Keys to living longer and healthier lives with Forrest Jung || WBWL Ep 66

Guest fitness and health coach, Forrest Jung, explains pivotal key factors to focus on if you want to live longer healthier lives. There’s an insane amount of value to get from this episode.

Transcript

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All right. So welcome to the Won Body, Won Life Podcast guys. Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Jason Won lifestyle, physical therapists. And I like to bring on really exciting people to teach you about how to live longer, healthier, more fulfilling lives, teach you about how to be more resilient and overall just how to how to keep your body healthier and keep your mindset healthier. So anything in regards to helping you to spur on a life that's meaningful and healthier. That's what I like to do. So today I have a forest for his junk and he pops up on my feed with a lot and everything that he says that comes out of his mouth really makes sense. So I personally DM him and said, Hey, do you want to get into this podcast to share your value and to share a lot of the things that you know, and I'm just excited to have you. Forest, how are you doing, man? Good man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you hopped in those DMS and I was excited, dude. I love doing podcasts. All right. Perfect, man. Why don't you share, before we dive into it, the topic of today is just the keys to living longer and healthier lives. I find that me and you, I feel like we definitely have a very common. Sense of like how we live our lives as far as like the types of nutrition that we put into our bodies from the types of strength training and the types of things that we do. So why don't you just share a little bit about just like who you are, what your background, what you do for a living and what inspired you to start your Instagram or start your business in the first place? All right. Yeah, man. So basically I started a gym back in 2009. And it was like the end of that terrible recession we had. And I started it mainly because one, I was like, I was going to apply to business school and, Oh, I did apply to business school. And I got in. And when it was time to actually secure my spot and do the whole thing, I was like, I don't really do this. And I had a passion for fitness and I was doing it on the side. And my dad at the time was having all these health issues and he was having health issues from day, like as long as I can remember, he suffered from two heart attacks, one heart attack, took him out. It was his final one right in 2015. And one of the things that I was like, I just don't, I don't want to live the last half of my life, just suffering through it. And I gained a bunch of weight after college and I started to feel it, I started to feel it like in the real world. And I was like. It can't be me, dude. I can't do that. And I lost a lot of weight and I just set myself on more of a health track. And then obviously there's balance to it. And I wasn't super obsessed, but I was very passionate about it. And so I started the gym because I wanted to help other people do the same thing. And I started that and I ran it 14 years. I just recently sold it back in October. I went a hundred percent online. So I started to go online in 2020 when the gym shut down. And it's been a journey going online, so you can reach a lot more people. And I was just like really adverse to going online. Cause I just hated, I hated the idea of posting to social media. And then I basically over the years have gone through all of it. I've I've listened to people who were. Somewhat charlatans in the health and fitness industry. I've listened to them. I felt I fell for a lot of that stuff. I did more research, did a lot of stuff over the years with nutrition and actual health, but like science based studies and really just try to find a way to make that more exciting because it's not really exciting. It's just not, it's not as exciting as saying just take this one supplement and your whole life will be better. And it's a lot of small decisions and habits that you have to build over time. And that's not just with your food and exercise. It's a lot with your mindset as well. So I've been through it though. I've been through eating disorder. I've been through depression. I've been through anxiety. I've been through a lot of that stuff. And ultimately, it's just affected my health. And. I just looked at it as a way to find a solution for that for myself. And hopefully I could share it with other people. And that's basically been my life for the last, I would say, 15 years. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. We have obviously a lot to unpack and I know you have a lot of value to share. I, I find that there's a kind of huge commonality with one of the reasons why I started my business in the first place, which is helping people worldwide with different chronic pain issues or how to help them with their habits as well. And I do agree that habits is like the main thing that people should focus on for the longterm as well as just being disciplined, and not relying on motivation. But yeah, my, my, my dad, and I've said this on my podcast before that. My dad was one of the people that inspired me to play basketball. And so just, he introduced me to sports but he, he passed in 2008 due to colon cancer due to living a more, a little bit more of a sedentary lifestyle, not being able to really understand the nuances of nutrition, actually dive into just living healthier. And I think that's what inspired me to help other like. Busy professionals time trap people around the world because out of the sense of just the tragic, the tragedies that I've been through as well. Let's unpack some of that there. And for us, I guess let's just start off with the most generalized question. What are some of the keys to living longer? That's such a big question, but yeah, dude I totally get that. Our parents, like our parents age, they were like those are older Asian parents do like trying to get them to change. It's like damn near impossible. And like colorectal cancer is on the rise and now it's like affecting people in their twenties and it's like, it's crazy because of nutrition and exercise and all these things. And I think the biggest thing, one of the biggest things to living longer is like basically