← The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #147 Featuring Dr. Anthony Balduzzi! The Fit Father AND MOTHER Project! Conventional vs. Non Conventional, Food as Medicine, Aging Gracefully, Bodybuilding the RIGHT way and more!
00:59:04
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- [00:17]
A
Today's episode is brought to you by my great friends at Ginfinity. One thing that I've learned over the years is that the highest performers do not rely on assumptions, they rely on data. And that's especially true when it comes to nad. Everyone is talking about boosting NAD levels, but very few people actually know where their levels are to begin with, whether their protocol is working or how much they even need. And that's what makes Ginfinity different. Which is why I am thrilled to announce that I have teamed up with Ginfinity to offer the new Dylan Gemelli NAD optimization protocol. Powered by Ginfinity, this protocol provides you the Ginfinity intracellular NAD test and supplies you with the most complete and TR tested NAD boosting supplement and protocol in existence, along with proper guidance to ensure that you are optimizing your health, performance and longevity. So check out the link in the show notes and start taking control of your health today. All right, everybody, welcome back to the Dylan Giabelli podcast. So, as you can see, I'm in a different set and area, and it is, let me just say, phenomenal where we're at. It is just amazingly beautiful. So I am, I'm honored and humbled that you had me over here to do this in such a beautiful place. And anytime anybody has me over, it is. It means the world to me. So before I even get started, thank you. Anytime you welcome somebody into your place, it's a big deal to me, but you are someone special to me already. I know we have met recently, but the conversation we just had, and then learning about what you do, what you're working towards, your background, and how we share so many similar desires and wants together, it is.
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B
Is.
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A
It's one of those connections that I just value to the highest extent. And you know, you know how it is when we get involved in these, we talk to a lot of people, meet a lot of great people, but then there's always certain ones that stick with. And you're already one with me, my friend, so. All right, everybody. My guest today, he's a naturopathic physician. He's the founder of the Fit Father and Fit Mother Project, and those are leading health and fitness programs. He's helped hundreds of thousands of people at this point across hundreds of countries. He's got dual degrees in nutrition and psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate in naturopathic medicine. But there is so much more to him that I can't wait to get into. He has life experiences at a still a young age. I Will tell you that are going to resonate with everybody out there listening. He has an event coming up that we're going to talk about that is absolutely phenomenal, that I am so excited and honored to be a part of. But my welcome, Dr. Anthony Balduzzi.
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B
Dude, thank you. The connection feeling is mutual. Dude, I feel like you're a brother, like, and I mean that. Like, just there's, like, similarities in the. In the background energy. It's been. It's been a privilege to explore that. And let's have an amazing conversation.
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A
Oh, we will. One thing I love about you is the positive vibe that I got as soon as you pulled up as soon as we met. And really, the initial phone call was one that I could tell right off the bat. All right, I like this guy. It didn't take me long.
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B
I knew right away.
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A
So let's talk a little bit about what is Fit Father Project and Fit Mother Project, because this is going to kind of give a baseline of why you do what you do. And then we're going to get into what kind of brought you to this level.
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B
Sweet. So I started fitfather.com almost 15 years ago now. So it's been the large body of my work, teaching health and fitness online has been geared towards helping busy fathers get healthy.
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A
Okay.
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B
Why you ask? Well, this is kind of how I got interested in health and fitness is growing up. I watched my dad get very sick when I was three years old, living in Syracuse, New York. He fell out of bed one day and had a seizure. And so we took him to the hospital. He got a CT and an mri. And they're like, peter, you have a brain tumor fast growing. Like, we need to get into surgery immediately. And so my dad did that. You know, he had me three years old, my newborn brother, married to my mom. And like, he was in his late 30s when he got a diagnosis of a brain tumor. And now that I'm in that stage, having a daughter, I can really just like process what that's like, like how devastating that was. And he chose to fight and what fighting looked like, and this was the majority of my childhood was two brain surgeries. And this was decades ago. The technology is better now than it was. But, like, they cut his skull open, removed a large portion of his brain. He lost control over half of his body. I remember used to smile at me with like a one sided smile because that's all he could do. And I remember as a kid, I used to just mimic that in the mirror. Looking back now just is like, that's my dad. And so I watched him fight, you know, chemotherapy, radiation. And I just got a deep appreciation for health and the lack of health, but also like what it's like to still show up for those who love amidst the challenges. And you know, eventually the cancer came back and he ended up dying when he was 42 years old. I was nine and we just moved to Phoenix, Arizona. In fact, my dad, I think he knew he was going to die. He was like, you know, the cancer came back the second time. We moved from Toronto, Canada, where we were living, to Phoenix, Arizona. We moved here around like May. So hot. My dad's in our parents bedroom with hospice. Like he's dying. That night I went down to the basketball court because I was like blowing off some steam. I was a basketball player just like you. And I got into a little bit of a tussle with some kids because I was just being like pissed off. And I got pushed somewhere doing a layup or something, and I fall and I break my arm, right? So I got a broken arm. I walk home, I could say, hey, mom, like this. And she's got a dying husband in the side room. My little brother's somewhere. They take me to the hospital and I stay overnight for surgery. And that was the night my dad died. She whispered in his ear, peter, if you're going to go, go now. I want you in that hospital room with Anthony. And so he let go. And so I share that because I definitely now I'll say was gifted with a very powerful moment early in my life. There were some people have a lot of adversity. This was my version of that. And it catapulted me into some very deep perspectives. I come to realize very early on that health is the foundation of everything we love. And through my wounding, I wanted to become strong. And so what that looked like was first becoming physically strong. And so my mom gave me a pair of my dad's old dumbbells. And so I'd hide them under the bed. I had a little Walkman with a. An ironic song. Now looking back, but the song was from Godsmack, I Stand Alone. And so I felt this just like kind of like rage. And I would just train at night. I would train. In the process of training, I started to feel more empowered. I realized I could take all this angst and I could channel it into something productive. And I started to get these little Popeye biceps in like eighth grade, ninth grade. And then I got really just addicted to bodybuilding and fitness. And so at the time it was bodybuilding, right? So there's muscle magazines. So I started like looking into all the different kinds of supplements and doing the training programs. Like these were like, you know, grown men taking steroids, giving advice. But I still made a lot of progress, you know, just from sheer will. And I just fell in love with fitness. And when you get good at something from an early age, you can really, like, build on that momentum, right? You know this as well. Like you get good at fitness and then people are like, oh, hey, train me. Hey, teach me. And I was a voracious reader about all things nutrition and exercise. I began competing in bodybuilding. In fact, I picked my university because I went to my college counselor and I was like, what do you think the best school that I can get into? And they gave me a list of them and I checked out all the gyms at all of them. And so we went to University of Pennsylvania and they had this little poster up said Mr. Penn. They had a bodybuilding show at that school. And I told my mom, I want to win that bodybuilding show one day. And I ended up doing it. And so I got into fitness through my dad's passing. And so in when I really had concretized a lot of this information, I wanted to help guys. Like, my dad probably didn't have cancer, but it could have been some metabolic issue. But a lot of guys feel like too busy, too much stress and pressure to be able to do the foundational things that keep you healthy. And so Fit Father was born, helped tens of thousands of guys in that program. Fit Mother spun out of that. And so the body of my work has been helping families and particular parents get healthy. Because I do believe when we look at society, you know, like healthy families can create healthy micro environments, right? It's like fractal. It's just like cells. Like a healthy cell has healthy cytokines that creates a healthy environment. And so I realized that there's a lot of leverage there. And also I have a soft spot because of my own father. And now being a dad now, it's like everything. It's like I believe in generational health. How do we embody this stuff, pass it on to our kids? And so it's a part of my service. And so I have this online health and fitness component with fitfather, we have online programs, nutrition ex exercise programs for muscle building and fat loss, some supplements. And it's really just a community of people who want to like, be better together and overcome the stresses and pressures. And then I Have this whole world of my own healing journey that goes far beyond the business side of it. You know, physical healing, mental, emotional healing. I'm in a naturopathic medicine, the frontiers of, like, meditation and longevity. All the stuff that I know you enjoy as well. And so, yeah, that's like me, Anthony, as like Dr. And above all, I think, you know, a father, a follower of Christ, a man who loves a good outdoor adventure and. And yeah, like, I love my life.
