From Strict Upbringing to Entrepreneur: Travis Chappell's Journey to Holistic Health and Success

Ever wondered how someone transitions from a strict religious upbringing to becoming a successful entrepreneur and influencer? Join us as Travis Chappell shares his incredible journey from a door-to-door salesman to a founder, investor, speaker, and podcaster. Growing up in an Independent Fundamental Baptist community in Southern California, Travis reveals how his early environment shaped his worldview and the challenges he faced while making a career shift. From earning six figures at a young age to realizing he needed more fulfillment, his story underscores the power of mindset and internal work in achieving true success.

Travis opens up about his personal battles with weight gain and addiction, offering an in-depth look at his fitness and nutrition journey. Discover the trials and errors he encountered while trying to master a healthier lifestyle. He emphasizes the importance of proper education in nutrition and how seeking help from a registered dietitian transformed his approach to food. Travis's candid discussion about overcoming identity struggles and shifting his mindset to embrace a holistic healthy lifestyle provides valuable insights for anyone on a similar path.

Grief and its profound impact on mental and physical health also feature prominently in this episode. Travis recounts dealing with significant losses and the eating disorder that ensued, highlighting the crucial role of therapy and self-awareness. Through personal anecdotes and practical tips, he offers a roadmap for developing a healthier relationship with food and navigating the complexities of emotional well-being. Don't miss this inspiring conversation that covers everything from career struggles to achieving holistic health, both mentally and physically.

Chapters

• 0:00 Travis Chappell
• 4:40 Struggles With Career and Weight
• 17:25 Overcoming Identity and Nutrition Struggles
• 21:11 Recovery, Identity, and Nutrition Journey
• 28:06 Identity, Action, and Self-Improvement
• 33:36 Nutrition Journey and Healthy Habits
• 42:50 Embracing a Healthy Relationship With Food

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back everybody to the Truth About Addiction. I have a really special guest today who is actually helping me get on other people's podcasts and in return, as a favor, I ask that he come on mine. This guy has such a cool story and what he is doing with his life is pretty remarkable. Travis Chappelle is a door-to-door salesman turned founder, investor, speaker and podcaster. He is the founder and CEO of guestiocom and the host of the top ranked podcast, travis Makes Friends, where he's interviewed people like Shaquille O'Neal, rob Dyrdek, grant Cardone, josh Peck, molly Bloom, jasmine Starr, john Maxwell and hundreds of others, jasmine Starr, john Maxwell and hundreds of others. In addition to being a guest on top podcasts like Bigger Pockets, eo, fire and Born to Impact, travis has been featured in Forbes.

Speaker 2: 1:33

Entrepreneur, techcrunch, bloomberg and dozens of other media outlets. Let's dive in Breaking the circuit making it work.

Speaker 1: 1:47

Welcome back everybody to the Truth About Addiction. I'm really excited about this conversation, as most of my conversations lately, this one is not a traditional tale of substance abuse with a moment of reckoning and rock bottom into lived sober experience. It's a totally different story, and Travis is a new friend. I met him recently at an event called Build your Brand, and what I learned about Travis in a very short time is he has really done just that so much so that I'm now a client of his, which is really exciting. We're both in the podcasting space and we're going to hear about his own struggle with what we may or may not consider an addiction, something that we all deal with every 24 hours, and so much more in terms of the business he's built and how he's scaling it and growing it, and how important it is to have the right mindset and to continue to do the internal work on yourself so that you can have the external success that we're all so desperately looking for. Travis Chappell, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Speaker 3: 3:12

Samantha, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It's always a blast to see a familiar face and have a formal conversation.

Speaker 1: 3:20

Amen to that. I'd love if you could take the listeners back in time a little bit. Just give us a backstory about where you came from, how you were raised, maybe your relationship to things that are outside of you that made you feel good and we'll go from there.

Speaker 3: 3:39

Sure yeah. So I was raised in Southern California in a very strict religious community called Independent Fundamental Baptist, so a lot of people would call it a cult.

Speaker 3: 3:53

I don't like the term cult because it's just like a triggering word and it makes it seem like I grew up with 80 brothers and sisters on a compound and stuff like that. It's not really like that, but it was very strict, very traditional. We didn't associate with anybody outside of our group, type of a thing. And then I say a bubble because I graduated kindergarten on the same campus, I graduated eighth grade from, and high school and college, so all on the same campus was also where my church was. So that's what I mean by bubble is just like all of my influences were just in this one place. You know, like my my teachers were my youth pastors and my youth pastors they were all the same authority. It was all like co-mingled together. My friends, my church friends, were my school friends. My school friends and my church friends, my teammates, were my church, like everything was the same.

Speaker 3: 4:40

Um, so coming out of that, uh, I realized I did not want to be in ministry, which was that the college that's on that campus is purely ministerial um college. So I got my double. I double majored in Bible and church ministries and when I graduated I realized I didn't want to do that and I didn't at that point have anything, you know, that qualified me to do anything else. I was 21. I had an unaccredited Bible degree, which even an accredited Bible degree doesn't really get you many jobs, but an unaccredited Bible degree is even more useless. And so I just did the only thing I knew how to do, which was sales. I did door-to-door sales in college to make extra money, and so I figured, well, this door-to-door thing, you know, I'm pretty good at it and it makes pretty good money, and if I, um, you know, put my all into it, I might be able to make some decent money doing this. And so I put, for my first time, my first full-time year doing door-to-door when I was 22,. I made six figures and I thought like this is going to be, you know, this is going to be awesome. And then something happened after that that I was like, oh well, apparently not. It was just, basically, I had I had achieved what my goal was, which was hit six figures knocking doors, and after that I was like I don't want to do this forever. So it was kind of one of those weird things where I was like, okay, well, now what do I do? I know I don't want to do the thing that I'm qualified to do, which is the ministry, and I know I don't want to do the thing that I go from here. What do I do?