trying to figure out how to be happy and happiness can come from a lot of different sources. So it's are you really happy if you're overweight and sedentary and some people are, I'm sure of it, but really it to be like truly happy, you have to be pursuing a passion. You have to learn how to manage stress. You have to be taking care of your body, taking care of your mind. And it's really easy to say that shit, but it's not super easy in practice because it's like, all right, yeah, I know I'm supposed to do that, but then how am I supposed to do that? And the answer is different for a lot of different people. For you, it's you want to be able to spend more time with your kids. You want to be able to play with your kids. You want to be a good good father, good husband. And at the same time, you want to crush it in business. At the same time, you want to be taking care of your body. And there's all these pillars that you have to be able to maintain and build and not neglect in any area. So it's you want to have good relationships with friends. Family, all that stuff. I think the key to living longer is not really there's no answer to it. I think the biggest thing is being able to go on that journey to go on the journey, knowing that there's no final destination. There's not going to be a finish line where it's I made it. I'm happy. I'm going to live longer. I'm going to feel great. There's no destination. You have to continually do it until the day you're dead. Yeah, absolutely. I always say one of my favorite things I say to my clients is. Happiness is found in progression. And so if you're not progressing, you're just really either maintaining or declining. So therefore a lot of times that when you're maintaining then you know, that as you get older, if you're just maintaining strength, you're maintaining a sense of. Level of life is that at some point, you're going to decline at some point. But might as well progress as much as you can, as in continue to climb the mountains of health, fitness, nutrition, and decline at a much higher standpoint, right? If Morris is like lifting a lot heavier and he can do, and it's a product of let's say he lifts like 300, 400 pounds off the floor. Great. If he could go, if he potentially can push the ante in terms of his endurance, his capacity, then when he does turn 60, 70, 80 he's declining at a much, and therefore he maintains a higher level of quality of life versus somebody that never touches a dumbbell but decides to, there's a lot of just different I guess nuance there and I do agree it's there's no final destination. The only destination that we have and that the only thing we're 100 percent certain of is that we're all going to die at some point, but, we can decide to die at 60 and decide to have the last 10 years of your life be very decrepit or we can decide that, hey, we're going to. Do everything necessary to start the journey, stay resilient, progress, and maintain a level of function where your quality of life as get older is a lot more meaningful, right? The ability to play with your grandkids et cetera. And I'm really glad that you mentioned that in regards to your family. I know you, you mentioned even before the podcast that you have two dogs. I know that dogs is man's best friend that keeps you pretty healthy. I'm sure it keeps you up and moving. So in relation to I guess you may be like strength training or fitness. I know that's something that you really preach and that you really value in your own life. So how does that kind of play into the overall sense of longevity? I think a lot of people think that they're just going to grow old and then just die in their sleep peacefully one day, right? They all, everybody thinks that, and they don't realize that as you get older, how old are you? 35, 35 years. Yeah. There you go. Nice dude. I got 10 years on you, bro. I know. So I think a lot of people think that they're just going to pass go through life, just doing their thing, get old and die one day. And it's really not true. It's like a lot of people have trouble going up and down the stairs, they'll fall and break a hip, their body starts to fall apart and no longer can they do the things they enjoy. No longer can they maybe even going out for a walk is difficult. So I think strength training plays a huge piece of that in that one, obviously it's keeping your body strong and in our twenties we'd work out to get abs, you work out to get abs, go down the beach, get girls, do that whole thing. But as you get older, you start to realize, Oh shit, if I don't keep up with this, I can't even lift like a 40 pound bag over overhead to get in the plane. I can't do some of these, I can't carry groceries in. You can't do the basic daily life chores and, or you can, but you're like winded going up the stairs and nobody wants to feel like that, dude. And I think a lot of people hit 40 and they're just like that's it, man. That's it. I'm just getting older now and this is how life is. And it's no dude, that's not how life is. So strength training is hard. And when you hit 40, 45, whatever, 35, a lot of people will have a lot of stresses. They have work, they have their family, sometimes they're in a job that they fucking hate. So there's all these like pressures on you. And then at the end of the day to go and do something difficult, which is go to the gym or exercise. There's I got nothing left, man. I got nothing left. So I'm just going to go home, sit on the couch, drink some beers, watch some TV and relax. And I get it, dude, I get that, but at the same time, it's what's going to be worse, right? Going to the gym now, we're not being able to get up the stairs or falling and breaking something and never recovering from. And is that chronic back pain, that chronic shoulder and knee pain, is it all worth like just skipping the gym for? And I think one of those things is like constantly challenging ourselves. Because it also builds up, I think, our will. It builds up our will to do difficult things. And I think going to the gym is a difficult thing for most people. And obviously, if you're a 20 year old influencer, it's it's easy. That's your social hour. But for most people, it's a difficult thing. And to be able to like, get up and do that thing day after day will desensitize you to what's actually difficult. And it builds that discipline. It builds like that mental