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A
I've got a good question for you, but I gotta ask you something first. So your criteria for picking a school was what the gym was like?
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B
For sure.
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A
I love it. Solid. I love it.
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B
Solid gym.
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A
I love it.
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B
Hotcher Fitness, University of Pennsylvania. Wow, great. I loved it. Yeah, it's amazing. Ivy League school, right? Ivy League school, yeah.
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A
Then they had a sweet gym.
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B
They had a sweet gym.
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A
I love that. Okay, so when we're talking about fundamentally what you're doing. Yeah. This is one of the things that I have really tried to stress to my own kids and to any younger generation, but to parents in general, a lot of the excuses that I always hear is, well, I got to feed the kids this, so I'm going to go ahead and eat this and do this. And my argument is, and I want to hear what your thought is and what you teaches, one, why are you feeding them that crab? And two, what do you mean? You have to eat what you're giving them? Since when? And why you can't do two things at once, like make them whatever they need and make yourself something. Accountability, we talked about earlier. Do you talk about that? And is that one of the things that you stress? Because to me, that seems to be one of the bigger problems. And you're setting the example for the kids for sure. Right.
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B
First, I'll speak as a, as a dad. Yeah. To a young daughter, man, I just like, I know too much. And what I mean by that is, like, I just know how the food that I give her, giving her body and her cells things that they need to thrive is one way of me loving her to the greatest extent to help her express. Right. And so, like, she's still a kid, I make Mac and cheese for her, but I make a healthy version of that, and it kicks ass. Like, we got nutritional yeast in there. It's like the right kinds of cheeses and stuff like that, and it's like, helps her thrive. And so I've developed her core nutrition system. Fruit, salmon, Mac and cheese, eggs, turkey. You know, she likes having her cucumbers. So, like There's a way. You gotta build a system. And ideally, you get your kids instilled in that. But, like, let's say there's a scenario where that's not the case. The kids eat, you know, different kinds of foods. Like, personal integrity and accountability needs to be at the core of what you're doing. And so you need to understand that you probably just don't have that amount of leeway as what your kids are eating based on your age, your metabolism, and your goals. And so we're gonna need to find some kind of system to overcome, like that scenario. And one thing I'll say too, is, okay, let's say dinner is what you're eating with the family, and it's unhealthier food. You still have one or two other meals throughout the day to exert a lot of power and structure. And so one thing that I teach fundamentally to dads is there's like, two types of meals. You want to have one, you want to have your go to meals. You only need a pocket of a couple of these. These are plays that you run all the time. And so for your first morning meal, go to meals. It could be like eggs and avocado, eggs and fruit. Could be some kind of healthy smoothie recipe. If you overnight oatmeal with some kind of healthy stuff, like, whatever it ends up being for you, run those plays. And so it's not an excuse to eat unhealthy throughout the entire day just because your family is eating a particular way at night. I also think there's gradual shifts that you can make with your family where, let's say what is served is maybe some. Some chicken and some vegetables and then some other kind of thing that your kid might have. There's a way to just like, massage all that to make it work and practical.
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A
Right.
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And like, meal prep and simple things like this goes a long way, like, pave the path to success by preparing a lot of your food. Because I get it. Like, as a dad, you're holding a lot, and mom too. It's easy to be reactive. You got to have a good system. So I'm a systems guy. Yeah. If really what I do with Fitfile and Famil is I help people identify their healthy, like, foods that are part of their. Their journey, like, those key things, build those into go to meals, create nutrition systems, and stay accountable over a long haul. So that's like, one element of nutrition. How do we make it simple and sustainable? Eat like. And I'm not, like, I don't prescribe a diet for people. Look, there's so many different kinds of diets. If I had to describe it though, I help people eat whole foods. They eat lower carb naturally, which tends to work good for people. That's not like no carb, that's just lower carb. And they're eating a lot of healthy fats, a lot of protein, a lot of micronutri dense foods. And we find a way to move those into meals where you don't need to think a lot about it.
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A
Yeah, and that's the key too. And, and we talked about this prior is falling into these traps about the foods and the way that there's. It's got to be keto, it's got to be carnivore, it's got to be this, it's got to be Mediterranean. No, it needs to be what is needed by said person. And I think explaining that to people, I always fall into the lower carb thing too. But when I train crazy, you gotta have a little bit, otherwise you're depleting and you're actually doing yourself a disservice. But that's. It's different for everybody. But I love what you said. You care about your daughter so you got to put the right kind of foods in front of her. Otherwise you're starting her off on the wrong foot and you're actually making her unhealthy.
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B
You're robbing from her.
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A
Yes. Yeah. If you teach people to make things like you said, Mac and cheese, you could make anything healthy. Yeah, you absolutely. I mean eliminate the process things and learn how to make things.
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B
I get, there's an organic based grain on there. I throw nutritional yeast in there. I throw some like high quality grass fed ghee or clarified butter. Like when you look at that thing in stats, if we want to go that technical, it's loaded with B vitamins, short chain fatty acids. It's got, she's got the carbs that she needs. It's got tons of protein in it and she loves it and she's grown up with that. So like that's a systems approach.
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A
I love that.
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B
So it's like you just got to get a little creative.
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A
You got to train the parents to train the kids. Right?
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B
Yeah, I love that.
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A
Do you find that the, the kids enjoy though, doing that with their parents? Because I what I've always found, and you tell me because you work with more kids than I do and families, the kids enjoy that. They love to do those kinds of things with their parents. See the different ways to do things and then share it with the parents.
