July 29, 2025 • 62 mins
In this episode of the Everyday Black Men podcast, the crew is joined by Kwame Terra, who walked 2 million steps in 30 days and aims to revolutionize Black health through his bEHR Health app. Kwame explains how he balanced building his company while walking up to 80 miles a day, prompting Reed to ask about his soundtrack and Sham to question the sanity of the feat. The group dives into Black health disparities, with Kwame emphasizing that 80% of wellness is how you live, not genetics or medicine, and citing that even a 64-year-old woman can work on her fitness enough to be on track for a million steps by herself. Kwame indulges the crew with Riker asking how a plant-based living has helped Kwame mentally, and The Black Libertarian reflects on society’s resistance to prioritizing self-improvement. Kwame leaves the crew with a challenge: reimagine your morning routine, skip processed foods, and move toward health goals with intention and community, highlighting the potential for personal growth and empowerment in this journey. The episode wraps with thoughts on changing Black morning routines, building community through fitness, and Kwame's upcoming app launch in October—which puts us one step closer to covering the distance to the moon.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well, ladies, gentlemen, to another episode every Day black Man podcast,
a podcasts for any black man thoughts. Today we have
a special guest, Kwame, who will share how he became
the world record holder for most steps in a month
April twenty twenty five, unless he's gonna tell us that
he's more in the months since and Riker. I'm joined
by my co host Sham Read the liberatory froming known
(00:44):
as black as well as Armstead follows for Twitter, ev
I D black Men, It scream every Day black Men
and every Day black Man Facebook page. We got some Patreon,
eb and p All episodes may be there first, and
we also have exclusive episodes and some drawings by Sham
up there. Check them out last one at least our
website at www dot Everyday black Men dot com. So
(01:05):
paw me tell us the people a little bit more
about everything that you have going on.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, what's going on? Y'all? It's good to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
My name is Kwame.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana, but I grew up in Houston, Texas.
We came back to New Orleans for undergrad and graduate school,
where I got introduced to pre med and public health
and ultimately got into what I'm doing right now. It's
kind of funny to think back now ten years ago
when I started this journey that I wouldn't say that
I planned to try and take two million steps in
(01:38):
thirty days as a part of my agenda. But you know,
you're not necessarily in control of how things ultimately play out,
and so that's kind of how I got here. I
started off grew up in a family of runners. Four
out of the seven kids in my family, we all
competed in college in cross country and track and field,
(02:00):
So endurance sports have always been a part of kind
of what we do, and in health consciousness has also
been part of that as well, because my dad there's
always made sure that we were eating the right foods
so that we could be properly fueled to perform as
good as we possibly can.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So that's kind of like the baseline of it all.
There's obviously more to the story, but we'll get into it.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Heylin Qualmi, thank you very much and welcome Stylish Now.
I know that you said you know you didn't necessarily
start out when you look back ten years ago, but
what kind of made you aside or inspired you to
make this journey to break the world record for steps
in a month.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So it was actually inspired by some of my community
members or the users on our app. So I run
a health platform. It gives you a health score kind
of like a credit score for your health, and we
always do challenges on the app where you know, if
you take a certain amount of steps in a month,
you'll be entered in for a chance to win something
back in twenty twenty four, in February twenty twenty four,
(03:01):
we did the Marti Garraos Steps Challenge where or it
took the most steps in five days during Marty Garos
one five thousand dollars. So Walkin just became a big
part of the culture within our community and now we
have about twenty five hundred users on our app. Last
year a doctor did one million steps in thirty days
and he got taken off his blood pressure medication. He
(03:23):
lost twenty pounds just in thirty days. Fifty four year old,
regular every day guy. And so this kind of started
this trend of people doing one million steps in thirty days.
And so May twenty twenty four he did it. He
passed the baton to me. In June, another user did
it in twenty eight days in July and two more
in August, and another one in October in Puerto Rico,
(03:44):
and so it just kind of we all just got
to talking about what we thought. You know, what do
you think the world record is and do you think
that any of us can break it?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
And when I'm as I'm.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Getting ready to prepare for the official launch of our
app this fall because we've been operating on a beta
app the past eighteen months, I just wanted to do
something to garner some attention, and I just wanted to
make sure.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
It was aligned with the work that we do.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
And uh, it rose the month, So I wasn't sure
if I could actually do it. You know, obviously someone's
done until it's possible, but I actually, I guess technically
no one had done it at that point, but someone
had had gotten close to two million, So I figured
figured I have a decent chance considering my background and
sticking one day at a time. It was hard in
(04:27):
the first five days. I mean, I was in pain
every moment of the day because you know, so again
I run, and so you know, you use different parts
of your legs when you run compared to when you
walk in especially if I'm walking thirty five thirty thirty
five miles a day, sixty seven thousand steps a day,
just yeah, just new pains. I learned about new parts
(04:48):
of my body every day because because it was hurting.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I got a question, how long? Wait?
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Wait, wait, what did you listen to? Like, were you
listening to music as you did this? Or it was
just I was I.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Was mostly working, so I started to run my company. Right,
so now I'm walking like fourteen hours a day, and
don't I don't really have time to like take meetings
in the office.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
So for the most part I was working.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Now, So like let's say in the morning, I'll wake
up at five six o'clock, I would go do like
a four hour walk along the levee in New Orleans
along the Mississippi River, and you know, basically kind of
do my checklist or do my to do list with
my administrative specialists, and then I would start just working
on tasks, editing content, and then I get back. My
(05:36):
phone would be dead typically by the time I got back,
and then I would shower, go to the office, make
sure everything was good, and then I would go to
the fitness center here at Zavier University, Louisiana and just
walk around there for hours, again working close to the
office so that in case something came up, I was
able to be there, and then in the evening just
(05:58):
walk around. It got to point where I really couldn't
do anything but walk when I was walking, because I
was just so tired and I was like trying to
pick up the pace and so so it was harder
to do work and walk like a seventeen minute you
average miles. So yeah, for the most part, that was
it working.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (06:20):
So I'm looking at these numbers, sais sixty six thousand,
sixty six steps per day on average.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
That's right.
Speaker 7 (06:28):
That's a lot of states.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Yeah, a lot of sixties. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
I think I did that once when we were in
Vegas and we walked up and down the rip.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, when we walked up and down the strip, that
was the closest I've ever gotten to anything that you're describing. Kwame.
Did you put on like after burners towards the end
of the month and get up to like forty miles
a day, forty five stuff like that?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I did a few. I did, actually, so a few
days towards the end, I was doing like seventy nine
eighty eighty thousand steps a day. My highest was eighty
seven thousand, so I was about forty one forty two
mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
I was just trying to get my mail earlier.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
He's got my mail earlier. That's a few steps right there.
Speaker 7 (07:14):
I take the off there in the day.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
It's twenty two thousand, just when I was working security.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
M Yeah, it's tough. I mean, people will come and
walk with me. It definitely. It definitely helped out. But
we walked for four hours and then you know they'd
be laid out on the couch like you pretty much
done that. I'm like, actually, no, I gotta gotta do
that about two more times today. And you know you
(07:42):
get twenty thousand steps about in four hours, okay, yeah,
which is obviously way more than the average person's doing
per day.
Speaker 8 (07:51):
It was I was, you said, that's so casually, like
you do about twenty thousand steps, Like, I don't know
how many steps I do.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I'll be honest with you, I don't think that many.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
I did the math.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Uh, fifteen days in I had done as many steps
in those two weeks as the average American does in
a year, and.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
We don't even walk like that's that's crazy. But if
you are stand and read, want to do all them
in steps in a day, in a week, y'all go
on right ahead. You know what y'all need to sign
up for that. Y'all need to sign up for that app.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So our beta app is called dakkuld DO. It's d
A C A d O O. That's our technology partner.
And after this podcast, you'll be able to use access
code everyday black man.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
All lowercase all one word. Get into the.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Platform and then you'll complete The first thing you'll do
is answer some questions about your height, weight, age, things
like that, so we can start generating your health or
and then when you finish creating your account, you'll complete
the initial health score assessment, which will be about twelve
questions get related to overall health and wellness. So we
(09:12):
track over one hundred different metrics across seven categories of health.
So that's physical health, so blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, things
like that, nutrition into wellbeing, physical activity, sleep, mindfulness, and
self control or like substance use or indulgence. So you
get a score in each category and then you get
an overall score between zero and one thousand, and it
(09:33):
changes in real time depending on how you change. Right,
So if you go on a run or a walk
one day, score goes up a few points, get three
hours of sleep, score goes down. And then based on
those changes, we make recommendations for how you can improve,
as well as connect people with health care providers, resources
and experiences and challenges.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Are you know part of those experiences?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
For sure?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I think y'all all could do a million steps in
a month.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Sure, Okay, we'll take that challenge. We will take that
right here.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
What you mean, wet? Yeah, I'm interested in the app.
You got Hey, let's don't take the biggest challenge? Yeah,
we got it.
Speaker 7 (10:08):
No, he got it.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
There were there were six people who did it last
last year.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Last year.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
There's a sixty four year old woman about to do
it right.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Now this month on that app.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Got medicated.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
She's retired.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
But it's that one is about five hours of walk
in a day, thirty three thousand steps a day. But
the thing about that challenge is, you know, and again,
this wasn't something that I expected when we started, but
it's actually a pretty accessible challenge and it's very transformative.
Everybody that's done, it has lost at least twenty pounds. Again,
I don't know where you all are and your health journeys,
(10:48):
but that's a pretty significant amount of weight in a
in a healthy in a healthy way in a short
period of time. And then again he the first guy
walked off his blood pressure medication, and there are some
users who have literally walked off their medications, not necessarily
having after having done a million steps, but just just
through walking and participating in our challenges on a monthly basis.
Speaker 8 (11:11):
They increasing physical activity compared to what they've norm and living.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
As far as their sedentary life.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Yep, that's sense.
Speaker 7 (11:18):
Qualm.
Speaker 6 (11:19):
I love what you're doing. The only qualm I aver
is and that much cardio don't kill?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Take that are they're going to kill?
Speaker 4 (11:30):
What?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Uh? This depends on your goals, right, I don't think
that you need to do one million steps a month
to be healthy like that. You don't need that much cardio.
You're like, you know, be in optimal cardio fitness. But yeah,
it ultimately just depends on your goals and in balancing
how much you're eating with how much you're burning wherever
(11:55):
you know, wherever you're burning it, whether you're burning it
in the gym or you're burning it pavement.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I think it just depends. I think.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Most of us are on the lower end of the
spectrum as it relates to cardio than we should be,
whether whether we're in general good fitness or not. And
so and honestly, the majority of us need to lose
some weight at some pounds and so yeah, ultimately just
depends on it depends on your goals.
Speaker 8 (12:27):
I tell you really take this seriously, because I mean,
not that we don't take things seriously, but we certain
people here probably call people fat supposts saying they aren't
where they want to be on their weight loss journey.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, no, that's that's fair. You know, you gotta It
just depends on, honestly, on the person. Like there was
somebody that we h that was at our Roun Club
meet up in DC a couple of weeks ago as
a part of the Black Health Connect conference, and it
was like it was like six of us out there
and we did maybe like a little two mile two
miles job situation two and a half or so, and
(13:00):
we would stop kind of like at different different intersections,
and one of the girls was she was super out
of breath, man, I mean like about to fall out,
you know, And she asked, She's like, I don't know
what's going on. I'm like, honestly, it's not in great
shape a right, Like, you know, she looked at me,
and I felt bad because honestly I didn't even it
was awkward because that's that was just the truth. And
(13:23):
I didn't have time to process like a political answer.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
And the thing is I.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Follow her on Instagram and she's on the app, and
ever since then, she's been running every day. We'reing two
miles straight for the first time since high school last weekend.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
So it just depends.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Like and that's the thing about especially early stage startup
companies and why they're able to all of a sudden take,
you know, grow bigger to bigger than one of these
major companies, is that they're talking to more people who
are dealing with the problems that their solutions are trying
to solve, and then they test more solutions against those
(13:58):
problems than anybody else, and then ultimately something pops and
and then and then you start to scale. Yeah, that
was that was on some level, like a test, like Okay,
let's see if this this type of messaging works and
so when we send push notifications also in the app,
like we we test different uh different nudgets, right, Like
one one night we sent message out at like ten o'clock,
(14:18):
like put that phone down, whatever it is, go wait
till tomorrow. Some dude came up to me next day, Hey, well,
I literally put my phone down. I was on TikTok
and I put my phone down. So that's really like
we're just trying to stay as close to the problem
as possible so we can be as responsive to people's
needs and ultimately be the be the best solution.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Lingo was black and cared about your physical health. I
feel like that was.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Just about to say that.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely like that concept. Maybe not quite
as like toxic, but.
