222: Health Is Wealth With Tomi Oliva

Welcome to the Automotive Diagnostic Podcast.

We're going to explore ways to sharpen our diagnostic skills, find learning resources and hear from experts in the automotive field.

Have you ever been faced with the challenge of sourcing, installing and programming a used control module in a vehicle?

I know a lot of us have.

It seems to be happening more and more often today with the volume of control modules on vehicles, the cost of some new ones or even the availability of new control modules.

In some cases, used may be the only option.

So what do you do here?

I strongly recommend checking out SJ Auto Solutions and Tommy Oliva.

Tommy offers a cloning service for used control modules to make these things plug and play for the vehicle that you're working on.

In a lot of cases he is also able to source the control modules if you're unable to locate one for the vehicle that you're working on.

But once you get connected with Tommy, he's going to offer fantastic support from start to finish to make sure that that control module is going to work in your application.

He's also got tech support that he offers through his website, along with some free resources there as well on information about used control module programming.

So make sure to check out SJ Auto Solutions.

I can't recommend that enough.

This episode is brought to you by L1 Automotive Training and Keith Perkins.

If you're looking for education on module programming, j2534, eprom work, key and immobilizer, electrical diagnostics or drivability diagnostics, keith has a website, l1trainingcom, that's got over 60 hours of training videos on all those subjects and more.

When I first started out doing mobile, I utilized Keith's videos on module programming and J2534 in order to get my head wrapped around what I would need for the tooling, the computers, the software setups, what kind of obstacles I would be up against when I'm out there programming modules on cars, and it was a huge benefit to me and I continue to use the training videos that he has on his website.

So I strongly recommend checking out L1Trainingcom.

Hey, what's going on?

Automotive World.

Welcome to another episode of the Automotive Diagnostic Podcast.

My name is Sean Tipping.

I'll be your host once again for today's episode.

Thank you so much for joining me On the show today.

I've got Tommy Oliva.

You know, tommy, if you don't check out some of the many earlier episodes of this podcast that he's been on, just the time when Tommy joins me on the show, he's going to talk about keys or programming or mobile work or something related to a technical aspect of what we're doing in our day to day technician lives.

Today we're going to go a little bit left field here, but I think it's equally as important.

We're going to talk about your health, and the reason why I think this is important is because there are human beings behind the repair, behind the technician.

We're all humans and we all struggle with different things, a lot of them relating to our health and our well-being.

If you don't have those things, if you're sick and injured, doing this job becomes very difficult, if not impossible, and I've had a few episodes on the podcast before about exercise and diet and things like that.

But the bottom line is, if you want to be your best, you need your health to be in the best possible place, and so that's the topic today, and really, tommy is going to very openly and candidly share his story relating to health and, specifically, weight loss in the food that we consume on a daily basis and the things that he's gone through.

It's a real personal story and I really do appreciate him coming on and sharing this.

I can relate to some aspects of it, but the hope would be that anyone else out there listening that struggles with something similar can get some benefit out of Tommy's journey and, if nothing else, just to help make you aware of what you're putting in your body on a day-to-day basis and at least consider what this food is and what it might be doing to your body

or doing for your body.

But anyways, I believe this is a really valuable discussion to have and things to think about for everyone in this industry.

So with that out of the way, let's jump in.

Everybody can have their opinions one way or another and that's totally fine, but a lot of times it comes down to what have you seen in your own life and what makes sense for you?

And a lot of this stuff, man, you see it firsthand with yourself and with so many people Like wow, I'll talk about my own journey, man.

Yeah, I'd love to hear it, and I can share mine too.

Actually, if you want to get going, I'm going to send you a picture.

I got to find it, though, but start off, is it a fan or something?

Oh, dude.

So I discovered Doritos, mountain Dew and Nintendo 64 all in the same summer, like 96 or whatever that was, and that was game over for me.

Man Like I was on a very bad path as a young kid, very unhealthy and had some health problems.

Pop up then, when I'm younger than 15 years old, because just sitting in front of the TV playing video games, shoving what some people would even consider food into my mouth, that's not food, man, that's fucking garbage yeah.

I don't know where it is, it's somewhere in my phone, but I have too many pictures on here.

But I was a chubby little kid and really unhealthy too.

Like most American kids, yes, yes, right, you get locked into video games, which I definitely did for a long time, and I was not the most active kid, like.

I was never good at sports, I didn't have that natural coordination, so I was really bad at everything I tried.

I'd have to really give it some effort to get good at it, but I didn't figure that out until I was much older.

That's how that worked, and so I just gave up on anything I wasn't good at, and I was good at video games so I kept going with that one.

And, yeah, I think I'm trying to think of what grade I was in that probably would have been sixth grade or so where like very, very unhealthy, and I didn't move, I didn't do anything, I'm eating junk and unfortunately for me I mean unfortunately, unfortunately, depending on how you look at it kids are assholes

and I got, I got made fun of a lot and to the point where a little six year old Sean doesn't know any different.

Like I hated myself because of it, and that's what sent me on the path way back then of losing weight and not, you know, not being what I was and not a healthy way to go about it, because that doesn't do good things for your psyche as you get older, but it did change my trajectory as far as as where I'm at today and I'd like to think of Become

more healthy, about the mindset around it as I've gotten older.

But yeah, it was.

It was a rough period for me, for sure, but yeah, I'm in a much better place now and I actually enjoy the things that I do centered around health.

Yeah.

So, man, I was always fat man.

Sorry my voice, I don't know I'm coming down with something, but I was always fat.

Always since I can remember I was, I was chunky.

Well, my, my biggest issue was always, like, you know, a lot of people tend to say genetics or whatever, I don't know Right, but what I do know is that I, you know my mom, always cooked.

We never, we never, ate out during that time frame, and I was just chunky, but I did.

I Did feel that I ate too much because I would have breakfast, I would go to school and I'd have snacks, then school lunch, and so for me, I'm like Well, I'm fat, I'm fat, it's just it wasn't so much dad, but when I was younger it was, it was bad.

I mean, I went to public school here in Chicago.

Man or kids were brutal.

So what I remember was I, I was really, I was a really violent kid, like I didn't.

I hated being picked on, so I would just start throwing shit or hitting or whatever.

So I actually got kicked out of preschool.

Oh, wow.

But it worked out because we were moving at the time.

So we ended up moving.

We used to live on like the north side of Chicago and then we ended up moving to the like the northwest side of Chicago and it was very interesting growing up there because at the time the influx of Hispanics wasn't as great but there were some, some races, white gangs, so they would see a bunch of little Hispanic kids coming in.

They were chasing us around and throw shit at us and go to school and they'd pick on us and like it was.

It was.

It was kind of rough.

And when I was uh, I want to say like in seventh grade, not when I when I got to that school I started kindergarten Well, my dad was like man, you get kicked out of the school, I'm shipping you to Guatemala with your grandma.

So I was on my best behavior and they would make fun of me and I just was.

Just, I would just ignore them or I would tell the teacher and the teacher would say just ignore them.

Typical, same shit so then I Think by second grade I was crying like every day in school, like literally, like Might have been first grade, but like first second grade.

Around that time I was just crying every day.

I remember one time I was so angry no, so angry, but they were just kept.

They kept picking at me and then I would remember I was just like Balling my eyes out right outside of my, my pod, and the security guy comes up.

He's like what's wrong with you?

And I'm just like I'm basically muttering that I'm tired of them making fun of me because I'm fat and I don't want to be fat no more.

And I might have even said like I don't even want to live no more.

And you know, just, you know you're a kid and you just have all these emotions and you know, I grew up an Hispanic kid.

Man Like we're, we're told like you don't complain about anything.

You know blah, blah, blah.

Man Don't talk about their feelings, men Don't cry.

So then you know, I go and Sit down and the security guard was really a holder holder, holder, gentlemen.

He's like look man, he's like you know, my day we used to just take him out back and beat him.

But he's like times are changing and I know you can't do that, no more.

But he's like if I give you some advice, man, why don't you just start making fun of people back?

Just don't let your stone, don't, don't defend yourself, you can't physically fight them.

Then just just make fun of them.

And I'm like well, I don't, I don't know how.

He's like we see You're focused on you not being perfect, but the reality like not not everybody's perfect, we all have something yeah right.

The problem is you're an easy target because you're sensitive.

He's like so start start making fun of him back.

So he's like so I'm like I, just I don't know what to say.

He's like okay, well then, just when you go back to your class, just sit down, we're on a piece of paper, and then just start make, just just start writing down jokes.

So when they tell you something, now you know what to do.

So that's the reason why I'm witty.

Okay is because that's what I had to do, like I.

And it was to a point where I was in high school and I was I started carried that with me where, if I met you for the first time, I would be like okay, so he's, he's short, he's ugly, he's bald, he's, you know, he's chunky, he got bamboo.

It was like okay, boom, boom, boom, so.

So I'm quiet, but in my head I'm already like so as soon as you tell me something, I hit you with that haymaker and you leave me alone.

