From Dad Bod to Fit Dad: How Eric Koenreich Achieved Physical Transformation and Balance

[00:00:00] If people listening to this here, only one thing today, what do you want them to take away from the show? This is my message to men of advanced age. You do not have to accept mediocrity. You did not peak in high school and your best years sure as hell are not behind you.

Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potentials growing to the men we dream of being while taking care of our responsibilities? working, being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves? Well, that's the big question. In this podcast, we'll help you answer those questions and more.

My name is Brent and welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast.

Welcome to the fallible man podcast. Your home for all things, man, husband and father, a big shout [00:01:00] out to fallible nation, make this possible and a warm welcome to our first time listeners. My name is Brent. And today my guest is fitness and mindset coach for dads, Eric Kenry. Eric, welcome to the fallible man podcast.

Thank you for having me, Brent. Very, very excited to be here, Eric. I'm looking forward to this conversation, but we like to start things on the light. And so how's your trivia? Pretty good. I have a lot of useless knowledge. So use this knowledge, right? Is, is, I think is a dad thing over time. I love to flex, love to flex on my son.

I'm like, you don't know nothing about this. There's seven, you know, nothing. Watch this. And he's usually impressed. He's very rarely impressed by me, but he's impressed by that. In our conversation before the show, you shared that you're a fellow nerdy guy like myself, so you might actually get this one right.

What is the most useful die in the game of D& D? Is it a standard D6? A D10, a D20, or[00:02:00]

a D4? I hate that you're asking this question. Because, despite my vast nerdy knowledge, I am detached from the fantasy world. I never played D& D. I never played any tabletop games. I respect them. But, you know, there's all different types of nerds. Yeah, yeah.

Uh, what was the last one? D4? Mm hmm. All right, guys, you know the rules. Don't cheat. Don't skip ahead. We'll come back to that a little bit later. I had one for my D and D. It couldn't be sci fi. It couldn't be sci fi. It had to be fantasy, man. I, I just started playing D and D actually this week. I'm 43 years old.

I've never played before. Uh, I started doing board games once a week with some guys from my church, just kind of a guys hangout time. And. They're like, well, we used to do a lot more D D and D it's like, I've never done D and D. They're like, come on, you can try it once. I was like, eh, whatever. Okay. Yeah.

I'll go to try. My best friend's like, Oh, it's about time you played. Went and bought me like [00:03:00] custom dice. She's like, you need your own die. And it's like, these are a lot of dice, man. I don't understand this. Yeah. That's it. It's complex. I definitely, uh, like I said, I respect it, but I've never gotten, never got into it myself.

I'm more of a video game guy. I I've gone through, uh, two campaigns now and it's like, okay, you know what? Mainly like it's a really great game to get to know people. Like you bond really well with the people you're playing with and really have better insight, like into who they are. I was really shocked.

I was like this crazy side effect. I was like, totally wasn't expecting. So I think you learn a lot about other people through. Any kind of board game, whether it's a role playing game or just monopoly or light, sometimes you find out some things about people you maybe didn't want to know, actually, you know, you see the, the, the, the bad side of people sometimes.

And I, and you know what, the whole thing about D and D and, and nerdy stuff in general. And I'm, I'm big on diatribes, and I'm not going to go on one right now, but [00:04:00] I cannot stand this pushback lately against video games and nerdy stuff in the personal development space where they label these things as wastes of time, as it's holding you back.

You cannot succeed if you play video games. Look, there's, there's extreme cases, of course. Too much of anything is bad. But as far as I'm concerned, video games are part of my self care routine. You know, my wife goes to get facials. I play a PS five K can't, you can't work 24 seven. You can't work and work out 24 seven.

Cause frankly, that's unhealthy if you ask me. So, but anyways, I'm glad we have nerdy pursuits that can, uh, distract us from our work at times. I actually, I broke a cardinal rule. I got in an internet fight on Instagram once over this very topic. Oh no, never engage. I'm, I, you know, I, I usually don't, but this, I made a statement as to like guys, you need to kind of put the video games aside and get in the real world and got in this huge fight with this internet troll.

I was like, look, [00:05:00] you need to read the whole thing for context. Cause obviously you didn't like watch the whole clip and then read the article under it. Are, are, you know, I'm not saying video games are bad. I'm saying every guy has to learn what his line is. I lost three years of my life to World of Warcraft.

Like I, I, I actually added up the playtime of all of my tunes on World of Warcraft, three years of playtime. And during that time, I did nothing for my career. I didn't advance my life. I didn't write. I wasn't doing anything in the real world to make my life better. And so my argument is not that they're bad.

It's like anything else there, there's a moderation. You have to know what becomes a problem for you and what is still healthy fun. If you can casually and have some fun and it doesn't interfere with the rest of your life or take away from you progressing. Awesome. [00:06:00] I, I go hard in almost anything I do.

Yes. And so I get that addictive personality and it's like. I don't know how to go in a little and have fun like I'm, so, uh, that's, that's where I draw the line is like, it's like, it's like anything else. Right. Too much alcohol is bad for you a little bit. Right. They, I mean, the research says a drink every so often, right.

Three times a week or something can actually have healthy effects for you. Uh, you know, marijuana can have medicinal qualities, qualities. Too much use really kind of waylay your life, right? Anything is you can take workouts to extreme too. You can meditate. If you meditate four hours a day, that's a lot of time wasted.

If you ask me, there's just, there's a. You know, a certain extent where you are wasting time, it defeats the purpose of what you're doing. It should be restorative, right? Video games are, and for me, are restorative. Just sitting down, [00:07:00] playing maybe 30 minutes, maybe even an hour, if I get that. I get about two hours of gaming per week, and I cherish it.

