.
So if you're losing weight,they're losing muscles.
That means tomorrow you'regoing to just existing, spend
less calories.
H and B will protect the muscle, keep you from burning it as
(38:07):
part if you're losing weight andmake you burn more fat.
That's awesome.
If you overeat, if you overconsume H andMB instead of your
body, again it's about 50-50,maybe a little bit more fat, for
me specifically.
So if you overeat, hmb makesyou have create more muscle
(38:31):
right and have less of thatcalories go into fat.
So it's a dual-sided thing.
Rockstar, I highly recommend it.
I'm doing well Again with allthese supplements.
I am not a doctor.
I am not even a medicalprofessional.
I am someone who's hacking hisbody.
So take it for what it is.
Make sure you talk to yourdoctor or pharmacist with any of
(38:53):
the supplements that you take.
K2 and D3, those are just.
I discovered K2 from takingantihistamines.
I couldn't take more than oneantihistamine a day or every
other day, because if I took itfor two days in a row, I would
(39:16):
get restless leg syndrome.
And K2, or, yeah, k2, d3, and acouple other ones I'll
highlight them, and turmeric isone of them are good for helping
solving the restless legsyndrome problem.
And if what restless leg is isespecially when you're going to
sleep, your legs twitch likethat.
(39:36):
Now, imagine gout and you'regoing to sleep.
Your legs twitch like that.
Now imagine gout and you'retrying to go to sleep and I
couldn't keep taking theantihistamines because it would
cause it.
So K2, d3, good solid stuffAgain, they help with
inflammation.
Omega-369 is your fish oils Goodthere?
(39:58):
Turmeric I talked to a littlebit.
Vitamin C absolutely lovevitamin C and magnesium
glyconate is also on the listand again, it does really help
with improved sleep and anxietyreduction.
(40:19):
In addition, I've addedglucosamine, chondroitin I
should learn to say these thingsright which is for my knees my
knees are bad and as well as thecollagen, the same.
The lactobacillus planetariumwas part of that restless leg
syndrome solution.
I've since also added carotene,philostin and nicotinamide
(40:48):
ribenside, and I've also TMG,beta carotene, hydraulic acid
and Zyrtec.
Now that I've solved my restlessleg syndrome, I can now take an
antihistamine daily.
So I take Zyrtec daily.
So that's the diet and thehacks with the supplements.
(41:12):
So I've covered the diet.
I've covered the diet, I'vecovered the schedule, covered
what got me into the room, whatgot me out of the room, um, but
there's one item, one more hack,I need to address.
So, before I got into thespecifics of the diet, we I had
taken you up to about me innovember 2022, which is that
(41:33):
picture there that drew?
He's lost 50 pounds.
He's feeling good.
In fact, he's feeling so goodhe went and got a haircut for
the first time in three years,bought new clothes and actually
went out to a work dinner.
I continue to lose weight overthe next few months and I'm
feeling so good that I decidedto go in and get my physical
(41:57):
that I hadn't had in three years.
The last time I had a physicalwas January 2020.
And I had weighed 425 pounds.
I was so confident I was prettysure I already lost all my
COVID weight.
I'm good.
I was expecting to weigh 425pounds.
I walk into the doctor's office,I stand on the scale and I'm
(42:18):
479.
And it hits me, I had been wellover 500, closer to 550, maybe
even over 550 pounds.
If I think, I've lost 50 to 75pounds and I'm now sitting at
479,.
That was bad.
And then the news got worse.
The doc looks at me and tellsme I've gotten an abdominal
(42:39):
hernia and I need to get itoperated or else it's going to
cause me a lot of problems.
And he sends me to a surgeonwho tells me I'm too fat to
operate on.
She recommends putting me onZepband and Manjaro, or Manjaro,
which is now called Zepband.
So this is March 2023.
This is actually me on the wayto the surgeon and I weighed 469
(43:04):
pounds at the surgeon's office.
So even between the January theend of January physical to the
early March surgical appointment, I had lost an additional 10
pounds.
I had lost an additional 10pounds.
So in March 23, I start takingMajaro Zetbound.
Now I'm going to stop here fora second because it's not on the
(43:26):
slides.
I didn't bring up that I'vebeen taking Zetbound.
I'm going to sit here and tellyou that Zetbound is the
greatest drug mankind's evermade and I'm going to get into
why here in a second, because Idon't want people just
dismissing the diet because, oh,you took Zetbound.
Of course the diet worked.
That's not it.