Speaker 8 (14:51):
Almost strangely colored haired cartoons, you know, like my yeah, we.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Figure on the almost that you did this, Publee, it's
really cool.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
Congratulations by the way, him, Yeah, yeah, thank you. There's
your Does your app just do like cardio pick up
and does it like a just to people's lifestyles and
how they live or you know, when you're gathering that
information on them, or does it run rubrics off of
the expected lifestyle of somebody and what I mean by that,
(15:25):
just to clarify, is most people work at eight to
five and then they work out after.
Speaker 7 (15:31):
Maybe during lunch. Does you go off of that rubrick or.
Speaker 6 (15:34):
Maybe there are other people who have different types of
black styles and they works out at two in the morning,
you know what I mean, Like does your pick up
on that?
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
So again, we track over one hundred different metrics across
seven categories of health and you can you can track
exactly how many, but there might be a couple of
hundred different activities on the app. So we integrate with Fitbit, Garmin,
Apple Health, Google, Fed, Samsung, he pretty much every fitness
(16:01):
tracker and integrate with our app. And so you can
log your workout, whatever workout you want to do, whether
it's weightlifting or cardio, and then that'll.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Send to the app, right.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And the algorithm, the Helsequare algorithm is just based on
general It's just based on essentially like workout time, resting,
heart rate.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
You know, obviously the calories burned just depends on.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
You know, how hard you're working during that workout, whether
it's a run or it's a weightlifting session. But yeah,
it takes into consideration the individual and so you're gonna
get scored on your sleep. So if you are working
out at two am, for example, and maybe you only
got where I was to sleep that night, you're going
to get a bump for doing your work like an
improvement for doing your workout, but you're going to get
(16:49):
a knock for for not sleeping, you know, and and
it essentially balances out. And then what we'll say is
in that case, for example, I always recommend that if
you have to choose between working out and sleeping, choose sleeping.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Thing is the most.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Important part of your health before or after after community
and purpose, and yeah, you just got to be non
negotiable about that and get that right first before anything else,
mainly so you can be in the right mind and
have energy to care about all of the other stuff.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
And that relates to health.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
IM about to say it's not an attack on you, Sham.
We know about your situation.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
I wouldn't say that, but.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Uh, the straightforward is that you have kwalme. It very
much sounds like Houston, Houston as far as our experience
with it through Sham is basically very straightforward. People like, hey,
this is this is what it is like. I'm sorry
if you feel offended, but I mean I'm not going
to not tell the truth.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah yeah, well, I mean it's an emergency, you know,
the Black health problem at least that's how I regard it.
And I don't know, nothing has worked so far at scale,
and we just don't really have time to beat around
the bush about it because people are losing their lives
to preventable conditions in their forties and leaving their their
(18:11):
children and are for situations than they have to be
the consequence, and so I would like to stop as
much of that from happening as possible.
Speaker 7 (18:20):
So I agree. I was pretty diabetic, just so you know.
Speaker 6 (18:23):
I mean I was pre diabetic and I have high
blood pressure m h and maybe like two and a
half years ago if put off pills and I started
working out like consistently since then, mm hmm. Like see,
they want to see it down like like super normal,
(18:44):
my blood pressure super normal. So like I try to
speak to that all the time, that people should just
be healthy, workout, go to the gym as part of
your life, just because you know, you don't want to
get a foot cut off for anything.
Speaker 7 (18:58):
I'm starting to tell you, like a lot of stuff
that we do like leg stuff.
Speaker 6 (19:02):
Leg workouts really improve and that has to go with cardio,
really improve your your sexual album, right, how long you last,
how strong you are instead of you having to take
all these pills.
Speaker 7 (19:12):
Like I'm anti medicine one hundreds And.
Speaker 6 (19:16):
I know you're in a medical field, so you probably
hate me for saying that, but I'm super anti medicine.
Think with intimate and fasting and working out, you can
improve yourself, repare yourself, and become a healthier person.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
One hundred percent. No, I'm with you. I would medicine
has its place. Like our healthcare system is.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Really a disease management system, right, I don't. I don't
agree with the terminology actually of the system. It shouldn't
be called the healthcare system. It's the disease management system
and an acute care system, and it does a really
good job of that, right.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
And it's profitable, it's very profitable.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
But only ten percent of your health health is determined
by you engaging with the healthcare system, right, So like
going to the primary care doctor or you know, specialty
doctor for different situations, only ten percent of your health
is determined by that. Another ten percent is determined by
your genetics. Rest is depending on how you engage with
(20:17):
the world, how you live your life. So I actually
spend the majority of my time in that eighty percent.
And like you're saying, like, how do we make health
a part of your life, not necessarily this extra thing
that you have to do, And how do people make
it a non negotiable in their life kind of like
as the foundation of it's like their vision for their lives.
(20:39):
If anything else, I'm going to be healthy and well
so that I can give myself the best chance that
whatever it is I want in this life, and my
family whatever they want it this life, that's like our
job and duty and a sense to me.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
And so what I noticed in the black community, sorry
to cut you off, is just that we have a
not so much the black community thing, it's an American thing.
America cares more about what they can get out of
you than what they can do for you. So that
goes through jobs and businesses. They want to work you
to death. They want you to commute to work, you know,
(21:15):
commuting alone, going to the job, dealing with family and
health issues. It creates little time for self improvement, self work, health,
all of that. So I think we have a societal
issue that is anti keeping you healthy, but more so
just keeping you alive, leaves your thrive.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Just you know.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And when I always used to be confused by the
idea that like, the country is willing to let all
of its people become sick, right and it can't even
walk a mile without getting out of breath. And I
don't know if they're allowing this to happen, then on
some level they probably.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Don't care.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Because they don't need us or won't need us in
the future. And that's a you know, a bit of.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
A morbid thought, but.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I means probably not going to not the country anyway
implement any systems that start to mitigate that. Now you
know here that they're they're making noises about removing certain
chemicals and stuff like that from foods, and I hope
they do those things. But the entire half of the country,
(22:35):
half of the adults in the country have one or two,
one or more chronic conditions hypertension, type two diabetes, some
form of cancer. And that's an adult population, and that's
just not it doesn't have to be that way, all right.
So my grandfather, he's eighty seven years old, he doesn't
have a single chronic health condition.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Wow, but that's not common.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
But just because something is common doesn't mean it's normal, right,
And so we almost normalized taking pills to treat medications.
And then doctors on some level I think are responsible
for this, but maybe think they're doing the right thing
or just trying to make people feel okay. But they'll
go in or a person will go into the doctor,
(23:23):
they'll get diagnosed with, you know, pre diabetes or diabetes
or something like that, and then the doctor's like, well,
you know, you know, you know it runs in African Americans.
It's you know, it's hereditary, all this stuff. And again,
your health outcomes are only ten percent of your health
outcomes are determined by your genetics, right, But just because
(23:44):
your parents have something or your siblings have something, doesn't
mean that you have to have it. And I think
that the doctors do this to pacify people, make them
feel a little bit better or less yeah, less bad
about themselves for having the condition. But type two diabetes, hypertension,
mini cancers, heart disease, those are preventable things like they're preventable, period.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
These are not conditioned.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Like again on the whole, not talking about you know,
different cases type one diabetes for example. These these are
entirely preventable, and.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
It keeps people passive. Say that again, it keeps people passive,
you can say, oh.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
It and allows people to continue living the way that
they are.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
The process profitable, you know, push more medicine.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
M hm, that's there. That's their prerogative. My job is
to shift that whether people want.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
It or not, one stemp at a time.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
I mean, that's that's why it's called the startup, Right,
You're disrupting the current status quo, which is, uh, we
have a cute healthcare system and uh, we just want
to have you be sick enough to be able to
pay us money, but not so sick that you die immediately.
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
That's expensive to them.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Oh, it is, because there needs to be a certain
amount of people to keep everybody else in line. But besides,
you know, crushing people's understanding of the government. Can you
tell us more about kind of the health gaps that
are in like underserved communities, because I think your app
is like the first that I've heard aim specifically at
a problem within the black community.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
And so I did my master's in public health as
Xavier with the concentration of health equity, and so just
to kind of lay the land. Public health is the
art and science of prolonging life. So as a public
health practitioner, my job is to help human beings live
as long as they possibly can and as healthy as
they possibly can, well they are alive.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
In the United States, there is a about a.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Six to seven year life expectancy gap between black people
and the rest of the population. So like people are
living on average stage seventy two seventy four, the rest
of the population seventy eight eighty.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
That gap doesn't necessarily sound that big.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
To some people, but when you extrapolate that out to
the entire black population, right, so it's fifty million plus
in the US now, it comes out to like two
hundred and sixty million years of lost time in the
black community. That's time with you know, money and index funds.
That's time with your family and mentorship. I mean, there's
(26:34):
so much opportunity that we're missing out on because largely
driven by really death to preventable conditions and that's created
bare health. To recapture that life lost, that's our that's
our mission because fortunately these conditions and kind of the
(26:56):
trajectory that we're on can be slow stopped and even
reversed through lifestyle intervention. I'm really transforming communities to where
they're health promoting, and that's ultimately what we're trying to do.
We're not necessarily trying to close the life expectancy gap.
I'm not necessarily interested in how we compare to others.
It's trying to maximize health in the black community. What
(27:19):
is our ultimate potential? That's what I'm most interested in,
and in creating a blueprinting path for people to achieve that.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
He said, six to eight years.
Speaker 8 (27:30):
That's enough to get to know a small child.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
A great grand kid, and that can make all the difference.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
And you know, I mean some gaps are even more stark,
like here in New Orleans, average life expectancy in like
the wealthier neighborhood in the city, it's eighty and less
than three miles away, there's a community with the average
life expectancy of fifty four years. So we can get
gap can get even wider.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
You know, Yeah, that's that's large, really really large. Not
to cut you off too much there, but looking at
like I'm looking at something from few research and showing
like black men versus black women, Like, we start out
pretty even then around like thirty to thirty four, we
(28:17):
just start dropping in comparison to black women. Is there
any component, especially since this is the podcast where primarily
a lot of our audiences are black men, Is this
like the call to action for us?
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Yeah, you know, we.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Women are going to the doctor more. And again I'm
not saying that you necessarily have to go to the
doctor to be healthy. You do need to get some
checkups to make sure that you know, again your blood pressures,
in check, your blood sugar level, so on and so forth. Again,
most of your health is determined about how you engage
with the world. But early detection is like the number
(28:55):
one tool we have for dealing with really any condition,
especially for menable ones. And because black men aren't going
to the doctor the rates nearly at the rates that
women are, there's catching things earlier. We don't catch these
things until, like they're at later stages because for different
(29:16):
reasons we're putting it off. You know, we don't trust
talk if we don't feel like me nobody, you know
what I'm saying, like different things like that, And you know,
I get it. I have the same kind of cautions
but if we can somehow put the fear in front
of people like that, that like it's gonna have to
(29:37):
We're gonna have to draw on fear to me, like
the idea of promote like being healthy me isn't enough
a motivator.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
If you guys heard about that that mouse.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Study where they had the basically the mouse had to
go get to the peanut butter or the cheese or whatever,
and so they time the rat the mouse with just
the cheese or the peanut butter as the driver get
through the mains. They did that once and then they
did it another time where they wafted cat oder behind
it and had the change.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
So much faster.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
And that one right because it was scared scared of
something too, And so I think you need both, yeah,
to make commitment. And oftentimes people don't change until they
have a heart attack or you know again until until
the problem is here. And yeah, we we just we
(30:30):
just have to flip that that motivation to where it's.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Getting ahead of it.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Like both the goal and fear of some form of.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Loss absolutely.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Absolutely bad.