Speaker 3: 6:02

Um, I applied for a bunch of sales jobs and nobody would hire me, oddly enough. Um, a lot of them didn't even get to the interview process, but a couple of them, I think maybe I was a little bit too cocky or something, as a 22, 23 year old, uh, coming in there. But, um, in my opinion, even now to this day, like they were they were they were dummies for not hiring me, cause I would have crushed whatever sales records they had at the time. Cause I was. I was young, ambitious and hungry and I had a wife and a mortgage to pay. You know what I mean. Like it was, I bought my first house at 21. So it wasn't like I could just go sleep on my mom's couch until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. I had real bills. Like I had everything that an adult has at 21, um with a wife and a house and all this other stuff.

Speaker 3: 6:41

So, um, yeah, I didn't didn't really know what to do and around that time. So what happened was I played basketball. I was always athletic, I was all constantly playing basketball growing up. I was in the college basketball team at this small schools like a D two and AI type school, and, um, I got injured my sophomore year and then my junior year I got surgery on my ankle reconstruction surgery, and so after that, um, I was just, I was always too short to play any big roles in basketball. I'm six one, so I'm not short in general, but like in basketball, that's really short. So I wasn't tall enough to be a big and I wasn't after my surgery. I wasn't quick enough to be a guard. I was a little bit too slow to step behind everybody. I was paying all the time. So I was just like, why am I doing this? So I quit playing basketball, quit playing basketball.

Speaker 3: 7:27

Then I got married, then I moved away from home for the first time ever and I felt like the sense of freedom that I ever had before, where I was just like I can do whatever I want, and there's not. You know, I moved away from this like bubble. For the first time ever I was doing door to door, but it was a hundred percent commission door to door, so I didn't have to go to work at certain hours. It was just like whenever I wanted to work I would work and then you know however much you work. That's how much you get paid. Um, so it was. It was very much like this freedom year, but what happened during that year is that, uh because, uh because I had kind of eaten whatever I wanted to when I was growing up, because I played so much basketball and such great cardio that I blew up like that first show. I was like 195, 200 pounds after I graduated college and then within a year and a half I was 250 pounds. So I gained 50 pounds and that's kind of you know what we're kind of talking about. Pre pre-recording.

Speaker 3: 8:19

This was that it was during you know kind of that food addiction era. I told you I was like I'm not a hundred percent sure it was an addiction, like I don't remember feeling like a compulsive need to go eat food or that. I was like filling a void inside of me or something when I ate. It was just complete lack of awareness around how food affected my body, around, uh, around how much, how much exercise and cardio I was doing before, and that that didn't happen anymore, even though, like I was staying in the gym, I felt like I was, you know, being, quote, unquote athletic. Um, I was still like lifting weights and stuff like that. It was just like, oh well, we're going from a you know 1500 calorie workout to a 400 calorie workout. It's like, well, that's not as much, you know. And around the same time is when I discovered hanging out with other people and we started drinking beer more and stuff like that, and I.

Speaker 3: 9:14

I'd never like growing up, that was like that's a major sin in how I grew up. So like I didn't start drinking until I was like 23,. But then I started drinking and it was with all the door to door crew and we drink several nights a week and hang out at somebody's house and, um, or the office or whatever. And so, like I said, I was drinking a lot of beer, I was, I was eating whatever I wanted to, because I was just like this is the first time in my life I felt like I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted. So I did it, um, and I lost, uh, 50 pounds within like a year and a half of noticing I needed to lose it.

Speaker 1: 9:53

Wait, wait, wait. I need. I need to stop you because there's so much you've said, but, but right now it's so fascinating people who are really successful and who are well on the other side of some messy point in their life. Talk about the switch without going all the way there.

Speaker 1: 10:15

And my most fascinated place with getting to know people is that dark, gross pit of despair, right, so nobody gets from.

Speaker 1: 10:29

And you're right, I would agree, based on what you just said, by the way, that your whole situation sounds way more like, first of all, normal individuation of a young child coming out into adolescence and early adulthood, and that yours might've taken a little longer, based on the bubble you were in and also just trying things on and going oh God, I can't actually get away with that.

Speaker 1: 10:59

I mean, I remember the moment where I could eat McDonald's as a snack between lunch and dinner and then eventually I started gaining weight from it and I was like this is not going to work anymore. Right, so it doesn't sound so much like an addiction, as much as it sounds like a lack of awareness, as you said, but there had to be a moment where you were woken up somehow, where it wasn't just you know you, you gain a certain amount of weight and it's like whatever, like we can kind of coexist in these weird spaces where we're not quite clear on what we need to do to change, but we know things are shifting in a way that is different from the way we'd like to be living that gross limbo. And then there's the reckoning, where you're like no, I won't do this. What was that for you? Did something happen?

