just jumping in here quickly to let you guys know that I have recently created a facebook group for listeners of the lift train performed podcast. So this private forum is the place to connect with other podcast listeners and guests as well as to interact with myself and other coaches who have provided content for the coach's corner episodes. So in this forum you can ask questions which I can then answer in the group or I can use them for episodes, former Q and A sessions, post relevant articles you can share memes. The goal is to create a network of like minded people um so that everyone can interact with each other. Um you guys are listeners, the audience members can interact with the network of professionals in the fitness industry that have provided good quality content for the podcast. To gain access to this private group. All you need to do is leave me a rating and review what this does is allows me to bump up the ratings, draw bigger names and bigger guest to the podcast for your listening pleasure. Um once you've left a rating and review, take a screenshot of that, send that through to my instagram at coach underscore codes ko bes once you've done that, go onto facebook type in live train perform that group will come up request access, answer the three questions and I will grant you access, I am in the process of building out my online business.

One of the income streams is going to be from the facebook forum, so I'm going to be allowing 50 people into that forum for free after that it will be paid access only so get in early, be one of the O. G. S. Thanks guys, much appreciated and we're back again sean covert of the live trade reform podcast Jamie O'donnell, we've recorded two hours of conversation already today, May I love chatting to you, I decided to check in with you see if you had the time to get back on and discuss some of the elements of our last conversation where we went through your journey of your transformation. Um we talked about some of the discipline components, we talked about gratitude, perspective, appreciation etcetera. There was a number of things that I wrote down during that conversation that I wanted to go back to but the flow of the conversation kept going and didn't want to disrupt. It was a fucking awesome conversation man, I really enjoyed it, we've had a five minute break, I pulled myself another coffee, had a P.

S. U N. Told the missus that you're going to be recording again so I may I really appreciate it man, I know it's late for you in new Zealand I'm recording this midday today on friday. What is it? The fifth of november? Was that make it nine o'clock at your place, Nine PM bro, I really appreciate it man but I love chatting to you and I think it's really valuable, everything that you're bringing to this conversation and I think the audience is going to take a lot away from, not only the last couple of conversations, but this one as well. So maybe what I want to discuss is some of the components you talked about in the last episode, um, and something you mentioned was using the ice bath as a circuit breaker to, you know, build that cornerstone habit, which then had a flow on effect to other important habits throughout the day for you now, something that came up for me as you were talking about the ice bath and and doing that every day along with the breath work first thing in the morning to start your day was discipline. Now I'm sure there were days where you didn't want to get in the ice bath and you didn't want to do it, you want to, you know, funk that off or stay in bed or whatever.

It was like, talk to me about that process. How did you build that discipline and how did you talk to your, like talk yourself through that process of getting it done and being accountable to yourself? Yeah, cool man, I'm actually glad that we circled back around to this because it didn't do justice to the importance of the ice bath and the last conversation and we sort of said cornerstone habit and that, but the, there's two aspects to, it is the health side of sparkling and then there's the mental side and the mental side is unbelievably important man and like, for me, I think I said in the last one that I knew I needed a circuit breaker, like, you don't put on 10 kg of extra weight and carry that around without being a bit fluffy mentally, you know, like, you're a bit fluffy physically, but if you're a bit fluffy physically, you're probably a bit fluffy mentally as well, and you're not quite reflection. Exactly, it's the most accurate reflection. Um it doesn't lie and, and, you know, I guess, um, I pride myself on my level of discipline and kind of mental toughness and a few of those key characteristics, that character traits that I value, and um, I had to admit that if I was carrying around 10 extra kilos, I probably wasn't exercising them as well as it could be.

And um for me, the ice bath was like, the ultimate, it was the ultimate test of, like, mental strength because it's horrific sitting in ice and freezing cold ice for however long you choose to sit in. And so when I first did it, it was literally, I knew that it was the hardest thing that I could do. Like, I knew that I needed, I knew the level of discipline that I needed from a nutrition perspective and a training perspective, I knew that there was no room. I said that in the last episode there was no 80% it had to be 100% but I hadn't got 100% out of myself for a period of time and I was like, I need, I need to like find the hardest hit that I can possibly do and I need to prove that I can do that because then the other stuff will be easy, but it was also achievable. Yeah, you've done it before and you were preparing yourself mentally for it ahead of time. So, you know, I think that's a that's a great point to pause on for a moment as well as, you know, we need stress in our lives, stress is what allows us to adapt. However too much stress then creates anxiety and it decreases performance.

Just enough stress can actually improve performance. This is where, you know, we talked earlier about Pd are going into the octagon, winning the UFC interim bantamweight title over the weekend. You know, maybe I was looking nervous for him, man, like going into the octagon, but like it was those butterflies of excitement. Like it wasn't, it wasn't overwhelming where I'm like, oh, funk, I don't want to be here. It's just like, you know, like this is really exciting. Everything that we've worked for over the last, you know, 10 weeks or so is being put on display tonight and you know, I'm sure you felt that before during, you know, different pursuits, whether it's in sport or whether it's in business or other areas of your life etcetera. You know, I think people need to understand that stress is important, you know, most people try and reduce stress, stress needs to be reduced at times if it is overwhelming, but stress is also essential for adaptation, chronic stress needs to be reduced, like chronic stress is not good and that underlying low level chronic stress over time that contributes to disease and all sorts of stuff, but you're exactly right, like you have to have a level of stress and you have to build your resilience to it and it's like in the gym mate, like you don't get stronger unless you stress the muscles right?

But stressing them too much, just destructive and so it's the exact same thing, but I think the reality of probably the world that we live in today is that we spend most of our time toronto avoid stress and create these stressful lives, which actually just weakened us across the board. And for me, like I felt like that's what had happened, I felt like to get where I was physically, like, I don't get me wrong, there was underlying health problems as well, so I'm not being too harsh on myself when I say it, but like I had also just not, I've created bad habits as well and I was feeling a bit weak and part of the ice bath for me was snapping that and going do something that you really don't want to do and do it consistently. Um and and also the science of it man, like, you know, there's no black or white as to whether an ice bath is good for you from a mental perspective, like, you know, anyone who follows one half or any of his work or anything like that, like it's pretty straightforward, the chemical reactions that are going on, you're getting the right dump of hormones like this, you know, improving your vascular health.