I've just finished describingthat I had lost almost the
initial 100 pounds off the dietwithout the Zetbound.
(43:50):
Zetbound helps it helpsfantastically, but I have tried
every diet, pill or substancethat you can imagine and you can
blow through it.
I've seen people blow throughgastric bypass where they
continue to eat and gain theirweight back, even though they've
cut out half their intestine.
So in March 2023, I startedtaking Manjaro and Zetbound.
(44:14):
I noticed that my appetite wasless and I start to lose weight
or continue to lose weight overthe next couple of weeks and
months.
But I ended up down in SanDiego for a company event and
I've mentioned in the past thattravel can sometimes knock me
off my diet.
But also work stress orpersonal stress is another
reason diet fail, and I got bothdown in San Diego.
(44:37):
I'm having some problems atwork, I'm frustrated and I'm
traveling and I just decided toorder my meal.
Now, my meal, my comfort meal,my my go-to just screw it, I'm
going to eat whatever I wantmeal was a McDonald's double two
double quarter pounders withcheese, two large fries and two
Diet Cokes.
I order this meal, I get itsent to my room and I take the
(45:01):
first two, three bites of thefirst quarter pounder and then,
for the first time in my entirelife, my body says, hey, you
know what, you're good, youdon't need to eat anymore.
And I'm shocked.
I am literally sitting theregoing what the heck is this?
(45:22):
I had never been satisfiedeating something before, never.
I had been full right whereliterally I could not put
something else in there, butthat sense of satisfaction okay,
you're done, you don't need toeat anymore.
It was shocking.
And I've talked to others whohave struggled with weight their
whole life, who've been on anOzempic or other GLP-1, 2 drugs,
(45:46):
and they've all said the samething, that they never had a
sense of satisfaction eating.
And this is important.
Well, actually.
And this is important, well,actually.
I'll get to why it's importanthere.
Coming up so let me pause for asecond here and old, little old
(46:10):
school slouch trap or flame warhere, that sense of satisfaction
is important because if you'rea thin person and you're making
recommendations on what aoverweight person should do,
like oh I don't know, oh, youknow, what you need to do is
just eat a little bit and wait20 minutes to see if you're
still hungry.
I've just told you that I'venever had a feeling of
satisfaction, so I'm alwayshungry, I was always hungry, so
(46:33):
that advice doesn't work.
So I want you all to know, ifyou've thinned and never
struggled with your, with yourweight, you don't get to give
advice to to us anymore, becauseyou're literally a genetically
advanced creature.
You're a chimpanzee trying toexplain to a frog or a
salamander how to climb a tree.
It's not the same, we're notthe same.
Just support me in my weightloss, support others in their
(46:56):
weight loss, but you don't needto give advice because what you
experience is not what weexperience.
At this point I'll stop my getoff my soapbox and let's get
back to the talk.
So what is this feeling ofsatisfaction?
I literally took the whole bagof food and I threw it in the
(47:19):
trash can.
And this is where it suddenlyhit me was it had nothing to do
with my willpower.
It had nothing.
I actually had strong willpower.
The fact that I had was able tofluctuate my weight If I got
the sense of satisfaction.
It made dieting so much easierand it allowed me to forgive
(47:42):
myself.
I realized it was a chemicalimbalance.
Some doctor may argue with methat it's not chemical, but it
doesn't matter.
Whatever this drug is doing togive me that sense of
satisfaction helped solve mydepression, because my
depression was directly rootedin the fact that I could not
control my weight, that I didnot have the willpower to
(48:04):
control my weight.
And then I found out that ithad nothing to do with willpower
.
I would hate myself.
I hated myself so much for thatlack of willpower or control
that I just detested myself.
You can see from that picturethat I showed you on the
(48:26):
driver's license one I wouldderive all of my self-worth from
external things, from being awater polo player or a swimmer
or being really good incomputers or the friends that I
kept and talked with.
But discovering this, mydepression just melted away
(48:50):
because I know I could forgivemyself.
It was a disease.
It was outside of my controlmyself.
It was a disease.
It was outside of my control.
So this brings us to today.
Now, actually, today is June1st 2025.
That's the picture of me lastmonth that I took there
(49:18):
no-transcript.
I hope to again.
My goal is to reach 175.
I'm hoping that you stickaround and join me on this
journey as I continue to loseweight and get it all down.
And that completes the firstepisode of Hacking the Fat man.
Thank you for joining me and Ihope to see you in episode two
(49:38):
and further on down the.
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