Speaker 8 (30:46):
Noe Uh what part you say you from Houston? Were
you born in Houston then moved to Louisiana.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Or yeah, I was born in New Orleans, grew up
in Houston.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
Ah what part of Houston grew up in?
Speaker 3 (31:00):
I grew up in Kingwood, South, OK.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
Don't see too many Houston people around these parts.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Say you say that like I don't go to Houston
all the time for.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Work, going to and being from a very very different statements.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I know, I know, I'm just saying, like, I see.
Speaker 8 (31:24):
You're taking this Drake thing a little bit too seriously.
You can't just go to a place a couple of
time people from there.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Look, man, first and foremost, you don't have to bring
that up. You can just let that go. He's not
even in Houston. He's in whatever the part is where
all the rich Nigerians lived.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
You would know where that is before I would.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
I mean, yeah, no, we we we always have that
that fun banter.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
But worried about my boy Drake though, I mean you.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Don't need to be worried about him. I mean, he
seems like he's finally realizing you released music and people
to stop dancing to the songs that they'll probably still
be dancing to it people's weddings in five years, right.
I mean, I've seen more not like us at weddings,
and I've seen it anywhere else, and it's like, it's
a very very interesting, uh interesting place to play this song.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
At my wedding. Nothing but Kelly is going down.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I mean, look, bro, I saw somebody play a Diddy
song the other day and I was looking at them like,
don't you like give us some time here?
Speaker 7 (32:29):
Sir?
Speaker 4 (32:30):
He was like many songs really bright.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
Listening to did Bro you know exactly?
Speaker 4 (32:41):
That was it?
Speaker 1 (32:42):
That was yeah? Exactly bad boys like that was it?
Speaker 4 (32:46):
That was a song that every step.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
No, that's that's more Faith Evans than than Diddy.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Diddy raps. She just did the hook, Yeah you care
about it? Nah? It was his verse, bro, he was
he was in there.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Yeah yeah, repeat his verse then me.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
I'm pretty sure Jada Kits wrote that, but.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, probably verseig.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
I can't repeat a verse.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
That's what I thought.
Speaker 8 (33:13):
How much do you think Diddy has done for health
in the black community?
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Mental health? Like like terrible, he's been killing us all right,
I want to at least tie back in.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
I mean, as your attorney, I can tell you complete
the fifth on this one. You don't have to answer
this at all. This is solishness.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
If you don't, you gotta go down the baby or
slip and slide.
Speaker 7 (33:40):
He does not, sir.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
We do important talking about that one brother on the
trip because then when.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Somebody's like, he's gonna be a long rapist, I mean
philanthropists now.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
That joke from always Philadelphia never never gets older, but
definitely does date you. And people are not going to
get it because they didn't see the ship.
Speaker 5 (34:02):
Not about who gets it, but I give it. It's
kind of like that reference self satisfaction. Yeah, okay, apartment,
but you got I'm.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Going instead of going off into our normal tangents. So
has a plant based lifestyle enhance your physical and mental performance?
Speaker 4 (34:23):
You know?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
So I started eating the plant based about ten years
ago after my senior year of college. Started off really
just for the environmental impact you want to that's one
light area where I just think we're running an interesting
experiment with the with the planet. And I'm not saying
that there's necessarily anything that we can do for sure,
(34:44):
but if there's anything I can do to like reduce
my contribution to us getting put in a bad situation
sooner than later than, I'm gonna try to do that.
And my concerns with the environment aren't necessarily that, like
the environment is going to get so bad that you
know it like just like we burn up or get
(35:05):
washed away, but the storms and stuff are going to
become so frequent, Like the disaster is going to become
so frequent that it displaces more people at once than
like all of our safety net systems have the capacity
to kind of mitigate. And then we get all you know,
tribal well taken care of human beings are good people
(35:26):
not well taken care of human beings. You are trying
to eat and protect their families. And so anyway, that's
my brant on. That's why I started. It didn't really
become about health until about a couple of years later.
I started going to different conferences related to health and
play based eating. But I didn't really notice much at
first because I'm still, you know, pretty young and indecent shape,
(35:49):
because I just finished my collegiate career as are running well.
What I will say is that most of the problems
that my friends are dealing with now that people deal
with day to day, I don't deal with that at all.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Headaches.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
I haven't had a headache, well outside of a late
night like a bachelor party or something like that. I
don't have like headaches on a regular basis. I work
about fourteen hours a day with no problem, don't get tired,
no naps needed. And then when it comes to like
eating plant based die, specifically a whole food plant based died, Yeah,
(36:22):
my body's not having to work as hard to process
the food as as it would if I was eating
say a standard American diet, you know, high and fat,
high in processed foods, and so just essentially I'm not
having to burn as much energy to process food, and
so I have a lot more energy to do everything.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Else that I spent my time doing.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
But yeah, it's when it comes to the plant based eating.
I don't know if you guys are familiar with blue zones.
Blue zones are these areas where people are living into
their one hundreds more than other parts nearby, so they're
think about eight blue zones. I forget the exact number
some people so or some areas are no longer blue
zones because you know, not as many people are living
into one hundred because they're becoming westernized. But there's one
(37:10):
in Low Malinda, California. There's one in Costa Rica, one
in one in Japan. Basically they go and study these
these communities, these populations and try to identify why they're
living well until they're one hundreds and all of them
eat ninety five to one hundred percent plant based sides.
So my first thing when it comes to plant based
(37:30):
and the message is you have to understand that you
can absolutely live healthy and long and strong without eating meat.
And this isn't this isn't like a message to get
people to stop eating meat, but to drop the idea
that it's a necessity because especially here in America, like
everybody's big on protein and protein and protein, but again,
(37:53):
we're not living nearly as long as these people, and
all they eat is plants for the most part. And
so that's really what I draw on because my focus
in my goal is longevity. So what are the longest
lived people doing? And we go do what they're doing.
And that's kind of why I've been able to stick
with it and the message that I have for people
(38:15):
with that.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Thank you for kind of expanding on that. I know
for some people, you know, they hear the plant based
thing and they think, oh, I can't whatever, But eighty
five to eighty to ninety five percent. I think that's
that's entirely doable. It's something where you're not giving up everything,
but you are making a priority to eat more food
(38:36):
that are plant based. We've had a couple of people
from doctor mccayba Mooring. We also had gosh, what is
the guy's name?
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Yeah, yeah, something, I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, yeah, we had. We had both of them on
the podcast and they're also talking about the same thing.
And with doctor Kable Warren like I kept up, yeah, Ki,
thank you appreciate it well, Doctor Michable morning. Like after
that episode, I really did start eating or did stop
start skipping a meal every single week. I did that
until basically about this year when I decided that I
(39:15):
wasn't getting the exact same benefits out and that may
be more so me than the actual diet. But you know,
like taking that twenty four hours off, like you know,
after a while, you get kind of used to it.
Because people at like my company now that I work,
they're like, hey, like you going to lunch. It's like, yeah,
I don't take lunch till three. They're like, why don't
you eat until three? It's like because I don't feel
(39:35):
like I have to eat till three, I'll drink water
and stuff, and I'm trying to get better at that
because Sham will throw a bottle at me. But you know,
at the same time, like, you know, it's That's one
of the things I think Sham does that he doesn't
give himself credit for, is Sham religiously drinks water like
all the time. And it's like maybe to ninety percent
(39:58):
of what he drinks and the rest is gin, but
it's mostly water.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Mm hmmm. A simple man, they say, They say Jen
is a healthier, healthier liquor.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
You know. Shoot, so you're saying Sham was better all along.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Yeah, it's a bit cleaner, but I know so. I'm
actually a big proponent of fasting. Fast thing is actually
the most powerful thing you can do to extend your lifespan,
mainly because it's given your body a break from processing work.
You're right, exactly work and focusing on repair. And so
when you fast, you you trigger what's called autophagy auto fager,
(40:36):
depending how you want to pronounce it, and it basically
is where your body, you know, uses stored energy or
energy and it's our bodies are so smart that when
they're in this state, they go and use old damaged
cells and proteins first and break those down and turn
them into new, younger cells and proteins. So essentially like
(40:59):
cleaning up the body. And most of us are eating
around the clock, right We're eating first thing in the morning,
and then we're snacking until we pass out, and so
we only have like this six hour window where we're
not and so you people are never entering the state
where their body is cleaning itself up. And when you
think about things like cancers or again, the majority of
(41:20):
these conditions cancer cells are really just like mistakes that
mistakes in replication, and these mistakes come from you know
where and tear just like any other system. And so
fasting gives your body an opportunity to go clean up
and get rid of all of these mistakes and so
ultimately reducing your chance of developing these conditions.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
And so not to bring the mice.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Back into it, but they did a study where they
had one group of mice eat this whenever they wanted basically,
and then one group eight between twelve and eight pm.
And this is actually where that twelve eight pm, you
know intermittent fasting window came from. It's not necessarily based
on human results, it's just that was just the window
(42:02):
that made sense for the researcher.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
With that study.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Anyway, they ate the same amount of food and they
ate the same type of food. The group that ate
between twelve pm and eight pm lived thirty percent longer.
Like with that, that's that's so significant. That's such a
significant amount of time. And when you know, all of
the mechanisms that turn on in those mice that we're
living longer turn on in us when we fast as well.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
So to me, the real silver bullet, because you know.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Obviously I've been trying to figure out exactly how to
get people to eat better. To me, if we could
just give people to skip a meal, skip breakfast, or
skip dinner have tremendous impact. It doesn't also doesn't cost
any money to skip a meal or do you save money.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
In fact, I know about that.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
It's just so powerful. So I'm glad you guys brought
up fast because there's anything that if we get adopted
at scale, that would that would transform health outcomes into
black community to be that.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Definitely definitely thinking back kind of about what you were
saying as far as kind of like changing like not
just our health outcomes, but what do you think from
a community standpoint, I would having a better handle on
our health impact the Black community.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
I mean, I will say that community is part of health.
So I'll say first, I think again, the longer we
can be here, the more we can do, and the
more we can leave for future generations. Again, to me,
it's a non negotiable that that we that we start
with health because everything is dependent on it. Think about it.
(43:45):
Think about how how disease and unhealth shakes up families,
especially you know when when it happens in an unexpected way,
it can can really disrupt the financial situations. Puts a
lot of people in debt, a lot of people file bankruptcy.
(44:06):
I think I think it may be actually be the
number one the double check, but I think it maybe
the number one cause of like personal bankruptcy. So when
people go talk about like, oh man, I don't want
to eat healthy because it's expensive, well eat unhealthy. There's
a health tax that comes later, right, and it takes
(44:26):
a lot of people out and takes families out. So
in order like you want to be in the best
position you can, because life is always going to be throwing,
you know, obstacles at you. And so just like the
COVID nineteen pandemic, right, this that's what actually motivated me
to start Bare Health. When you think about the people
who had the most severe outcomes with the COVID nineteen pandemic,
(44:49):
they were already in a compromise state. They were dealing
with high pertension, type two diabetes, and because their defense
systems were so focused on those conditions or just tired
from dealing with those conditions, when they when they encountered
the COVID nineteen virus there they could get everything just
kind of started to fall apart. So you just have
to be ready because you never know what's going to
(45:09):
come and and sometimes it'll be a pandemic, or sometimes
it'll be to run across the street, and it's just
it's just fundamental to to be ready for for whatever
challenges we face as a community, so we can all
be as sharp and as as astrong as we need
to be in these situations.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Well, you are correct. It is the number one reason
for bankruptcy in the United States medical expenses. So yeah,
if we can eliminate that, then that that could keep
a little more money in Big Mama's pocket, which hopefully
she can pass on to future generations. Absolutely, like we're
(45:51):
hoping that, you know, you don't lose a leg, as
you heard from Quarmbing, like his grandfather still out here,
no problems whatsoever in the seventies. I mean that's how eighties.