Yeah, it's, it's it's always like, and even to this day, like.

It's taken a lot for me to like, not be like that.

And you know I always talk about like vision.

My first time in vision was a not only a great accomplishment for me industry-wide and like industry-wise, but Personally wise, because I just I didn't want to go To to any event like, especially like I don't know anybody.

I was direst, absolutely terrified.

So you know, like it's.

It's funny because, like I, you know, I get to the point where it's just like man, like I look back at it and I was like, well, well, should I, should I have lost the weight instead of um Learning how to defend myself?

Or did I do the right thing?

Because I'll tell you what, man you know, like, I carry this All my life.

I mean, I'm still, I'm still fat, I'm still obese, you know I'm, I'm better about my health now, I'm more health conscious, for sure, but I'm definitely been on a journey, man, that you know a lot of people Take for granted or a lot of people just don't really know or don't really care.

Yeah, it's tough if you, yeah, if you haven't experienced something like that, to really understand.

You know, uh, what it's like.

Uh, yeah, especially to be Singled out as a kid for something like that.

It's, it's awful, it's it was horrible, man, like it wasn't even just the only.

I remember the only People that never really made fun of me were my parents.

But, man, it was, it was everybody.

I had older brothers that that didn't.

That aren't my parents like, they're stepbrothers, basically for my dad, and they were older like my.

I was six years old.

My oldest, my older brother was 18, um, no, older brother was 20, something, and my second older, oldest brother was like 18, 19 years old, like he's over 12 years older than me.

So, man, like they were, they were horrible, like they were just like they would look at me and be like, man, you got titties, you got this, you got that.

And To this day, man, I can't, if I go to a pool, man, I got a shirt, I can't Go to the beach, I'm in a shirt.

Like I just can't like a they, they literally like they They've emotionally, mentally, and you scarred me that I just, I just can't do it.

It's, it's a.

It's a very tough thing and, um, I honestly Resonate with a lot of the things you're saying, like those sort of comments made to you when you're a little kid it.

It is so tough to break that mental pattern of what you think about yourself, even even if you understand like those kids were saying those things because they were insecure.

Okay, I get that.

Now that I'm an adult that doesn't change, like how it formed your opinions of yourself and I.

I still, I still struggle with it to this day.

Same thing, like just thinking about, like, like it's stupid, it's.

It's when I really think about it's so stupid.

Right, I'm almost a 40 year old man who the hell cares if I have like a beer gut or whatever, but like that stuff just fucking locked in and I had and to me it became also like an f?

you point, because when I was in high school I was, I was fat again, like so a lot of people don't know that I was a senior when 9, 11 hit and I went to a very like probably the biggest school in Illinois and we had a graduating class of about a thousand kids.

There was about 4500, you know kids and faculty and staff at one time in that school.

So I had, like, by senior year I had maybe 50, 60 friends, close friends that I have met over the years, and 40 of them, 40 plus of them, went to the military and suffered.

Three of us and I was one of them.

Well, I had, I had, I didn't, I didn't.

When I was in high school, man, I cared to a point, but it didn't just, I just it didn't bug me as much and people really weren't as mean to me.

I got to, I caught the occasional joke, but by the time I got to high school I was a violent kid.

I mean, I grew up in a really shitty area so I was forced to learn how to fight man.

So you said something I didn't like we would fight.

I mean that was it.

So you know, going back to like me being fat, I just I lost weight that summer, like I lost 60 pounds and I went in and I'm like you know what man Like I want to join the military.

I'm like, but I don't want to be a grunt, I don't want to join the army, I, I'm too fat for an airplane, so Maybe it is.

And I, you know, I've always liked the ocean.

I wouldn't mind being on a boat.

I scored really high on my ass, fat.

My, my recruiter was like, hey, you know, we can, we can do this or that, but you need to lose more weight.

I had just lost 60 pounds and they sucked.

I'm like, dude, I just lost 60 pounds.

They're like, dude, we can't take you.

This is your.

Your bmi Is you're still 30 pounds overweight.

I'm like, yeah, well then, I I'm even dirt, you know.

And and even after that, like I went to.

So during my high school, I was too.

I was about Even like my even during eighth grade, high school, I was in the 180 range, 170, 160s.

So I was, I was fat for my height at the time, but I stretched when I got to my junior year and I lost weight at the same time.

So I, I went down to like 200 pounds and I was, you know, wearing like a 2x shirt, like I was pretty, I wasn't lean, but I was.

I was pretty thin.

The heaviest I got was like, think about 250 something, almost 260, the heaviest I got.

And I, I, for my height, right now I'm supposed to be wearing weighing 180 pounds.

Yeah, good fucking luck, it's not gonna happen.

But you know, when I, when I decided to do uti I mean I had to work full time, I don't work full time and I was going to school full time and I, uh, the uti was about an hour away from my house and I started in the morning, so I had to leave, obviously, an hour before class to get there on time and I had to get up even earlier to get ready.

Blah, blah, blah.

Man, it was nothing but fast food and garbage.

That whole for the whole, the whole two years of uti man.

Yeah.

It was.

I don't I'm not a coffee guy, so it was.

It was sodas.

It was whatever I can to stay awake and by the time I left, uti dude, I was like 300 pounds.

Man, I was too.

No, I'm sorry, I was like 280 ish.

Yeah, I was about the 280 range Okay and I never, I, never, I never went down there again.

This was, you know.

I graduated uti in 2004 With the Florida and I was right around between the 280s to the 300 range and.

I stayed like that for a long time.

And next thing, you know, like again, like, like you know, there's, there's things that happen to you in your life and you just don't pay attention to them and I don't know if it's a man thing or it's a human thing or it's just one of those like whatever thing.

But yeah, man, I was Most of my 20s.

I was hovering around three, between 350 and 380.

I had lost some weight, gain some weight.

So my late 20s were that much.

And the next thing I know, bro, I ballooned.

Man, I ballooned, you know.

I was going through a lot of stuff with the shop, the economic collapse, like it was just bad.

I was in a really bad place and I had gotten diagnosed with sleep apnea and I knew I've always had, I've had it since I've known.

I've known I've had it since I went on vacation with my dad right after high school and he woke me up in the middle of the night.

We shared a hotel room and he woke me up freaking out because I stopped breathing.

Oh jeez.

So, you know, I just like whatever man, I don't give a shit, you know, of course.

But the next thing, you know, I'm like ballooning weight.

I can't figure it out.

I went to go have a sleep study Because I made a mention to my doctor at the time and he was like you know that that could be probably why you're gaining weight, because I mean, I've worked on cars, I I've always been active per se.

Yeah, they say work doesn't count.

But you know the next thing, I know I go get the sleep study done and I'm just like I don't want to wear this stupid ass mask.

You know, it's like whatever.

Yeah dude, people, people ask you how do you, how do you live with yourself or how do you know?

But, dude, I was 650 pounds.

I couldn't walk.

I couldn't walk From.

I couldn't walk 10 feet without stopping well.

The amount of fucking people staring at me and talking shit.

And it was, it was bad and to this point you know, you know, as an adult I didn't give a shit.

I was like, well, whatever, man, y'all didn't pay for this fat.

So fuck you, I didn't ask none of you guys.

But like Dude I was.

That was bad.

Like my dude, my sleep apnea was so bad At that weight I was waking up on the dot every hour and a half, choking because it's like.

It's like pressure on your, On your throat right.

So, according to my my sleep doctor, right, my sleep doctor says I there's a lot of people have a genetic form of sleep apnea.

Okay, and according to him, because of where my numbers are, my sleep apnea is genetic, like I literally have some sort of issue with my esophagus.

Okay.

And it, just it, just my what it.

What it is is I, again, I'm not, I'm not a doctor, but what I remember, your weight keeps your esophagus shut, so it, um it.

Obviously you're sleeping and again, I'm pretty sure I'm butchering this, but from what I, what I know is that Some people genetically have that your air tube smaller.

Uh and some people you know, because of the weight.

So for me it's both like it's already small.

All this weight on me doesn't help me.

So basically, in the middle of the night I stopped breathing.

So my brain does.

It never goes into sleep.

Yeah because it's consistently waking me up.

I might not feel awake, but in my mind, like the REM sleep, I'm never.

I never get it right right.

So that's lower, that lowers your metabolism.

I like a lot.

I've talked to some people that you know got diagnosed with that and then started wearing the mask and they're like I never realized what a good night's sleep was until I got one of these things on me.

So so I don't even have a c-pad machine, I have a bipad machine.

My machine helps me breathe in and out.

Okay that's how bad my sleep at like.

There's a range of of points, right, most people who have c-pa will need a c-pad machine there.

I believe between four to 12, something like that.

It's like a measure of events or something like that.

Dude, I'm at 27 on this range.

It's, I'm on the high end.

Well, I don't know where I'm at now.

I think I might have to go back, since I've lost so much weight since I had my sleep study.

Okay.

But at that point in time I had a really, a really.