Speaker 3: 11:58

where you were struck sane.

Speaker 3: 12:00

It was basically like I didn't realize it was happening. It really is the answer there's just like I, you know, I wore kind of baggier clothes, but not really from a position of like I want to look good. It was just more like I didn't care about what I wore. So I just wore like my polo for knocking doors, or I wore a shirt from two years ago and you just like, didn't think about it. And then, um, it was a Christmas party at at the door to door company. I was working at, um, where, uh, yeah, end of the year, everybody's going to be there, um, and it was the first thing it.

Speaker 3: 12:37

You know, growing up I was always wearing like formal attire. I was. I always had suits and button ups and ties and all that stuff. We had to wear them to school every day and stuff. So when I graduated again, it was one of those things where I was like, yeah, I'm just wearing t-shirts from now on, um, and uh, and I'm not shaving, I'm growing a beard, um, so at that time I was just like I, I, I didn't, I didn't own like a bunch of nice clothes anymore. So I had to go shopping for this Christmas event thing, um, cause it was just, it wasn't formal attire or anything. They were just like, oh, you know, come in, you know some some decent looking clothes. And I went to go put on some pants that I hadn't put on a while. I was like, oh, these are a little too small, let me go. You know, go shopping or whatever.

Speaker 3: 13:16

So I go shopping and, um, I had to buy a pair of 38 waist pants, and that was like the moment that I realized it was like one of those like moments you can't deny, because you can deny as much as you want, like you can deny for so long what's happening and just have a complete, again, lack of awareness. But it's lack of awareness, but also it's almost like a subconscious choosing to be unaware because you don't want to change those, those things about yourself, um, and so I think that's probably what it was like subconscious lack that was done on purpose. It was like I don't want to have to look in the mirror and face this problem that's growing in front of me. But then you finally reach a point where it's like I can't avoid this anymore. And that's where it was, where it was like I tried on three different pairs of 36 is because the first one I tried on, I was like, oh, it must be the brand. You know what I mean. It must be, it must be like they they just make these ones smaller these days, or whatever.

Speaker 3: 14:09

Um, and then, uh, so I tried on another one didn't fit. Tried on another one didn't fit, and I had to go buy it and I was like, let me just go try these 38s on and they fit. I was like, oh no, this is significantly bigger than I thought I was, so I had to buy that one pair of 38s. I kept them, by the way, they're still up in my closet somewhere Um and uh. But as soon as I, as soon as I bought those, like that, next month was like the beginning of like all right well, let's, let's get back into, let's get back into shape here, wow.

Speaker 1: 14:46

So I just want to take a second because this is really, really important for the person listening. Right, my story is riddled with overdoses, near deaths, lots of deaths of the people that you would want, based on the bubble you were in, to try everything, to do everything, to be totally uncensored. Nobody's going to tell me how to live, what to eat, what to wear, how to show up. I get to do this myself, even if you're not realizing it's from that space. Like to me, that subconscious operating program is a direct result of what you went through growing up and how restricted your life was. And then, like every type of change and we could just be talking about the physical body period, like having an injury right, there's probably plenty of people listening to this.

Speaker 1: 16:06

I am a doctor of physical therapy. I've had so much experience with my clients with this. They're walking around their bodies, keeping score, of course, talking to them achy in certain places. Finally, they throw their back out. They can't do anything for three weeks and they're at that crossroads, like you, trying on the pants, like me when my marriage was falling apart and I really had to choose whether I was living or dying. And then what was I going to do from here?

Speaker 1: 16:40

We operate under these programs until something wakes us up for a second, for a second we don't have a long window in that space where we become awake and aware and willing to change. And then the real work starts right. And that goes for anyone listening who's struggling with anything that could be at a job you hate, in a friendship where you're the giver and you never receive, in a relationship that you feel dead inside of we're talking about. Everyone's story is different, but that was that moment for you. So tell me, you had an awareness. And then what was it? Just a mindset shift? Uh, I am completely done doing this, like how would you even have known what steps to take to start making changes in your life at that point?

Speaker 3: 17:40

Yeah For, uh, so there's one thing that I think I was able to skip as a part of that process. That it that it takes some people some time to work through, and not because I was able to skip as a part of that process. That it that it takes some people some time to work through, and not because I was amazing or anything.

Speaker 3: 17:53

It was just that it was hardwired in me. Um, and that's identity, uh, I I never, I never once, looked at myself as being like a fat person, even though, like BMI, I was, like I was technically obese at that time, like I was, you know, 50, 60 pounds overweight I was probably. I never took my body fat percentage, Thank God Cause I didn't want to know what it was, but it was probably over 30%, you know, and uh. But since I had grown up being an athlete and playing sports, all the time in my mind I still thought as a thought of myself as being an athlete and sports all the time in my mind I still thought of myself as being an athlete. And when I realized that the results that I had in my life at that time didn't match up with my identity, I think it was like a little bit easier for me to shift back into being like athlete Travis, versus like just staying in this other mode. Now, the thing I did not do very well was nutrition, and that wouldn't, you know, really fall into place for me really, until a year and a half ago or so. I struggled with that for years afterwards, like, from that point, like I said as soon as I realized it, I like I can be hyper-disciplined for bursts of time, and so I just like, went very restrictive and dropped like 30 pounds in three months and then took me another six months to drop the final 20 pounds. But by the end of like that year, where I had committed to doing it by like from the beginning of 2016 to probably, let's say, beginning of 2017, maybe three, four months into 2017, probably not all the way 2017, maybe maybe three, four months into 2017, probably not all the way halfway through the year, I was probably down to 200, 205 within a year and a half. So I both gained and lost 50 pounds within three years, um, and still have the stretch marks to prove it, by the way, cause it happened so fast, um, but then, from that point on, I went from 200 to 225, back back down to 200, up to 230, back down to 205, to 215, to 200, to 223, to 200.