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B
I'll say it's probably one of the most rewarding things I hear from people on a fitness journey is it does hit some kind of critical mass where they've done enough that if they have older kids, their kids really recognize them. Like dad or mom, respect. I see what you're doing and like, I, I'm really inspired. I'm really proud of you and I'd love to do the same. And if you have young kids too, man, anything can be evolved in the movement. And it's just training becomes a part of like what it's like in your family. Values, fundamental. It's like culture is the environment of your family in terms of your virtues and your values. And I couldn't think of if we were going to pick five values for a family. If health is not one of those five, and like shared movement is not one of those five. Man, you're like missing one of the biggest things. We're humans. We have bodies. Our bodies have the capacity to be strong. We can connect over our bodies. And so for a lot of dads, they're very busy. They want to spend more time with their kids. They get them training with them. And the kinds of movements that we have people do are fundamental movements. We use dumbbells and kettlebells and bands and body weight. And we have them squat and press overhead and pull things and row and move and twist. Just like really fun core movements. And you can incorporate your family. It's wonderful at any age. And it's really amazing to see the shifts that happen with the kids.
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A
Do you find. I'm pretty sure this is a yes, but I want to hear from you. Do you find that when people come to you and they start working with you that they develop a much like deeper, closer relationship with their kids and their families and it draws them into a totally different thing that they may not even have been expecting?
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B
Yes, yes, on a couple levels. One, I think you're able to interface with your kids through the lens of shared values.
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A
Right.
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B
You're also able to interface with your kids through like movement. Like you can, you can potentially move together, which is a very human thing to do. If we've got like very tribal, ancestral, like we're moving together, we're, we're meant to, to be moving together. But also like you're, you're taking this long term mindset of investing in your health and your future and you're wanting that for your kids as well. It's amazing. And when you get your body healthy, your mind gets healthier, you typically become less reactive, you typically become a little more grateful, you become a little more resilient. So the times where you're feeling off or like a little depressed or a little snappy and angry, like, that just doesn't happen quite as much. And, and I also think that's like, you can't this the whole phrase, you can't bring a horse to water or drag a horse to water. But I love the idea of like, your healthy behaviors end up like planting you as a lighthouse for your family and you stand strong in what you know is good for you. Yeah, and like that goodness and that virtue wins over time. You just keep on spinning your light and spinning your light and like, yeah, like, I mean people are gonna see it. They can't not see it. It's one of the most subtly like valuable things and service things you can do to your entire extended family is by displaying your integrity, by living the healthiest life that you can and getting yourself healthy. It's. It's am. And that has a ripple effect that's just like, goes on for forever. Like, imagine not just being the fit dad, but potentially the fit grandpa. Yeah, right. You know, we have those in our family, maybe even a fit great grandparent. The longevity that you get out of that as well, the cognitive sharpness. And there's many ways to think about it. The values and the virtues that you will gain life experience. But also, let's look at the pain. Many of us have had parents when you look into the future and they're falling off the rails. Like they have like debilitating orthopedic conditions. You know, heart's not healthy, they're taking medications, mind is not nearly as sharp. So you can also look out and be like, dang, I'm working really hard right now to provide for my family and to be there with them. What do I want to feel like when I'm 20, 30 years from now? And so like looking into the future, we're making those choices today. And it's, it's like what I have seen through Fitfather, that's so freaking amazing is there are people in their 60s that have been unhealthy for like three or four decades. They can turn things around and extend their life by like a decade. Like it's not too late. And that's the coolest thing. The human body is immensely resilient. We live in a super toxic world on many ways, like whether it's the digital stuff or even the environmental toxins. Our bodies can hold this crap and like, for a long time and still keep on going when you clean up. The body's regenerative capacity is incredible.
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A
Oh, yeah.
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B
This is why I love the kind of medicine I practice.
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A
Yeah. Well. And the healthier the people, the happier the people, which means that they're going to be able to do a lot more together and have a more successful relationship with each other. That makes you healthier too. But if you're eating like crap, if you're not training, you're not working out. Kids see that, man, they know their kids are so receptive and they know when negative energies around them. So you're bringing positive energy.
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B
And you know, something that you and I share is this deep passion for translating health into leadership. Yeah, right. For you, it's like stewardship of your mission to want people, as many people as possible, to hear your message of longevity and goodness and God and. And these things. It's like that message has as much power as your full package has. So. And part of that package is your physical body, which is completely tied to how healthy your cells are. The amount of energy have, which is completely tied to how much muscle you maintain, which is a byproduct of your training. So it's all integrity. It's like, I know, it's like, who am I going to follow? I'm going to follow the person that just oozes virtue and ideally is very physically strong as well. Like, they're putting in the work. And so you want to have more influence in your family. You want to have a more intimate relationship with your partner, your sp.
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A
House.
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B
Like, all of these things get enhanced by physical health. And also just think about people like my dad, people like my dad who, like, stuff does go wrong. And to be grateful that you have the chance still to do even better. And then the final thing I'll add, and I hope we get to this at some point, is for me, like, how I treat my physical body is directly proportional to how close I feel to God. And it's like the state of my system and my level of connection is completely contingent upon how I live and how I practice and what it is. And there are periods of time when I'm on fire, on fire with what I'll call like the Holy Spirit, with energy, with alignment. And then I realize the kinds of things that cause some subtle shifts to that. And I'm always realigning. And like, what more can I experience as a byproduct of great physical health?
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A
That just made me think of. We don't often think enough. I don't think. I know. I don't now that you just said that when you do damaging things to yourself, bad habits don't take care of yourself. That's kind of a direct shot at God for the gift that he gave you as your temple and you're not taking care of it. It's kind of like, I don't care. You gave me this wonderful gift and I don't care. I mean, that just hit me like a ton of bricks right now that you're talking about that. That that may be something when we're doing something we know isn't right that we need to think about. I love that. That's enough to make you want to do better. Right. So that was a great point that you just made. There's a lot to wrap your head around around that. Just remember you're taking a gift that you were given and you're mistreating it.
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B
And then what you receive is suffering and feedback. Yep. And so God loves you in the sense that you're going to get the suffering and the feedback to invite you into some degree of course correction.
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A
That's right.
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B
Cool.
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A
That's it.
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B
Like, it's all a giant feedback loop. And I think there is a. There's this interesting through line that I see through, like, natural philosophy. All the stuff we're learning from the longevity space of a way of living that is, like, deeply connected. A regulated nervous system that is, like, relaxed with great blood flow, that's oxygenated with cells and mitochondria that have all the micronutrients to create this ATP through this amazing fire reaction that happens with us with connection to the sun and the circadian rhythm. There's this through line of. I feel like it's just like a healthy, vibrant, connected body and mind. And it's contagious. It is contagious. This is why people like you and me spend our time sharing this because it feels so true and want more people to experience it. And one person like you, dude, you probably. You might even be like a third through your life. Who knows? Like, you could be like, going for a long time. It's not about how long you live, but you're just going to continuously shine that light. Yeah, I'm doing the same.
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A
I love it.
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B
Yeah.
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A
It's about adding quality years to your life. It's not just about living as long as you can. It's about living as quality as you can. Right. Okay. So. So I would like you to explain something. So naturopathic teaching as opposed to more conventional teaching, why did you chose to go that route? What's the difference? What's. What are the main differences? And then maybe what are some of the similarities or are there any.