Like there's always things that black and white and so for me, there was health benefits to it. And then there was like, I knew that I needed to get myself in a better mental space. I knew that like, I was feeling pretty low and pretty exhausted and I knew that I needed to, like, I'm gonna say rebalance the chemical stack because there was stuff that was clearly a little bit off and through breath work, the combination of breathwork and ice bath. I knew by reading the books and studying it that that was, that would happen. It wasn't like maybe I'll feel better. I was like, I know I'll feel better if I do this. Yeah, reading the books and you know, the articles and listening to podcasts and gathering information is different to actually taking action and doing things. Yeah, I'm sure that was just on that point I that comes back to how badly you want to change. Like I put myself, I got into a position where it wasn't really an option anymore and and it was, but like one thing that you can do in those situations is that you can stack all the things that I did literally just like in order to create the level of importance that I needed to get my head around.

I literally just on a piece of paper write down everything that it was costing me to feel and be where I was like relationship wise, financially, business experiences, confidence, like everything like sucking listen, I don't know how many things I got down, but like truckloads, you legit wrote all that stuff down, wrote it down on a piece of paper like this is what it's costing me to be, where I am like to feel like this and then, and then I was like, I know that I can change that by helping in an ice bath. So it got way easier when I looked at that list. That's that's brilliant man. Like I think we discussed, we did, we we actually listen to our recent podcast. Sorry, I listened to our first podcast recently. Um that's still one of my favorite conversations man, I've said it before and I'll say it again and you know, one of the big things that I took away from that conversation was you saying, you know, people negotiate too hard with themselves and then they accept those standards and you know, it becomes a slippery slope and um like I absolutely love that conversation man, It's something that I implement into my, my coaching all the time with my own clients.

This is a cool thing about this podcast is I get to talk to people like you who have come from your own background, your own experience in your own journey man and you know, I'm getting to learn from you, but I'm getting to learn from all of these other coaches and I'm taking little bits and pieces man from everything you guys are saying and I'm implementing that into like my coaching style. I think that's really freaking cool man. Um one of the things that I want to talk about is that discipline. Like what there were times where you're like, I don't want to get in the ice bath, like how did you get over that mental barrier to actually get in the ice bath and go, well I know this is fucking right for me again, it's it, we do negotiate with ourselves. So how do you um what tools do you use to go through that process when you are negotiating with yourself to be like, no, you need to do this instead of taking the easy road, take the fucking harder option. Yeah, totally. I mean one of them is stacking up what it's costing. So that that's like one thing because I think a lot of the time we numb ourselves to what's actually going on.

And so then like you've said this before, but like if you're white, if you don't really have a strong wind, you're not really connected to what you're doing something like your level of commitment to it is probably be much lower than what it could be. So I think when you stack, like when I wrote down all that shirt on the paper, um you have to stare at what it's actually costing you, and so your level of commitment instantly goes up towards, you know, to to the upper echelons because you know, like it's very present what it's going to cost you if you don't do it. Um and then, and then for me, it's like outside accountability, like I'd hired a coach and I had told him what I was going to do because like I said in that previous episode, like people get really good at negotiating with themselves, We all do. I got really good at negotiating with myself and um I needed outside accountability and I don't think you need a coach every single waking moment of your life, but I think there's seasons in your life where you do need a coach and I was in a season where I really needed that outside accountability and for stuff that I would have probably normally done quite easily previously, but I knew that I needed it in this period, so between stacking and really understanding the importance of it and the pain of it, of where I was at and knowing that I could change it by getting in the icebox and doing stuff that made it easier having outside accountability where I, I knew that I told my coach that I was going to do this discipline and was going to implement this as a protocol and that he was checking in on me also, my partner, Steph, knew that I was doing that as well and so she was there, I couldn't bullshit.

Um and I guess there's little habits, Things like you touched on it in the last episode, but things like, you don't have to get in the ice bath, you have to like get out of your clothes or you know, just what's the first step, It's not actually getting in the ice bath, like how often do you? Yeah, so for me, one of the key things was lying down on the yoga mat to do the breathwork because I do the women off breathwork first, then I'll hop in the ice bath. Now I know that there was never a period of time, no matter how much resistance I had to the eyes where I would do the breathing and then not hop it. So it was actually getting on the map. Yeah, that's, that's the habit loop bro. So getting on the back of the queue easier, the routine, the reward and and and if you wind it back even before that, like To be fair, I have a decent amount of resistance to doing breath work as well. I know it takes 15, 20 minutes, you've got to like put a lot of energy, like it's quite, I find that quite a hard um have it to stick with and I know the importance of it and it's like, it's really, I can honestly say that breath work consistently on a daily basis has changed my life and but it's, it's not even about doing the breathwork necessarily.

It's like, what's the steps before the breathwork? Is it just laying the mat down the yoga mat down and by the time you get the yoga mat and put it down, you're already committed and you're in the process, you've got to put a momentum towards doing it. You typically find that when you do those first little small things, like if you're trying to go for a bigger run, like maybe just getting your shoes on is the first thing or, you know, you think you use this example of one of your clients where I think the first thing that you said, I think it was you and you said just go to the gym, like you don't even have to work out just get through the front door. And I think that's a big part of it as well. Um and then the other side of it is, is just the mental framing of it. Like I went into a war with my own a bit every day and I enjoyed it. Like I framed it up before I did it. I was like I I know that you like you need to do this. And it was like I just fight with myself And I fell in love with the process of like conquering that. Like I I framed it up as like a exciting challenge to do. And the reality is like in all the studies into human happiness um And high performance.