fortitude. And I think it plays a big part, not just in building your body, but just building your overall mindset. Yeah, I agree with everything you said. I wanted to reply so many times through, like, all the different pieces. I wanted to say that one strength training actually reduces. Your risk of dying of anything by 32 percent right? It's called all cause mortality. So diabetes heart attack Pneumonia pretty much all of it is seared away when you are actually incorporating strength training into your life I do agree that there's a book That's called balance which kind of goes through the four pillars of life. It's like relationships health Sorry relationship probably Health, wealth, and then as well as purpose. So those are the things then if we're not taking care of all of those things, then you're knocking one of the one of the legs of the stool and all of it falls apart. So you saying that just getting the ball rolling with strength training or even any form of exercise actually develops a sense of mental resilience and fortitude that translate to every other aspect of your life. And that's why That's why I think me and as far as like a strength training it leads to a lot of different things that are going a lot better, in our lives. Yeah. And you start to, you stop worrying about this stuff, like diabetes and pneumonia and getting sick. And that I'm like, I want to be able to fight a fucking bear, dude. I want to be able to I want to be able to throw shit around. I'm like no longer thinking about some of those other things. And I'm like, I want to survive the zombie Like, I'm, that's what I, that's what I've found my brain works best for, because it's like, Oh, if I'm just exercising to just try to stay healthy, it's whatever. But if I'm like, Oh, there's a, there's impending doom I'm training for I want to be able to run, jump, do all these things. And I don't want to get eaten. That's like basically it. Yeah. And so you, everybody has a sense of why. So some people operate from a state of fear Hey, the fear of dying. I always told my wife Hey, like I don't, my I said it like my dad passed at 59 due to colorectal cancer, something that you've actually talked about before. And that's to me, that causes a sense of fear as in I do not want to get to the point where I have stage three, stage four cancer at age 35 or 40. So I'm getting all the right screens and I'm doing everything preventative in my power to. Stay healthy for my wife, my two kids, the people around me. But at the same time, like you're saying that, Hey I always say like an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So if you're waiting for impending doom, as in you're waiting for pneumonia or a heart attack to happen guess what? If you get a heart attack at a later age. And you didn't develop the necessary habits and everything. What makes you think that you're actually going to actually fight for your life? But if you develop the sense of resilience now, and let's say that happens, that which is likely you're decreasing the chances of any disease happening. But the thing is people don't realize that. They're going to be like, Hey, I'm waiting for the wheels to fall off. I'm waiting for something debilitating to happen before I actually get my shit together. But the thing is that what makes you think that you're actually going to fight for your life as hard as you can, knowing that you didn't develop all the habits necessary at a younger age? And I'm not sure. Agreements that but 100 percent dude, like it is hard. It is hard. Like people who are, oh, you just need to walk more. You just need to eat healthier. It's yeah, dude of course, but I think somebody, a lot of people that I work with will on average walk like 2 to 3000 steps a day. It is like pulling teeth to get them to hit like 8, 000 steps a day. And that's not even a lot. Like some of these people, start off with that. My feet hurt. I don't have time. Or it's Oh my God, I couldn't get my steps in. And it's you sit all day long, get a walking treadmill, get a standing desk, do something to where you can move. And I'm sure you deal with it too, where people are like, oh, my back hurts. Is there one stretch that I could do? It's no dude, you sit at a desk like 60 hours a week and then you come home and sit for another, 12 to 15 hours a week. So it's yeah, you can get up and walk every single day, increased blood flow. It'll solve a lot of problems for you, man. You can lose some weight and it's they're like, no, there's gotta be something else, right? There's gotta be something else. And it's you could take some Advil, but that's not going to fix the problem. Like the problem is your body's falling apart. And it's you don't want to wait for that catastrophic event to happen to be like, Oh, okay. Now that I feel terrible and I'm recovering from a heart attack. Now I'm going to start walking 10, 000 steps a day. And some people do. Some people do for sure, but it's a lot harder if you've never done it. And if also, if you don't know what it feels like to be fit, right. If you're only fit in your teens and it's, you're now 60, you don't associate yourself with being a fit person. If you were, I got to say, God forbid, we had a heart attack tomorrow and we had to recover from it. We'd be like, Nope, this ain't me. This ain't me. Like I'm a fit person. I'm recovering from this. I'm going to do everything in my power. To make sure that doesn't happen again, and I'm gonna I'm cleaning everything up. I know exactly what to do, because that's not who I associate myself with. These people do not, right? They associate themselves with I'm the guy who has back pain. I'm the guy who walks up the stairs and gets out of breath. I'm the guy who can't play with his kids. And it's you're not going to change that after like having a catastrophic event. It's going to be so much harder. I think the word that comes to mind is identity, right? Because you can try to speak things into action. You can say to yourself I tried to refrain myself from eating fast food versus I'm a person that doesn't, right? I'm a person that like I'm somebody that occasionally goes to the gym versus I'm a beast, right? I'm a person that actually goes to the gym. I am one of the fittest people that I know. That's me. So if every, again if anything catastrophic were to happen to me and you, I know for damn