I had been going to a doctor to get gastric surgery and I kept gaining weight.

So they dropped me from the program and I was just like.

At that point I was like, dude, this is it, you know.

And my dad took over the shop again and I was just in a really bad place and you know.

But I would still go to work every day, man, and I tell this to a lot of people, but, realistically, being that fat is really what made me such a good diet guy.

And you're like, well, how right.

Well-.

Yeah.

I wanna hear how.

All right.

So let's say, for example, like I didn't have the best skills, but I understood electricity, I knew how to read service information, so I fixed cars, but it would take me longer than I would like because I still had, like, the old school mentality of looking at cars Check this, check that, look at this, look at that.

Well, dude, it was hard for me to move around, it was hard for me to go underneath a car.

Yeah.

So, dude, I would literally spend a whole hour looking at a wiring diagram or looking at the system reading service information.

Okay, a, I found that junction 11 is here.

Why don't I just take this little panel here real quick and I'll check this wire right here?

Sure, so that helped me develop a game plan that involves not being as invasive to a car, cause you know there's texts who will just like-.

Start ripping and tearing, yeah.

So I decided oh, and at this point I'm on blood pressure medications, I'm on two diabetes medications and I was just counting the days till I broke man.

So fast forward.

I my doctor left, I got a new doctor and he was very, he was very good with me.

He's like man, he's like you know.

Write down everything that you eat, bring it back to me.

I'll see you next week.

I did it.

He's like okay, and he's like all right, All you have to do is take this, this, this, this and then you're done.

So I did it, I took this, I stopped doing this, I stopped doing that, I stopped eating this, I stopped eating that and I lost 40 pounds.

And they approved me for the surgery.

Day of surgery oh, 610 pounds.

Okay.

I lost 95 pounds the first month after surgery.

Wow.

And I went on a mission, man I've I'd lost from 650, I went down to 350.

Holy cow.

Yeah, by 2016 I was at 350 pounds.

I had emergency surgery, I had my gallbladder took a shit, and I kind of like, I kind of went back to my habits.

Man, I was.

I was really proud of myself.

I got out of surgery, I changed, I got the shot back, I turned into a repair facility, but things were going really south.

Things weren't going well and I started noticing that I'm creeping up and creeping up and creeping up and wait, and I won't forget this day.

I was sitting in a car and I'm like I'm breathing heavy.

I'm like what the hell is wrong with me?

And then I feel my heart racing a bit.

I'm just like, eh, whatever, I just maybe maybe it was something I ate or whatever, I don't know.

They're back to the shop, nothing I eat later that day.

And, dude, like I'm feeling I just I couldn't explain it to my wife but man, I don't feel well.

I don't feel well Like this is you know she's like and the next thing I know I get this surge of adrenaline and I'm like oh crap, something's wrong with me.

I told her something's wrong with me.

I'm like something's wrong.

She's like you wanna go to the hospital?

I'm like yeah, let me go to the hospital.

Four hours of DR, nothing, okay, no problem.

A couple of weeks go by the next day.

I remember I was pushing a snowblower around and next thing, you know, I felt like a pinch in my arm.

And next thing, you know, like my, I felt my heart beating through his chest and I'm just like.

I screamed to my wife take me to the hospital.

I'm having a heart attack.

And I'm like, oh, what the hell?

Like, what like.

And I'm over there.

She's like can you hurry up?

Can you hurry up?

She's like it's okay, you're gonna be fine, you're okay, you're okay and I'm just like.

I'm like, dude, like I just it's this whole rush of energy, like it's just.

It was such a weird sensation.

I had no idea what's going on.

Right, that's scary.

Go to the hospital same shit.

And then you know they see me and then I tell them, hey, I have a chest pain, I have this, I have that.

And they're like, yeah, come on.

Yeah.

Nothing.

So it's like dude, what the hell?

Go?

See my primary.

I tell them what's going on.

All right, you are really obese, let's get you checked out.

Let's do a stress test, let's check your levels.

Blah, blah, blah.

I got nothing, perfect, no issues with stress test, nothing at all.

And I felt a little better.

But I kept having this weird sensation, these weird feelings, and I told the doctor listen, man, this is what's going on with me.

But by this time I had already figured out.

Because of you know, I went to vision and I ran into an ice storm.

Okay.

And I wigged out.

I know that now, but I'm like what's wrong with me?

What's wrong with me?

I get to the hotel to check in.

Dude, I'm shaking in tears.

I took my guy with me, my employee, and he's trying to comfort me and I think the sad part is looking back.

Everybody around me knew what was wrong with me, except for me, and he's trying to calm me down and I'm just like what's wrong with me?

And one of our industry friends, tim, was there and he calls me and he's like dude, what's wrong with you?

I'm like, bro, I have no.

He's like, amen, go outside, in and out, in and out, in and out.

I'm like, ooh, my bro, what's wrong with me?

He's like dude, you're having anxiety attacks, man, okay.

Like for real dude.

He's like, yeah, dude, you're having a panic attack, like well, shit, man, I've never had him.

He's like you know, he started.

You know obviously I'm not gonna go into the detail but he was really helpful and really insightful on his own struggles and stuff.

Okay, when I realized I'm having anxiety.

That's when I saw my doctor and he put me on.

He put me on a medication, but what I didn't tell you guys, is that when I was trying to lose weight, they put me on this med and it made me really suicidal and I just I, ever, ever since then, I was just like nah man, like there's something wrong with me.

I need to figure it the hell out.

Well, one of the biggest side effects of gastric surgery is your body, your stomach.

Because you reduce it, your stomach actually makes nutrients.

It takes in your food and uses your nutrients, metabolize them and turns it into.

Your stomach is also a factory.

So because I reduced it, my vitamin absorption went down as well, so I need to take.

I can't absorb as much vitamins from food, so I need to take supplements.

I never took them.

My vitamin D was through the floor, my vitamin B was through the floor.

Those are the two biggest ones.

So I remember at a vision he had told me that my vitamins levels were low.

And then I'm just like, and I Googled and I just went straight to the CVS and I started taking some stuff.

It was a rough one, I'm not gonna lie.

I kept having anxiety, but now that I knew what I had, now it's time to get better and for the first time in my life, man dude, I went.

I did so much man Like, this was 2019.

From the beginning, my major panic attack, I consider it was January of 2019.

Okay.

By September I had done all these tests.

I even had a cardiac MRI because because I was obese and I kept complaining about chest pains and stuff like that, and my doctor just wanted to be sure and we did a cardiac MRI, which is basically I get an MRI of my heart while it's under stress, like they medically induced stress on your heart to elevate your heart rate.

Okay.

And they did an MRI of my heart structure and everything else and they were like dude, you're totally healthy.

Like you can rule it out.

So I felt better and I'm like okay, I started eating better.

I noticed that one that at me, eating better, I felt better and I thought it's a combination of stuff.

But you know, because of the shop and you know my family and all the things that I went to, I decided, you know what, man, it's time to see a therapist.

I started seeing a therapist.

Fast forward a little bit After that, I saw a sleep doctor and I said you know what, man, I'm going to get my sleep under control.

It took me about 30 days before I got used to that stupid mask, but, man, I can't sleep without it.

Yeah.

Like I don't sleep without it anymore.

Man, I love that If I have to pick my wife from my machine, I'm taking my machine Like like it's.

I can't like I slept without it because I broke my mask one time.

Okay.

And oh, no, no, no, no, I'm sorry I didn't break it.

I the first time I went to Hawaii, I forgot it.

Oh okay, I forgot the mask part.

I brought everything but the mask part and it took me for the first day and then the second day until I was able to go get one.

So I I two days without it and I was like, oh my God, I need sleep.

Yeah, I have a buddy same thing man and he does not use that.

He is just miserable.

It's a big difference, man, yeah, and like, I get dreamed now.

Like people always be like oh, do you ever dream?

I'm like no, I never dreamt, I get dreamed now.

Wow.

Like, yeah, man, it's a, it's a big.

And then I started losing weight, Like, and at this point, when I started having those panic attacks, I was back up to 490 pounds.

Okay, I didn't realize it, man.

And people tell you like you don't realize it, dude, because I don't care.

Like me, being fat never stopped me from getting girls, never stopped me from making money.

You don't like how I look?

Fuck yourself, I don't care, I'm not bothering you, I'm not bothering anybody.

So but after I started having those issues with my, with anxiety and stuff like that, I dug in really deep about my health, man, like really, really deep in everything and how, how kind of shady our food industry is, and I hate, I hate, how like and this is gonna be very unpopular and it's

no disrespect to like medical professionals or anybody like that but Nobody was able to tell me what's wrong and I'm like, okay, fine, you're having anxiety, I get it, but to me I felt like my check engine, like the anxiety was my check engine light sure.

So what's wrong with me?

Like why are you guys just my engine's knocking and you guys are giving me Lucas?

Like?

No like.

I want to figure out what's what's what's bad, which lifters bad, before it takes out my whole engine like something's wrong with me.