Speaker 3: 19:57

And just like kept this yo-yo thing going on because, like the athlete part I had nailed down, I was going to the gym all the time.

Speaker 3: 20:02

I was regularly, you know, doing um athletic things or regularly moving my body, like regularly engaging in those activities, um, but the nutrition part was was the part that I I I struggled with for a really really long time, um, because it was difficult for me to rewire how I thought about food, um, and frankly, frankly, it's just work, it's.

Speaker 3: 20:21

It's a lot of work to really sit down and figure out how your body reacts to certain types of foods, or what macronutrients are best for the way that you go throughout the world, or you know if fasting works or fasting doesn't work right. There's just a lot of things to test and try, and I tried all of it along the way and most of it never worked for me until I just rewired the way that I thought about food, um, which was, you know, last year sometime, and since then I've, you know, not really gone over 200 pounds, um, and I even got down to one, 78 last year, which I didn't think was possible. That was like what I weighed when I was like a junior in high school and never thought I could get down to that weight again. Um, so, yeah, it was, it was, uh, it was a lot of work in the in-between time, without knowing exactly how it was going to turn out. Um, but uh, but yeah, but yeah, it took several years of work to try to figure it out.

Speaker 1: 21:11

Wow, okay, a couple of things. I think what you said about identity is so important because, again, what I'm hearing sitting from the seat of recovering addict, recovering perfectionist, is that you were really able to separate the behaviors over eating Okay, yes From who you were as a person.

Speaker 1: 21:40

Whereas in my case, until I had all of the support and the right people entering my life at the right time to say you know, you might actually be a good person who made bad choices, as opposed to a bad person who made bad choices. It took me almost dying and I think addicts die a lot before they reach a place where they actively work on themselves to clear the shame and you didn't have to do that. You already knew that is something that you did. Those were choices that you made, but it wasn't who you were, and that is so crucial. So if you're the person listening who doesn't have that strong sense of identity, who's really living in a shame spiral? Shame thrives in the dark. Shame thrives in secret. It reminds me of a cockroach. You shut all the lights off, the cockroaches come out. That's like the shame floodingach. You shut all the lights off, the cockroaches come out. That's like the shame flooding yourselves. You turn the light on, you speak about it, you tell somebody how you're speaking to yourself, the things going through your head, and all of a sudden the cockroaches scatter, and so you might not be as lucky as Travis and have that sense of identity. And that is so critical. And I think underneath that is are we living with shame? And if we are, who can we go to that we trust, so we can start to clear that and work through it. And then everything else you're saying about nutrition. I have so much that I can relate to.

Speaker 1: 23:31

I grew up in a gym. That was one of the good things about my childhood is my mom exposed me to the gym very, very early, and I love to move. I'm a dancer so for me it was really easy. Nutrition not so much. Easy Nutrition not so much. All I ever really learned was how to restrict and sort of this generalized gym mentality, at least back in the day, where if you want to get shredded, you basically cut all your carbs and you eat a psychotic amount of protein. So all I ever really knew about getting thinner was that, yeah, and I remember I was trying to lose weight in between baby number one and baby number two and a friend of mine was like I'm going to do this 10 day shred, you want to do it with me. I'm going to do this 10 day shred, you want to do it with me. It was some extreme juicing thing, of course, and I was about to do it with her.

Speaker 1: 24:39

I get filled with anxiety. By the way, I was already running a successful cash-based practice where all I was doing every day was empowering people with knowledge about their bodies. And I'm thinking to myself well, are you going to pay attention to your anxiety right now, or are you just going to sail straight ahead and keep trying to do this bogus quick fix lose weight thing, like you've done in the past? And what I realized was what my anxiety wanted me to know is you need to get educated about food, just like your clients need to get educated about their body. We have a body. It's our only vessel forever. We have to put food in it every single day. If you actually want to make real change, you have to get educated.

Speaker 1: 25:26

So I finally called a friend of mine who was not only very sober, who I deeply respected in recovery, he was a registered dietitian. And that was the beginning beginning, because it is talk about rewiring and retraining your palate. It was the beginning of finally getting honest, telling somebody here's what I do when I want to cheat the system. Here's what I crave. If I could eat a brownie and a muffin and a pie, a pizza, every day, I surely would. I love carbs, I love sugar. Here's the whole thing right.

Speaker 1: 26:05

Here's what I do when I'm trying to lose five pounds in two weeks. I called bullshit on myself and I said help me, I don't really know anything. Yeah, and he did, and so slowly I had to start incorporating foods that I loved.

Speaker 3: 26:26

Yes.