There's four fundamental drivers that keep coming through and like one of those four fundamental drivers of human happiness is challenged. And if you look across the board like the things that are the hardest that you've achieved in your life make you feel the best. And so why do you feel good when you hop out of an ice bath? Well yes, there's a whole chemical thing going on in the background. Like you've got all these great hormones rushing around and But you also just achieve something that's bloody hard. And that challenge actually is one of the fundamental drivers of human happiness and the more that you can build healthy challenge into your life. You know, that helps you to create sustained levels of joy and happiness. Mm hmm. Yeah. That's brilliant man. And you know, going back to that conversation, like you are not negotiating with yourself. Like you know, Hey, I'm getting in the ice bath. This is what I've chosen to do. I'm going to be accountable to myself. I'm going to be accountable to other people. I understand the science behind what that's going to give me, it's going to give me a return on my investment.

But you know, you're kicking that off with a ritual prior to actually getting in the ice bath. The ice bath being in the ice bath is like the result of that ritual that leads you up to that. And that ritual might be, you know, your morning routine, you get out of bed, you open the blinds, you go out, you get some fresh air and then you're like, all right, within five minutes or you go and brush your teeth whatever within five minutes. You know, I'm going to be on the yoga mat and you build that into your life and it just becomes a habit man. And then you get there and like, you don't feel like doing it, you want to go and you know, skip that, go and get some food. But then you're like, hey, this is, this is part of who I am, Am I gonna negotiate with myself or I'm gonna fucking follow through on the promise that I've said to myself 100% and and that that's talked about in the first episode we did together was like, the fastest way to destroy your confidence is to break the promises you make to yourself and that's a saying that I've always held on to and you know, you have that stuff in the back of your head and I literally I really place value on that statement and I feel bad when I don't do stuff that I've said that I'm going to do and so um you know all of that culminates but in all honestly man at the end of the day like we can I guess we can talk around discipline and like come up with tactics and stuff but it's like just start like we can talk about the habits and all that ship but like lying down on the mat and doing the first breath or something is the difference.

And for me when I actually think like you've got me to reflect on that process but the breath work was the first thing and it's like just fucking start like just take the first breath or just do the first thing, like just take the clothes off and get close to that. Like there's there's just a start point for stuff and just start, the sooner you start and you get momentum the easier it is and then with the discipline aspect of it and it's still just as hard, I mean it does get easier a little bit because your body actually starts Um they say after about a 10 day period, your body actually starts looking for that cold. Um and so as opposed to like wanting to run away from her, you actually get this weird craving to go towards it. Um but it's because you feel like the benefits from it, you understand the return on that investment and again sorry to cut you off mate. But just as you said like you're just taking one step at a time, that first step is role, that yoga mat out, the second step is lay down, the third step is close your eyes, the fourth step is take a breath like that's it, and then the next step is roll the yoga mat up, next step is getting the fucking ice bath and like the step into the ice bath is always an interesting one because like you do the breath work and then you kind of like You have 30 seconds after you sort of come to you feel a little bit high and then you've got to open the lid and then you've got to look at it and it's all working cold and icy and unappealing and you're like and then you sort of have this period where you've got to step into it but like if you hesitate it gets harder and harder and harder and so just don't hesitate like just take, you can't flinch bro, you just flinched flinched then it's game over, you got to just accept it man and exactly jump in and it's like I don't know if you've read mel Robbins 5435 2nd rule, but it's a great book and her entire method is around 54321 and it's like hitting his nose in the morning 54321 launch yourself.

And just that that five second period is enough is the period of time where it takes for your conscious brain to take over and and for you to rationalize and make excuses. Um And so you've got a short circuit that way doing it within the first five seconds and she's got an entire book on it and it's the most simple concept in the world but it works and it's based on science, it's like that's how the brain works and so there's an element of just that as well. It's just like open the lid and just take the first step in and don't allow yourself to have that level of negotiation or that hesitancy because it's only downhill from there. But it's it's still it's still a battle and like every I guess with everything, every habit like Once you've really got to conquer the 1st 14-21 days, don't you? Like um once you get, once you build there but and once you get in the routine of it, it's much easier to maintain the habit than it is to build it. And so I think often we actually think too big about a lot of that stuff and we're like, oh I've got to do an ice bath every day and it's kinda like this huge thing?

It's like what if you just did 14 in a row, what if you just did seven in a row or what if you just did five in a row and then when you get to five in a row, it's unlikely that you, like, I'm gonna stop, you just do another five in a row. And so like, you teach this to your clients, like, chunking down your goals into small, little doable things that seem less overwhelming and very achievable and it's like, that's a good little mental trick as well. Let's just chunk it down and go, I'm going to do three ice bars in a row and then, Like, do three ice blocks in a row and then reassess and like, and then do three more and then do three more and all of a sudden you've done 21 ice baths and away, you know? So I guess that's a simple little trick as well because sometimes when you commit to big stuff, that's paralyzing. Yeah, absolutely. Um something you spoke about there was, you touched on pain points and you said, like, moving away from where you were like, you're overweight, you're unhealthy. Um you know, I want to talk about motivation direction because, you know, we, a lot of people when they look at motivation direction, they want to move away from something, I am this way and I'm too heavy or I'm unhealthy, I don't feel attractive, whatever, like, I want to move away from this way, but then once people get far enough away from um you know that pain point, then they stop, whereas motivation direction towards something is where you're constantly looking ahead now.

I I personally think that motivation direction away from and towards are both important at different times of your life. Now, I'm assuming that when you went through the initial transformation process where you did come to that realization that you were a little bit heavier than normal, your energy levels are a little bit low. You felt it affecting your relationship with Steph. Um you were like, all right, I want to move away from this point here. I need to do X, Y Z and need to tighten up my nutrition. I need to get back into training. I maybe need to um you know, dial in my evening routine, my morning routine, etcetera, etcetera. Once you got to a certain point then I'm assuming, you know, things didn't work out or unfold the way that you thought it was going to, you didn't get the effect that you wanted and then you went, all right, well I'm missing something here. What's the piece of the jigsaw puzzle? That's missing? I don't know what that is right now, I'm going to employ someone to do that. Then you started working with other coaches and then it became more of like that, moving towards motivation. Yeah, totally. And I mean, pain is the greatest motivator, right?