My grandfather was eighties, sorry, eighties, that's how what's my
grandfather as well? Like you know, no problems, no, no, nothing,
just his only thing was that he just got older
(46:12):
and a little bit of other things. But you know,
everybody's got their thing. If you could change one thing
about kind of how we start our days as black people,
what's one thing you would change, and I'll give you
full car blanche.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
I mean, it's got it.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
The first thing that's coming to my mind is the phone.
If we could just like sit with our thoughts like
ten fifteen minutes when we first wake up, as opposed
to grabbing the phone, it's like put the world down
for a second. I think that we can be a
bit more intentional about the rest of our day. Thataca
(46:57):
skipping men's in particular, skipping breakfast, women, skipping, skipping dinner,
make a bigger breakfast.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
There are some differences.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
When it comes to like the fasting or eating eating schedule.
But yeah, just like get get the dairy, get the
get the process, meet and get the all that out
of the out of the first part of your day
and and swap it out for like fruit and then
some some fibrous foods for singing in the morning and
so the meditation and some fruit in the morning.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
That's what I was saying.
Speaker 4 (47:35):
Yurt.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Say that again.
Speaker 4 (47:37):
Are you against yogurt? I don't mean that like an
aggressive way.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Yeah, no, I mean it's a dairymall.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
So, I mean eighty percent of black people are lactose
intolerant now, the degree to which varies, but.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
We shouldn't be eating here earlier.
Speaker 8 (47:56):
You have to bring that up, bro, You had to
bring that up, that stuff anyway, uh.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Mister king lactose and tolerance.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
Sham uh huh, yeah, yes, Skip.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
I mean again, it's better than you know, osage and
egg and cheese and biscuits. I would say yogurt is
better than that for sure.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
I mean yogurt specifically, not like you know your play
mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Yeah again I stick with with yogurt is a dairy,
but I'll take again, I'll take that over with. Most
of us are eating for a thing in the morning, cereal,
you know, high sugar cereal, things like that, but I
don't consider it a health food for black people. Be
mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Sorry, ok ahead, No, I was gonnas.
Speaker 8 (48:50):
And this may be a big crash on my part,
But have you considered weaponizing women, uh as far as
trying to shift the ideas of help?
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Yeah, I mean I think I think women specifically like
shifting the ideas of health for men.
Speaker 8 (49:07):
Yeah, because men often do whatever the women think is
fancy or fancy bull at that time.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
I mean, everything that men do can be can be
tracked to getting women. So that's yeah, I agree with that.
And you know, like so I run a round club
here and there are a lot of attractive women in
the club, and men are who don't run are coming
(49:36):
to the club and now running just to you know,
be around and then and they get value out of
the community that we built, beyond you know, the potential
opportunity they might have with a woman there. But yeah,
I mean this one guy who like like one of
my she's actually my former athlete. Now kind of like
(49:56):
family member at this point. But she you've been coming
to our run clubs, you know, since we started last year,
and this guy who you know, wanted to be with her.
She she's not interested in him. But he started showing
up every day. And now they they've kind of moved on,
moved away from the idea of them having anything. He
still shows up. Now he's part of the community, you
(50:17):
see what I'm saying. So if that's the hook or
that that's what gets people in, and then we get
in the stick because of the other additional value, then
you know, I think women are the strongest motivated for
what men do. Do do anything, or to motivate them
for health.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Honestly, that's what we told you. Writer, you should have
been here to defend yourself start a runk club.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Yeah, a lot of a lot of value comes out
of runk clubs, that's for sure.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
That says a writer here.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Oh no, no, I just I just could not resist
a dig at Ryder just because of whatever he has
going on right now. Same thing for white collar Sugar.
But he at least was kind of enough to tell
us ahead of time and also understand, you know, being
a parent is definitely gonna be first priority, Like we're
not everyday black men. Forget your kids, forget your wives.
(51:16):
When it's podcast time is podcast time. But at the
same time, I mean, you know, hey, you actually you're
telling what's going on, Like I understand that, Like I
appreciate that everybody could come and do stuff like you
see stylists here. Man, he probably right now I'm raising goats.
But at the same time, he's still here for moral support.
Speaker 4 (51:38):
Well, man, I'm not gonna lie to you. He has
this captive.
Speaker 8 (51:40):
He has threatened to deport two of us, and all
of us are American. If you can get us help,
you ain't you ain't.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Worth a gosh dar for that one. I am not
the Prime Minister of America, right, We have presidents here
and we find legal processes.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
She knew all the best. That gets important.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
Well, but not either man. It's it's a hard road.
You know, we say you're the best country in the world,
but then you look at our healthcare system and you're like,
I don't know about that.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Yeah, we're definitely lacking in a lot of areas, even
outside of health.
Speaker 3 (52:17):
Happiness in particular.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah, like when you see like Norway's happiness, people are
like yeah, you know, like I can feel it life
and I'll still have a house and a wife and
kids and the government will take care of me. And
it's like no wonder of y'all. Europeans be smiling so
hard because Norway guys they got like a freakish smiles.
But I guess when literally you can't fail no matter
what you do, I'd be smiling too, like, hey, life
(52:44):
is ground.
Speaker 4 (52:44):
Like you hate from outside the club, but.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
I'm hating all the way outside the club, all the
way outside the club. Plus they take two months off.
Oh my god, I'm so glad we don't hire those
people because I would be that not only do you
get all the holidays that are related to our holidays,
but you also get two months. And he basically just
tell me, like, I'm taking off the month of October,
Me and the family are going to uh visit Malaysia.
(53:10):
We're gonna go for an entire year or for entire
month and see y'all when we get back.
Speaker 4 (53:17):
And were you going for the Nigerian accent there?
Speaker 1 (53:20):
It just kind of comes out. I've been part of
the Nigerian culture for too long.
Speaker 4 (53:25):
They walk a lot.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
I mean, yeah, it I mean again, the whole thing
is when you marry into a culture, you're supposed to
adopt it. Like now I see them becoming more Americanized
and cynical. It's like, yes, I knew I would break
this Nigerian hopeless optimism thing.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
It just took America. Broye. You might have help speak alone,
but you get like one good generation from wherever you
come from, and then your kids is American.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
They still they still have a lot of it. But
we'll see. I mean, we haven't seen the whole second
generation play out. We've only seen the first. We haven't
seen we haven't seen the whole. Uh, although I sometimes
see you know, like with my knees. Like sometimes you'll
say things it's like, oh you sweet summer child. That
is not going to go like that in America. But
you don't want to be that guy to crush the
child's dreams. And if you do imagine crushing child's dream read, uh,
(54:18):
don't don't do it, bro, Like, come on, we need
black kids to actually feel safe and secure. They're unprotected
on multiple fronts.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
I think there's there's size for that, but.
Speaker 1 (54:27):
I agree, I mean, yeah, you're not you're not entirely wrong.
But Bomby, we don't want to take up too much
of your time. You've been here with us about an hour.
Any final things you want to say, you want to
tell people, want a little more about the app and
the code or anything else that you wanted to plug
while you're here.
Speaker 3 (54:45):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
So we've been working on our in a app for
the past eighteen months called Dakka Do. So that's what
we've run our platform on the majority of our users
are on now, but we receive some significant funding over
the past year that's going to allow us to migrate
to the official Bear Health app. So and say it's
(55:06):
in the beginning with Bear stams for Black Electronic Health Records.
So all of the user data goes into what we
call the Black Electronic Health Record, and on a monthly basis,
we're looking at the elective health trends of our user population,
which ultimately our vision is for that to be the
entire Black community. So each month we'll see the average
(55:27):
health score overall, we'll see the average health score by
underage different category that we track and be able to
use that data to inform and drive different community health solutions.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
We can do it by community.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Right, so we'll be able to see the average healthcore
in New Orleans compared to the average healthcore in Atlanta
to Detroit. And let's say the average healthcore in Atlanta
is much higher than it is in New Orleans. So
then okay, let's go explore Atlanta to find out what's
going on there that we can apply to the city
New Orleans and then give those interventions had any impact
(56:04):
when we look at.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
The data the next month.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
So my goal was to first communicate clearly to the
black community our current health status, and that's why we
came up with the idea of a health score. But
then I wanted to create a system of follow up
whereby after people become aware, now we can track changes
over time and identify when we can intervene right when
people need a certain message.
Speaker 4 (56:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
So where the official launch of the Bare Health app
this October, we're doing We're going to attempt to we
have two goals. The first one is to cover enough
distance as a community on what we're calling Barrathon Day
to reach the moon. So the theme for the Barethon
this year is Bare Health to the Moon, and the
(56:46):
moon is about two hundred thirty nine thousand miles away,
so we're trying to get as many people as possible
to come onto the platform when the official app comes
out so that we can try and again cover this distance.
The ultimate goal of the Barethon is can we break
the world record for the most people participating in a
virtual run slash walk event across multiple venues, which is
(57:08):
currently seven hundred and seventy thousand. Our goal is to
one day get a million people on Barethon day walking
across the world, across the dass b and so yeah.
To be a part of the Barethon, it's free to
participate and it'll be free to participate on the app
when it comes out in October. Just go to our
instagram at bare health be ehr health and then click
(57:32):
on the link tree. There's a link to the Barethon
there and sign up and then when the official app
comes out, we'll send you some text messages and emails.
Come on the platform and then just log a mile
wherever you are. We're gonna have satellite stations nationwide at
different run clubs, so if you don't want to run
by yourself, you can go run with one of the
participating hubs and we'll do a specific event or we'll
(57:54):
do an official event here in New Orleans in October
as well for the Barrathon. That's our main focus right now.
Is our main campaign that we got going. We want
every black person in the country to know their health
score and we want we want everyone to be a
part of the Black Electronic Health Triger so that we
can work together to improve health in the black community
(58:14):
and then have the data to know that we actually
didn't awesome.
Speaker 1 (58:18):
We'll make sure to include the links on the Instagram.
Is there a website as well as that people can
check out or is it just through the Instagram primary
way for them to contact or reach out?
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Yeah, I mean that's our primary channel, but we do
have a website as well, Bear health dot com. You
can you can find a link to download the app
there that you need to use the access code that
you guys that I gave you guys.
Speaker 1 (58:40):
Well, thank you. We really do appreciate it. We see
like all the stuff that's on the link tree. So
looking forward to that as well. But Kalman, it's been
great in like having this real conversation. We definitely gotta
have you come back to talk about this, especially saying
if we can help get to you know, the moon
in October, because that's I think are opportunity for us
(59:02):
to have fitness for a reason or fitness on purpose
as opposed to it being something that's just kind of like, well,
I do this thing because like people told me to
do this thing, and that's something that we definitely need
more of in the black community. But any final thoughts
before we close it out.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
Yeah, just just to build on your last thought when
it comes to like what do you need to stay
motivated around your health? And I think there are three components.
In particular. Is one, like you're saying some sort of
time bound goal related to some type of fitness, So
this is walking in this case, it could be a
five k. It could be like I want to bench
this much by it's time, Like you need some sort
(59:40):
of time bound goal related to fitness. The second thing
that you need is a community. Again, and these aren't
any particular order. You need a community of people who
are also working toward a related goal because it's just
too hard to do it by yourself. Then you need well,
(01:00:01):
I think I might have bridged two of them together.
You need a specific goal and it needs to be
time bound. And with that again you focus on like
the experience. So instead of again like you're saying, telling
somebody to go do something, go walk ten thousand steps
a day, we create an experience, a challenge where the
focus is the chance you have to win a certain
prize or the competition of the challenge. The ultimate outcome
(01:00:25):
is ten thousand steps to day for everybody in the challenge.
But that wasn't the focus. Same thing with like run
club meetups and.
Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
Hey, we could tell everybody just go run, but or
we could say come to our roun club meet or
come to our meditation meet up, our yoga meetup, and
again hitting these different factors of health that are important,
specifically community. So that's what I would say, Fine, get
a goal, make a commitment, and find a community, and
(01:00:53):
then you'll be less likely to fall off your plan.
I'll guarantee you.
Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
Though.
Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Yeah, thanks so well, thank you. I think that's a
really great thing to close out on, give us things
to think about and definitely looking forward to, you know,
participating with that and downloading it. You can follow us
on Twitter at ev i d black Men, Instagram, every
Day black Men and then every Day black Man Facebook
page you have the Patreons, E, B, and P All
episodes debut there first we also have exclusive episodes. Really
(01:01:21):
appreciate your kwame for coming out to the podcast today,
and then also appreciate everybody for rocking with us and
ask us some awesome questions. If anyone has any questions.