sure that we're going to clean up our shit and we're going to actually make massive changes relative to somebody that, again, has a heart attack, but has never. Experience a heart attack has not been working out for the past 20, 30 years has been sitting on the butt all day, right? How do we expect to speak that into action? And I think I guess I'm jumping ship a little bit jumping subjects, a lot of health care is predicated on being reactive as in when somebody has gout, right? We have a drug for that. When somebody has a broken rotator cuff, right? We have a surgery for that, but nobody really talks about prevention, nor is prevention something that is spoken or really, honestly, it's reimbursed, right? People that have insurance, they insure over surgery. They insure over drugs. They don't insure prevention. Why? Because it's not really poorly, it's poorly understood. And a lot of people aren't willing to do it, right? So nobody's going to go to a hospital and say, I want to prevent knee pain from happening. Nobody does that. No, it's no, I have an ACL tear and I, it's because I wasn't taking care of my strength. Yeah. And it's it's, it takes work. It takes work. And then it was like really no, there's no like immediate reward. It's not like I just put the work in and all of a sudden I feel better. You might feel worse. If somebody has like knee pain and you go take them through exercises, they might be like, oh, my knees hurt worse now. It's yeah. In the short term, they will probably hurt worse. But over time you're going to feel stronger and better. And I think the other thing is it takes money. A lot of people think that spending, they're going to spend, obviously you could do it for free, but if you don't have the knowledge and you don't have the resources, you can't, it's going to take a long time. So they're like, I don't want to pay somebody to do teach me how to work. I, I lifted weights in high school and it's this is different. This is extremely different. Do you even understand how the body works? Do you understand all the factors that are at play that are causing. These pains. And if you don't, which is obviously you don't, because if you did, you would have fixed it, but it's you're going to have to pay someone to do that. And it's like these huge barriers and these huge walls that are set up. And it's just the way it is, it's the way it is. And it's people don't want to do that until they see that there's a real problem. Yeah, I think there's a lot of there's a lot of financial barriers and people will, place value in certain things that they truly value, right? If somebody values video games, they're going to spend a shit ton of money on video games. But, a lot of people especially paying for a preventative service or prevent it, or like paying for a personal trainer Man, that's really expensive. I'm like you spend a ton of money on fast food and booze and alcohol, or cigarettes. So it depends on like really where you perceive your value and that's where you're going to spend a lot of your finances and time and energy and resources towards. I think that's just honestly, that's where I think that's why I'm trying to inspire change on this podcast. That's why I brought you here. But dabbling also with the dietary pieces. So those that maybe are dealing with some sort of core morbidity, maybe they're trying to lose weight. How does diet play into the role? Let's say somebody that is trying to get healthier in that sense. So diet is for years because I love food. I love food, right? And for years, like when you're younger, and I think the problem is by the time people hit their late thirties to early forties, they still eat like they're in their early twenties, right? And they eat like that because they're like I'm in their mind. They're like, I'm still 20. I'm still, I could, I used to be able to eat this all the time. I don't understand why my body's reacting like this. And it's cause you can't eat that anymore or you can, you just got to know the consequences. And. Diet is such a big piece because it's daily decisions. It's not just one decision like, Oh, I just gotta decide to go to the gym or not go to the gym. It's daily decisions from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to bed. And it's decisions what's should I eat this or this? Or it's should I eat at all? And I think a lot of people, on top of that, social media, has gotten to the point where diet is just, it's ridiculous. Everything is killing you. And you and I both know that some of these foods, if you eat them in excess, if you just went on a straight Oreo diet, it probably wouldn't be good for you. But you have some of these people online that are saying like, these foods are killing you. Do not eat them. And it is half true. If you only eat those foods. However, balance, I think is key because a lot of people will be like, okay, I'm going a hundred percent clean. And then they end up binging and they end up eating the same amount, they'll eat the healthy foods, but they'll also eat overeat. They'll go out and get they're they'll binge on a whole thing of Oreos because they haven't had them and they just want them so bad. And the idea of balance and nuance is really difficult with people today. It's they're either all in I'm a hundred percent healthy or I'm not. Or I binge in secret and it's really difficult because that message surrounding social media is crazy. So diet's a big piece of it. Obviously, balance is a big piece of it because there is a big mental component to diet. And obviously, in a perfect world, yeah, we would eat healthy. But there is enjoyment in food too. Saying I personally don't drink, I drink probably like once or twice a year. But for me to go out and tell people, don't drink ever, is unrealistic, but if I could get them to cut back their drinks in half, that's a win, that's a win for right now. And then maybe they cut it back in half again. So those are wins. I think for people like having nuance is a huge piece of diet and I think a lot of people just don't really understand how to balance some of these things out with healthy along with enjoyment. So yeah, so nutrition is a big piece of it. Obviously eating healthier is better. But you also have to weigh in the other piece of it, which is absolutely, you got to enjoy food. Whether you're religious or not, I think God put food on