So there's lots of times that I can think of in my life where I've really wanted something and I still haven't actions to the level that I need to, to get the result. And like I'm talking like, really wanted something, but the pain probably wasn't quite enough for me to get that initial momentum. And so with this one, like, it's the first time I've ever faced health problems in my life. And if it was just, I think the underlying thing was that it was as much as I said, it was just a weight loss thing and I wanted to lose weight and that I knew that I was, I knew that something was off, I knew that my gut health wasn't right. I ensured that we knew that I wasn't well and it's the first time I've ever dealt with health issues in my life and the pain of that was sucking massive. I'd watch my brother go through chronic Crohn's in and out of hospital for five years, multiple operations has bowel cut out all sorts of ships and the fear and the pain of thinking about potentially going down anywhere near that path was enough to fucking kicked me into gear. And then it's funny because if I reflect on it now, like I'm maybe six months or five months down the track And like I'm 11 kg lighter, my energy levels are great.

Like I'm still, I still managed, I'm still rebuilding my gut health. Like it doesn't happen overnight and I'll probably be on that protocol and doing stuff for the next year to two years, probably realistically to try and get everything back to full. But um now when I genuinely check in with myself right now, it's about getting that really and just maintaining that really good quality of life, like I feel really good again and I'm motivated by that. So that is a different motivation because I'm not trying to get away from the pain of feeling unwell anymore. I'm trying to get the feeling of feeling really good. So that has transitioned over a five month period. Mm hmm. Yeah, That's awesome, man. And that's, that's a great takeaway for the audience as well as like, a lot of people won't make big decisions and big changes until something happens that causes them pain. Like when it comes to health, for example, you know, people won't make a change in their life until, you know, they have a heart attack or, you know, they get diagnosed with, you know, an illness or disease or cancer or whatever it is.

Like, you know, people aren't being proactive with their health because they've just learned to accept that quality of life and, you know, they don't remember what it feels like to fucking feel good all the time. Whereas when you, when you do take care of business and you do feel good the majority of the time, You know, when things start slipping, maybe it takes six months a year, year and a half, two years. But then you get to a point where like, man, I don't feel as good as I used to, like, what do I need to do to get back to that point? And you know, so many people, they get to this point where they want to make a change. You know, it creeps up on them and then it hits him in the face when they jump on the scales and they're 20 kg overweight and you know, they feel like ship and their partners just left them there, you know, self esteem and confidence levels low. And it's not until they get on the scales and they look in the mirror and they're like funk what happened. And then they start trying to make changes and then they try and they think that, you know, these five years that these good habits have slowly crept out of their life and these bad habits have crept in and this is, it's this frog in the pan analogy, right?

Like, you know, people don't realize that things, it has been a slippery slope and you know, they've slipped further and further down that slope and then they try and make these big changes and they try and do everything at once and it's like five years of poor lifestyle decisions and factors is not going to be undone in a six week challenge. Not at all, man. And like there's a couple of things just to look back to their but like, well just on that point that you just just raised their like getting, getting your um your feedback or your sense of self esteem from ticking and just doing the, being in the process like being in the journey is super important because if you're only focused on the outcome, like I don't think I really lost any weight initially for maybe like six weeks, maybe like a kilo or something. Like it was slow at the beginning but I felt so fucking good about taking off all the rituals I said I was going to take off like I got I got so much pride, momentum, fulfillment, confidence from doing what I said, I was going to do and it didn't matter but like I literally, like I had the coach and he was like oh we can drop your calories that we haven't and I was like bro, I don't give a funk because I'm doing what I said, I was gonna do and I feel awesome and you felt you felt good about yourself, this goes back to exactly what we're talking about, what was it last episode and this episode we're talking about the subjective measurements rather than the objective measurements.

Yeah and so so like you can always, again, it comes back to measuring the right stuff but like doing what you said you're going to do is a fast way to build confidence. Breaking those promises that you make yourself is a fast way to destroy it and you just, you feel great when you just get into the routine of doing something you haven't been doing when you know that eventually it's gonna pay off and you talked about investment earlier when it comes to your journey with Peter. But like it's the same thing. Like I knew that if I just continue to do what I was doing and I just showed up with the same level of discipline that I've proven to myself that I had and that I could achieve every day. I knew that if I just continue to do that over and over and over over a decent period of time and I wasn't impatient that I would get there and we live in a world where instant gratification is just everywhere. Like this week I watched a tv series with my partner step that I just caught up on and they released the episodes every week and I just about threw a tantrum. I was like, wait seven days for a fucking episode to drop. I haven't had to do that for like four years.

But I was like, it was like one of those moments where I was genuinely, I was like, what the fox? Seven days. And then I was like, I was like, well that's how fast we've got there and I'm like, no wonder people can't stick to the health and fitness goals and do hardship over a long period of time? Because like I was shocked that I had to wait seven days for this netflix episode to drop and like we laugh about it, but it's true, 100 percent. And so, so I think like, and for me, I, I genuinely just focused on, I, I know that I got through that early stage by just focusing on taking the boxes every day and just doing what I said was going to do and I felt awesome just on the back of that and yeah, I hadn't lost much weight in the early stages, but my energy levels had changed and like my mental flog fog had cleared up a bit and I was in the routine of the ice bath and I had massive momentum already bro, and it wasn't about the scale at that point, like I felt way better and I, I, I felt way better, which gave me the belief that I was going to work and I don't know if you've ever tapped into that belief, potential belief action cycle, but like that's basically the basic, I'm paraphrasing here, but you only take the level of action based on the level of belief that you have that something is going to work, right?