Further for him, I'll include everything as far as his
win tree, and then you can get to the website.
You can get to the all those fun things. And
(01:01:42):
last but not least, let's let's be healthy people. Let's
stay healthy because I don't want us to have a
six to eight year difference between black life expectancy and
general life expectancy.
Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Thanks for having me, guys, going on with
Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
A bas
Well, ladies, gentlemen, to another episode every Day black Man podcast,
a podcasts for any black man thoughts. Today we have
a special guest, Kwame, who will share how he became
the world record holder for most steps in a month
April twenty twenty five, unless he's gonna tell us that
he's more in the months since and Riker. I'm joined
by my co host Sham Read the liberatory froming known
(00:44):
as black as well as Armstead follows for Twitter, ev
I D black Men, It scream every Day black Men
and every Day black Man Facebook page. We got some Patreon,
eb and p All episodes may be there first, and
we also have exclusive episodes and some drawings by Sham
up there. Check them out last one at least our
website at www dot Everyday black Men dot com. So
(01:05):
paw me tell us the people a little bit more
about everything that you have going on.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, what's going on? Y'all? It's good to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
My name is Kwame.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana, but I grew up in Houston, Texas.
We came back to New Orleans for undergrad and graduate school,
where I got introduced to pre med and public health
and ultimately got into what I'm doing right now. It's
kind of funny to think back now ten years ago
when I started this journey that I wouldn't say that
I planned to try and take two million steps in
(01:38):
thirty days as a part of my agenda. But you know,
you're not necessarily in control of how things ultimately play out,
and so that's kind of how I got here. I
started off grew up in a family of runners. Four
out of the seven kids in my family, we all
competed in college in cross country and track and field,
(02:00):
So endurance sports have always been a part of kind
of what we do, and in health consciousness has also
been part of that as well, because my dad there's
always made sure that we were eating the right foods
so that we could be properly fueled to perform as
good as we possibly can.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So that's kind of like the baseline of it all.
There's obviously more to the story, but we'll get into it.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Heylin Qualmi, thank you very much and welcome Stylish Now.
I know that you said you know you didn't necessarily
start out when you look back ten years ago, but
what kind of made you aside or inspired you to
make this journey to break the world record for steps
in a month.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So it was actually inspired by some of my community
members or the users on our app. So I run
a health platform. It gives you a health score kind
of like a credit score for your health, and we
always do challenges on the app where you know, if
you take a certain amount of steps in a month,
you'll be entered in for a chance to win something
back in twenty twenty four, in February twenty twenty four,
(03:01):
we did the Marti Garraos Steps Challenge where or it
took the most steps in five days during Marty Garos
one five thousand dollars. So Walkin just became a big
part of the culture within our community and now we
have about twenty five hundred users on our app. Last
year a doctor did one million steps in thirty days
and he got taken off his blood pressure medication. He
(03:23):
lost twenty pounds just in thirty days. Fifty four year old,
regular every day guy. And so this kind of started
this trend of people doing one million steps in thirty days.
And so May twenty twenty four he did it. He
passed the baton to me. In June, another user did
it in twenty eight days in July and two more
in August, and another one in October in Puerto Rico,
(03:44):
and so it just kind of we all just got
to talking about what we thought. You know, what do
you think the world record is and do you think
that any of us can break it?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
And when I'm as I'm.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Getting ready to prepare for the official launch of our
app this fall because we've been operating on a beta
app the past eighteen months, I just wanted to do
something to garner some attention, and I just wanted to
make sure.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
It was aligned with the work that we do.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
And uh, it rose the month, So I wasn't sure
if I could actually do it. You know, obviously someone's
done until it's possible, but I actually, I guess technically
no one had done it at that point, but someone
had had gotten close to two million, So I figured
figured I have a decent chance considering my background and
sticking one day at a time. It was hard in
(04:27):
the first five days. I mean, I was in pain
every moment of the day because you know, so again
I run, and so you know, you use different parts
of your legs when you run compared to when you
walk in especially if I'm walking thirty five thirty thirty
five miles a day, sixty seven thousand steps a day,
just yeah, just new pains. I learned about new parts
(04:48):
of my body every day because because it was hurting.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I got a question, how long? Wait?
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Wait, wait, what did you listen to? Like, were you
listening to music as you did this? Or it was
just I was I.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Was mostly working, so I started to run my company. Right,
so now I'm walking like fourteen hours a day, and
don't I don't really have time to like take meetings
in the office.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
So for the most part I was working.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Now, So like let's say in the morning, I'll wake
up at five six o'clock, I would go do like
a four hour walk along the levee in New Orleans
along the Mississippi River, and you know, basically kind of
do my checklist or do my to do list with
my administrative specialists, and then I would start just working
on tasks, editing content, and then I get back. My
(05:36):
phone would be dead typically by the time I got back,
and then I would shower, go to the office, make
sure everything was good, and then I would go to
the fitness center here at Zavier University, Louisiana and just
walk around there for hours, again working close to the
office so that in case something came up, I was
able to be there, and then in the evening just
(05:58):
walk around. It got to point where I really couldn't
do anything but walk when I was walking, because I
was just so tired and I was like trying to
pick up the pace and so so it was harder
to do work and walk like a seventeen minute you
average miles. So yeah, for the most part, that was
it working.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (06:20):
So I'm looking at these numbers, sais sixty six thousand,
sixty six steps per day on average.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
That's right.
Speaker 7 (06:28):
That's a lot of states.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Yeah, a lot of sixties. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
I think I did that once when we were in
Vegas and we walked up and down the rip.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, when we walked up and down the strip, that
was the closest I've ever gotten to anything that you're describing. Kwame.
Did you put on like after burners towards the end
of the month and get up to like forty miles
a day, forty five stuff like that?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I did a few. I did, actually, so a few
days towards the end, I was doing like seventy nine
eighty eighty thousand steps a day. My highest was eighty
seven thousand, so I was about forty one forty two
mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
I was just trying to get my mail earlier.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
He's got my mail earlier. That's a few steps right there.
Speaker 7 (07:14):
I take the off there in the day.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
It's twenty two thousand, just when I was working security.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
M Yeah, it's tough. I mean, people will come and
walk with me. It definitely. It definitely helped out. But
we walked for four hours and then you know they'd
be laid out on the couch like you pretty much
done that. I'm like, actually, no, I gotta gotta do
that about two more times today. And you know you
(07:42):
get twenty thousand steps about in four hours, okay, yeah,
which is obviously way more than the average person's doing
per day.
Speaker 8 (07:51):
It was I was, you said, that's so casually, like
you do about twenty thousand steps, Like, I don't know
how many steps I do.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I'll be honest with you, I don't think that many.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
I did the math.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Uh, fifteen days in I had done as many steps
in those two weeks as the average American does in
a year, and.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
We don't even walk like that's that's crazy. But if
you are stand and read, want to do all them
in steps in a day, in a week, y'all go
on right ahead. You know what y'all need to sign
up for that. Y'all need to sign up for that app.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So our beta app is called dakkuld DO. It's d
A C A d O O. That's our technology partner.
And after this podcast, you'll be able to use access
code everyday black man.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
All lowercase all one word. Get into the.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Platform and then you'll complete The first thing you'll do
is answer some questions about your height, weight, age, things
like that, so we can start generating your health or
and then when you finish creating your account, you'll complete
the initial health score assessment, which will be about twelve
questions get related to overall health and wellness. So we
(09:12):
track over one hundred different metrics across seven categories of health.
So that's physical health, so blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, things
like that, nutrition into wellbeing, physical activity, sleep, mindfulness, and
self control or like substance use or indulgence. So you
get a score in each category and then you get
an overall score between zero and one thousand, and it
(09:33):
changes in real time depending on how you change. Right,
So if you go on a run or a walk
one day, score goes up a few points, get three
hours of sleep, score goes down. And then based on
those changes, we make recommendations for how you can improve,
as well as connect people with health care providers, resources
and experiences and challenges.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Are you know part of those experiences?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
For sure?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I think y'all all could do a million steps in
a month.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Sure, Okay, we'll take that challenge. We will take that
right here.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
What you mean, wet? Yeah, I'm interested in the app.
You got Hey, let's don't take the biggest challenge? Yeah,
we got it.
Speaker 7 (10:08):
No, he got it.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
There were there were six people who did it last
last year.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Last year.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
There's a sixty four year old woman about to do
it right.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Now this month on that app.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Got medicated.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
She's retired.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
But it's that one is about five hours of walk
in a day, thirty three thousand steps a day. But
the thing about that challenge is, you know, and again,
this wasn't something that I expected when we started, but
it's actually a pretty accessible challenge and it's very transformative.
Everybody that's done, it has lost at least twenty pounds. Again,
I don't know where you all are and your health journeys,
(10:48):
but that's a pretty significant amount of weight in a
in a healthy in a healthy way in a short
period of time. And then again he the first guy
walked off his blood pressure medication, and there are some
users who have literally walked off their medications, not necessarily
having after having done a million steps, but just just
through walking and participating in our challenges on a monthly basis.
Speaker 8 (11:11):
They increasing physical activity compared to what they've norm and living.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
As far as their sedentary life.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Yep, that's sense.
Speaker 7 (11:18):
Qualm.
Speaker 6 (11:19):
I love what you're doing. The only qualm I aver
is and that much cardio don't kill?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Take that are they're going to kill?
Speaker 4 (11:30):
What?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Uh? This depends on your goals, right, I don't think
that you need to do one million steps a month
to be healthy like that. You don't need that much cardio.
You're like, you know, be in optimal cardio fitness. But yeah,
it ultimately just depends on your goals and in balancing
how much you're eating with how much you're burning wherever
(11:55):
you know, wherever you're burning it, whether you're burning it
in the gym or you're burning it pavement.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I think it just depends. I think.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Most of us are on the lower end of the
spectrum as it relates to cardio than we should be,
whether whether we're in general good fitness or not. And
so and honestly, the majority of us need to lose
some weight at some pounds and so yeah, ultimately just
depends on it depends on your goals.
Speaker 8 (12:27):
I tell you really take this seriously, because I mean,
not that we don't take things seriously, but we certain
people here probably call people fat supposts saying they aren't
where they want to be on their weight loss journey.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, no, that's that's fair. You know, you gotta It
just depends on, honestly, on the person. Like there was
somebody that we h that was at our Roun Club
meet up in DC a couple of weeks ago as
a part of the Black Health Connect conference, and it
was like it was like six of us out there
and we did maybe like a little two mile two
miles job situation two and a half or so, and
(13:00):
we would stop kind of like at different different intersections,
and one of the girls was she was super out
of breath, man, I mean like about to fall out,
you know, And she asked, She's like, I don't know
what's going on. I'm like, honestly, it's not in great
shape a right, Like, you know, she looked at me,
and I felt bad because honestly I didn't even it
was awkward because that's that was just the truth. And
(13:23):
I didn't have time to process like a political answer.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
And the thing is I.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Follow her on Instagram and she's on the app, and
ever since then, she's been running every day. We'reing two
miles straight for the first time since high school last weekend.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
So it just depends.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Like and that's the thing about especially early stage startup
companies and why they're able to all of a sudden take,
you know, grow bigger to bigger than one of these
major companies, is that they're talking to more people who
are dealing with the problems that their solutions are trying
to solve, and then they test more solutions against those
(13:58):
problems than anybody else, and then ultimately something pops and
and then and then you start to scale. Yeah, that
was that was on some level, like a test, like Okay,
let's see if this this type of messaging works and
so when we send push notifications also in the app,
like we we test different uh different nudgets, right, Like
one one night we sent message out at like ten o'clock,
(14:18):
like put that phone down, whatever it is, go wait
till tomorrow. Some dude came up to me next day, Hey, well,
I literally put my phone down. I was on TikTok
and I put my phone down. So that's really like
we're just trying to stay as close to the problem
as possible so we can be as responsive to people's
needs and ultimately be the be the best solution.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Lingo was black and cared about your physical health. I
feel like that was.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Just about to say that.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely like that concept. Maybe not quite
as like toxic, but.