Speaker 1: 26:27

That did not cut anything out, that were more nutrient dense than the alternative that I had been eating. So it was not a punishment and a deprivation. And eventually I was also really vain and wanted to lose the weight right, so I was motivated. But eventually my palate could recognize the difference between the junk and the truer, less processed foods and I craved it. As soon as I knew something as simple as how much fiber we should be getting every day I didn't even know the daily amount and I said well, what would my food intake look like through the course?

Speaker 3: 27:15

of the day If I was just trying to hit that goal.

Speaker 1: 27:17

everything about the choices I made changed. So you know this is more recent for you and I think so many people struggle, so many people think well, first of all, anyone can be a nutritionist nowadays. Let's just let's just. First of all, anyone can be a nutritionist nowadays. Let's just, let's just talk about that. You can get a two week certification. That's the reason I went to a registered dietitian, somebody who literally went to school for it, who I know is an expert who has his own story about it. What has happened to you? What have you had to do to shift and change your relationship over this last year and a half?

Speaker 3: 27:50

Yeah, so first off, let me just just because I want to put a bow on this conversation the identity piece that we're talking about is like that to me is like so fundamental to change is a shift in your identity. The thing that I would encourage most people to do is understand that your identity will not completely, your new identity will not be completely adopted without any action, even if that action is opposed to the way that you currently identify. If that, makes sense.

Speaker 3: 28:22

So like I give you a positive example of like I grew up as an athlete and that's why it was, I think, easier for me to like jump back into that athlete mentality because it was like I know what it feels like to work out. I know what it feels like to sweat, to push your body past its limits, to like to feel. I know what that's like. Like it would be much more difficult to lose weight if you just grew up being overweight your entire life. Like that would be more difficult because you have to adopt, adopt a brand new identity that you've never had any experience adopting before. That's what makes it difficult. But another example was that growing up I was never a reader. It was to the degree where, like my entire family would, you know, kind of poke fun at it and not in like a terrible way. I'm not, like you know, whining about being bullied or whatever. That wasn't really like how it was. It was just more just like, oh yeah, my sister was the reader, I was the athlete and I didn't read and she didn't play sports and that's how it was. And so people would get me books that my family would try to get me, books that they thought I'd be interested in like athlete books or sports books or whatever, and I just didn't. I hated reading and I adopted this identity of like man, I hate reading, I hate reading, I hate reading, and I just said it all the time. It just became like, oh yeah, a book, oh no, I hate reading, yeah, I don't want to read that. You know, just like became this part of who I was. And then I got into this world of podcasting world, personal development world, self-help world, and I started listening to more audio books. I started reading actual physical books, I started listening to more podcasts and then, a couple of years later, I found myself somebody was saying I was like, oh yeah, I hate reading. I just said it like normally and I like looked back at the past and I was like I've gone through like 70 books in the last two years. Like I am not. Yeah, no, I am a reader, I enjoy reading. Like I enjoy learning, like I like it was a. It was a weird identity thing for me because it was just like this is something I've always identified as and even though currently I still don't view it as like I'm an avid reader because because I view like, I look at people like my sister who just they get such a thrill and such enjoyment and pleasure from reading. That makes me be like they're a reader. I just read because I know it's good for me. But it's like, yeah, but if you're reading 50 books a year, you're still a reader. You know, you dumb ass.

Speaker 3: 30:38

Like the turn on, like come on, like you know what I mean, like it's okay to adopt this new identity, but then once you adopt that identity, then it becomes part of yourself so much that you can't stop doing that activity. Because now it's like I tell people I'm a reader all the time. I say I read stuff and I say I'm constantly reading things. It's like, if I'm not reading something, you start like taking action of what that identity you know would, would act upon, and then it further reinforces itself. It's like this loop that keeps like getting stronger, where you identify as this thing, and because you identify as this thing, you want to engage in this activity more. And because you engage in this activity more, it further solidifies your, your identity, in that new action and then which further makes you want to take more action, which you know what I mean. It's like this self-fulfilling loop that happens.

Speaker 3: 31:33

And so in the um, with the, the nutrition stuff, it was basically that same thing. It was just like stopping thinking about being an athlete and stop thinking about like physical, like going to the gym. I know what I'm doing, I know how to lift, and it was more just like I have to adopt the identity of somebody who engages in a healthy lifestyle, not just somebody who goes to the gym and knows how to lift weights or play basketball or golf or do any of the things that I do for physical activity. It's like it's gotta be, it's got. I have to take this step further to identify as somebody who, uh, who, makes healthy choices, somebody who cares about you know my longevity, as someone who cares more even about like visceral fat, not just like fat, fat that you can see like vanity fat. It's more about you know how do I live a long and healthy life so that I can maintain proper relationships and um good happiness levels and not sink into depression and not let my anxiety overtake me because you know lack of sleep or lack of hydration, and there's just that piece of it is so crucial to so many other parts of your life and so often neglected, especially in like the modern medicine age, just like we'll take this pill, take that pill, take this pill, and it's like so many of our problems and I'm not saying this is for a blanket statement for everybody, because obviously there are some real issues that need, you know, some attention but for a lot of people it's really just a matter of, like you're probably not sleeping enough, you probably aren't drinking enough water and you probably aren't walking enough, like those three.