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B
Yeah, I mean, everything is completely converging right now in the medical landscape. So, you know, medical doctors, MDs, like, largely trained over the last couple hundred years in what is called allopathic medicine. And basically it's done a really great job at looking at the body in more reduced things. You have a cardiologist, you have a nephrologist, you have, you know, different kinds of specialists for different organ systems. And we've studied it and we've dissected it, and then we have this whole idea of pharmacology is that we can find substances that have very specific functions to counteract imbalances in the body. And so it's okay, you have elevated lipids in your blood. A cardiologist will see this and then say, okay, here is something we can give you we know has a counterbalancing effect on this one variable. So it's kind of like a reductionistic philosophy that led to a lot of great study and breakthrough. But now we're like all woken up to be like, oh God. This is a completely interconnected system. Gut, brain, heart, access, immune system, nervous system, all playing together. Naturopathic medicine is kind of like understood this for a long period of time that you're treating a whole person. And this sort of is like a completely integrated systems approach, which is not just like the body systems themselves, but also the mental emotional aspect too. Right. So it's like when you go to a naturopathic physician's intake, they're looking at your relationships, they're looking at your stress level, your grief, what you're processing, like where you came from, your story, your identity, how that shows up. You know, if you look at some of the connections between adverse childhood experiences and autoimmune diseases, they're super strong, right? Super strong. These kind of traumas can translate through the nervous system and the immune system into expressions of different kind of imbalances. So the naturopathic approach is there's a series of tenants there and like, I'll give you a couple of my favorite ones. Like, one, treat the whole person. Two, the belief that the body, body has an inherent healing mechanism. In naturopathic philosophy, it's called the vis. And the goal of the physician is to stimulate the vis, the vital force of the body. So it's A little different than maybe like what I think is like a little egoic in modern medicine, where it's like, let me, like, I'm doctor, I know what's up. I know your problem. Here's your diagnosis, your label, and here's the thing that I recommend you take to fix that and then come back and see me and we'll assess that what you're doing. The naturopathic physician's philosophy is like, let me try to understand you to the best that I can through a really good relationship and translation process. Now let me help. Help you do things to help stimulate your vital force to heal, which sometime is adding things in, but a lot of times it's taking things away. How do we remove obstacles to cure? Could be a stressful job. It could be something that is a toxin in your. In your physical system, emotional system. It could be that you're deficient in something because of some genetic factor, and we need to add something in. And so it's really stimulating body. And so what I love, it's a fundamentally empowering concept. It's like if you believe that you can heal. And now we need to just support the healing. Great, great. Okay, so if you want to support the body in healing, what do you need? Well, you need great circulation. You need this vital force of blood to be moving oxygen and nutrients throughout your body. How do we create good circulation? Boom. We have ways to support that nutritionally. Movement, nervous system regulation. Okay, we need great gut health because anything you're putting in needs to be assimilated. This whole tube that's tied to your ability to process food and eliminate waste needs to be optimized. So a lot of naturopathic philosophy is looking at with or the amunctories, the different systems like digestive systems, sweating systems, system, urine system, and how is fluid moving through the body? So there's there's a really cool blend of, I guess some more like Eastern thinking with Western thinking. And here's the cool thing, it is all converging with various labels right now. I know, like, functional medicine, you know, whatever you want to call it, it's like, it's converging now, and it's super cool because I. I'm really excited and actually very optimistic about the field. There are so many medical doctors who are great experts now who got and went, gotten like, holistic training. There's now so much more data that's pegging to a lot of natural philosophies that are working, working. And we're also seeing some stuff that may not work. That's been from folklore that we know is like a little bit debunked, which is really wonderful too. And so we're pinning this whole, this whole field is kind of converging together. And maybe my favorite part of all is that doctors have gotten like dethroned in the modern landscape as like some arbiters of universal truth because they went to the textbooks and they went to the school and now it's like everyone, it's like kind of democratic. If you want to learn something, it is out there, the library of YouTube, the books, the journals, using AI now you can like really I, I know people who have no degrees behind their name that know the most about health. And then the final thing I'll say is like really, I think doctor, the word dose story means teacher. And so if you're going to follow the path of profession of a doctor, you need to be a teacher. And the teacher that you want to do is, it requires embodiment, not just knowledge. And so I, I want to be a healthy doctor. I want to like really practice and understand this in my body because then I can really help people.
- [27:43]
A
People I don't ever, ever like take shots or want to take away from anybody, especially somebody that paid a lot of money to go to school. I don't ever want to do that and I'm not going to do it. But I do speak in fact relative, figurative, all of it. And I have been privy, which you certainly are, to know what is being taught when people go to medical school and what's not. And it's severely, severely lacking. And that's the fact. And then people that will want to say, well, is so and so a doctor, well, maybe, maybe not. But what kind of hands on experience do they have? And what is one being taught and what is one actually learning from being in the trenches and working with people every single day and seeing what's actually happening. You just made a point. Ask yourself this question. If you're on the fence when you go to your general practitioner, are they asking you how your sleep is, what kind of stress you're under, like, or are they taking five minutes, taking your blood pressure, checking your throat, maybe with a culture and asking you a couple basic questions and telling you, well, that that's going around. So here you go. Show that I understand that it's probably more expensive, but it's more hands on, it's more intricate. It's like going to a public university or private one. Yes, right. So you're getting this one on One attention. I guess I would hope and pray that people are starting to open their eyes, which I think they are more. So instead of saying, oh everybody's crazy and they don't know what they're talking about to wow, maybe this person's onto something. And what you said, said I've noticed this too. More like regular doctors. I, I don't even like to call them regular because I think what we call conventional is non conventional. I want your. It is, yeah. So I think they're opening their eyes more. At least some of them are. But let me ask you this. I argue that conventional medicine is actually non conventional because you're normally taking something natural and then altering it and putting all kinds of crap in it or whatever. And same with the medicine practice. Do you agree with that?
- [29:36]
B
Yeah, well, I think if we look at some of the history, it's kind of clear. Like a lot things that have good roots have gotten co opted by finance and profiteering. And I think that there was the idea that when we really realized we can isolate drugs like Bayer and we have aspirin and then we build this whole industry on wanting to give people pills and have like a sick care, then you have insurance that comes in here. We've all heard the same thing. It's like insurance gives doctors reimbursement so you can have short time, you can never get to root cause when people. And then the whole system perpetuates itself. It's certainly broken. The cool thing though is like the fundamentals to fix your health and become a great advocate for yourself. You know, food, movement, water, light, healthy relationships, nervous system regulation practices like breathing and forgiveness. Like these are all directly accessible to us right now. And there's so much great nutrition education. I love seeing stories on like YouTube of people in the comments being like, man, I changed my diet, I got off all my medication, lost £100. Like that's like, like that's like so accessible for us like right now and it's, and it's here. And so yeah, I like to say yes, the system is, it has, has issues and what I love and this is what me as a Christian, the truth wins. Like, and so you just stand on your business. Which I think when it comes to this body there's a certain set of inputs that lead to like well being and when it comes to the mind, there's a certain set of orientations that leads to peace and like love. So it's like that ultimately is going to happen because suffering is going to feed back into that how true is food as medic?
- [31:03]
A
And how true is that concept?
- [31:05]
B
Well, here's the. Here's the interesting thing, I think, like, if. Okay, we're juggling these balls and I would talk from the fit followers familiar. There's a couple things to think about, right? You have sleep and restoration. You need that one. You have movement and exercise. You need that one.