Speaker 8 (14:51):
Almost strangely colored haired cartoons, you know, like my yeah, we.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Figure on the almost that you did this, Publee, it's
really cool.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
Congratulations by the way, him, Yeah, yeah, thank you. There's
your Does your app just do like cardio pick up
and does it like a just to people's lifestyles and
how they live or you know, when you're gathering that
information on them, or does it run rubrics off of
the expected lifestyle of somebody and what I mean by that,
(15:25):
just to clarify, is most people work at eight to
five and then they work out after.
Speaker 7 (15:31):
Maybe during lunch. Does you go off of that rubrick or.
Speaker 6 (15:34):
Maybe there are other people who have different types of
black styles and they works out at two in the morning,
you know what I mean, Like does your pick up
on that?
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
So again, we track over one hundred different metrics across
seven categories of health and you can you can track
exactly how many, but there might be a couple of
hundred different activities on the app. So we integrate with Fitbit, Garmin,
Apple Health, Google, Fed, Samsung, he pretty much every fitness
(16:01):
tracker and integrate with our app. And so you can
log your workout, whatever workout you want to do, whether
it's weightlifting or cardio, and then that'll.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Send to the app, right.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And the algorithm, the Helsequare algorithm is just based on
general It's just based on essentially like workout time, resting,
heart rate.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
You know, obviously the calories burned just depends on.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
You know, how hard you're working during that workout, whether
it's a run or it's a weightlifting session. But yeah,
it takes into consideration the individual and so you're gonna
get scored on your sleep. So if you are working
out at two am, for example, and maybe you only
got where I was to sleep that night, you're going
to get a bump for doing your work like an
improvement for doing your workout, but you're going to get
(16:49):
a knock for for not sleeping, you know, and and
it essentially balances out. And then what we'll say is
in that case, for example, I always recommend that if
you have to choose between working out and sleeping, choose sleeping.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Thing is the most.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Important part of your health before or after after community
and purpose, and yeah, you just got to be non
negotiable about that and get that right first before anything else,
mainly so you can be in the right mind and
have energy to care about all of the other stuff.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
And that relates to health.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
IM about to say it's not an attack on you, Sham.
We know about your situation.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
I wouldn't say that, but.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Uh, the straightforward is that you have kwalme. It very
much sounds like Houston, Houston as far as our experience
with it through Sham is basically very straightforward. People like, hey,
this is this is what it is like. I'm sorry
if you feel offended, but I mean I'm not going
to not tell the truth.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah yeah, well, I mean it's an emergency, you know,
the Black health problem at least that's how I regard it.
And I don't know, nothing has worked so far at scale,
and we just don't really have time to beat around
the bush about it because people are losing their lives
to preventable conditions in their forties and leaving their their
(18:11):
children and are for situations than they have to be
the consequence, and so I would like to stop as
much of that from happening as possible.
Speaker 7 (18:20):
So I agree. I was pretty diabetic, just so you know.
Speaker 6 (18:23):
I mean I was pre diabetic and I have high
blood pressure m h and maybe like two and a
half years ago if put off pills and I started
working out like consistently since then, mm hmm. Like see,
they want to see it down like like super normal,
(18:44):
my blood pressure super normal. So like I try to
speak to that all the time, that people should just
be healthy, workout, go to the gym as part of
your life, just because you know, you don't want to
get a foot cut off for anything.
Speaker 7 (18:58):
I'm starting to tell you, like a lot of stuff
that we do like leg stuff.
Speaker 6 (19:02):
Leg workouts really improve and that has to go with cardio,
really improve your your sexual album, right, how long you last,
how strong you are instead of you having to take
all these pills.
Speaker 7 (19:12):
Like I'm anti medicine one hundreds And.
Speaker 6 (19:16):
I know you're in a medical field, so you probably
hate me for saying that, but I'm super anti medicine.
Think with intimate and fasting and working out, you can
improve yourself, repare yourself, and become a healthier person.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
One hundred percent. No, I'm with you. I would medicine
has its place. Like our healthcare system is.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Really a disease management system, right, I don't. I don't
agree with the terminology actually of the system. It shouldn't
be called the healthcare system. It's the disease management system
and an acute care system, and it does a really
good job of that, right.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
And it's profitable, it's very profitable.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
But only ten percent of your health health is determined
by you engaging with the healthcare system, right, So like
going to the primary care doctor or you know, specialty
doctor for different situations, only ten percent of your health
is determined by that. Another ten percent is determined by
your genetics. Rest is depending on how you engage with
(20:17):
the world, how you live your life. So I actually
spend the majority of my time in that eighty percent.
And like you're saying, like, how do we make health
a part of your life, not necessarily this extra thing
that you have to do, And how do people make
it a non negotiable in their life kind of like
as the foundation of it's like their vision for their lives.
(20:39):
If anything else, I'm going to be healthy and well
so that I can give myself the best chance that
whatever it is I want in this life, and my
family whatever they want it this life, that's like our
job and duty and a sense to me.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
And so what I noticed in the black community, sorry
to cut you off, is just that we have a
not so much the black community thing, it's an American thing.
America cares more about what they can get out of
you than what they can do for you. So that
goes through jobs and businesses. They want to work you
to death. They want you to commute to work, you know,
(21:15):
commuting alone, going to the job, dealing with family and
health issues. It creates little time for self improvement, self work, health,
all of that. So I think we have a societal
issue that is anti keeping you healthy, but more so
just keeping you alive, leaves your thrive.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Just you know.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And when I always used to be confused by the
idea that like, the country is willing to let all
of its people become sick, right and it can't even
walk a mile without getting out of breath. And I
don't know if they're allowing this to happen, then on
some level they probably.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Don't care.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Because they don't need us or won't need us in
the future. And that's a you know, a bit of.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
A morbid thought, but.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I means probably not going to not the country anyway
implement any systems that start to mitigate that. Now you
know here that they're they're making noises about removing certain
chemicals and stuff like that from foods, and I hope
they do those things. But the entire half of the country,
(22:35):
half of the adults in the country have one or two,
one or more chronic conditions hypertension, type two diabetes, some
form of cancer. And that's an adult population, and that's
just not it doesn't have to be that way, all right.
So my grandfather, he's eighty seven years old, he doesn't
have a single chronic health condition.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Wow, but that's not common.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
But just because something is common doesn't mean it's normal, right,
And so we almost normalized taking pills to treat medications.
And then doctors on some level I think are responsible
for this, but maybe think they're doing the right thing
or just trying to make people feel okay. But they'll
go in or a person will go into the doctor,
(23:23):
they'll get diagnosed with, you know, pre diabetes or diabetes
or something like that, and then the doctor's like, well,
you know, you know, you know it runs in African Americans.
It's you know, it's hereditary, all this stuff. And again,
your health outcomes are only ten percent of your health
outcomes are determined by your genetics, right, But just because
(23:44):
your parents have something or your siblings have something, doesn't
mean that you have to have it. And I think
that the doctors do this to pacify people, make them
feel a little bit better or less yeah, less bad
about themselves for having the condition. But type two diabetes, hypertension,
mini cancers, heart disease, those are preventable things like they're preventable, period.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
These are not conditioned.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Like again on the whole, not talking about you know,
different cases type one diabetes for example. These these are
entirely preventable, and.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
It keeps people passive. Say that again, it keeps people passive,
you can say, oh.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
It and allows people to continue living the way that
they are.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
The process profitable, you know, push more medicine.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
M hm, that's there. That's their prerogative. My job is
to shift that whether people want.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
It or not, one stemp at a time.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
I mean, that's that's why it's called the startup, Right,
You're disrupting the current status quo, which is, uh, we
have a cute healthcare system and uh, we just want
to have you be sick enough to be able to
pay us money, but not so sick that you die immediately.
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
That's expensive to them.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Oh, it is, because there needs to be a certain
amount of people to keep everybody else in line. But besides,
you know, crushing people's understanding of the government. Can you
tell us more about kind of the health gaps that
are in like underserved communities, because I think your app
is like the first that I've heard aim specifically at
a problem within the black community.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
And so I did my master's in public health as
Xavier with the concentration of health equity, and so just
to kind of lay the land. Public health is the
art and science of prolonging life. So as a public
health practitioner, my job is to help human beings live
as long as they possibly can and as healthy as
they possibly can, well they are alive.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
In the United States, there is a about a.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Six to seven year life expectancy gap between black people
and the rest of the population. So like people are
living on average stage seventy two seventy four, the rest
of the population seventy eight eighty.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
That gap doesn't necessarily sound that big.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
To some people, but when you extrapolate that out to
the entire black population, right, so it's fifty million plus
in the US now, it comes out to like two
hundred and sixty million years of lost time in the
black community. That's time with you know, money and index funds.
That's time with your family and mentorship. I mean, there's
(26:34):
so much opportunity that we're missing out on because largely
driven by really death to preventable conditions and that's created
bare health. To recapture that life lost, that's our that's
our mission because fortunately these conditions and kind of the
(26:56):
trajectory that we're on can be slow stopped and even
reversed through lifestyle intervention. I'm really transforming communities to where
they're health promoting, and that's ultimately what we're trying to do.
We're not necessarily trying to close the life expectancy gap.
I'm not necessarily interested in how we compare to others.
It's trying to maximize health in the black community. What
(27:19):
is our ultimate potential? That's what I'm most interested in,
and in creating a blueprinting path for people to achieve that.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
He said, six to eight years.
Speaker 8 (27:30):
That's enough to get to know a small child.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
A great grand kid, and that can make all the difference.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
And you know, I mean some gaps are even more stark,
like here in New Orleans, average life expectancy in like
the wealthier neighborhood in the city, it's eighty and less
than three miles away, there's a community with the average
life expectancy of fifty four years. So we can get
gap can get even wider.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
You know, Yeah, that's that's large, really really large. Not
to cut you off too much there, but looking at
like I'm looking at something from few research and showing
like black men versus black women, Like, we start out
pretty even then around like thirty to thirty four, we
(28:17):
just start dropping in comparison to black women. Is there
any component, especially since this is the podcast where primarily
a lot of our audiences are black men, Is this
like the call to action for us?
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Yeah, you know, we.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Women are going to the doctor more. And again I'm
not saying that you necessarily have to go to the
doctor to be healthy. You do need to get some
checkups to make sure that you know, again your blood pressures,
in check, your blood sugar level, so on and so forth. Again,
most of your health is determined about how you engage
with the world. But early detection is like the number
(28:55):
one tool we have for dealing with really any condition,
especially for menable ones. And because black men aren't going
to the doctor the rates nearly at the rates that
women are, there's catching things earlier. We don't catch these
things until, like they're at later stages because for different
(29:16):
reasons we're putting it off. You know, we don't trust
talk if we don't feel like me nobody, you know
what I'm saying, like different things like that, And you know,
I get it. I have the same kind of cautions
but if we can somehow put the fear in front
of people like that, that like it's gonna have to
(29:37):
We're gonna have to draw on fear to me, like
the idea of promote like being healthy me isn't enough
a motivator.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
If you guys heard about that that mouse.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Study where they had the basically the mouse had to
go get to the peanut butter or the cheese or whatever,
and so they time the rat the mouse with just
the cheese or the peanut butter as the driver get
through the mains. They did that once and then they
did it another time where they wafted cat oder behind
it and had the change.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
So much faster.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
And that one right because it was scared scared of
something too, And so I think you need both, yeah,
to make commitment. And oftentimes people don't change until they
have a heart attack or you know again until until
the problem is here. And yeah, we we just we
(30:30):
just have to flip that that motivation to where it's.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Getting ahead of it.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Like both the goal and fear of some form of.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Loss absolutely.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Absolutely bad.
Speaker 8 (30:46):
Noe Uh what part you say you from Houston? Were
you born in Houston then moved to Louisiana.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Or yeah, I was born in New Orleans, grew up
in Houston.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
Ah what part of Houston grew up in?
Speaker 3 (31:00):
I grew up in Kingwood, South, OK.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
Don't see too many Houston people around these parts.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Say you say that like I don't go to Houston
all the time for.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Work, going to and being from a very very different statements.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I know, I know, I'm just saying, like, I see.