Because, yeah, granted, like and this is, I speak for me and myself and my own experiences I Lived in one of the worst parts of Chicago.

I've been jumped, I've been chased and I was just like whatever man.

So my anxiety Isn't for me.

I don't think it's trauma-based like it is for some people, because you know you have to have, you have to know that Not everybody's experiences are the same right right.

Some people had had trauma and that's the reason why they have anxiety, ptsd or whatever.

Me, it just came out of the blue.

Why?

What did they?

What do they suggest to you after all the testing, even though it came back like, hey, your heart's fine.

Well, oh, okay okay, yeah, I guess this anxiety man You're having anxiety.

I'm like man.

So I One of our I remember like and one thing about me man is good or bad.

I've never shied away from Talking about my experiences because I always feel like maybe it'll help somebody.

My surgery, my gastric I remember when I was it was a little bit more taboo back then people were just like, oh, I would never tell anybody.

Why are you telling people your business like that?

Because maybe people are ashamed about it and they don't want to do it.

And they see me and it went well for me, then maybe it'll help them Mm-hmm.

I don't care.

So the same thing with anxiety.

I was just like man, guys, like I don't know, and I remember in one of the groups I can't, I really wish I remember what was.

Somebody posted a study in Japan about that process foods too much process foods have no nutritional value and and your and your body can't make its happy chemicals or it's, or stabilizing chemicals.

So I Started eating better, right up until, you know, my old man passed away, and that was, and he passed away 21.

We passed away in 21, between 21.

It wasn't too bad, but 22 man.

I Couldn't figure out for the life of me, dude, why my anxiety was so bad in 22.

It was horrible like it was.

It was just one relentless journey after the other.

Man and I.

It was so bad that I got put on a heart monitor because one day I was just sitting chilling and and I heard something and I got a little little little jumpy.

So I just jumped off.

I was laying down and I just popped up and I Felt my heart just going through the room, through room, through room, through room and I'm like, holy shit, this is it, and I mean I can say that now, but at the time dude, like my heart was.

Through, through, through like yeah, dude, and it literally like it lasted like six minutes, and so I told that to my dad.

I said, I think you know, luckily I was seeing my doctor at the time, but I was almost sure it was it was anxiety Because, like, I don't know if you've ever had an anxiety attack, but when, every time I have a bad anxiety attack, I get this weird feeling.

I call it the hangover.

Okay.

I get this weird feeling that lasts like a day or two afterwards, like this, that I'm still unsettled.

I think it's probably the adrenaline still in my body, or whatever yeah, unused adrenaline.

And so I go see my doctor.

I tell him that he's like you know what, man, let's, let's put you on a heart monitor, let's, let's just be safe.

Because, yeah, he's like.

I told him, like listen, I timed it like we.

We timed it from when it started to when I called my sister, because I was at this point, I was starting to freak out.

Yeah, obviously I mean and he, in two weeks went by, I sent the monitor in Get a call from him.

He's like, yeah, no, you have a couple like weird beats every so often.

He's like, but nothing.

And and you know, like I would, every time I would feel a certain way.

I would, I would hit the, I would hit the button.

Okay, no nothing Like I was on it for two weeks.

I'm like, okay, man, what the hell is wrong with me?

And that made my anxiety worse right, just not knowing people think I'm fucking crazy.

Yeah.

So I'm like, dude, what the hell is wrong with me?

So then I remember I went to I Remember this is my vacations this year and everything else do my stomach was so bad.

My stomach was so bad like I would have, like Like I wouldn't.

I didn't know how to explain it, but I started doing some research and it seemed like I had some sort of IBS.

Okay, so I remember I Was eating good again, right up until I had to go to Pittsburgh for a wedding I go meet up PJ Molesky and that night I started feeling like shit because I had a couple beers, that's pizza, whatever.

I don't even remember what I had, but I'm like, all right, it'll pass.

It was a little anxious on the way over after I ate Some garbage on the road we drove, yeah, but I thought I was anxious because I, I was in the middle of like a.

I was like on the edge of a blizzard on the night on the 90.

So it was kind of it's kind of shitty.

So I decided to cool it for the wedding.

I didn't want to have anxiety or anything at the wedding, so I didn't drink I thought alcohol because because I had a really bad panic attack in my high school reunion, which is a couple weeks before that, I was on the monitor.

Okay, that's how I know my heart's fine, because that night I was like.

Solid report.

I kept pressing the button, I was losing my shit and I Told, I told the wife I'm like man, like this fucking sucks, what the fuck is wrong with me.

Yeah, we at the wedding At the wedding, you know, I didn't drink any alcohol.

I said I'm gonna avoid it until I figure out what's wrong with me.

I just had a piece of meat and some veggies.

I was having a great time.

Everything was cool.

These people in Pittsburgh have this fucking tradition of they have they have, like this cookie table.

Okay, and they have to go boxes.

So basically, you take your to go box and then you fill it up with all the sweets and whatever.

And I went to town and I look like I'm a cookie.

I'm a cookie guy, dude.

I shit you, not man.

30 minutes later, dude, I'm losing my absolute shit Just sitting there.

I'm like I Start getting nervous.

And this time I'm like you know what, man, I'm fine, I didn't lose my shit, but, bro, I'm just what the hell is wrong with me and I just I did everything, and you know, like we were leaving because we had a drive back the next day.

So I cut it short, maybe if 20 minutes more than I wanted to.

So we just left.

I walked to the car, got to the hotel room, felt better a little bit, and then I just started reading and I'm like you know what, man, maybe it's my stomach, man, like, maybe it's issues with my stomach.

And so I started researching IBS stuff and what to do, and so I found some supplements and I decided to do.

It's called a FODMAT diet.

Basically, you, you, you.

You don't consume anything that can irritate your stomach.

No dairy, no chocolate, no, okay.

No processed foods, no gluten.

Basically just just proteins and veggies for Three weeks, I think, and then after that, you start introducing one, one, one, one by one.

Okay, so it's like an elimination thing, and then you're trying to figure out what's aggravating you.

Yeah, well, my stupid ass, I kind of forgot.

I started eating better and I started feeling better, so I just kind of forgot.

So then one day I get to a shop early he was, he was closed and I was really hungry, like I was stupid hungry, and I ended up going across the street to a Wendy's and I had like a two little sandwiches and some like stupid maple sticks or some shit, some french toast sticks.

Dude, I was diagnosing the car, that guy shopper, and I was losing my absolute shit, dude, my anxiety was through.

Like my heart rate monitor was like in the 140s, like dude I was.

I was losing it, like I was.

I was like, oh hell, no, I power through, I Powered through.

I finished my diet and I took off and I'm like dude, what the fuck?

And then it just I just didn't hit me there.

Two days later, my guy, bring some, chris, come up with some croissant sandwiches from Dunkin Donuts.

Okay.

I ate two of them like back-to-back, because I was really hungry for some reason.

And that's when it hit me, dude, like 30 minutes, 30 minutes later, dude, I'm over here wiggin the fuck.

I'm like.

Oh dude it's food.

Huh it's fucking food, like food is fucking with me.

So I realized that what did I eat those few times?

And it was gluten like, or heavy, heavy gluten meal.

Yeah.

Dude, I cut it up.

Okay, that same.

That same day I was like, all right, man, I, I finished this little stuff I had at the house.

We gave some stuff to my tub.

You know our family.

I went in about all all groceries and I went gluten-free.

Dude bro, I lost like 40 pounds.

Oh, this was at the end of last year till till now.

So yeah, I'm, I'm back, I'm back at 350.

Okay for the first time since 2016.

That's a.

I'm really glad to hear that.

That's awesome.

Yeah, so I I Don't know, I don't have an explanation, because I asked my doctor and he was just like well, it's helping you.

This didn't just keep doing what you're doing.

So I don't have any medical explanations of what's going on with me and this summer I kind of like slacked off a lot because, you know, outdoor party and stuff like that, when I was cooking barbecue, yeah.

So I slacked off and I can feel it like I feel the the anxiousness come back to me.

So when I eat too much, I can feel certain foods.

If it fucks with my anxiety and a lot of people be like, oh cuz, you're thinking about it.

No, I Don't, I don't think about it, I just I can be here, I could eat something and 30 minutes later Like I just start feeling it.

But I know, if I start Right now, one of my biggest issues is I kind of get like heart palpitations, or at least I think they are.

Yeah, but I really think that I'm just really out of shape.

Man.

I Did a 8-os calibration of their day and I woke up sore.

So I'm like you know what man I think?

I'm just Think I'm extremely out of shape.

So I've been power walking with my doggy every morning.

Okay, okay to try to get, to try to get some until until I can, and then after that I might just find a jammer.

Yeah or something.

Yeah, something to get the, the cardiovascular health, back where it's supposed to be.

Yeah, I can't relate to the anxiety attacks I've never experienced a sort of thing that you're talking about but I do know.