So like if you don't really believe, like if I give you a system to follow and you're like 50 50 on it, you're going to take like 50% action and you're gonna dip your toes in the water. What happens when you, what happens when you dip your toes in the water? You get like a little bit of a result or no result because you only dip your toes in the water, which means that your belief then goes down, which means you take less action, which means you have less belief and you end up in this downward spiral, but when you do self fulfilling prophecy exactly, but when you go the opposite way and you have a high level of belief and you've got like conviction that this is going to work. Like you said before, like you've done the research, you understand that you know that it's going to work. So your beliefs really high, So then you take a huge amount of action on it and what happens when you take a huge amount of action is that you get a big result which makes your belief go through the roof, which makes your action go through the roof and that becomes a big upward cycle. And when you understand that cycle, you pretty much just got to work out how to tap into the the upward cycle, not the downward one, but I think a lot of people always in the downward one and to be honest, that's super simple because it's like all you gotta do is go how do I increase my belief that this is gonna work for me now, Maybe if you're hiring a coach that's looking through all the testimonials and just being like, he knows what he's doing, like a complete confidence.

The coach, maybe if you're someone like me, you want to go and do a bit of research because you need to understand it yourself so that, you know, that there's, you know, you understand the method of why you're doing what you're doing and then once you've gathered that information, whether it's on the system or the coach or whatever it is that you're trying to achieve and you get your belief to a certain level, you take the action and typically you get the result, you know? Yeah, man. Yeah, that I mean, that ties back into investment, right? Like if you're going to fucking, if you're going to invest in something, make sure you're investing in the right thing and if you are going to invest in that thing, like, you know, you should be investing in things that you actually believe in, that you are going to put your trust in the process and have faith that the process is what's going to give you the outcome because like, that's where the magic is, man, you know, like the magic is on the journey, figuring out what works what doesn't work and you know, following the principles, applying different methods, you know, something I always say is like, good coaches are going to take similar paths to get people to the same outcome, right?

But you know, every coach is going to be different as long as we understand that, Hey, this is my left of art, this is my right of arc, I'm here right now, that's my end state over there. Like I might take this path, you might take that path, someone else might take this path, like everyone's gonna be taking slightly different paths, but at the end of the day, like the principles are going to remain the same totally bro. And like there's nothing about the Losing 11 kg, getting my energy back, feeling good about myself. There's nothing complicated about what I did was going back to basics on nutrition, getting into a good routine of training, making sure my sleep was good, making sure my stress levels alright. Like really basic testing as well. Yeah, totally. And checking in and having accountability, there's a few things there, but like going back to your point, it's the actual way to get somewhere is usually the simplest thing. Yeah, it's just by doing, it's just by following the proven principles and um yeah, I don't know man, I think we overcomplicate things massively for ourselves a lot of the time. Yeah, 100% man.

That's a, that's a topic that we could like spend a lot of time on, but I prefer not to because we've spoken about this before, I've spoken about this with many other coaches, like, you know, you don't need to look for the flashy stuff that's going to, that looks cool on fucking social media, like stick to the tried and true tested methods that have been around for a long time. You know, there's, there's a lot of evidence of that stuff works. It's not sexy, but hey, do you wanna do something sexy like every six months and get fucking nowhere? Do you want to do the boring shit that's going to lead you to long term sustainable fucking outcomes for the rest of your life? Exactly man. Exactly. Pretty pretty simple equation in my mind mate. Yeah, totally. Yeah, but I can't sell anything man. Hey bro. Hey, I'm gonna speak to my online clients. Hey man, you're only getting six hours sleep. Maybe let's try and bump you up to 6.5 hours sleep tonight. Let's talk about some tactics that's going to allow you to do that. All right, you can do that for a month. Cool. Let's get you up to seven hours sleep. You're only drinking a liter and a half liter of water.

Let's get you up to a liter and a half. You know that she doesn't sell bro? No, no, no, that's half the problem. It's like, and you can just going back to that belief thing. It everyone jumps from flashy diet too flashy diet, but under you know, like everyone, no one's that stupid, like everyone knows. So when you try that stuff a lot of the time your beliefs really low and again that belief action result cycle kicks in, you know, so I don't know man tried and true for me, it comes back to just discipline like with all of it, like you said the simple stuff is not sexy and it just requires a bit of mundane doing the same thing and just getting into a good routine and like you say, that's not sexy to market and to sell or to say or to think about doing it, but it is what makes the difference. Yeah, absolutely, mate. Now I want to transition to, I did mention testing before being a big part of your transformation as well because that testing um then allowed you to have a closer look at things that you maybe couldn't see on the surface level and that testing then, you know, open the door for potentially different protocols that could be used and individualized to you.

Now when you went through that testing protocol, um you know, let's talk about the testing protocol first and then we did touch on it in one of the earlier episodes. But let's go through the testing protocols and then the information that gave you and then how that shaped the decisions on what the elimination diet look like. And we'll discuss what an elimination diet is, how an elimination diet works and why it is important to have a look at, you know, nutrition as a whole and how it affects your digestive system which then affects every other system in the body. Yeah totally. Like I said that we did the stool sample. So I mean there's a couple of things right? We talked about testing. People probably go straight towards like actual testing but even just doing the intake form was testing in a certain to a certain degree right? And so there's a lot of information that that presented me where I had to look at things there and that also gave coach a lot of stuff. But then with Katie we did the stool sample and we did the nasal swab and the methane breath test which gives you a truckload of data and the stool sample in particular that we did was like a I mean she's very clued up, I don't know exactly the name of the test but it was like one of the newest ones that have come out and the depth of it was like literally all the things that you're resistant to from an antibiotic perspective.

Good bacteria and how much you know like what was overgrown what was missing um like pathogens, pathogens is that right term. And then yeah and then the bacteria and then um what else was there and there there was like like I said right down to cancer markers. There was it was in depth man but I guess from where I was at and what mattered it was around the balance of the bacteria in my, in my gut and there was ship was all over the show. It was like, as Katie said, it was like a nuclear bomb had been detonated, you know? And um lots of the good stuff was eliminated, lots of the bad stuff was overgrown candy to all sorts of stuff going on. And so on the back of that, I've had lots of food intolerances, things that I never used to have. Like, I never had any problems with any food groups ever. And all of a sudden I was like getting bloated and cramping and all sorts of stuff going on from like real basic stuff, onion, garlic. Um and so we just stripped right back and I said to you before off camera, I actually did a period where I was full carnival and literally just went back to just eating meat and there was a period there where Katie got me to do that and she was like literally without even spices for a bit and she was like, even like testing has shown that even like spices and stuff can affect your microbiome.