this earth in order for us to enjoy. He didn't say you need to be restricted to this or that. And you, the saying goes, it's you want what you don't have. So I've read books on emotional eating eating disorders and how basically, yeah, you try to. Basically you try to eat as clean as you can, but at the end of the day, if you love Oreos, eventually, yeah, you're going to want that. And you're going to want that in excess because you haven't had it in months. So might as well give yourself, I guess I always say that, give yourself kind of the unrelenting permission to have the Oreo if you want it. If you're going to eat it, eat one to two, but don't eat 20. And then when you do that, then you're going to satisfy. Your dopamine cravings and therefore you're not going to binge on it later on. So all in all, that's how a lot of these eating disorders happen is due to the fact that we restrict ourselves, we're eating way too clean and social media again is a, as much as we love social media, as much as me and you promote ourself on social media. It demonizes, it creates a lot of polarity between what's good and what's bad. And I think that everything's all about the shocking statements, right? Don't eat broccoli because it has this compound in it. That's yeah, it oscillates. And it's shut the fuck up, dude. Or it's don't drink water. Only drink hydride or hydrogenated water hydrogen water, whatever the fuck it is. Gary Brekka sells. Yeah, and all these things it's like you can't really and the other thing there's no shock value to being like, yeah You know you can have oreos once in a while, but mainly you should be eating healthy foods Like there's no shock value to that. Obviously. Like that's an obvious thing but there's unless I said oreos are killing you and here's why and it's like Then people are like, oh i'll listen, and there's like That's why social media can be like a huge Bad messaging for people with nutrition and you can't monetize healthy eating. You could with a cookbook or something, but at the same time, it's like you have people that are selling fasting books and like they're, I don't have anything against fasting. I think people can fast, but it's they're selling it as this end all be all thing where it's like, Oh, it's create cell autophagy and all that. So does exercise does as well. And. It's just wild to me that they've created such these hyperbolic statements around nutrition and food just to sell books or to sell a product. Yeah. And the, I look at a lot of different cultures out there. Like one of the ones it's I think the people in Sicily are people that eat a lot of cured meat and a lot of just straight fat and guess what? Their average age is still better than an average American. They live to around 85 years of age, but you know why is because they enjoy life. They're social, they get outside. And a lot of times they don't care about what's going on in social media. They just care about. Interacting with others to care about the social environments. I know that's a huge part of longevity too, is just being social, right? Not being restricted to a certain place. But yeah the other thing that we can talk about nutrition is more like calories, right? A lot of people are like, Hey, don't count calories. Everything moderation, just eat a health versus some people are like, yeah, let's stick to an exact kind of macro nutrient diet. So I'm curious on what is your perspective? I do have a perspective on calories and like food in energy and energy out, but what's your take? I think people should count calories for a short period of time. I think, two to three weeks in general, just to do like basically like an audit on your diet, not only just like your macros and your overall calories, but your micronutrients and like the hidden one that nobody cares about is fiber, which like, again, we're going back to colorectal cancer, right? The majority, I think it's 95 percent of Americans get 15 grams of fiber or less. And the average male should be getting 35 to 40 grams of fiber. Average female should be getting 25 to 35 grams of fiber. And it's wild because there's all these like probiotic drinks and things like in health food stores. But probiotics don't do shit unless you have prebiotics, which is fiber. And people are always complaining about gut health and like constipation and all these things. But literally fiber is a cheap and easy supplement if you have to supplement or you just get it in vegetables. And it's super easy, but then you have companies like Unicity, which is like on TikTok that is selling fucking fiber supplements for 150 a month that are claiming that it cures, type 2 diabetes, PCOS, all these things. And, they've monetized it based off of lies. So it's literally, you could just buy some Metamucil if you had to. And like most people are completely unaware of what they're eating. So I think tracking is great, but I also think that it's good to not be obsessive about it. There's some people that I work with who I have them track other people. I don't have them track and I just have an idea of what they're eating. So again, nuance comes into play where tracking calories is a good thing so that you understand it's like understanding your finances, it's like you want to know what's going out and what's coming in. obsessing over it, probably not so good and you don't have to do it forever, but you better have an idea. Like you better have an idea of Oh, I know that I get 140 to 160 grams of protein per day. I know that my I know I could like, can you look at food and tell me like an estimate of how many calories Or macros that are in it. If you can't, then it's probably a good idea to start tracking so that you can get an understanding of the value of food. Yeah, you're stealing words literally out of my mouth when it comes to my clients. I talked about how. I've related it to finance, how you should be knowing what's in and what's out. I truly think that if you obsess over calories to an extent, then really you are eventually going to be in terms of a restrictive behavior that eventually you're going to binge later on, right? Once you like completely get off my fitness pal or macro factor, I use macro factor a lot of times you're going to have huge binge cravings and then you're just going to rebound. But I think having, I've always said that. Calories at the end of the day, it's