- [31:16]
A
You need food.
- [31:16]
B
You have this one. I'll say. It's like, food is a unique one. And we'll put table sleep for a second. That the things that you put in kind of beneficial or detrimental.
- [31:26]
A
Yeah. Right.
- [31:27]
B
And so that's the tricky part, right? You can eat stuff. Stuff that could, like, really mess you up. Like, maybe you have an intolerance to it. Maybe it's. It's like wheat that's sprayed with glyphosate. Maybe it's, like, super inflammatory, you know, like a rancid seed oil of some sort. Maybe it's sugar that totally dysregulates your system. Artificial colorings and additives. So food's unique because, like, you can put something in there that makes it harder for your body. That would be better if you, like, put nothing in there. Right? Where also, food can be massively healing when you're eating, like, the right kinds of foods. And it gives you nutrition. Nutrition. I'm also excited about the frontier of personalized nutrition, which comes down to, like, figuring out what works for you through just awareness. Like, what do I eat that makes my gut feel great? What do I eat that helps me feel light and I can build muscle and feel energy? But also, like, looking at genetics and metabolomics and some of these tests now that can really, like, give you some great insight into what's right for you. So, like, a super healthy friend who's doing all the things right. Like, even a practitioner teaches a ton of people. Like, he finally did some deeper genetic testing and looked at. He has a. He has a defect in his vitamin D receptor. So, like, like, no matter how much, like, sun he was getting, he wasn't reaching optimal levels. He needs, like, more extreme supplementation. He had some methylation defects. He fixed that in a little targeted way. And so I just share that this, like, science aspect of nutrition is.
- [32:40]
A
Is.
- [32:40]
B
Is really interesting and powerful. And then exercise is. Is. Is. Is. There's a lot there. Like, we know that maintaining muscle is huge. Oh, yeah. But. But, like, I want to expand this, and I. I think this is a conversation I want to shout out the guy who's really, like, promoting this stuff, the YouTube channel is I am longevity. I gotta think of like his name. But overall he's like, he's in his 60s and he's really promoting the idea that as we age to age well, it's not just about amount of muscle mass we have, but how explosive our nervous system can be and that we really need to be training fast, explosive movements. So I want everyone listening to this. It's like to really look into that. Like something like if you did sprints like once a week to the best of your capacity and build up to that, or even some reflex training, that's like really key for your longevity. Yeah. And so as you get deeper in your health journey, at first it's like, okay, eat healthy, reduce visceral fat, walk and move more and accumulate movement.
- [33:31]
A
Great.
- [33:31]
B
And then you have a more advanced layer of okay, let's do some resistance training to really build and maintain that muscle mass and keep the hormonal building blocks in place with whatever way is appropriate for somebody. Then there's other ways to like speed, balance, coordination and other things you can train. So your body can become a playground. Yeah. This can become a game. You can always ask yourself, like, how good can I be at the sea age? That's a moving target. But like, I know I'm super inspired by. If you go to a park and you see a 70 year old doing some pull up and jogging around, you're like, holy crap. Like, why is that so compelling? Yeah, it is.
- [34:04]
A
It used to be something that would just almost be irrational to even see. Now it's becoming more prevalent. You're seeing more guys and, and women too in their 60s and 70s that you're like, well, they're really that old
- [34:17]
B
and they're able to do that. Yeah.
- [34:18]
A
What about VO2 Max? How do you. Because I've, I've found that now over time we're starting to understand how vital that is to long term health. Huge. Talk about that a little bit and explain why and what is it?
- [34:31]
B
Well, yeah, I think, I think it's like the maximum amount of oxygen that you can consume when you're in high intensity exercise setting. So the higher V2 max, the higher capacity that your heart engine basically has to run a higher heart rate and have more oxygen consumption. So it's like you want a high VO2 max. The only way to train that really well in my opinion, experience is doing like higher intensity interval training a couple times. Like get that heart rate up, Work, work these things, things move up your lactate threshold. Like do some higher intensity exercise. And I think walking is great as a foundation. But doing some sprint training, doing some type of metabolic circuit training that we're doing is, is key for high VO2 max.
- [35:07]
A
Yeah.
- [35:07]
B
What are you doing for your VO2 max training?
- [35:09]
A
Well, I overtrain really bad so I don't, don't follow what I do. I, I every single day I do, I walk between 4 and 5 miles non training days I do 5, then I do ellipticals for, for 85 minutes. I have a carol bike that I,
- [35:24]
B
I have one of those too. Yeah, that's an example of a great way to train your VO2 max.
- [35:27]
A
That re hit training.
- [35:29]
B
20 minute 20 second sprint. It's as good as it gets.
- [35:32]
A
Yeah, I used to because of basketball and I do like, I'd actually go do line drills.
- [35:38]
B
Not at basketball.
- [35:39]
A
Yes, I know that sounds crazy but those are good, you know, sprint type of things. Or even when I, when I moved several times I'd go find a football field or a track and do those 40, 50 yard sprints or on a treadmill. What I would generally do is I, I'd go a little incline and do like 40 second hard sprint. Yeah. And then walk about 30, 40 seconds and do about five of those.
- [36:02]
B
Perfect. Yeah. I think getting your heart rate up like high like that with some high intensity effort and whatever mode that you do it once a week, but ideally two to three. But if you want to move for longevity once a week, get your heart rate up, up and over time improve it. And then like looking at that, we're looking at the overall circulatory system. Right. So now you're getting into like oh, how do we keep good vascular health? Yeah. Okay, so now we need an anti inflammatory environment in the body. We want a good amount of polyphenols. We want to make sure that we have like Optimum vitamin D3K2 levels. We want to optimize nitric oxide. And so like some practical things from there is like I've really gotten into arugula salads with extra high polyphenol, extra virgin olive oil. Maybe I'm just like expressing my inner Italian dude. But like, like getting a nitrate source with some polyphenols on there is like that's like, that's a hacky thing to say on a podcast. But like dude, that's fundamental to my health routine. It's like evoo for the healthy fats and the polyphenols nitrate source in the arugula. All you like oxalate people. It's a low oxalate Green and throw some protein on there that you want. Like that's, that's killer. And so if you figure out a couple of these things that are like high yield, platform type meals, like you're in good shape. Like, I also think making a healthy, functional drink is really good. Like most people like to have a nice drink in the morning. It's like it could be your cup of Joe. Like where I've settled on for me is like I have this morning cacao drink. I get like ceremonial grade cacao which has really potent polyphenols. Like different kinds like epicatechin. There's even research that taking epicin like post workout. Like helps accentuate the anabolic response after exercise. Great polyphenol source of that. I'll throw some ghee, ghee in there because you get these C15 fats found in the ghee, MCT oil in there, a little lion's mane mushroom and you know, blend this thing up. So I get like a great drink every day. So I think these anchors are key. If you can find some like super food style anchors that you actually legit enjoy and those become food allies for you. That's a part of your overall system. And those good anchors take the space of the BS stuff that, that could fill the vacuum otherwise.
- [38:01]
A
I started sauteing arugula every day in my meals and I, I, I, I don't fear the oxalates and spinach because I, you got to eat a lot. I agree. Raw spinach.