And, and so let's get right back to like meet and that was you want to talk about discipline and like that's way harder than getting in an ice bath mat. Um, but that essentially eliminates everything and then you can just reintroduce stuff slowly. So I did a two week period where it was just like strict, strict strict carnivore. And during that two week period, I never thought it first start just to put it out there because it sounds out the gates, but like I never ever thought that I would entertain the idea of going full carnival. Um, that's a big transition for me. Like that's extreme but required. And um, during that two week period, like all my symptoms disappeared. That's gonna pause there for a sec. We'll come back to this in a moment, but um, like I understand what's going on, but I want to extract the lessons for the listeners as well. Um why was the recommendation to go carnivore to kick off the elimination diet? Yeah. Just as a reset, I think it's the best way from what I understand anyway, is the best way to kind of do a full reset of your garden.

Um And so that was the reason for doing a two week period on it and maybe you can explain more about that in terms of like what's actually happening there in terms of the gut microbiome, but from what I understand it's just the best way to do a complete reset and not influence influence that too much. Yeah, man, a lot of food intolerances come up from like gluten and shellfish and peanuts and um, like lactose and um certain types of grains and things like that. Some people even have intolerances to food maps, which is like vegetables. So you can look at vegetables and the like vegetables are good, right? But then you know some of the sugars and the polyphenols in the vegetables then create an issue with food intolerances and can potentially if you're not chewing your if you're not chewing your food correctly then that food is not getting broken down correctly and then those nutrients aren't being extracted and then that can create like a slowdown.

You can slow down the process of the like within the digestive tract. So then maybe some of those vegetables are fermenting in like the small intestine between the small and Yeah exactly. Man get caught between the small intestine, the large intestine and then there's like a flat between the two and sometimes those vegetables can sit there and ferment and create bacterial overgrowth and all that type of stuff. So yeah there's so many different um ways that food intolerances can be created. So the point of the elimination diet is to there's a couple of different ways to do the elimination diet. So that's why I was interested in asking you on how you went about it because one way of doing it is just gone balls deep and eliminating every potential trigger to these intolerances and that is literally fucking removing everything and keeping it really simple with you know just meets even eggs can be an intolerance as well. Um fruits and vegetables can be an intolerance. So we'll create intolerances.

So um that's one way of doing it and then another way of doing it is identifying certain foods that you're eating or identifying certain periods of time where you're having issues with your digestive system, gas indigestion, bloating, um poor energy levels, crashes, etcetera, etcetera. And then looking back at the food that you've eaten prior to that and then trying to identify potential triggers that we're creating an inflammatory response and an immune response and then eliminating those things and eliminating one thing at a time. But it sounds like you just went balls deep and straight into like a full deep elimination diet. And then the problem with doing the other way is it's like finding a needle in a haystack, like it's hard to know into pinpoint and and there's sometimes there's inconsistencies as well, right? Sometimes you say some onion and be fine. And then another time you end up in like chronic pain when you had onion and you're like, what the hell? But maybe that was maybe that was onion and garlic to get. Exactly. Exactly. And so by going just all in and just going to complete like carnival straight away, you've got your start point really quickly, you're not mucking around with anything else.

I just want to poison there for a second, We'll come back to this in a moment, but I think that's a great point. That kind of ties in something we mentioned earlier about the acute the difference between acute and chronic, right? Like if you had have potentially identified these issues, you know a year and a half ago or whatever when you felt your energy levels start dropping, maybe you could have gone through that that soft approach to the elimination diet and have a look at certain things and being like all right, well when I eat this, this is how it makes me feel. And then you identify potential trigger in there and you're like, all right, maybe I'll remove that for a couple of weeks and see how I feel, but because you kind of hadn't identified that and you had gone so far down that slippery slope, then you got to a point where you had to go through, you know, working hard reset with a full like hardcore elimination diet 100% and also you know, check 18 to 24 months of antibiotics and different stuff in there as well. It's like that was just what was happening and like I had full trust in Katy, like she's she's unbelievable in that space, you know, she's a top integrative nutritionist in the country, she's worked a lot of like the all black like dan carter and people like that, she's like she's good at what she does and obviously yeah, yeah and you know like um I was paying her to tell me what to do to a certain degree, like like you said earlier, I've got, you know, there's certain things, certain knowledge and a basic understanding and then there's like you don't know what, you don't know and that was her recommendation and I just went and did it all in, like I I committed to it and did it and and again like you get instant feedback and all of a sudden a lot of the discomfort goes and a lot of the symptoms that you're having disappear and you're like okay we gotta start point here, like we're in a good place and then you can reintroduce stuff like you bring some onion and some garlic back in and you don't do them together, you bring one thing in um and that's fine and then you bring something else and then something else and then you you sort of piece it together and at the same time I was doing a pretty heavy supplement protocol as well um that you know like proper practitioner strength supplementation and we're talking like 678 different things a day, like for like a part time job taking your supplements but all around repairing gut health and specific to the imbalances that I've had through my test.

Um So the elimination of everything right down to meet plus the supplementation to help repair the gut lining and to balance things out and then building on the back of that as a foundation. Yeah, I love that man, now I just want to talk about the process of reintroducing foods as well because I think this is important. A massive, massively important piece of the puzzle when it comes to an elimination diet right? Like as you said, you don't introduce a number of foods at the same time. You may, you know, introduce for example like a glass of milk and maybe, you know, you pay attention if you haven't had milk for whatever, four weeks, okay, you have a glass of milk and you go, all right, I know that I didn't feel any indigestion, no bloating, no um gas penis or anything like that. Alright, cool. I'm gonna do that the next day, the next day and the next day. All right, cool. I've done that for a couple of days. I know that I can get away with 250 mils of milk, but then maybe you bump that up to 400 mils and you're like, oh, I can start feeling that affecting me.