Speaker 8 (31:24):
You're taking this Drake thing a little bit too seriously.
You can't just go to a place a couple of
time people from there.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Look, man, first and foremost, you don't have to bring
that up. You can just let that go. He's not
even in Houston. He's in whatever the part is where
all the rich Nigerians lived.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
You would know where that is before I would.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
I mean, yeah, no, we we we always have that
that fun banter.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
But worried about my boy Drake though, I mean you.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Don't need to be worried about him. I mean, he
seems like he's finally realizing you released music and people
to stop dancing to the songs that they'll probably still
be dancing to it people's weddings in five years, right.
I mean, I've seen more not like us at weddings,
and I've seen it anywhere else, and it's like, it's
a very very interesting, uh interesting place to play this song.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
At my wedding. Nothing but Kelly is going down.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I mean, look, bro, I saw somebody play a Diddy
song the other day and I was looking at them like,
don't you like give us some time here?
Speaker 7 (32:29):
Sir?
Speaker 4 (32:30):
He was like many songs really bright.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
Listening to did Bro you know exactly?
Speaker 4 (32:41):
That was it?
Speaker 1 (32:42):
That was yeah? Exactly bad boys like that was it?
Speaker 4 (32:46):
That was a song that every step.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
No, that's that's more Faith Evans than than Diddy.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Diddy raps. She just did the hook, Yeah you care
about it? Nah? It was his verse, bro, he was
he was in there.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Yeah yeah, repeat his verse then me.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
I'm pretty sure Jada Kits wrote that, but.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, probably verseig.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
I can't repeat a verse.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
That's what I thought.
Speaker 8 (33:13):
How much do you think Diddy has done for health
in the black community?
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Mental health? Like like terrible, he's been killing us all right,
I want to at least tie back in.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
I mean, as your attorney, I can tell you complete
the fifth on this one. You don't have to answer
this at all. This is solishness.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
If you don't, you gotta go down the baby or
slip and slide.
Speaker 7 (33:40):
He does not, sir.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
We do important talking about that one brother on the
trip because then when.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Somebody's like, he's gonna be a long rapist, I mean
philanthropists now.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
That joke from always Philadelphia never never gets older, but
definitely does date you. And people are not going to
get it because they didn't see the ship.
Speaker 5 (34:02):
Not about who gets it, but I give it. It's
kind of like that reference self satisfaction. Yeah, okay, apartment,
but you got I'm.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Going instead of going off into our normal tangents. So
has a plant based lifestyle enhance your physical and mental performance?
Speaker 4 (34:23):
You know?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
So I started eating the plant based about ten years
ago after my senior year of college. Started off really
just for the environmental impact you want to that's one
light area where I just think we're running an interesting
experiment with the with the planet. And I'm not saying
that there's necessarily anything that we can do for sure,
(34:44):
but if there's anything I can do to like reduce
my contribution to us getting put in a bad situation
sooner than later than, I'm gonna try to do that.
And my concerns with the environment aren't necessarily that, like
the environment is going to get so bad that you
know it like just like we burn up or get
(35:05):
washed away, but the storms and stuff are going to
become so frequent, Like the disaster is going to become
so frequent that it displaces more people at once than
like all of our safety net systems have the capacity
to kind of mitigate. And then we get all you know,
tribal well taken care of human beings are good people
(35:26):
not well taken care of human beings. You are trying
to eat and protect their families. And so anyway, that's
my brant on. That's why I started. It didn't really
become about health until about a couple of years later.
I started going to different conferences related to health and
play based eating. But I didn't really notice much at
first because I'm still, you know, pretty young and indecent shape,
(35:49):
because I just finished my collegiate career as are running well.
What I will say is that most of the problems
that my friends are dealing with now that people deal
with day to day, I don't deal with that at all.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Headaches.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
I haven't had a headache, well outside of a late
night like a bachelor party or something like that. I
don't have like headaches on a regular basis. I work
about fourteen hours a day with no problem, don't get tired,
no naps needed. And then when it comes to like
eating plant based die, specifically a whole food plant based died, Yeah,
(36:22):
my body's not having to work as hard to process
the food as as it would if I was eating
say a standard American diet, you know, high and fat,
high in processed foods, and so just essentially I'm not
having to burn as much energy to process food, and
so I have a lot more energy to do everything.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Else that I spent my time doing.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
But yeah, it's when it comes to the plant based eating.
I don't know if you guys are familiar with blue zones.
Blue zones are these areas where people are living into
their one hundreds more than other parts nearby, so they're
think about eight blue zones. I forget the exact number
some people so or some areas are no longer blue
zones because you know, not as many people are living
into one hundred because they're becoming westernized. But there's one
(37:10):
in Low Malinda, California. There's one in Costa Rica, one
in one in Japan. Basically they go and study these
these communities, these populations and try to identify why they're
living well until they're one hundreds and all of them
eat ninety five to one hundred percent plant based sides.
So my first thing when it comes to plant based
(37:30):
and the message is you have to understand that you
can absolutely live healthy and long and strong without eating meat.
And this isn't this isn't like a message to get
people to stop eating meat, but to drop the idea
that it's a necessity because especially here in America, like
everybody's big on protein and protein and protein, but again,
(37:53):
we're not living nearly as long as these people, and
all they eat is plants for the most part. And
so that's really what I draw on because my focus
in my goal is longevity. So what are the longest
lived people doing? And we go do what they're doing.
And that's kind of why I've been able to stick
with it and the message that I have for people
(38:15):
with that.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Thank you for kind of expanding on that. I know
for some people, you know, they hear the plant based
thing and they think, oh, I can't whatever, But eighty
five to eighty to ninety five percent. I think that's
that's entirely doable. It's something where you're not giving up everything,
but you are making a priority to eat more food
(38:36):
that are plant based. We've had a couple of people
from doctor mccayba Mooring. We also had gosh, what is
the guy's name?
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Yeah, yeah, something, I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, yeah, we had. We had both of them on
the podcast and they're also talking about the same thing.
And with doctor Kable Warren like I kept up, yeah, Ki,
thank you appreciate it well, Doctor Michable morning. Like after
that episode, I really did start eating or did stop
start skipping a meal every single week. I did that
until basically about this year when I decided that I
(39:15):
wasn't getting the exact same benefits out and that may
be more so me than the actual diet. But you know,
like taking that twenty four hours off, like you know,
after a while, you get kind of used to it.
Because people at like my company now that I work,
they're like, hey, like you going to lunch. It's like, yeah,
I don't take lunch till three. They're like, why don't
you eat until three? It's like because I don't feel
(39:35):
like I have to eat till three, I'll drink water
and stuff, and I'm trying to get better at that
because Sham will throw a bottle at me. But you know,
at the same time, like, you know, it's That's one
of the things I think Sham does that he doesn't
give himself credit for, is Sham religiously drinks water like
all the time. And it's like maybe to ninety percent
(39:58):
of what he drinks and the rest is gin, but
it's mostly water.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Mm hmmm. A simple man, they say, They say Jen
is a healthier, healthier liquor.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
You know. Shoot, so you're saying Sham was better all along.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Yeah, it's a bit cleaner, but I know so. I'm
actually a big proponent of fasting. Fast thing is actually
the most powerful thing you can do to extend your lifespan,
mainly because it's given your body a break from processing work.
You're right, exactly work and focusing on repair. And so
when you fast, you you trigger what's called autophagy auto fager,
(40:36):
depending how you want to pronounce it, and it basically
is where your body, you know, uses stored energy or
energy and it's our bodies are so smart that when
they're in this state, they go and use old damaged
cells and proteins first and break those down and turn
them into new, younger cells and proteins. So essentially like
(40:59):
cleaning up the body. And most of us are eating
around the clock, right We're eating first thing in the morning,
and then we're snacking until we pass out, and so
we only have like this six hour window where we're
not and so you people are never entering the state
where their body is cleaning itself up. And when you
think about things like cancers or again, the majority of
(41:20):
these conditions cancer cells are really just like mistakes that
mistakes in replication, and these mistakes come from you know
where and tear just like any other system. And so
fasting gives your body an opportunity to go clean up
and get rid of all of these mistakes and so
ultimately reducing your chance of developing these conditions.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
And so not to bring the mice.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Back into it, but they did a study where they
had one group of mice eat this whenever they wanted basically,
and then one group eight between twelve and eight pm.
And this is actually where that twelve eight pm, you
know intermittent fasting window came from. It's not necessarily based
on human results, it's just that was just the window
(42:02):
that made sense for the researcher.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
With that study.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Anyway, they ate the same amount of food and they
ate the same type of food. The group that ate
between twelve pm and eight pm lived thirty percent longer.
Like with that, that's that's so significant. That's such a
significant amount of time. And when you know, all of
the mechanisms that turn on in those mice that we're
living longer turn on in us when we fast as well.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
So to me, the real silver bullet, because you know.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Obviously I've been trying to figure out exactly how to
get people to eat better. To me, if we could
just give people to skip a meal, skip breakfast, or
skip dinner have tremendous impact. It doesn't also doesn't cost
any money to skip a meal or do you save money.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
In fact, I know about that.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
It's just so powerful. So I'm glad you guys brought
up fast because there's anything that if we get adopted
at scale, that would that would transform health outcomes into
black community to be that.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Definitely definitely thinking back kind of about what you were
saying as far as kind of like changing like not
just our health outcomes, but what do you think from
a community standpoint, I would having a better handle on
our health impact the Black community.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
I mean, I will say that community is part of health.
So I'll say first, I think again, the longer we
can be here, the more we can do, and the
more we can leave for future generations. Again, to me,
it's a non negotiable that that we that we start
with health because everything is dependent on it. Think about it.
(43:45):
Think about how how disease and unhealth shakes up families,
especially you know when when it happens in an unexpected way,
it can can really disrupt the financial situations. Puts a
lot of people in debt, a lot of people file bankruptcy.
(44:06):
I think I think it may be actually be the
number one the double check, but I think it maybe
the number one cause of like personal bankruptcy. So when
people go talk about like, oh man, I don't want
to eat healthy because it's expensive, well eat unhealthy. There's
a health tax that comes later, right, and it takes
(44:26):
a lot of people out and takes families out. So
in order like you want to be in the best
position you can, because life is always going to be throwing,
you know, obstacles at you. And so just like the
COVID nineteen pandemic, right, this that's what actually motivated me
to start Bare Health. When you think about the people
who had the most severe outcomes with the COVID nineteen pandemic,
(44:49):
they were already in a compromise state. They were dealing
with high pertension, type two diabetes, and because their defense
systems were so focused on those conditions or just tired
from dealing with those conditions, when they when they encountered
the COVID nineteen virus there they could get everything just
kind of started to fall apart. So you just have
to be ready because you never know what's going to
(45:09):
come and and sometimes it'll be a pandemic, or sometimes
it'll be to run across the street, and it's just
it's just fundamental to to be ready for for whatever
challenges we face as a community, so we can all
be as sharp and as as astrong as we need
to be in these situations.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Well, you are correct. It is the number one reason
for bankruptcy in the United States medical expenses. So yeah,
if we can eliminate that, then that that could keep
a little more money in Big Mama's pocket, which hopefully
she can pass on to future generations. Absolutely, like we're
(45:51):
hoping that, you know, you don't lose a leg, as
you heard from Quarmbing, like his grandfather still out here,
no problems whatsoever in the seventies. I mean that's how eighties.
My grandfather was eighties, sorry, eighties, that's how what's my
grandfather as well? Like you know, no problems, no, no, nothing,
just his only thing was that he just got older
(46:12):
and a little bit of other things. But you know,
everybody's got their thing. If you could change one thing
about kind of how we start our days as black people,
what's one thing you would change, and I'll give you
full car blanche.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
I mean, it's got it.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
The first thing that's coming to my mind is the phone.
If we could just like sit with our thoughts like
ten fifteen minutes when we first wake up, as opposed
to grabbing the phone, it's like put the world down
for a second. I think that we can be a
bit more intentional about the rest of our day. Thataca
(46:57):
skipping men's in particular, skipping breakfast, women, skipping, skipping dinner,
make a bigger breakfast.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
There are some differences.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
When it comes to like the fasting or eating eating schedule.