- [38:11]
B
I agree.
- [38:12]
A
I cook it and everything. I think there's a fine line of fear that gets put into people because there's so much value in spinach. Yeah, I agree. I think that too is one of the things that I find to be problematic is there's a lot of guys I actually respect a lot that I hold in high regard, but they spend the am amount of majority of their time making videos on scaring people and telling them they can't do this and this and this and then they make it to where what can I do? That's it.
- [38:37]
B
You see the comment section of some top influencer videos. People are just like, I'm confused.
- [38:41]
A
They're done.
- [38:42]
B
What do I even eat? Yeah, yeah, it's, that's disempowering. It is, that's contracted energy.
- [38:47]
A
It, it, it is actually a hindrance. It's not helpful. Yeah. Spending your entire day making videos on how we should be scared of leaving our house is not helpful. It's not. So I want to try to. And, and I see that you do this too is teach people people. Yeah. Maybe just temper this a little bit. Get a little bit of this, get a little bit of that. Don't have a pound of it. And this is how you're going to get the benefit from for sure.
- [39:12]
B
For sure. And there's a wide variety of foods. I'll just give a quick highlight over my go to foods that I've allied with, with life. Like I'm, I, I like eat seasonal fruit. So as it comes through the season, I eat seasonal fruit. So like melons are in season now. In the fall it's like apples and pears, berries all the time. Like, I think fruit on an empty stomach is a very valuable thing. You get a lot of unique types of fibers. It's like fast digesting good microbiome. I, I do, I am a believer in fiber diversity. I think that we want a lot of different types because I've, I've seen the research and I've also done enough gut tests to see that like you want Akkermansia, you want different like mucus producing and supporting bacteria, like, and the fibers help. So I'm, I'm a big fruit guy. I have some, I use protein powder. I make a clean one myself. And I think it's a great tool because we know that protein's important. And so like I have it as an arsenal. Sometimes I make it like a protein smoothie. And that's 50 grams right there. Yeah. For me personally, it might not be for everyone. I'm a big fan of eggs. Eggs. I eat a lot of eggs. I eat the egg yolks. I think they're like, at least for my, as a dad, a checkbox. If I get a couple egg yolks into my daughter, I'm like, oh, she's like, she's like set. You just got choline, all the vitamins. Those are wonderful. Great protein source. I think that getting omega 3s from food sources are great. Sardines, mackerel, cold water, fatty fish. But I also do the plant based, you know, hemp hearts, chia seeds, like these types of things. It's ala, but it's still good. It's all additive in there. Extra virgin olive oil, avocados, macadamia nuts, walnuts, cacao.
- [40:33]
A
How.
- [40:34]
B
And you know, I, I actually what I think versus my body one day is I don't stress as much about protein as I used to and I probably eat lower protein than many people do, but man, I get like between 100 and 150 grams of protein a day. I eat higher fats on some days where I don't train post workout. Purple potatoes, I, I do well with on those tubers. I figured that out for me and like, yeah, I mean you can get into the minors, but I'm just sharing like these are some things that I've found and I feel fantastic.
- [40:58]
A
Oh yeah, me too. I was starving myself of fat that for 20, 30 years and I went from eating 15 a day to about 120 now a day.
- [41:08]
B
I'm around the same.
- [41:09]
A
Yeah. It is the best I have ever felt. Me too. And I'm with you. I was doing the whole egg whites every day and not eating yolks. And I always have at least four. Right.
- [41:19]
B
There's even some research on the muscle building component that the whole egg, which you wouldn't expect because you're like, oh, I'm getting the amino acids and I'm getting the leucine from the egg white. But the whole egg white works better.
- [41:28]
A
Absolutely.
- [41:29]
B
You get a better anabolic response. Yeah.
- [41:30]
A
You're taking part of it.
- [41:31]
B
She whiz the whole thing. Yeah.
- [41:33]
A
Who would have thought, you know? And, and I spent all those years eating fat free yogurt and just making myself miserable. Honestly now it's funny because I, I used to look at labels and if it had fat in it, I'd be like, oh, I don't know now if it doesn't, it's more like I don't know if I want that or. Because it strips everything out and fills it with bs. It's amazing.
- [41:52]
B
Yeah. I want to share something that I think is that maybe a little more unique to my perspective. The same thing. I am like, like my spiritual walk, which for me involves like a lot of prayer meditation. So I become sensitive over time to the foods that make me feel light inside. So like this dimension of subjective light and heaviness. I now eat some things and I feel like I'm heavy afterwards. Like one, the energy might be a little lower, but it feels like it's sitting in my stomach. Is that. And then you eat some foods and you feel like light. And I think that subjective feeling of lightness for me correlates and like really supports like meditation and inner peace.
- [42:26]
A
Peace.
- [42:26]
B
And I also know if you look back into like the yogis and all the study through India of like what supports meditation, they're like, oh, these are so big foods. These are foods that help a quiet mind and energized body. And you know, I've gotten deeper into like listening inside, like tuning in Getting centered, getting connected. I eat a diet now that helps support that. So like I had some steak with my buddies, but that's not what I would eat before I meditate. Yeah. It would not be I ideal, like I would be in a fasted state or I'd eat something very, very light. And so just understand there's like foods that are not just like absolutely the best all the time. It's like what's suited for your goals.
- [43:02]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [43:02]
B
I mean, to someone there's a deep fast. You'll see how it can be powerful in terms of how you feel and what, how connected you are during those times.
- [43:09]
A
Yeah, because those heavy meals, they kind of make you, I don't know, just tired and you're not really there.
- [43:15]
B
There's blood flow, there's digestion happening. It's like in, in, like in some of the yogic philosophy and eastern philosophy tamasic, there's a heaviness about, about them. They can be like grounding, but for the purposes of feeling like calm and clean inside, it's not the best.
- [43:27]
A
Yeah, totally, totally agree. Let's go back in time a little bit to the bodybuilding side of things. I want to touch on that because we haven't gone there. I love everything we've talked about, but I want to, I want to touch on some things here. So you started bodybuilding at what age?
- [43:41]
B
Okay, so I mean I started like push ups and training around 12.
- [43:45]
A
Okay.
- [43:46]
B
I went to an all boys Jesuit high school, so there's no girls. So like, like getting jacked was like the thing. I carry my lunch pail, so I'd say I was like strength training pretty hard from like 13 onwards. Did my first bodybuilding show at 18.
- [43:58]
A
Okay, so what was, let's start at 12, how much did you weigh and how tall were you? And then at 18, where did you go?
- [44:04]
B
12. I was probably, you know, I was like, I was probably around 100, 110 pounds and I graduated high school, almost 200 pounds.
- [44:11]
A
Oh.
- [44:11]
B
Put on like 100 pounds throughout high school. And you know, I was at the time, like, I think I was just trying to eat a lot of food. I remember making a lot of sandwiches was sad but true. There's healthy choice, microwavable meals. I was making a lot of those. I didn't know about the whole like plastics endocrine disruptors, but like I was doing my own meal prep, you know, so that was what I was doing, microwaving those suckers. And then I was also like, I read this book, super Squats is like all you need to do is drink a gallon of milk a day and you need to like squat. And I'm like lactose intolerant. But I was just like a kid in that stuff because like calories I guess. And I tried a lot of those mass gainers, which is just like cheap mouthed dextrin with like low quality protein, but like, hey man, like enough effort, enough sub offs effort in the right way with a, with a hormonal environment in your teens that is like favorable, like, you know, it gets you somewhere.