So then you're not only looking at, you know what foods affect you, but you're also looking at how much affects you because it's not about, you know, completely. Sometimes it is, but most of the time it's not about completely removing things. Sometimes it's about looking at what your tolerance levels are. So then you can go, hey, as long as I stay below this level, then I'm going to be okay. But then once I start having, if I have 250 mils of milk but then I also have some cheese with that, that combination, maybe that's going to cause me some issues. So we need to look at your, your, your tolerance levels as well. 100%. And I guess the thing that was evident for me throughout that process was that a lot of the time that, that like I know that I don't react that well to dairy but I can have a bit and I'm fine and there's no problem. But like if I have a heavy dairy meal or something I'll know. Um But also like the stuff I hadn't paid attention to, it is probably plants, right? And there's a lot of toxins in plants, like plants have built in defense mechanisms to stop them from being beaten and killed. Um A lot of the time you just think the plant based is healthy.

But actually a lot of the time some of that stuff is different for everyone but can be causing a lot of irritation as well. Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely, mate, I'm just wary of the time, but I want to start wrapping up so you can go and have dinner. It's almost 10:00. I apologize bro. I really appreciate you being the one thing I was going to say mate that I haven't touched on that I think is important as well as I actually did a couple of three day water fasts as well. Um And they were also made like, again not something I necessarily thought that I would ever do or hadn't even really considered but again like it was recommended to me, Katie actually runs like a five day fast. Just got a company that does um What's it called? Weird um imitation. Is it called imitation fasting? Where like imitate, they've worked out, there's like a science and they've worked out basically how to imitate the fast but you still have a few calories a day, like a few 100 calories and you still have certain food groups but it doesn't break the fast and she does a lot of this stuff with cancer. So she specializes does a lot of work with cancer patients.

And so she runs a specific program for cancer patients anyway. She recommended that I did it Jack also recommended that I did a three day water fast. So I just dived into the three day water fast whilst um like I was in that carnivore phase as well. And so Like my body had like a full reset and obviously you know after I think it's 36-40 hours or something along those lines. Your body starts to go into that mode where it starts to repair right and over kind of defunct cells and degenerate cells start to get. Yeah exactly and your body starts because your body is incredibly clever like all these mechanisms are built in, we just don't ever really activate them and that's a that's a great point mate, like you know when we when we do eat constantly, like we're breaking down utilizing these nutrients but if you have cells that are like growing uncontrollably that shouldn't be like we're potentially feeding them. So this is what like having fast is been highly beneficial for health. You know, a lot of people look at fasting for the weight loss benefits and I'm like man, if you're looking at fasting for weight loss, you're looking at it wrong like there's so many more health benefits that is way more important than that.

And as we mentioned earlier, like if you look after your health first then you know the performance and the aesthetics come. Yeah, I I can't I can't prove it. But I put my like hand on heart and say doing the three day water fast was the reason I was able to get off medication and break the antibiotic cycle. I did it right at the like there was a point where I had to get off them to do the testing because you can't get accurate testing while you're on any medication. So I had to break the medication cycle. Now I couldn't go like two days without my skin flaring up on that. So I was recommended that I did a three day fast over that period and use that as a kick start to try and get off the medication and I swear that that was the reason I've been off medication for like four months now or something um and I swear that that fast was one of the circuit breakers that really helped and it's something that I'm like I did another one recently, I'm going to do them every 90 days and just 23 day water fast because like as you know, all the energy that your body uses to digest food consistently goes into repairing your body yourselves and then once you hit like an extended fast, you know you you can let your body starts to actually feed on all the cells and that they are not useful or could turn and could cause problems down the track and um you know your body is an incredibly wise system and I think going through this whole process just made me pay way more attention and way more respect to it and things like even doing the fasting bro, like you do three days on a fast and then your awareness and your level of respect for what you then put in your body after a three day fast has changed your entire relationship with food changes and it's probably not for everyone, like I'm not gonna rave and say everyone should go out into a three day fast because it's not my role and it's probably not for everyone, but man, it changed my relationship to food and it made me respect the stuff that I put in my body 100 times more and paying way more attention to it.

Yeah man, it also brings awareness to you, right? Because once you, once you go on that water fast, you're not putting food in, like it actually gives your digestive system time to clear everything out, which then makes you fucking super sensitive to any foods that are coming in and you, you know, you can then start picking up on these triggers that may create an inflammatory response man and you know, you're a lot more in tune with how foods affect you. And once you get to that point, like then you start feeling, you start connecting dots with how foods make you feel when I eat this, it makes me feel good when I eat this it makes me feel ship okay, maybe I eat more of the stuff that makes me feel good and less of the stuff that makes me feel shit. Yeah and just interesting, like obviously fasting like that as well, you reset things like you're grilling grilling which is your hunger hormone and and so that like the timing of when you're hungry and all of that, you start to realize that all of this stuff is just like just hormone balance really and you read, you do things like that and then all of a sudden you can cope without food. So that means that when you find yourself in a situation like so you go out and you're out for a whole afternoon and normally you have to get something where you're out and there's no good options.

So you just take a short option because there's no good ones. Once you've done that reset, like you have so much more control. So you just go, I just want, I just, we'll wait till I get home tonight and I have a meal instead of instead of choosing a shitty option, I know that you know, it's going to make me feel rubbish. Yes, I'm getting some calories in, but you know, it's going to be, it's going to be taking away from my energy levels rather than adding to it. So then you, you know, you make that conscious decision ahead of time and it's not going to eat for awhile, I'm gonna, you know, go through a period of fasting, that my digestive system clear out knowing that I'm going to make make better choices later on this afternoon or tonight and put some good, like healthy, nutritious foods into my body? Yeah, 100%. And, and, and I guess the question that I have and that I think is important as well is just like, where do you draw the line because you've got to live as well? Right. And so like for me, for me, it was like, I've done five or six, I don't, I've lost track of time, but maybe six months where I've been like the most restrictive ever been in my life. Like you ask anyone around me family dinners. I'll go like during that time when I was trying to heal my gut, I'll go and sit at a family dinner and I would just happily just sit through it because without eating because I was just like so determined to fix and heal myself and get get to where I needed to be.