You know, once you transfer away from the really shitty diet right of just I mean what most people eat, right, just a bunch of processed foods and pizza and chips and Pop-tarts and yeah, everything comes in a wrapper and everything and you transfer away from it for a while for whatever reason right, I'm just trying to lean out, just trying to be healthier, whatever and then you go back to it.

I'll never forget I had I went to a Fantasy hockey draft a bunch of my buddies.

I've been eating really good for a while.

I was really trying to be on it and it was pizza and beer all night long and I hadn't eaten that stuff.

And, yeah, six months plus and I was so miserable for the next 24, 48 hours after that it felt like it felt like I had just Eating a big ball of like goo and it was like a 10 pound like bowling ball just sitting in my gut and it's like that was the way I used to eat on a pretty regular basis, right, for a long time and you

know you don't notice it so much when you're in it, right, but then you transfer away.

You start you know like, hey, this stuff's maybe not good for me, I should eat healthier.

And then, if you go back, that's like the really eye-opening period was like holy cow, this, this type of food, is really not good for my body.

Yeah, can I live on it?

Sure, but Is it healthy in any way?

It's delicious in the moment, but it's like that.

You know immediate gratification for something that's just destroying your body.

And like dude I, I read everything now like it's so disgusting how many ingredients there aren't food man, and you know you can make the case at all that science has said that it's safe and science has said is this?

Well, okay, but at one point in time science said it was okay to smoke.

Mm-hmm yeah.

I mean, you know we haven't Like.

This diet is new to us.

We've been eating the same shit for the last couple thousand years.

Yeah, yeah, till now we're running on really old software and things have changed a lot in the last hundred.

Man like our.

And then, to be honest with you, man, like if I've been going deep into this food stuff, man, like like really, really deep, like who, who told you that you can eat Doritos and Mountain Dew?

Those were.

Why are these why?

are these foods banned in other countries?

right.

Because communism?

No, it's because they're not good for you, like they're.

We're not supposed to be eating you.

But when you have organizations that like like, how are we okay with you?

Know, the head of the FDA used to work from insidio, like, or your stupid shit like that, right, like that.

And then, and then there's there's so much, there's such a rabbit hole with this man and I don't want to go into too much on the on the conspiracy side, but for me, like I can, I can focus on on me and my experiences and what I've done.

But but how come, if I go to the doctor and he sees my blood sugar up and my cholesterol up, how come he doesn't tell me the truth?

Hey, man, stop eating this, stop eating that, stop eating this, like.

As for gastric surgery, they make you see a nutritionist.

I I never went back because it was out of pocket.

It was like $200 every time I would see her and I had to see her once every six months for like the first three years or some stupid shit like that.

I don't like man and I was telling all what do you eat?

Oh, I ate a banana.

Okay, don't eat a banana, eat this.

It was like some sort of 100 calorie snack from Hershey's or something like that.

Hmm.

I'm like, how are you gonna tell me that a banana that we've been eating for the last fucking my people been eating for thousands of years?

Right is worse than this thing that was made somewhere.

Yeah what God knows what in it.

Yeah, well like it's the information that's been out there for a long time.

I Of like you, look at the food pyramid.

You're right.

I remember growing up that was on the plaster on the lunch room at school and like this is the important stuff up at the top and there's, as you go down, I guess the way now like more of the stuff that's important to me now it was down towards the, the bottom of the I.

Haven't even checked the food pyramid now, like I know they.

I know they yeah, I don't know if they've changed it recently or they changed it I heard somebody was talking about and saying how stupid it was.

But that the foods that are out there right now, you know, just in the grocery store, I feel like anybody should be able to go eat whatever they want, honestly, like there should be able to.

People should be able to make whatever they make.

Cheese, it's in Doritos, and that's fine, and people should be able to eat whatever they want, 100%.

But I I also think people should really be aware of what they're, what they're consuming, and For me, my, my perspective on it is is these things are designed Because I think it's just capitalism is the thing behind it and don't get me wrong, I fucking love capitalism.

Honestly, I don't want any to go anywhere.

But because they want to make a product that you want to buy as much as possible of, that's the goal, right.

And so they're gonna make these Foods delicious, right.

A bag of Doritos, a box cheese at freakin pop tarts, whatever lose, let's make them as good as possible.

And they're also calorie dense, right.

And they overcome any natural limiters that we might have when we're eating food, right, if you're just eating steak or vegetables or whatever, you're going to get full at a point and you've only ingested X amount of calories, whereas if you're eating things that have been, you know, hyper processed you're, you're it's, it's salts, fats and sugars that they're using and you're gonna overeat tremendously Compared

to if you're just eating whole foods, right, and I think really that's just like.

The biggest thing that people should be aware of is like, okay, what, what am I getting when I buy that?

You know, that thing in that box or that wrapper that's got, yeah, a hundred different ingredients.

But if you look at the, the caloric value in in something I Mean you can go as simple as like, obviously, candy and stuff, a Snickers bar, um, but just like even a granola bar, right, you think, oh, that's, but that's healthy, right, it's got granola, it's got nuts and fruit in it, or like a bag of trail mix or something.

We start looking at the calories that are in it when they start adding the, the sugars and stuff like that.

It's absolutely wild and it's so easy to overeat when those things are added to your food.

It's food density for me, like the more dense the food is, the less you need to eat of it and you get your macros, your protein yeah, you're your healthy carbs right.

But like man, it's it's.

It's so hard because, to be very blunt, we've just been programmed in this country, real world, real well, to eat like absolute fucking shit and eat a shitload of it Mm-hmm another thing that's helped me a lot is fasting again.

This is another in another rabbit hole thing that I did, but Not for nothing.

Man, I feel Better when I fast, like if I wake, like when I go on vacation, and usually like, oh you know, it's gonna get some breakfast, let's go get this, let's go that man, and like by two or three days I'm just like, oh, like I just I just feel so tired and lethargic.

But Like today I fasted to like three because I, I just I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't even hungry.

Like I just yeah, I didn't even realize what time it was and I'm like, oh, I think I should eat, so I ate and then Back to work.

Like you know, I just, I, just I for me, like, I just I don't.

I feel like Like the evolutionary, the way our bodies are built, like I think we need periods of starvation because that's how we've survived, I mean, and not not so much me, right, because here's our problem too Like depending on what part of this planet you evolved on, or your people came from, mm-hmm, that's, that's pretty much how your diet went like sure for example I'm assuming you're you came from European descent.

Yeah, we didn't have too many bananas, so you guys actually starved more because Nothing really grows in Europe and actually, like I read somewhere that you know, a lot of European Americans actually have the genetics to the To a process dairy.

Oh, because you guys sure you know you guys had cows and that was basically, yeah, what you had, what you had.

This side of the planet, like for example in Guatemala, food just grows on its own but Nana's, avocados, not pineapple so much, but typically a lot of the foods that might, my mind, ancestors ate.

They didn't really have to cultivate, they cultivated corn, but the state of staple foods, the fruits, they grew them so they never really starved.

So that's why, like when you see, when you see different genetic markers and people, like I said, I read another article saying about you know, about blood pressures a Lot of American, a lot of white, you know, white male Americans or people from European ancestry can actually live with higher blood pressures okay but you know you haven't.

You can have an Asian, you can have a, you know, african-american and a white guy and you guys can have different blood pressures and It'll affect you differently, like Asians can have cardiac issues you know African-Americans have kidney issues.

Those are the genetic factors for blood pressure and and stuff like that is just like man, it's just, and it's one of the biggest factors is how do we know we're eating what we're supposed to eat?

Mm-hmm.

That's the question.

Answer how to, how to dear know what they eat, how the polar bear knows that he's.

You see, I'm saying like.

Yeah, it's, it's a rabbit hole.

It's really fascinating to me.

Man Like I'm not I'm not an extremist, by no bit man, I'm and again, this is me, based off my experiences and based off how I, I Perceive myself.

But at the end of the day, it's like we, we, everybody does what they feel is right to live their life the best way they want to, and that's totally fine but yeah, no matter who you are or what your background is, there is, I think you should definitely be conscious of what you're putting in your body and if you decide, hey, you know Chips and candy bars and whatever, that's what I want to put in there, that's fine.

But just like, take some time to really understand exactly what that is.

See my problem is this man.

The part that I don't understand is everybody's.

Just like when I went gluten-free, all my friends go.

I mean, I'm Hispanic, so I have a bunch of Hispanic friends.

Uh-huh like oh my god, I could never do that.

I can't live without bread.

Blah, blah, blah.

I'm just like dude, I don't even miss it Like I don't.

It doesn't even bother me, I don't care.

Yeah because I feel good.

Yep.

And I feel fine, and here's, here's, here's the issue, and this is what people don't realize.

Yeah, you're right, we're all gonna go.

There's nothing we can do about it, we're all gonna.

We're all gonna meet our maker or whatever.

You believe in the Journey there, though, I've known, I've known older Hispanics, you know, that have had strokes, man and they're, they're, paralyzed from one side For something that they easily could have prevented mm-hmm you know.