Speaker 3: 32:56

If you just did those three things, I'm telling you you'd feel so much better after. Of course, at first it's going to suck. You're going to be sore from walking. If you never walk or do any physical activity, um, you know it's going to be difficult to force yourself to sleep. If you have anxiety around sleep, it's going to be difficult to drink. You know your body weight in ounces and water every day, or or um half your body weight in ounces and water every day. You know it's going to be difficult to do those things. If you never do them, you're gonna have to pee a lot. Probably. You're going to standpoint. You feel better mentally, you feel better physically, you look better physically. There's so many things that come from that.

Speaker 3: 33:36

So that was like that, that initial, that got the ball rolling, and so I just started learning more about nutrition. I just started like throwing in a nutritional podcast into my normal, you know um learning phases, started reading a book or two about, about um, about nutrition, or about longevity or health and things like that, and just figured out a couple of things that were just big needle movers for me. You know what I mean. Like what are, what are the what, what's the what's the 80% of the results that I can get from 20% of the activity? Um, rather than looking at, like you know, this next challenge and what you know, I, I, I, I did away with challenges. That was one of the first things.

Speaker 3: 34:09

It was like, no, these things don't work. Like they work, but they don't work. You know what I mean. Like like you're going to get, if you, you're going to get the results in 30 days or 75 days or two weeks or 10 days or three days or whatever it is, but then you're just going to go back to exactly where you were before. So, like the challenges, you know, though, they can be helpful if you've never done anything, because you might. It might give you the confidence that you need to attack a longer term strategy or something like that. Um, uh, they might be helpful for things like that, but for me at that time it was like I've done enough of these and I've just yo-yoed way too much, like that cannot be the solution anymore. It has to be something that I can do long-term.

Speaker 3: 34:53

Um, so for me in particular, it was more just like fasting when I travel. I fast a lot when I travel, cause I travel a lot, um and uh, I'm a foodie, so when I, when I travel, I like to eat at cool places and experience local cuisine, local beers, local whatever, um stuff like that. And so, um, now I just like I just don't eat as much when I travel and then I save my calories for when it matters and then I just eat whatever I want at that point. And then at home it's more just like a lot more cooking at home, because you know they cook with so many other oils and things when you go eat out and it's like you can eat the same exact meal out and the last stat that I heard was like 25 to 30% more calories for the same meal eating out as it is at home, just because of the stuff they cook those meals in um which is, which is a pretty crazy increase, yeah, when we think about it.

Speaker 3: 35:36

So, um, yeah, I just uh kept an eye on those things. Uh, the the really like. The big thing for me was I just did the math, finally did the math, where it was like I'm allowed to eat X number of calories per day, and this is obviously simplifying it, but sometimes that's what it takes for me. Um, so I was just like I'm I'm I'm burning this many calories per day. Your BMR, your basal metabolic rate, this is how many calories you're going to burn just by sitting there, even if you didn't do anything. Um, and then this is how many calories I'm burning from my workout. So it's like anything less than that, I will be in a caloric deficit and I will be losing weight over time. Anything more than that, I'll be in a caloric surplus and I'll be gaining weight over time.

Speaker 3: 36:15

Um, and obviously there's discrepancies there and you want to fill those calories with high quality foods and all that kind of stuff. But technically you could eat a bowl of ice cream every day and be totally fine. You know, if it's less than the calories that you're, then you're burning. Um, now you're going to have some really other terrible issues that happen if you're. All you're eating is a bowl of ice cream every day.

Speaker 3: 36:34

Um but in terms of weight loss, like that's really like the like you know, like energy balance is really the main thing. And so, um then I started picking up different hacks along the way, like, oh, I don't have to eat breakfast, but when I eat lunch I'm going to fill it with protein first, because that's the most satiating and it helps me maintain my muscle mass. So it was like it kind of became what you were saying, like for me now it's like the reason that it's worked for me is because it's not restrictive.

Speaker 2: 36:57

Yep.

Speaker 3: 36:57

So like a week ago, uh, my wife and I ordered um McDonald's at like 9 PM after we put the kids to bed and, like we, we got McDonald's cookies and McFlurries and ate them and it was delicious, it was awesome, but because I knew that I wanted to cheat that night. It's like I know that that's going to be like six to 800 calories and I know that I'm allotted 2,500 calories in a day, so if I don't want to be in a surplus on that particular day and I know that 800 calories are coming down the pike.

Speaker 3: 37:25

That means I got to get all of my protein grams in, all of my other like things that I want to get in nutrition wise. I got to get that in within 1800 calories or so for the rest of the day or else I'm going to be in a surplus when I do this cheat thing. You know what I mean. So it's like it's annoying a little bit because you got to keep track of those things especially if you've never done it before.

Speaker 3: 37:44

For like 30 to 60 days I tracked everything in like an app and everything like that, because it helped me understand more, so I could keep like mental notes now Cause now I don't track it in an app, I just keep mental notes because I have a pretty good idea of how many calories is in a certain thing. You know what I mean? Um, so yeah, I just do that. And then then I have my junk calories that are left over. It's like well, if I'm at 2,200 calories for the day and I know I have 2,500, it's like well, I can have 300 calories of something and it's going to be okay, I'm not going to gain weight or look terrible or any of those things. Just before I just I didn't have anything like that, so I just did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and I would put on 30 pounds and I'd be like all right, challenge time and then 60 days I'd lose 30 pounds and it's just. That's just terrible, unhealthy, unsustainable way, um to to to live your life, especially from a nutritional standpoint, and but that goes for, that goes for any of those things. That's why I brought up the identity thing again, because it's like no matter what the thing is food, um, alcohol, substances like whatever, whatever that thing is that keeps drawing you back. It's going to be a matter of like identity, shifting identity, taking action towards that new identity and then having that kind of loop on itself. Mix that a little bit with some community, with some positive influence in your life. Mix that a little bit with some education around different tips or tricks or different things that you can do, like even that protein thing.