not demonized. It's just a unit of energy. So if it's just a unit of energy, you just got to know what's going in, what's going out. If you're burning more than your, what you're eating, then you're going to lose weight, right? If you're eating more than you're going to be in a clerk surplus and you're going to gain weight. So if the goal is to lose weight, you should know a sense of. Tracking it for seven to 21 days straight, having a really good sense of what you're eating. That way, if you decide to quit, at least you have a numerical or maybe like a visual gauge of Oh, that's three ounces of chicken. That's you know that, that fistful is roughly this amount of rice. And you can go based on that, but nonetheless, I don't think. Either should be demonized. I think that people should eat in moderation, but at the same time, have a sense of what calories are, if you know what are what's coming in. You could track it maybe every other day. You could track your weight every other day just to make sure that you're staying honest. But that's my take. And I think that we have a pretty common association with that. Yeah. And obviously there's people that on one side of the spectrum that are basically saying oh, just this weight loss is simple. Eat less, move more. And that's not fucking helpful to anybody. And there's the other side of the spectrum that are like calories in calories out is it doesn't even work because hormones and insulin is what like plays the biggest factor. I hate that so much. I hate that. I hate it too. I hate it too. And the thing is both sides are half right, but that's the, that's the most dangerous information out there because they're half right. Obviously hormones. Play a factor in how hungry you are, how much energy you have, just your overall perception of like your world and your and how you feel, but that doesn't discount calories in calories out at the same time, oversimplifying calories in calories out is a disservice to people because it's just like you're oversimplifying a much more complicated topic. Yeah, for sure. Going into outside of the nutrition. And I think that, in order to maintain a healthier body weight, again, it does come down to calories to an extent, but understand that as we get older, your basal metabolic rate does change with with age. I think I forget what the statistics show that for every decade, it drops anywhere between 10 to 20%. So therefore, yeah, you can't get away with like just eating, popeye's, Popeye's bucket and expect to be okay with BMR. I think a lot of people can prevent their decline in their BMR by simply like weight training. And they can get their BMR back up and they can prevent some of that. Then, they might not lose 10%, they might lose, five, which is great, first of all. And I think a bigger factor is people's neat, like their non exercise activity. Yep. And I think instead, like people always say, Oh, my, my metabolism slowing down and it's no, you just don't move as much as you used to. You sit at a desk all the time and in your 20s, you moved around a lot. You were being way more social. You're being way more active. And I think people lose that because they are just getting crushed by stress. So I think there are factors that you can control in this. And I like a lot of people just throw their hands up and Oh, I'm just getting older and it's no, you can control some of these factors. Yeah. If you don't know what kind of four is talking about at me, it's just not exercise activity, thermogenesis. Like easy ways you can do things. It's yeah, for every zoom call that you're on, get up off your butt and take a five minute walk. Or, a lot of times, yeah. Yeah. Walk around while you're on the phone. Exactly, or go to a grocery, go to a grocery store and don't park at the closest spot. Try to park as far away or not as far away, but park outside the parking lot. So at least you get in a little extra step. So that non exercise really makes a difference. I think you can make up anywhere between 10 to 50 percent of your entire metabolism, just depending on what your job demands are or like how you decide to structure your life. Yeah. Exercise strength training. People fail to realize that the more muscle you have, it takes a lot more energy in order to maintain that muscle. So that's why I'm huge on strength training. Cardiovascular activity is one, but strength training is something I do pretty much five to seven days a week. And the reason why it's because to maintain that muscle, you maintain your metabolism at a high rate. And therefore Guess what? You're able to enjoy more foods without gaining that weight back, especially about a lot of muscle on your body. Now I guess the other nuance factors of health that you may want to discuss for us, sleep, stress management. We talked a little bit about stress and how, in relation to what that does for our body, but what about sleep or how does sleep and stress play into the overall, how did they interact and how that play into longevity? Dude, honestly, I always say sleep is the number one thing when it comes to getting healthy and losing weight. Like I, it is the number one. People are always like you should straight yes, you should do all those things, but what's gonna make it harder is if you're not getting quality sleep. And that means I think a lot of people are, oh, I get eight hours of sleep. It's no, you get in bed and you look at your phone for two hours and then you hit snooze in the morning and it's not quality sleep. And sleep affects so many things. One from your hormone balance to like your ghrelin or how hungry you are per day. So it's if you're only getting four hours of sleep at night, you're going to be way more hungry every single day. You have way less energy to actually put towards the gym. And that's when all your hormone regulation happens. is at night. And I think a lot of people don't track their sleep, right? They have irregular sleep. They're not, they don't know how much deep sleep they get. They don't know how much REM sleep they get. They feel like they're slowly going crazy. On top of that, you have all the stress. People are over caffeinated. They're over like they drink way too much alcohol. So all of these things affect your sleep. They affect your sympathetic nervous system. And It starts to just waterfall and everything just starts to snowball over