So it's like which one, which one, which one is it?

Yeah, I mean, fine, I can do all this stuff to live better.

And then tomorrow, you know, I'm walking under one of these dump shops that I go to and his lift breaks and I'm there, you go, I'm done right, I don't know.

But for me and for what's in my control, I've never felt so clear-minded in my life.

And I'm talking about in my life, because when I was in and then I mentioned again, you know, school food isn't healthy when I was in high school, my high school school food was good.

It was a healthy when we had open campus.

So what did we go to get?

Mcdonald's or Subway or fast food?

or Chinese food or nothing healthy?

I've never eaten healthy in my life until now.

What right I cook my own meals?

What would you say?

Your diet?

Diet mainly consists of.

Now, I know you said gluten-free, but like what are you eating?

I'm gluten-free.

I honestly, man, I don't deprive myself of anything.

I just look, I just I just eat as Natural as possible.

Okay, um, oh.

What about?

We want burger fries?

No problem, I'm making myself.

Though.

Okay you know, I go get some some high quality ground beef and I make patty, I, I, I cook it myself and I chop my own fries, I air fry my own fries.

It's like, yeah, it takes a little longer, but I, but I, I fulfill that.

Yeah, I want a burger, you know.

And then I know what's in it.

Because if I go to McDonald's, why is it that I've seen McDonald's food two or three years old and it looks exactly the same, doesn't even stink.

Yeah, I've seen that before it.

Just it sits there and it's perfectly preserved.

Oh, it's disgusting, it's literally disgusting, that we're never eating it.

I mean, I did too, mm-hmm.

I just I can't do it anymore like I have no, and that's one of the things I can.

I don't like about going to training events anymore is just that there's this this time, when I went to vision dude, it was hell trying to find something to eat.

You know how hard it was going to since Eddie's and not eating gluten dude right.

It was I ate, I ate hey vegetables, hey vegetables, I ate a salad and I ate some chicken.

Yeah, hey, I mean.

It is really difficult if you want to go out to a restaurant and then Get something that's relatively healthy.

There's places, obviously, and there's things that you can find on the menu, but for the most part, and especially if you go into just kind of an average joint too right like if you go to the like a chilies or something like that it's really tough to get something healthy there.

That's.

That's another thing, man Like, I hate it, I hate it.

I've had people who asked me like oh, what did you do?

How did you feel better?

I'm like oh, what are you eating today?

Oh, and I tell them oh, I go with this.

This is my favorite store.

Oh, that's out of my price range.

Okay, cool, how many times a week did you eat out?

Last week?

Oh, I don't know, like four or five times, dude, before I went gluten-free, this was, this was last year, still probably in the fall.

I was really busy.

I forgot my lunch and I'm a feeder man, so so if I'm taking food to the shop, I I have to make sure that my my guys.

Okay, I had my little helper there, so I call him like oh, bro, I'm like, what do you guys feel like?

Oh, burger king, all right, cool, I'll get you some.

What do you guys want?

I Ordered nuggies for me, man, stupid, ten-piece nuggets for me, because I didn't really want to eat anything heavy or bread or anything.

I just figured that was the best, at least per se, the best thing I found for me.

I ordered a double, double whopper meal with a with a coke.

A Single whopper, just a sandwich Ten-piece nuggies dude, it was 30 bucks.

Geez yeah.

I'm like, I'm like do it.

So I took my, I took my.

Right now that I wouldn't gluten-free, I have a little disc or fire disc like a little disc.

I like a cowboy walk type of thing.

Dude, I just bought groceries.

Man, I was cooking at the shop.

Mm-hmm I.

Was just I would make breakfast.

I spent 20 bucks and I had to have breakfast for for for four of the four people.

Yeah so it's like Like yeah, no, we don't all have the same experiences, but my thing is like dude, like a family of Four right now to feed them some bullshit at Applebee's or whatever one of these fast food chain joints.

Dude, it's 60 to 70 bucks easy yeah and it's not even and it's not even food like it's, just it's not even great like it's.

So it's like dude that's.

You do that three times a week, bro.

That's almost three hundred dollars, man.

That's grocery money, man.

Yep, yeah, you save a ton of money by Shopping and cooking at home and bringing your meals.

If you bring, I don't know.

If it's an American thing, bro, or if it's programming, but I'm gonna know how many people like oh, I hate eating at home, I hate cooking and I just like, I'm just like well.

Do you?

it's probably because you suck at it, and that was me for sure, but I don't know how to do shit man, like I'm an Hispanic male, like we don't know how to fucking cook it.

I actually wanted to learn, but my mama just laughed at me.

She's like no, no, no, your dad will probably beat me.

So, no, I'll just cook for you.

And you know, I it got, I got with my, you know, with my wife, and she doesn't really cook either.

So it was we're eating odd all the time.

So I just I started with breakfast.

Yeah, I started making breakfast, got good at it.

I started just experimenting, reading, and now I'm just like dude I, I, I, just.

I go through phases, though.

Yeah you know, like this year was barbecue, one year was like it was.

It was uh, it was a heavy into Asian food.

Okay, okay I was making my own, like Chinese food.

Yeah.

Korean I've been doing a lot of steak lately at home.

I was, like I said, I never really knew how to cook or Like grill anything, but there's so much info out there.

You can watch all these YouTube videos.

It's, it's, it's, it's.

For me that's a lot of fun.

It is and then, and then, like now I can I cook for a group now.

Okay like I can cook, like I'll cook for a whole party, like I threw one of my good friends.

I threw him like a little birthday thing.

I smoked a bunch of food, I made some sides and Everybody's like man, this is great, and this is great and I'm just like, so they'll like, like for like for my birthday.

Everybody was like, oh, where did you want to go?

I'm like dude, I want to cook.

And you guys come over like, oh no, it's your birthday.

I'm like dude, why I can just make something.

I feel better.

I feel better eating it and then I enjoyed it and we saved money right.

So, do you know who?

Uh, robert pleasant in this.

Bro, that guy used to post some some crazy looking food man.

No right, that's what I was just thinking of when you were saying that he would.

He would post these like gourmet meals.

He got really really good at that cooking stuff, so I don't know if he listens to the show, but shout out to to Robert.

You know who also got me into like Like smoking food or barbecue is uh Pedro Sanchez.

Oh, okay.

Man he got me into.

He got me into smoking.

I had some ribs at his shop one time.

Whoo, I was like man.

So I started off with like a little.

I started off just buying little gadgets.

Man, I got bought me a little black stone, I bought me a little electric smoker and I just started practicing and how it's like, um, yeah, I love it.

Man Like I today, like my mom, she went out of the country on vacation and, uh, I hadn't seen her.

Man, I've been so busy with everything going on with me.

And she came, I, she, I picked her up, she came over and I just made her some breakfast and we just all hung out.

That's well.

It can be a big bonding thing too, like you're talking about too.

Um, I mean, obviously you can, yeah, go out to eat and hang out, but like actually making the food and eating it with people, it's pretty special.

You know and like.

Looking at my mom too, man, it was just no excuses either.

Dude, like my mom just cooked for all the scene.

That's one thing like, like, sometimes I'll see in the chats and people talk about like eating spaghettios or eating hamburger helper and eating like All this stuff.

And even with my wife, like she used to, like she introduced me to spam and and corned beef and I'm just like, yeah, she's like you never had anything like.

Like, dude, like you don't realize, my mom hated all this stuff she cooked and they called me like the non, the most non guatemalan, guatemalan guy.

Because, see, my, my mom was, uh, she's a her trade, she's her trade is she's a seamstress.

So she used to work for I don't want to call it sweatshots, but they were like factories here and um, but she used to work with all different ethnicities, man.

So, like man, my mom used to just make all types of different shit.

Like she never really cooked typical guatemalan food.

She would like, you know, one day she would make cabbage rolls, she would make oxtails, lasagna, uh, fried rice, or, and I'm just like I, I never, I, never, I never, question there.

Fried chicken like she made a really good fried chicken.

And when, when, not too long ago, I'm like like you know what?

Man, how come you never cook guatemalan food Like you?

Just you just cook all types of random ass shit.

Yeah.

She's like because the the ladies were where I, everywhere I used to work, they would take food.

They would take food and we would just share recipes.

Okay so I just never wanted to cook Regular food.

I guess, I don't know, she's like.

I just wanted to try something new and you guys were like my little guinea pigs.

Yeah, ox tail.

What does that taste like you never had ox tail?

I have not.

I Wasn't on the menu at the tipping hall household.

What did you grow up?

Eating like Gar typical american stuff garbage yeah.

I mean, my mom would cook, but a lot of times it's like hamburger helper or you know something.

Something came out of the box.

And no discredit to my parents, I, I don't want to put it that way, it's just like that's what we were presented with, and they grew up in a time where, you know, they never got to eat what they want, right, they had to just kind of skim by and eat that little can of spam or whatever.

And then now they're in a good position where they can go buy whatever they want from the store.