- [44:56]
A
That's all we knew at the time, man, that was acceptable. So, man, you put on £100 in like five, six years.
- [45:01]
B
Yeah. And like most muscle I, you know, had some fat. And then, you know, I do bodybuilding, you have to learn how to diet and how to diet properly. My first body show, I had no idea what I was doing. I was like into lifting, but like, I just like for like a month out, I just went to this place called Salad Works in Philly and just started eating like salads, like, not bad. I was probably doing some protein sparing, modified fast, like unintentionally, just like greens and lettuce and it helped me lean up. But then I learned over time like how to really properly set up like a cut and maintain your muscle mass and started to track some macros. And this was like before Instagram existed. You got to figure it out on your own.
- [45:33]
A
So what, what was your highest weight that you got up to?
- [45:36]
B
My best bodybuilding. And I wanna, I won a show in Las Vegas Junior Nationals in a, in a federation called Muscle Mania. I was probably like195.5. And everyone says their body fat's lower than it was, but I was shredded. But like, let's just say I was like 7,8% body fat at 195 and. But like if you looked at you like, dude, you're probably like 3% body fat. Like, whatever. I had fat in my body. I had big trunks.
- [45:56]
A
You know, guys that tell me they have 2 and 3% body fat. I just don't even listen because it's like, dude, you'd be dead. Yeah, you just don't know what you're saying. Clearly. Yeah. 5, 6%. You're ready.
- [46:08]
B
You have glute striations at I percent 4 for sure.
- [46:10]
A
I ran some pretty heavy steroid cycles for a short amount of time and I have, I will always say when I look my best, I felt my worst. Do you agree with that?
- [46:20]
B
Oh yeah, man. There was a Couple preps. Okay, so I did like, of my bodybuilding, I did like 85% of the time. Like I probably ended competitive bodybuilding when I was around 25 or 26. I did my first steroid cycle when I was 24, so the majority of the time I was natural. And man, talk about being like on a calorie deficit. Deficit with no hormonal juice. I got my testosterone tested one time in my young 20s at like 180 or something at the end of a prep, just like absolutely tanked. Or one time I might have had like low grade rabdo or something. He's just doing so much calorie and a deficit, I almost like couldn't even like move or get up in that much pain. But yeah, bodybuilding in its spirit of like building your body up and, and, and working on physical strength is beautiful. Competitive bodybuilding is a beast. It's its own, own thing. Very grateful I did it. I'm just not motivated in the same way that I was.
- [47:08]
A
Well, the stress and strain, it's kind of like wrestling when you're, you have to drop all that weight and all that water and make weight for fights and everything. Man, that is very unhealthy. Like I always struggle with that. And same with the bodybuilding and, and look, realistically, if you want to be a pro, anybody will tell you at this point you have to take steroids
- [47:28]
B
and have great genetics and have, that's the thing to be a pro bodybuilder and make it worth your time. Time to take the drugs if you really do what you want. Like life is a playground, you can choose. But honestly, like the genetics are a huge part if you actually want to
- [47:41]
A
be phenomenal those guys and you'll know. But everybody always says, oh, they're, they have to have it big genetics and get that size too. You can't just take every steroid under the sun and get that big. You got to have some blessing there too, right to do it. So I just, I, I think that my biggest problem with it is that people get this idea because they see somebody posing or in a picture and they have no idea what hell they went through. And then when the people make a career out of that, when you look at them, they're like in their 50s and they're like decrepit and on from all of the amount of weight that they've carried. It's, it's easy to say, oh, they were taking steroids and they stopped taking them. And that's fine, that's. Understandable you're going to lose some size and you're going to wreck levels. But it's also carrying too much amount of weight for too long.
- [48:24]
B
Yeah.
- [48:24]
A
What, what is, how dangerous is that to do to, to, to be monstrous?
- [48:30]
B
Yeah.
- [48:31]
A
Because some people, that's all they care about is how much size can I get. But how dangerous is that to your long term health?
- [48:35]
B
I think, you know, have an intuition that like the large, largest humans don't live quite as long. Yeah. Like, and there's many reasons for that. It could be like the heart itself has to work really hard to circulate body throughout a massive body. And so like maybe that's something two. The amount of food that you need to consume to maintain that weight is like problematic inherently. Like to be a competitive bodybuilder at the high level, like I wasn't one, but these guys like offseason need to eat like 6 to 8,000 calories. Like that is a lot of food and it's a lot of digestive stress. Yeah. And then you create an environment where you're trying to create maximum anabolic signal at all time. Like always having amino acids and insulin is typically triggered all the time. Like that's just an antithesis of this balanced physiology that we want. Yeah. And then I think there's also like when you lift incredibly heavy, there can be some joint damage that happens that can create a lot of pain. A lot of bodybuilders with bad shoulders, bad knees, bad back from like a ton of like really heavy lifting over time. And you develop some, some unhealthy relationships to food, as you know.
- [49:32]
A
Oh yeah. I think that's one of the things too is when you are doing that kind of competition. Body dysmorphia is a major thing. And an eating disorder isn't just anorexia. There's a lot of different types of eating disorders and battles with food and struggles and a lot of diets that
- [49:48]
B
are messed up that you can go through where you.
- [49:50]
A
It could be over consumption too. Right. And a lot of like I'm, I'm one of those. That's okay, let's understand cholesterol. But some of the things that they do is way too much. It's just too much on the heart, brain. It's just, it goes overboard. So would you say that that's not really the ideal career path for longevity is.
- [50:09]
B
Oh, be 100% bodybuilders. It's definitely the antithesis.
- [50:12]
A
It.
- [50:12]
B
I think we see a lot of these guys. Yeah. Like there's a couple Good examples of bodybuilders who have lived into, like, their late 90s. And it had some good careers. I think Albert Beckles was one who just recently passed away. We see Frank Zayn quoted a lot of time. Jack lalanne was kind of a bodybuilder fitness icon who I really looked up to. But a lot of these guys are dropping in their 60s from typically cardiovascular issues.
- [50:36]
A
Yeah, it's. It's a combination of a lot of
- [50:38]
B
things too, because there's a lot of
- [50:39]
A
painkillers involved there too. It's true. A lot. That's. To me, that's the biggest killer of them all is the painkiller abuse and then combining it with steroid use and being dependent on that.
- [50:49]
B
Well, you'll know this when you, you. There's a hubris that often gets involved when you begin to understand the body and the chemistry and you start to dabble. And, you know, you can take certain things and it's working on this receptor and this pathway and you can counteract. Oh, and you can do it safely because you know how to, like, keep the blood thin and support the liver. But, like, it ends up being like your mindset is, oh, there's like a lot of pharmacology. And I'm going to start fixing problems, problems with different stacks and things. And, man, it's just up your slope.