But you can't live your whole life like that and you have to have some balance at some point. And like I love having fun. I like eating out and I enjoy having a social drink for my mates and like, you know, I like to live as well. But I just made a promise to myself that I would invest as much time As I needed to to get to where I wanted to be because maintaining is way easier than trying to get to where you need to be, you know? So I just made a promise that however long it took, whether it's six months, 12 months whatever to get my health back and to get my weight and everything where I wanted it to be. I would invest in that now and just get it done because then you can go into more of a maintenance phase and find that balance again. But you can't really find that balance while you're trying to get here. I don't think mm hmm Yeah, I love that man, I was going to wrap the episode up. You just brought something up for me that I did write down and something you spoke about earlier and I think it's a perfect time to bring it up. And that is seasons of life and you just spoke about it right? Like you've had that 6 to 8 month period where your life right? And really fucking disciplined. I'm gonna dial everything in and I'm doing it for this reason.

Like your why was strong enough to then figure out the how and you know, the rest of the journey along the way. Um, but as you said, like, you can't do that for the rest of your life. So, um, I think that's an important takeaway for the listeners as well. Is there are seasons of Life and there's gonna be times where you need to dial everything in and you need to be really strict. You need to be restrictive and disciplined to achieve the result that you want. But that might be like a three month block and then you need to, you know, loosen the reins a little bit um you know, within reason so that you can still live your life. You know, I say this all the time, man, I'm, I think we spoke about this in one of our first episodes. Either you interviewing me or me interviewing you about, you know, gaining, maintaining and minimizing damage. I go through these phases where I'm in a maintenance phase for 6 to 8 months of the year where, you know, I'm training because training makes me feel good and I'm eating because you know, the type of food that I'm eating I'm eating because I've connected the dots, I've created this association with how these foods make me feel, you know, the decisions that I make on a daily basis, um you know, going to bed at a certain time, switching off my phone at a certain time, going through my morning routine, you know, structure discipline, training, nutrition, da da da da, I make these decisions because I've connected the dots with how it makes me feel, but I'm not super restrictive, I'm not super disciplined with it.

Like I'm just living my life, I'm enjoying it. There's going to be, you know, 2 to 3 months every year where I'm like, all right, I'm gonna gain mentality. I've got a rugby tournament coming up, I'm going to start dialing in my nutrition, my training, I'm going to cut out the alcohol, I'm going to start counting calories, blah, blah blah. I'm fueling for performance and recovery, blah, blah, blah. You know, that might be 2 to 3 months of the year and then 2 to 3 months of the year, I'm going to minimize the damage phase where maybe I go back to Australia for a month for ANZAC Day, a couple of weeks leading into it, maybe a week or so afterwards, where I'm not going to be training and I'm enjoying spending time with my family and friends and I'm having a couple of beers and you know, like loosening up on my diet a little bit and my sleep patterns are all over the place and you know, it's not all or nothing, it's like, alright, I'm what phase of life am I in? What's, what season of life am I in? Yeah, well it's just banking the credit, right? It's like a relationship, it's like, you have to bank enough credit to be able to withdraw and it's a pretty simple equation really.

But if you've spent five years running your health into the ground, you can't turn it around in three months and then go back into a phase where you're partying up again and I think that's the first step of that is just being fucking honest with yourself about how long has it taken to get to where you are? We'll expect to put that back in and when you frame it up and you're honest about it and you just get your head around the fact that that's what you have to do then that's great. Like, for me, like I said, I was I wasn't super until I had some genuine underlying conditions going on, but I wasn't like, super overweight or crazy out of shape or anything and I knew I probably had a six month to nine month window where I really had to dial in and and that was fine, I was like, cool, we'll do that and I timed it was like, I'll do that right now and I'll be able to enjoy my summer a bit because we're coming into summer here and I was like, I know that it's harder over summer, so I'm going to do it in winter um and I just think it's just like thinking about it like a bank account in a relationship man, like you can't withdraw more than your deposit and you in the way that you live your life and making deposits every single day for most of the year.

So when you need to withdraw a bit, you've got plenty in the bank. I love that analogy, just to start wrapping up bro, picture behind you of Israel Adesanya talk to me about that, that's cool. My favorite place. My mate kate Brown Jurassic photography, he like, I've been a fan of his essence way before he was in the UFC and that watched one of his first fights in Wellington actually, like capital punishment um and sort of just followed his journey as most people in New Zealand have a big fan and me and kids started watching a few of his fights, I got kicked into the UFC into following him and he had his, I remember we watched his first fight together and in the UFC and then he got on it and then he made it in Melbourne when he had the title fight against rob Whittaker just moved to Melbourne and he's a great photographer and um he went to the engaged store and just got yelled out to us, he was like is he? And is he like turned around and just went like boom, and it just went bang, captured it and then um like you know, he's a good friend of mine and we've been through a lot together and he printed it out, framed, got sent to me.

So it's been on the office wall ever since. That's sick mate. What a cool story. Yeah man, it's just a good, I like having it there because I really admire is his mindset and so it's like one of those daily reminders when I look at that it's cool because it took it and everything, but they're like, here's a dude that inspires me as well, so yeah, for sure there's layers of that picture right there mate, Cool man, love that. Hey bro, I really appreciate your time man, we've chatted for three hours this morning. Your it's 10 o'clock at night for you, I apologize for keeping you up mate, I really appreciate your time, I appreciate you and everything that you bring men and always love catching up with you and connecting mate. Yes, a man and I appreciate you giving me the platform to have a chat and likewise mate, it's been three or 3.5 hours or whatever it's been, it's been a pleasure man, I don't know what else I'd rather do on my friday night so great, Great to catch up bro and all the best of everything that you've got coming up as well. Thanks bro, appreciate it much. Love man. This episode was brought to you by Swiss eight, which is a proactive mental health program designed by veterans initially for veterans that has been pushed out to the wider community that allows you to structure in and schedule their eight pillars of health and wellness, including nutrition, sleep time management, discipline, fitness, personal growth, mindfulness and minimalism.

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