And so, yeah, let's, you know, let's get the the pizza, let's get the the box of whatever.

I didn't.

I, I didn't eat out out.

Like for us, when we're kids, eating out was a treat, dude.

Like we, we never ate out at all.

I at all.

Like I remember it was up until like I was Starting high school that my dad would be like on a Sunday.

He's like you know what I feel like let's order pizza.

Well, actually, no, let's go out to you, let's go to Olive Garden or let's go here.

I was already damn near 18 years old, like no, I'm sorry, I was like 14, 15 years old when it started and then, like, by the time I was 18, it was a little bit more common.

But dude it was like McDonald's was my for my birthday, dude, oh it was we grew up like that and Again, the eating out stuff, it was just because it was just cheaper for my mom to cook like she.

So she cooked like I remember, like she used to work for a Boutique place at one time up in like a really ritzy area in Chicago north side is the north side of Chicago and the owner loved my mom because, again, like my parents were hustlers, dude, and you know, obviously, like you work for, for, for you know, richer people, they have more expectations but they pay.

So a lot of times they would have ladies with last minute requests or things that need to be altered and they're like oh, we need to now charges, whatever you want.

So they would tell my mom hey, you want some OT, yeah, I'll take it.

So my mom would stay late and she said that the the lady would always give her like a 20 out, here's a 20.

Don't go home and cook, go buy him a pizza.

Yo, my mom would still come home and cook and she'd keep the money.

My parents also do.

They sacrifice and they did everything the right way.

You know, so it's like I never experienced that.

But you know, like, looking back, I I never, never really had that.

You know, like Like the whole process, stuff or the can stuff or stuff like that.

No man, I was my breakfast, lunch, dinner.

My mom always cooked, always cooked.

Yeah, we had.

The box is a cereal for breakfast and that's one of the ones I look back on.

I'm like how is that just like a accepted as a normal thing to eat a bowl full of sugar every single morning?

Garbage dude, and then people wonder why these kids are all wired.

Oh my god.

Yeah, I mean delicious.

Don't get me wrong, cinnamon toast crunch Like that's my jam, but it's it's so bad for you.

It's funny because I got home like my mom, our breakfast would be like it's for you to laugh, man, but I definitely had some Hispanic as breakfast dude.

It was always like it was either scrambled eggs or Eggs scrambled with with pieces of tortilla cut up, or eggs with fucking hot dogs, eggs and weenies, or we had the macaroni and hot dogs.

That was uh.

That was a staple for sure.

Yeah, so we uh, that was a staple for sure.

Yeah, so we, uh, that was our typical, typical breakfast.

My mom would always just fry us up an egg and we would eat that or where occasionally she'd be, like you know, she would make us sandwiches.

Um, but we would go to, we would go to school and sometimes, if we get there early enough, they would have breakfast, and I don't know they had these things called super, super donuts.

Okay and you know like I'll still like if I see them, I still they still eat them.

But yeah, they had that with milk and and or and or with cereal, or you know, just maybe like a breakfast biscuit stuff like that.

So nothing, nothing, nothing.

Good man Honestly like like our school lunch was.

Yeah it was, it was nothing but junk.

Man.

I remember like sometimes it would be sellsberry steak, sometimes it's hot dogs, sometimes it's burgers, sometimes it was pizza.

Italian dunkers and yeah, we'd get it pizza almost every single day.

I mean, you had options.

I think there was healthier options, but nobody had options doing what you?

what they had is what we got over kids.

When I got to high school they had like Look they, our high school had the lunch kind of catered per se, so they had like a a line that had burgers, a line that had nachos, a line that had An a la carte menu sure and then they had like a vegetarian line, I know, a pizza line, pizza line, okay, so that's, that's.

That was our school, so it was a step above.

But all the cool kids ate outside, so you know you got to go get that two dollar daily double at McDonald's.

My dad, I only had $10 to spend a week.

My senior, my sophomore year man, yeah, dude, like we, we struggled a bit.

Man, like I grew up poor, I grew up what I would consider, you know, realistically, it's not even poor.

I got in.

Grow up poor.

I just I grew up without the extras.

Mm-hmm you know, I had food, I had clothes.

I didn't everything anything else that I wanted I had to get and you know I don't blame my parents for for what I was man it could, because to them I was living in.

I was living in.

I was living the life.

You know, my dad was 12 years old when he got his first, first pair of shoes, like my dad.

When you talk about poor, my dad was poor, like my father was poor, and they grew up really poor and it was a typical Hispanic House where there were six.

There were seven children, six of them were women and only one man, and and and and my grandpa.

So they had a.

My dad, as soon as he was able to walk man, he was working.

My dad worked as he was a kid, so.

So their diet consisted of they had cows and they didn't eat meat.

They eat chicken once a week.

On Sundays they had, they had chicken soup, basically called the boy, but during the week it was just beans for breakfast, beans for dinners, beans with cheese sometimes, or beans and tortilla sometimes, but that was that, was it.

Sometimes you get some rice, but typically, man, that's all he ate.

So for him they didn't know any better.

They just like oh man, we made it.

We're feeding our kids meat every day.

Right, right yeah.

Even though I was, we were shopping at Aldi.

I don't know if you guys have.

You guys have an Aldi.

Yeah, we got those up here.

It's not as good as it is now.

I'll tell you that back when we were kids, we used to have that fake cheese Because it was 20.

It was 20 cents cheaper.

So I mean I can't, I can't be mad at our, at my parents, just so.

Just like you, man, like yours.

Here's our opposite like, but in levels, man, my parents grew up like with nothing and they were like really proud that they were able to give us what they did.

Yeah yeah, I think that's exactly the same sentiment.

The, they would say is like they were just trying to provide the best for us and a lot of it for a lot of people.

When we're talking about these things, it's just, it's just knowledge about what this is, and and even my parents right in the last Five to eight years, they switched over to like a keto style diet, where they've eliminated a lot of carbohydrates out because they were both pretty significantly overweight, especially for their age, and They've recognized it and the health issues that come along with it, and so they they cut that stuff out and it's again they're so happy

with where they're at as far as losing weight and being healthier and stuff like that.

And it Just goes to show like you don't realize the stuff that you're putting in your body If you don't take the time to figure it out, and then you can end up in a really unhealthy spot because of it.

So damn and I feel I feel bad for for this.

This generation especially like, like technicians, man and and, and I the god amount of people who drink Monsters and Red Bull like it's water and I don't know.

I just dude ever since, sir, so ever since I was, I was I don't want to say it was a huge soda drinker, but I drink a lot of soda.

I don't think as much as I don't consider myself a lot, and it wasn't like one of those things where I had to have soda.

But no, I think I may have drinking, at my highest, maybe two to three cans of coke a day.

Okay right, it's not little, but it's not like.

I know people who used to put in a two-liter a day.

Oh, dude, I was.

I was addicted and I bet you you can probably guess the pop I was addicted to because I'm out and do probably, yeah, not.

Not only that, it was the diet mountain do.

It's like the whitest drink that you can drink.

You know who's addicted to that shit is, and I'm gonna hear it from him as fucking fans, jesus.

Christ.

We're in class one time and I saw a case of Mountain Dew and I'm just like bro, you guys didn't buy enough Mountain Dew for all.

The white people are gonna be there.

I was like oh no, we're gonna be fine.

Yeah, by break time it was gone.

Yeah, I was like oh.

I.

Yeah, I did give that up a few years ago Because it just it does.

It almost feels like it's addicting, because I remember.

I remember the day I was like I'm gonna quit drinking, this isn't good for me, and I'm just like I'm like, oh wow, I really want one right now.

That's weird.

And so I made a pretty concerted effort and I'll buy the, like the bubbly water stuff, just to Give up gluten.

Man, I felt like a crackhead dude.

I was anxious every day for about three weeks, man.

Yeah, I mean dude, it's, it's, it's wild and and you know I was, you know, talking about soda, like like, because of gas week surgery, they tell you you're not supposed to drink alcohol or drink soda, and for a minimum six months okay.

So about seven or eight months went by and you know, cherry coke is my shit Like that was the soda that I love drinking and I had one with some with some food and Bro, like, aside from the fact that I felt like my stomach and inflated itself, bro, I felt sick drinking it.

Mm-hmm.

So I just I never, so I never drink it.

I mean, I get a taste for it every so often and I just tell my wife a one sure soda, yeah, okay, and I'll take like two sips and I'm like all right, yeah, the like, the, the taste leaves me, and then I remember why I don't like drinking it.

Yeah.

So, dude, I like drink now is either juice like like fresh squeezed juice from like a grocery store, like actual juice, not a pasteurized Tropicana stuff, no, I like from a juicer.

Mm-hmm.

Like cold pressed juices or water.

Man.

Yeah, or teas.

That's it, man.

I don't drink anything else.

I can drink water all day long.

I got no promises I don't need.

I don't need any bubbly water.

I don't need.