Speaker 3: 39:01

That I said is one for the nutrition side, where it was like, oh, if I just eat eggs the first meal of the day, I'm going to feel less hungry throughout the day because just more satiating than eating, you know, carb heavy cereal or something like that. Um, so you, you start picking up those different things as you continue to commit to the journey. It's just the recognition that it's going to be a journey. It's not going to happen overnight. And just because it doesn't happen overnight, it doesn't make you a piece of shit, it doesn't make you lazy, it doesn't make you a bad person. It just means that it's a process and it's a journey and we all got to go on that same journey.

Speaker 1: 39:34

Okay, what's so awesome about talking to you right now and I would argue, even if this is controversial male brain versus female brain, right Is the way you frame all of this is very logical. You know the the identity comes first, and getting clear and committed to the identity you want to become, and then you take the actionable steps in that direction. Right, and that's literally true. But as a really emotional woman, especially as a recovering addict right, my feelings feel like they're going to kill me sometimes. That's how big and crazy they are. I'm going to come in and say the identity thing is, in fact, real, but it requires a sense of worthiness. If you don't feel worth, especially a new identity that you have no reference point for, if you don't think you deserve that new life, you'll never embody and take the actionable steps to get there. So, at the very bottom of that, that has to get treated, no matter what.

Speaker 1: 40:52

Okay, and the second part is that what I'm hearing you say is, when you haven't had the basketball identity, right, when you have no reference point, but you're looking ahead to your future self and going I want to be more like this identity that I really don't know anything about, there's a leap of faith that you have to take and we didn't really use that word at all yet on the podcast We've been speaking really logically and practically.

Speaker 1: 41:24

But you have to take and we didn't really use that word at all yet on the podcast We've been speaking really logically and practically, but you have taken so many leaps of faith so that you can then have the wins stacking up where you form the new identity. So then the logic brain can come back in and go look, you are a reader, travis, so stop saying you're not. But there was a time when you literally were not a reader. You identified as someone who hated it, but you took the necessary steps in the darkness, not knowing whether you'd ever really become a reader or not. Right, and then there's that part. So then it's a question of what is your relationship with faith, with risk taking, because if that's a mess, you will never get to the new identity place.

Speaker 1: 42:19

So I want to say that for a moment right Because it's complicated, and it's so fascinating that we are having such an intricate conversation about food and weight loss and healthy living and calorie counting because, again, I have, I have so much in common with you and yet, where you are right now and where I am, we have a big departure from one another and it's really important to bring this up. So, to be really abridged with what is a very long story, I lost my father five years ago and when that happened I was so blindsided by it and had a ton of regret about the way our relationship was when he left this earth that I knew full well I needed to grieve. I was sober, I'd been in therapy forever, but I absolutely wasn't ready. So I turned to food and body. I was three months postpartum.

Speaker 1: 43:23

I was going to show the whole world how I could bounce back after baby number two. Just you watch me. I picked up all the tools from the registered dietitian that I had gotten before. But I went so far and by nine, 10 months postpartum, I was back at pre-pregnancy weight. And then the voice in my head that isn't my truest, most authentic voice. It's my critic't my truest, most authentic voice. It's my critic, my addictive voice, whatever you want to call it, said I wonder how thin we can get now.

Speaker 1: 43:52

And I kept going and now I can sit and say because he passed away in 2019, for about two years, so well into 2021, I was in a raging eating disorder. I counted every calorie. I did exactly what you did figured out my basal metabolic rate, figured out with the fitness watch how many calories I was burning. Oh, I have this much that I can consume If I want to maintain. I can cut 500 calories out a day and after a week I'll lose a pound, because 3,500 calories is one pound, or I can go over the allotted amount. And then I'm setting myself up to gain weight and I became an expert and my addicted brain that is hardwired as a perfectionist I was going to do this perfectly. So me counting calories, counting macros, measuring my food was the perfect detour from feeling my feelings and walking towards the grief.

Speaker 1: 45:06

And what I can say is that it got bad. I was obsessed with it and I thought about it all the time. And you know, two years ago my sister died and I was really scared, really, really scared, not just that I might relapse and die from from that pain, but that the alternative might look anything like what happened with my father, because I knew I could go ahead and focus on obsessively food and body and I will say thank God that I turned toward my healing. And when I think back to that period of time of when I lost my dad to losing my sister, when I turned completely towards food and body, I birthed nothing new into the world, I created nothing. I silenced my intuition, intuition and I let my ruminating, obsessive cerebral mind just fixate on the one thing that made me feel like I had control over my world. And it breaks my heart. And I know, for me, when I start to count again I mean slowly, I now no longer wear a fitness watch, which is a really big. I am a fitness enthusiast. I am a doctor of physical therapy, I'm a dancer, fitness is my life. But I slowly stopped standing in front of the mirror and picking myself apart. I started abstaining from the things that were making me ruminate.