- [51:12]
A
Yeah, it is. You rob Peter to pay Paul. And it never ends. It just doesn't end. So let's kind of talk about the event that you've got coming up here because it's exciting, man, and, and you know, I'm, like I said, I am just thrilled for you. First of all, understanding now more about the time and effort that you've put in to get here and then understanding conceptually what you're doing. That's different than a lot of the same old events that we go to. What is it and what is the, the motivation? Because I feel like there's more like God driven behind this event as opposed to, oh, it's just a big expo of money grabs. And how many companies can we get in here and bring speakers in that nobody even wants to listen to? Because it's just a big money grab for sure. Yours seems like there's a lot more impact involved in this.
- [51:57]
B
Yeah, I think I would describe this event as a transformational event that is based in. In holistic health and longevity versus maybe how you might describe a biohacking or a health conference where it's just like booths of all the different supplements and all the Things and just like a lot of run of the mill speakers and like a lot of great information. But information is not transformation. I'm interested in transformation. I'm interested in creating a container where people can drop in for a few days and experience real human connection. A couple massive insights that might be physical and related to protocols, but they might be related to emotions or mental stuff and like really come and like make a change and a shift to their trajectory and their energy in a couple of days. And so I architect events that go through an ARC. It's a three day event. It's called Breakthrough in the Desert. It's August 7th through 9th. You are speaking on the first day and kicking us off, which I'm super grateful for because again your message to me is one that respects a lot of the science and the protocols, but it's deeply rooted in this whole person health. And so the event has an amazing arc because we're going to be bringing in health experts and there's going to be panels every morning. We're doing some kind of movement activation, qigong strength training, breath work. We have a cacao ceremony, you know, stretching. We're doing some different myofascial work. So I'm a big believer at these events. Like I just don't want to sit in another conference room or hotel room and like have my back hurt because I'm sitting for six hours and like it sucks. But like a mix of like movements like so we have movement throughout the entire day. We have like the healthiest catered lunches is there. We have wonderful speakers and presenters like yourself and breakout activities and activations. And so a couple things I'm really stoked about. On the day you're speaking, you're going to be a part of a health expert panel with Dr. Philip Oedia and also Troy Casey, the certified health nut, which will be really cool and amazing. I'm going to be giving a couple keynotes. Our keynote speaker on the first day is a guy named Jim Flaherty who just turned 90. He's traveling the country writing books and like really embodying like this kind of stuff. And so it's going to be cool to like be a part of part of a living experience of people who want to be healthy. Not just 60, but 70 and 80 whole person health. We have a lot of amazing connection activities. Arizona Grand Resort, they have like this incredible water park. We'll have a pool party on Saturday night, book signing, we're gonna do a cacao ceremony. I have this friend who's going to be leading us through like an ancient Hawaiian like energy healing. So we're going to get a little woo. But we're also like have like doctors there presenting on hormones, like Dr. Amy Horneman. And so, so I love like health and how it translates into leadership and like this event is one of my blessings and creations to get a container and then like bring people in like you and others that anyone who says yes and comes to my event, it's like guaranteed transformation. Like come say yes. Do a container for three days to work on yourself. You are going to be nourished in every way possible. Food, mentally, emotionally, connections. You're going to learn amazing things. And it's like if you're going to spend three days in the summer doing something like, just, just like come do something focused around health and well being. So it's called Breakthrough in the desert. Phoenix, Arizona, August 7th through 9th.
- [54:53]
A
And thank you for being involved in that. Oh man. Thank you for putting on something different that's just more impactful, more spiritual, more helpful. It's like anymore it's like you've seen them one, you've seen them all. And I feel like there's a lot of wasted time because they bring in speakers as names and the speakers only care about what they're selling as opposed to what they're teaching and providing, writing. Everybody's gotta sell, everybody's gotta make money. That is obvious. But at the same time it's like I would like it to be where people are going there to actually change. Yeah. And sometimes it's not the size of the event, it's the premise.
- [55:31]
B
That's it. And now this is like a more intimate event. We'll have like 150 people like round table seeing, beautiful main stage, like the stuff you expect from going to like a high level conference. But just like it's about connection because I think like to transform, like first step is like, is like permission to step into the container. It's like, okay, I'm ready to like make a shift. So there's like some kind of like subtle yes that needs to happen. And I think that's why signing up
- [55:55]
A
for stuff is like powerful.
- [55:56]
B
Whether someone joins a program or signs up for an event, the transformation already happens when you give yourself the permission to step in. Number two is like awareness, like becoming more aware of things. And awareness is really facilitated by stepping away, away from the throes of your everyday life. Phone sits down for a little bit. Home chores, sit down for a little bit. You give yourself the space to be in a reflective mood and mindset and then you're in an environment around other people that we're just like drawing energy and inspiration from in our time that we spent together. I'm picking up some things. I'm picking up that like, dude, I see a man that's like so deeply connected to his mission. Anyone listening to this podcast is like, oh, this Anthony guy's connected to his mission. But I'm like, there's like levels to like that congruency. And so like, I receive an upgrade because we're in shared stuff space. And then like, as a event facilitator and someone who's been creating experiences for people for over 10 years, like, there's a way to shape it where it just like, it's beautiful. There's an arc, there's a climax, there's an integration. It's about longevity. It's about mental, emotional well being. Like, we're always breathing at my events, we're always moving, we're eating healthy food. It's just like really nourishing and fun. So I am stoked.
- [57:01]
A
A lot of God, a lot of good, a lot of love, a lot of change, man. That's what I'm sensing with that, everything. That's what it's all about, my friend. I am so stoked, so thankful that I met you and that he let me come out here and chill with you and record out here and it's, you know, it's just cool to experience like so many different things with people and share it with people and be
- [57:23]
B
a part of it.
- [57:24]
A
So I am thrilled, man, and I'm thrilled for you. I love what you're doing. I want people to check out the Fit Father and Fit Mother project because there's so much more to it than, than anything that I've ever heard of and that the. The whole reason and rationale behind it, it's. It's far deeper than just getting healthy. Getting healthy is multifaceted and I like you're trying to cover all the bases. So, man, awesome. Tell everybody where they can follow you. I'll link all the descriptions and also the website for the the event so we can get people signed up.
- [57:53]
B
Yeah. So fitfather.com or fitmother.com those are the main websites, so they can go to fitfiler.com forward/breakthrough or forward/2026. So fitfiler.com forward/2026 or fitfiler.com forward/ breakthrough. That's for the event. The main site is fitfiler.com and fitmother.com and then on YouTube, if you type in fit father or fit mother or Anthony Balduzzi. Dr. Balduzzi. I'll come up, like almost a thousand videos.
- [58:17]
A
So sweet. I love it, man. Awesome. Well, again, thank you for the hospitality. Thank you for your work. And it's just been a real, real pleasure and honor to come out here and sit with you, my friend. So appreciate you, man. Thank you. You. Thank you.
- [58:31]
B
All right, everybody, that wraps up another one.
- [58:33]
A
Get over to that event. Check out my friend here online. I'll link everything in the description. We hope to see you soon.
- [58:40]
B
That wraps up another one.
- [58:41]
A
Stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan, Jelli and Dr. Anthony Balduzzi signing off. Sat.