I don't need nothing, man I I was a big beer drinker too, and right now that I gave up gluten, I stopped drinking alcohol.

I said I had stopped before that because I I thought that alcohol was making my anxiety worse.

I'm sure it wasn't helping that messes with your heart rate, for sure, egg, exactly.

So, yeah, so so, aside from that, and then you know, obviously the gluten that's in, because I'm a beer guy.

I'm not, I'm not really an alcohol guy, it was more of a beer guy.

I just gave it up and I just, I don't, I don't care anymore, man, I take a couple of seltzers here and there when I'm hanging out with my buddies or whatever, and I just wanted to and I'm fine, man, like I, I, I, I like where I'm at health wise now, and like I'm 39 years old and I'm so like I look at my vitals, man, and I look at where I'm at.

The other day I kind of felt a little off, man, I don't know I had, I had, I had forgot that I, for that, had ran out of a supplement and.

I had stopped taking it and I forgot the order.

Oh so I was feeling a lot of.

I had forgotten.

I'm just like you know what man?

I feel a little flush, whatever.

Let me see where my my BP is For shits and giggles.

I just check my blood pressure, dude.

It was like 113 over 79 or something like that.

I'm always so bad with those numbers, I always forget what's good and what's bad so Text like that, that right there that number is for a very extremely healthy textbook number okay.

What I, what I I've seen on the chart gotcha.

Hypertension, if I'm not mistaken, is Between 130 to 140 over like 90 or 100 or something like that.

Yeah, I'm not I'm not super good with the numbers, but I know that my, my BP, my blood pressure, was going up like I had went to a couple of doctors appointments and they're like yeah, man, if you don't lose weight, you're going on meds, so that's.

That was another reason why I kind of start cutting off some of the the garbage and yeah.

What's to get my BP down?

Yep, that's I mean.

You got to start thinking about that stuff, especially now, regardless of you know what state you're in or whatever.

As your like I'm I'm just a couple years younger than you and you know you start getting up towards 40 and 50, and then they're like okay, well, now I really got to pay attention to these things.

I actually need to go get my blood pressure checked, like I need to have have a physical, those sort of things and like I tell my, my friends, because they complain about their kids, and I'm just like, like you know, aside from the fact that you should lead by example, why wouldn't you want to be healthier, like, why don't?

You stop eating this garbage.

Yeah right.

Like what's, what's, what's what's so bad about telling like, hey, don't eat this all, but in school they're gonna eat it.

Yeah, but if, if You're showing them and then you're teaching them how to eat healthier, that doesn't matter.

Because I I Hung out in restaurants while I was.

Well, I was first trying to, you know, give up gluten.

I went out to eat with all my friends.

Everybody was eating desserts and all this other stuff and I just I had a salad and water.

Yeah, yeah.

Doesn't matter, I still had a good time, nothing changed.

I Don't have kids, and so it's one of those things like I, I'm speaking from the outside, but it always blows me away when I see somebody with a little kid, I mean just a couple years old, and they're giving them some sort of like yeah, crazy dessert or something that's just like just full of sugar.

And I mean not that you shouldn't let your kids have dessert or treat themselves, but that If, if that consists so much of their diet right, that's now what they're gonna be used to as they're developing as a person, right, and that's the sort of things that they're just gonna want on a daily basis, you just you're setting them up in In the wrong direction.

But again, I don't have kids, so you know no, I don't.

I don't have kids either, but I I've been around it and Seen the outcome of when you worry.

It's more about Leaving your children with Material stuff than actual important things, and I feel like health is Probably the most important thing.

You can, you can't, you can't buy it once it's gone, it's gone, it's not coming back.

Yep that's one thing about our industry too, man.

Like we don't like it, that almost seems people don't give a shit about their health in our industry, man like.

Work out, we work ourselves to death.

You Like, how many times have you seen people's like I remember, like I don't know what one of the groups like, like all this, let's see that snack drawer.

There's nothing but cookies and cakes and chips and monsters and red bulls and nothing like.

I've never seen a snack drawer that has an apple or some granola or Something healthy.

Yeah and I guess that man it's.

It's either programming or conditioning, or or maybe that's just how you want to live your life, man.

You know I, I don't judge nobody, I just I can just speak on on how I feel and how I live my life and how I want to live my life now.

Yeah you know, and even like, like, like.

Sometimes you know people will have her had a friend that shared some stuff about that 600 pound life show.

I mean I lived it.

You know, I wasn't as bad as them.

I still got up to do my stuff, like I just.

But I, I came really close to being there and Some guy had the other day to just say some stuff like Like, how can you live with yourself that way?

Then?

How can you even, like, just not put a stop to it and say you know, enough is enough and we're gonna do that?

I'm like, dude, you smoke the pack of cigarettes.

Since I met you in high school, why don't you stop smoking?

I said the only difference is you can, you can't you, I said.

I said you can, um, your.

Your addiction is.

This is not, is it relevant?

Nobody cares if you smoke or not.

People always want to make fun of fat people, I'm like, but it's to say what, what's?

What's the difference between me and you?

Yeah you're smoking yourself to death, exactly so.

Yeah, and so many people They'll.

They'll do these those types of things or just be unhealthy in general, especially when they're younger, and I can speak to those personally because you can get away with it easier Not everybody, but you can.

A lot of people can get away with it in their 20s Just eating like crap, not taking care of themselves, not sleeping, and you're more resilient.

You can.

You can be fine and do your job good in spite of it, but that doesn't transfer 20 years on the road.

So bad man.

I was so bad in my 20s.

Mm-hmm.

I was horrible.

Aside from my horrible diet and eating out all the time, bro, I used to.

I used to party.

I had a spot every night of the week.

Jesus Christ, I hope Dutch doesn't hear this but how much money I used to spend on Partying, women, alcohol, it's ridiculous.

I could have, I've, could I have man, man, I Don't you know what man, it happened for a reason, yeah, you know right.

But yeah, dude, it was a total waste of time, man, it really, it really was man.

And I am a waste of my health as well Because, they know, obviously you're not gonna be healthy if you're drinking.

I'm a beer guy and you know what.

What would I do?

I would go to the shop, like, like, the party section In my 20s was a couple miles east of the shop.

There was a couple, and then, you know, in Chicago, most of the places close like a four in the morning.

Mm-hmm.

So a couple times that dude I would just Get dropped off at the shop.

Man, I'd open it up, fall asleep.

My guy would walk in at eight o'clock and I, you know, I'd send him to go to get some McDonald's.

I eaten to work and do it again.

I'm sweating off.

Yeah.

Again, not a care in the world man.

Mm-hmm.

And now it's just like I don't drink enough water.

I feel like that's.

That's the thing.

You know.

You recognize it more now as you get older.

But think about, like, how much better you could have been At, you know, at that point, had you been eating right, getting enough sleep, get I feel meant like aside from the physical stuff, like you, know, I destroyed my knees working on concrete kneeling on concrete, since I was a little yeah when I worked on at the shop Aside from from that dude, like I feel better now this last year or year or so that I completely cleaned up my diet.

I feel better now, more clearer, more.

I have more, more energy.

My thoughts are better, I can concentrate more, I'm not as easily as distracted, like like I've never had this before and before the 39 years that I've been on the rock.

I say 39 because I I'm gonna enjoy that, that three until I can.

I'm gonna be 40 and March.

Yeah, that's, that is a tough one to look forward to.

I want to.

I want to maintain it as long as I can too.

But yeah, well, dude, that's.

Thank you so much for for sharing your story.

I mean, that's real personal stuff and I really appreciate.

You know I've had people reach out to me and I sure, I sure.

Whatever man, I'm an open book, I don't care.

As long as somebody help it, help somebody man, then it was worth it.

Well, yeah, that's the thing you say.

You know somebody else out there is, you know, struggling with something similar and Maybe afraid to talk about it or reach out to help, or, you know, for help to somebody, and I mean that's, hey, we're all going through something and I, yeah, I really appreciate you sharing and talking about this stuff.

It's, it's a subject that's kind of near and dear to my heart and I've I've done some episodes on, you know, health and exercise and that stuff, and and not cuz, not cuz, I just want to talk about it, but like I really do believe that it can make a difference in people's lives if you put some effort and Discipline into it, it should really change every.

It's just discipline, but you know real quick before we go.

Yeah the one thing I can tell you guys is that if you just stick to discipline it, it affects the rest of your life in every aspect your work, your career, whatever man.

But if you, if you're disciplined to be able to control what you're eating and the whole, like the, the social norms that we have now that go against being healthy and eating healthy, do you disguise the limit, man.

Yes, sir.

All right, that's gonna do it for today's episode.

Thank you, tommy, for joining me and sharing that with everyone really appreciated and I really hope some people out there get some benefit from his Journey and his experiences.

But also like to thank everybody out there for listening to the show, all the feedback I get on the show always appreciate that stuff, so keep it coming.

But with that all out of the way, let's get out there, start fixing the world, one card at a time.

222: Health Is Wealth With Tomi Oliva

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