time and people just disregard sleep like, I don't need it. I was hustle mentality. I don't need it. It's you do need. That's the number one thing. So if I get somebody that I work with that is like complaining about all these things, I asked about sleep and that's the number one thing we focus on for maybe the first few weeks. It's just better sleep, better morning and nighttime routines. Yeah. Yeah. I actually created a part of the modules in my program as well. It's all about just sleep and sleep quality. It's has having the sleep rituals that work for you. One of the strategies that I use is called a brain dump. A lot of people. I have a lot of friends, a lot of family members that can't get to sleep. They're like, I can't fall asleep. Why is that? It's because there's a lot of stuff in your head that you're thinking about the next day. You're thinking about, I need to go to the bank. I need to do the trash. I need to take my dog out for a walk. I need, I have this project, I have taxes and that's a lot of overwhelm leading into sleep. So it's therefore you stay in a sympathetic state. I call it brain dumping just so that when you have a journal, just simply write every single thing done every single thing that you need to get done. And if you do that, then therefore you're like, wow I got, I just got a lot of tasks out of my head. I don't have to think about it going into sleep. And then afterwards, therefore prioritize. So what's the number one, number two, number three thing that I'm going to get done. And therefore, if I get these three things done, I feel fulfilled. Everything else I could push on to the next day. But at least I'm not thinking about that leading into the night. And obviously one thing as a physical therapist is mobility. So just being able to do some stretches, do some like spine stretches, things that hurt that may wake you up at night. Get, resolve that prior to sleep. So take that five to 10 minutes. It's worth it. Take the five, 10, 10 minutes, not on your phone, but to simply mobilize your body and you'll be surprised how much better you sleep and you wake up on the right side of the bed each and every time. I really like how you value sleep. Is there any other like tips or things that you give to your clients at all? Dude, like some people sleep with their rooms way too hot. I think, sleeping with your room, sleeping with the room, 65 or lower, I prefer like in the fifties. If I can, like I sleep with all the windows open, right? I have a chili pad. I have a bed jet. I have all these things that like keep me cool at night because I don't want to wake up. Not eating. Like within two hours of going to bed depends obviously for each person. But I think going to bed with a semi empty stomach is probably best. And then I think it's, I always say it starts in the morning. So not hitting snooze is like one of the worst things you can possibly do. So I just tell people if you really need a moment to wake up. Get up out of bed, go sit on the couch and just take your moment there. Like change scenery and just go sit there and just give yourself a few minutes just to wake up. I always say not a lot of caffeine afternoon because was it the half life of caffeine 12 hours? Yeah. So like 10 hours, I used to say don't do it like 10 hours before you go to sleep. So like last, my last cup of coffee might be like 12, 12 PM. Yeah. Yeah. And then I always try to keep them under 400 milligrams of caffeine per day. And then even some of them, like I go basically decaf coffee in the morning because I try to cut most of that stuff out. And then it, then obviously it's like daily, like you should go to bed, like exhausted. Like your body's just exhausted. Like you should walk, you should be doing all those things. So again, it goes back to all of these things throughout the day. And obviously your nighttime routine is good, but it's what's leading up to that too. Like you said, too, like getting all those things done. A lot of people procrastinate a lot of stuff. And if you could just set a timer of like 20 minutes at a time and just start banging things out, and then you can take a break after that. But a lot of us are distracted. There's a lot of things thrown out at us at once. I think being able to feel accomplished for the day is big. So again, what are those three things that'll make you feel accomplished? Yeah, absolutely. I always say that procrastination is fear and uncertainty disguise. So when you are procrastinating on your workouts, it's probably because you don't know what you're doing. So you might as well potentially hire somebody that can accelerate that learning curve so that you can get more confident and you can change your life. It just goes back to value at the same time like I value For us, for his time, people value our time to the point where they know we're experts. So therefore you might as well utilize us your advantage so that you can get ahead without having to go on an endless binge of YouTube videos, social media, in order to try to figure it out. And you, and still then there's just more confusion because everything's getting demonized, right? Everything's getting promoted. It's this is the best thing for your needs. I guess the last thing that we can hit on, and we hit on it a little bit already is about just habit formation and discipline. I think I saw a post on yours, how you talk about motivation and discipline, and I really appreciate that. So do you mind just sharing about when it comes to longevity, how does motivation, discipline habits, how does it come into play? Motivation is great. It is fantastic, except it's just fleeting. Like you're only motivated once in a while where it's one day you might feel excited to go to the gym and yeah, you definitely go to the gym, do that thing or excited to eat healthy. You go and buy all the groceries and you get all the healthy stuff. But what about tomorrow? What about tomorrow? If you got bad sleep or you're stressed or something else came up, then all of a sudden you're not motivated anymore. And like you're in this profession, too. It's like probably half the time you're motivated to do some of this stuff, whether it be stretching or any of these routines that we have, but they just are routine. So you're like, I do them. It's I'm not motivated to brush my teeth, but I do it because that's what I do every single