Speaker 1: 46:39

I I know now that when I get to that space, when I'm considering measuring again, counting again, it's because I'm scared and I feel really out of control and powerless about something in my life. So for me, I have to be really careful that there is a balance of being super mindful about what I put in my body. I no longer call my Friday night pizza and movie night with my kids cheat night, because what am I cheating on? I'm literally just eating something I love. I've made it softer and wider and more compassionate. My relationship with food is that I love food. I love good food and bad food.

Speaker 1: 47:25

I care more about myself now and my longevity, as you said, to put really good food in my body most of the time. Thank God. I also care about myself enough to not restrict, to not measure, to not hold myself hostage to staying at a certain weight. I've put back on weight and if I got on a scale, by the way, I threw my scale out a couple of years ago because a girlfriend of mine was like you really want to change. If you still have a scale, we're talking about abstaining.

Speaker 1: 47:56

Right, when you stop drinking, did you keep alcohol in your house? Throw your scale away if it's hurting you and not helping you. I haven't weighed myself in two years. If I did, I'd be in danger of restricting again, I know it. So it's really fascinating to hear where you are, because there's still a rigid framework and I wonder if there's a fear for you that if you loosened that you might gain weight again. You know, and I think it's I think those things can be so helpful when you have a long, long history of yo-yoing, like really getting the science behind you to go. Oh, like I actually lot my logic brain really gets why I keep putting the weight back on. But at some point do you want to get rid of all that and just coexist with food.

Speaker 3: 48:50

That's a good question, I think. First of all, I think it's necessary to go through that. It almost requires that pendulum shift to make you realize that there's like two extremes to this and neither one of them are healthy type of a thing. Like almost nobody I've talked to that's like a fitness competitor or has been a fitness competitor is happy being a fitness competitor. You know what I mean. Like like it caused some sort of body dysmorphia. They were upset about something. It made them self-conscious.

Speaker 3: 49:21

Like when you have a guy that gets down to 5% body fat and then all of a sudden his walking around weight is 14% body fat. He thinks he's fat. It's like well, you're actually still within the range of being a healthy athlete, actually not even like a healthy person. Like you're still athletic, you know. So it's like, well, you, you got both of you know, but. But you almost had to. Like you almost had to go this route to have a better conscious idea of your ability now, samantha, to stay in really good shape and to stay as fit as you are currently without having to do all that stuff. Probably wouldn't have been possible without first doing that stuff so that you have some sort of a mental model to build this more. I don't want to say careless, but, um, maybe more apathetic approach to like being healthy in your relationship with food, cause that's what you're describing is a very healthy one. Um, so I, I think that I think that'll probably come in the next year or two.

Speaker 3: 50:17

Right now, I'm like I just I feel good and I feel like I feel, um, I I tend to not have like really high emotional highs and really low emotional lows. I tend to be really, um, but I tend to be, I tend to be really even keel like an emotional level. Um, so I don't feel as much of of like I love this or I hate this as much as I feel like this is just how I feel I should be right now, and if it needs to change in the future, then I'm more than willing to to adopt whatever that looks like.

Speaker 3: 50:55

But right now I still think I'm in like geeking out mode, where I'm like this is you know, this has been cool to be able to actually control what.

Speaker 3: 51:02

I look like, rather than you know, just be confused and frustrated and upset all the time because I don't understand why I keep getting weighed and that it should. I shouldn't be gaining weight and I shouldn't. You know what I mean. So I think, I think I'm still kind of in that phase. But, to answer your question, you know, that's definitely something to consider and, and you know, if I find myself like getting to the point where, like I'm losing sleep or I'm anxious because I ate something that I didn't want to eat, or whatever you know, then that's definitely something that I should look at.

Speaker 3: 51:29

Cause I to me it's like all things in moderation, including moderation. You know what? I mean Like sometimes it's okay to go have that McDonald's or whatever it is, you know.

Speaker 1: 51:39

I love this. This was such an amazing conversation. We didn't even get to really I mean, we got to really current stuff about food and I think it's so applicable to my podcast and the people listening. Um, and I know you have so much more to share that, and I've gone through a dozen different identity shifts in the last decade from from my departure from how I grew up and eating food and going into business without a business degree and all that stuff.

Speaker 3: 52:14

So like there's a lot of stuff that we can talk about there too, so maybe we'll do a part two sometime.

Speaker 1: 52:17

I would love that and you're amazing. I love sharing this hour with you and learning more about you. It was really a great talk.

Speaker 3: 52:25

Thank you so much for having me, Smith. It's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1: 52:27

Thank you, travis, I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 3: 52:29

Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 1: 52:30

Bye.

Speaker 2: 52:43

Waking up. I hear the desperation call. I turn my back and hit my head against the wall To meet a crucifix to take me to my knees, whipping my mistakes, to jump over the grief. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it. Sick and tired Of the voice inside my head Never good enough For sleeping me for dead. But perfection's just a game Of make-believe. Gotta break the pattern, find a new reprieve. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it.

Speaker 2: 53:33

Oh, I am ready to make a change. I am big, bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got left aside. I can be brave and afraid at the same time. Practice self-compassion, start to calm my mind, taking tiny steps to loving all of me. Trust the process, cause it's gonna set me free. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it. Oh, I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got the the life. Gotta gotta gotta break it, or fake it till we make it. Gotta gotta gotta break it. Come on, one, two, three. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got to live this life. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got the the vibe.