But yeah, just like get get the dairy, get the
get the process, meet and get the all that out
of the out of the first part of your day
and and swap it out for like fruit and then
some some fibrous foods for singing in the morning and
so the meditation and some fruit in the morning.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
That's what I was saying.
Speaker 4 (47:35):
Yurt.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Say that again.
Speaker 4 (47:37):
Are you against yogurt? I don't mean that like an
aggressive way.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Yeah, no, I mean it's a dairymall.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
So, I mean eighty percent of black people are lactose
intolerant now, the degree to which varies, but.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
We shouldn't be eating here earlier.
Speaker 8 (47:56):
You have to bring that up, bro, You had to
bring that up, that stuff anyway, uh.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Mister king lactose and tolerance.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
Sham uh huh, yeah, yes, Skip.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
I mean again, it's better than you know, osage and
egg and cheese and biscuits. I would say yogurt is
better than that for sure.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
I mean yogurt specifically, not like you know your play
mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Yeah again I stick with with yogurt is a dairy,
but I'll take again, I'll take that over with. Most
of us are eating for a thing in the morning, cereal,
you know, high sugar cereal, things like that, but I
don't consider it a health food for black people. Be
mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Sorry, ok ahead, No, I was gonnas.
Speaker 8 (48:50):
And this may be a big crash on my part,
But have you considered weaponizing women, uh as far as
trying to shift the ideas of help?
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Yeah, I mean I think I think women specifically like
shifting the ideas of health for men.
Speaker 8 (49:07):
Yeah, because men often do whatever the women think is
fancy or fancy bull at that time.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
I mean, everything that men do can be can be
tracked to getting women. So that's yeah, I agree with that.
And you know, like so I run a round club
here and there are a lot of attractive women in
the club, and men are who don't run are coming
(49:36):
to the club and now running just to you know,
be around and then and they get value out of
the community that we built, beyond you know, the potential
opportunity they might have with a woman there. But yeah,
I mean this one guy who like like one of
my she's actually my former athlete. Now kind of like
(49:56):
family member at this point. But she you've been coming
to our run clubs, you know, since we started last year,
and this guy who you know, wanted to be with her.
She she's not interested in him. But he started showing
up every day. And now they they've kind of moved on,
moved away from the idea of them having anything. He
still shows up. Now he's part of the community, you
(50:17):
see what I'm saying. So if that's the hook or
that that's what gets people in, and then we get
in the stick because of the other additional value, then
you know, I think women are the strongest motivated for
what men do. Do do anything, or to motivate them
for health.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Honestly, that's what we told you. Writer, you should have
been here to defend yourself start a runk club.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Yeah, a lot of a lot of value comes out
of runk clubs, that's for sure.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
That says a writer here.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Oh no, no, I just I just could not resist
a dig at Ryder just because of whatever he has
going on right now. Same thing for white collar Sugar.
But he at least was kind of enough to tell
us ahead of time and also understand, you know, being
a parent is definitely gonna be first priority, Like we're
not everyday black men. Forget your kids, forget your wives.
(51:16):
When it's podcast time is podcast time. But at the
same time, I mean, you know, hey, you actually you're
telling what's going on, Like I understand that, Like I
appreciate that everybody could come and do stuff like you
see stylists here. Man, he probably right now I'm raising goats.
But at the same time, he's still here for moral support.
Speaker 4 (51:38):
Well, man, I'm not gonna lie to you. He has
this captive.
Speaker 8 (51:40):
He has threatened to deport two of us, and all
of us are American. If you can get us help,
you ain't you ain't.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Worth a gosh dar for that one. I am not
the Prime Minister of America, right, We have presidents here
and we find legal processes.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
She knew all the best. That gets important.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
Well, but not either man. It's it's a hard road.
You know, we say you're the best country in the world,
but then you look at our healthcare system and you're like,
I don't know about that.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Yeah, we're definitely lacking in a lot of areas, even
outside of health.
Speaker 3 (52:17):
Happiness in particular.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah, like when you see like Norway's happiness, people are
like yeah, you know, like I can feel it life
and I'll still have a house and a wife and
kids and the government will take care of me. And
it's like no wonder of y'all. Europeans be smiling so
hard because Norway guys they got like a freakish smiles.
But I guess when literally you can't fail no matter
what you do, I'd be smiling too, like, hey, life
(52:44):
is ground.
Speaker 4 (52:44):
Like you hate from outside the club, but.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
I'm hating all the way outside the club, all the
way outside the club. Plus they take two months off.
Oh my god, I'm so glad we don't hire those
people because I would be that not only do you
get all the holidays that are related to our holidays,
but you also get two months. And he basically just
tell me, like, I'm taking off the month of October,
Me and the family are going to uh visit Malaysia.
(53:10):
We're gonna go for an entire year or for entire
month and see y'all when we get back.
Speaker 4 (53:17):
And were you going for the Nigerian accent there?
Speaker 1 (53:20):
It just kind of comes out. I've been part of
the Nigerian culture for too long.
Speaker 4 (53:25):
They walk a lot.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
I mean, yeah, it I mean again, the whole thing
is when you marry into a culture, you're supposed to
adopt it. Like now I see them becoming more Americanized
and cynical. It's like, yes, I knew I would break
this Nigerian hopeless optimism thing.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
It just took America. Broye. You might have help speak alone,
but you get like one good generation from wherever you
come from, and then your kids is American.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
They still they still have a lot of it. But
we'll see. I mean, we haven't seen the whole second
generation play out. We've only seen the first. We haven't
seen we haven't seen the whole. Uh, although I sometimes
see you know, like with my knees. Like sometimes you'll
say things it's like, oh you sweet summer child. That
is not going to go like that in America. But
you don't want to be that guy to crush the
child's dreams. And if you do imagine crushing child's dream read, uh,
(54:18):
don't don't do it, bro, Like, come on, we need
black kids to actually feel safe and secure. They're unprotected
on multiple fronts.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
I think there's there's size for that, but.
Speaker 1 (54:27):
I agree, I mean, yeah, you're not you're not entirely wrong.
But Bomby, we don't want to take up too much
of your time. You've been here with us about an hour.
Any final things you want to say, you want to
tell people, want a little more about the app and
the code or anything else that you wanted to plug
while you're here.
Speaker 3 (54:45):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
So we've been working on our in a app for
the past eighteen months called Dakka Do. So that's what
we've run our platform on the majority of our users
are on now, but we receive some significant funding over
the past year that's going to allow us to migrate
to the official Bear Health app. So and say it's
(55:06):
in the beginning with Bear stams for Black Electronic Health Records.
So all of the user data goes into what we
call the Black Electronic Health Record, and on a monthly basis,
we're looking at the elective health trends of our user population,
which ultimately our vision is for that to be the
entire Black community. So each month we'll see the average
(55:27):
health score overall, we'll see the average health score by
underage different category that we track and be able to
use that data to inform and drive different community health solutions.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
We can do it by community.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Right, so we'll be able to see the average healthcore
in New Orleans compared to the average healthcore in Atlanta
to Detroit. And let's say the average healthcore in Atlanta
is much higher than it is in New Orleans. So
then okay, let's go explore Atlanta to find out what's
going on there that we can apply to the city
New Orleans and then give those interventions had any impact
(56:04):
when we look at.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
The data the next month.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
So my goal was to first communicate clearly to the
black community our current health status, and that's why we
came up with the idea of a health score. But
then I wanted to create a system of follow up
whereby after people become aware, now we can track changes
over time and identify when we can intervene right when
people need a certain message.
Speaker 4 (56:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
So where the official launch of the Bare Health app
this October, we're doing We're going to attempt to we
have two goals. The first one is to cover enough
distance as a community on what we're calling Barrathon Day
to reach the moon. So the theme for the Barethon
this year is Bare Health to the Moon, and the
(56:46):
moon is about two hundred thirty nine thousand miles away,
so we're trying to get as many people as possible
to come onto the platform when the official app comes
out so that we can try and again cover this distance.
The ultimate goal of the Barethon is can we break
the world record for the most people participating in a
virtual run slash walk event across multiple venues, which is
(57:08):
currently seven hundred and seventy thousand. Our goal is to
one day get a million people on Barethon day walking
across the world, across the dass b and so yeah.
To be a part of the Barethon, it's free to
participate and it'll be free to participate on the app
when it comes out in October. Just go to our
instagram at bare health be ehr health and then click
(57:32):
on the link tree. There's a link to the Barethon
there and sign up and then when the official app
comes out, we'll send you some text messages and emails.
Come on the platform and then just log a mile
wherever you are. We're gonna have satellite stations nationwide at
different run clubs, so if you don't want to run
by yourself, you can go run with one of the
participating hubs and we'll do a specific event or we'll
(57:54):
do an official event here in New Orleans in October
as well for the Barrathon. That's our main focus right now.
Is our main campaign that we got going. We want
every black person in the country to know their health
score and we want we want everyone to be a
part of the Black Electronic Health Triger so that we
can work together to improve health in the black community
(58:14):
and then have the data to know that we actually
didn't awesome.
Speaker 1 (58:18):
We'll make sure to include the links on the Instagram.
Is there a website as well as that people can
check out or is it just through the Instagram primary
way for them to contact or reach out?
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Yeah, I mean that's our primary channel, but we do
have a website as well, Bear health dot com. You
can you can find a link to download the app
there that you need to use the access code that
you guys that I gave you guys.
Speaker 1 (58:40):
Well, thank you. We really do appreciate it. We see
like all the stuff that's on the link tree. So
looking forward to that as well. But Kalman, it's been
great in like having this real conversation. We definitely gotta
have you come back to talk about this, especially saying
if we can help get to you know, the moon
in October, because that's I think are opportunity for us
(59:02):
to have fitness for a reason or fitness on purpose
as opposed to it being something that's just kind of like, well,
I do this thing because like people told me to
do this thing, and that's something that we definitely need
more of in the black community. But any final thoughts
before we close it out.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
Yeah, just just to build on your last thought when
it comes to like what do you need to stay
motivated around your health? And I think there are three components.
In particular. Is one, like you're saying some sort of
time bound goal related to some type of fitness, So
this is walking in this case, it could be a
five k. It could be like I want to bench
this much by it's time, Like you need some sort
(59:40):
of time bound goal related to fitness. The second thing
that you need is a community. Again, and these aren't
any particular order. You need a community of people who
are also working toward a related goal because it's just
too hard to do it by yourself. Then you need well,
(01:00:01):
I think I might have bridged two of them together.
You need a specific goal and it needs to be
time bound. And with that again you focus on like
the experience. So instead of again like you're saying, telling
somebody to go do something, go walk ten thousand steps
a day, we create an experience, a challenge where the
focus is the chance you have to win a certain
prize or the competition of the challenge. The ultimate outcome
(01:00:25):
is ten thousand steps to day for everybody in the challenge.
But that wasn't the focus. Same thing with like run
club meetups and.
Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
Hey, we could tell everybody just go run, but or
we could say come to our roun club meet or
come to our meditation meet up, our yoga meetup, and
again hitting these different factors of health that are important,
specifically community. So that's what I would say, Fine, get
a goal, make a commitment, and find a community, and
(01:00:53):
then you'll be less likely to fall off your plan.
I'll guarantee you.
Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
Though.
Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Yeah, thanks so well, thank you. I think that's a
really great thing to close out on, give us things
to think about and definitely looking forward to, you know,
participating with that and downloading it. You can follow us
on Twitter at ev i d black Men, Instagram, every
Day black Men and then every Day black Man Facebook
page you have the Patreons, E, B, and P All
episodes debut there first we also have exclusive episodes. Really
(01:01:21):
appreciate your kwame for coming out to the podcast today,
and then also appreciate everybody for rocking with us and
ask us some awesome questions. If anyone has any questions.
Further for him, I'll include everything as far as his
win tree, and then you can get to the website.
You can get to the all those fun things. And
(01:01:42):
last but not least, let's let's be healthy people. Let's
stay healthy because I don't want us to have a
six to eight year difference between black life expectancy and
general life expectancy.
Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Thanks for having me, guys, going on with
Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
A bas
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