day. And I think a lot of people need to realize it's similar to you. Brushing your teeth, taking a shower, doing all these things. I think habit formation is really tough for people because we are working against bad habits that have declined over time. And it takes work. And I think we start, I usually start small and I use basically like the old school, like you get a star every day that you do your thing. And I use that. And then if it's something didn't happen, so let's say we missed the gym for some reason, let's figure out why. We're not going to say that you failed or anything. Let's just figure out why. And can we make that up? Can we make it up on another day? Cause if something comes up with work or your kids, that's going to happen. No big deal, but how can we make it up on another day and to get ahead on some of these things? So it's like you said, that whole list of stuff, I got taxes. I got this, I got that. I think most people are reactive to everything. I'm reactive to taxes. I'm reactive to taking the trash out. I'm reactive to what am I going to eat for dinner tonight? And a little bit of planning, understanding what's going to be in the pipeline goes a really long way. It goes a really long way just to know and not be so reactive, but it takes some people some time to get out from behind the eight ball and be able to start that process of Oh, now I can plan. I can finally breathe for a second. And I think setting up these systems for your life, not like taking my systems or your systems, I think setting up the systems for their life is key. And most people don't really know how to do that. Where it's every day I put my stuff, my gym bag, or I do this, or I do that, and this is just what I do. So my gym bags in my car and I go to the gym after work or whatever that may be. I think most people don't have those systems in place. They just don't know. They just don't know what to do and what they should be doing. So I think motivation is great, but discipline and systems basically rule. over all of that. And when you feel motivated, use it when you can, but that's not your main source of energy right there. It is just not going to be, it's going to be based off of discipline and discipline only comes with your habits and your systems. from following those over time. And you have to build that up just like you would build up a deadlift or a squat or a bench press, and it doesn't happen overnight and it's a really difficult process and you have to put in way more work than you think you do. I think when you put in the hard work in the beginning, it becomes easier later, right? The saying goes, you work, yeah, you work hard. Now you have an easier life later and you can live your life. But if you take it easy now, again, you're not going to have the habits necessary to carry that on when something catastrophic happens. So I think everything that you said is I'm in a thousand percent agreements with regards to habit formation, how, automation is so big when it comes to business and automation is huge when it comes to the quick things that we get from like Amazon prime, right? So everyone's fixated on this Oh, get, get results quick. But reality is that when you put in the hard work, it can be automated later. Like you, but you have to put in the hard work. Now, if you consistently go to the gym, that will feel more automated. If you consistently track your calories, that will become more automated. I've been doing that for two years straight. And therefore it's easy for me to do. It's super easy, right? Yeah. It's true. It's treading through mud for people that first get it started. And when they hire me, for example. It takes a lot of work and I set those expectations. It's going to be hard work, but therefore if you stick with me or you stick with, whatever program that forest gives you, it's going to be so much easier and you're going to be so thankful years, decades down the road that you decided that I've, I focused or I invested in more preventative care. And like I said, I feel like everything that you say is. It's just things that I preach as well. I'm not sure if there's anything else you want to leave the crowd with for us in terms of just on that note too, I think most people look at the gym and eating right as something that they could just pick up and do, right? They just think that, oh, I should just be able to go to the gym and know exactly how to like lift. And it's that's not the case. Like you have to build, it's a skill. It is a skill to learn how to eat right for you and your lifestyle. It's a skill to learn how to exercise. It's a skill to learn how to lift. I'm trying to improve my cardio right now. And running is a skill. It's not just something you go out and do and just grind through it. There is a skill to it. So skill takes time. And but the good news about that is it doesn't disappear, right? So it's you've, even if you haven't played basketball in years, you could probably step out on that court and play pretty well, right? Better than the average person who never played. And that's because that skill has lasted you throughout that time. So these are all the things that I think that people don't realize it takes time, skill and effort over time. So it's just, it's not easy. Yeah, I agree with that. And I don't know. I feel like just being on this podcast with you, I feel like we have a lot more in common than we think. Basketball is like my entire life. But in any case hopefully people, as you listen to this podcast can just listen to this one over and over again not just to live longer, but instead just to think about just. The quality of your life, the quality of like how you do things, it's all codependent on all these different things that we do. And that perpetuates a much more fulfilling life where, you don't have to worry about disease later on in the future. For us, I appreciate your time. I want to thank you for your time. Where can people find out more about you and how can they reach out? They can find me on Instagram at I know forest and I'm on tick tock as well, but those are probably the best two places to find me. Awesome. Thanks so much for us. I appreciate your time and appreciate the value. And I'm sure potentially later we can have another conversation about this. I appreciate it. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you, man.