That time, because I was not grateful enough when I didn't have kids and didn't have business back in the day where I could spend hours. I mean, you probably understand hours upon hours upon hours of playing these games and just, just unplugging. But you know what, that's what they're talking about. They don't want young men getting into that, into that groove.

Although, you know, it never held me back per se at that time in my life, but I could see how it could be detrimental to others. Yeah. I let it, so I will be very clear. It didn't hold me back. I let it keep me from moving forward. There's a huge difference there. You know, the game is not responsible for that.

Blizzard is not responsible for my habit with it. Right. That's, I mean, that's, that's everything, right? You know, it's not the food. It's not the, not the drugs. It's not the [00:08:00] alcohol. It's the person, the person that's using them and you got to take accountability and. And, uh, change at some point,

that's a guy I enjoyed that last little journey, but you know, before we go too much farther, can I, sorry, Eric, I want to call you close enough, Eric, I don't do huge introductions. So before we go way down the rabbit hole today, for, for the sake of our audience, in your own words today, not, not just a huge, but today, who is Eric Kenry?

Eric Kenry is a father. He's a husband and he is a men's fitness and mindset coach. He's been through a lot and everything he's been through, he doesn't regret one bit because it's brought him right here and it's given him a lot of knowledge that he can pass down and Thankfully, he is in a position where he can help others with that [00:09:00] knowledge.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why? Hmm. That's a good one. I would like to be able to eat whatever I want and still be in great shape. I am a food lover. I love food. Don't get it twisted just because I'm a fitness guy doesn't mean I don't love food. I still love food. I don't like junk food anymore.

And we'll get into this. I used to be a junk food blogger. I used to be obsessed with it. I don't eat refined sugar anymore. And so what I find myself. Lusting after it's just good quality food, you know, like a juicy burger, some, some pizza, not like dominoes, you know, some, some New York style, some of my favorite Detroit style, uh, things like that.

Some nachos from a nice Mexican place. So that's what I love. And I would just love to be unburdened by the very idea of. Calorie intake. That would be my dream. I think it says a lot about me that I could be, I could [00:10:00] fly. I could have super strength. I could be invulnerable, but no, I want to, I would love to just try to be able to try as much food from around the world and America as I can and not gain a single pound, but you know, that's why we're here talking about balance and, and, uh, moderation, you know, I, I, I got to admit that would be a great superpower because I'm going to be sick.

It'd be so fun. I live in a place with amazing Mexican food and it's like, Oh, I really shouldn't eat that whole burrito. Cause it's like that huge. Yeah, but it tastes so good. It's funny because I like ice cream, but I can actually walk away from sweets, but I will do seconds and thirds of like good food.

Yeah. I, I, ice cream is my favorite food, actually. Although I have a sinking suspicion. Lactose intolerance in my advanced age. I'm actually waiting for a test to come back, you know, I don't eat ice cream regularly anyways, but it's one of those things where I love a good graft [00:11:00] ice cream. Good high end ice cream.

I made I made ice cream a lot. And once again, something else we'll get into, I'm sure. But, um, sweets, savories, it does not matter. I am an omnivore of the highest order. I love everything and anything. There's no food genre that I do not like. I actually found a new ice cream just last night. Like, just last night.

What was that? Uh, do you guys have Empaqua where you live? No, but I'm familiar with it. They actually have made a, it's called a traditional lemon square. I love lemon flavors. It was a bite straight out of my childhood. I remember going to this bakery with my grandmother getting these, you know, artisan made.

Custom like lemon squares that were just so good. When I was a kid, I took one bite, which is instantly back. Is there, so is there, is there any graham cracker in the flavor, like the crust? Yeah. Yeah. It's actually like got, it's got the lemon and the [00:12:00] topping and Oh yeah. It's . I cannot stand when, when companies will make ice cream flavors, and I'll just leave out a very important element, like people make pumpkin pie ice creams with no graham cracker crust.

I'm like, what? What are you doing? That's it's just going to taste like pumpkin. It's not going to taste like pumpkin pie, so I'm glad they, you got to have all the layers, all the elements included to get that lemon bar flavor. I got it. My mom lives with us since my dad passed. And I was like, Oh mom, you got, you got to try this.

She took one bite. It was just like, like you can just see that it. Yes. Yes. Uh, total, total surprise. So I took my kids, I try and spend about one night a week just with my kids. Where it's just their time. And so we'll go get a snack of some kind of unhealthy nature and do something or play games or watch a movie or whatever.

Last night we got some ice cream and watched movies and it was like, they just killed that one. That's it. That's [00:13:00] it. That's the life right there. Eric, if you could learn and master any skill instantly, what would it be and why? Patience. Because anybody out there who has kids, especially kids under 10 years old, you understand how important patience is and how hard it is.

To have patience in these moments, especially for those of you out there like myself, who have multiple children, I have a seven year old, a five year old and soon to be two year old. And many times when my wife is out, uh, she takes business trips a lot, leaves me, abandons me for three or four days at a time.

I take a lot of pride in my ability as a dad. And you know, one of the things I liked about your message is that we are not just mere spectators. I hate when, Oh, you got all, you got all the kids, you're babysitting. I go, no, I'm not babysitting. This is what I do. Cause I'm a stay at home dad. And I spend the majority of the time [00:14:00] with the kids while my wife works.

That's what I do. I work from home too, but my work blocks are shorter. So I spent a lot of time with these guys and summer was rough. Summer was rough because as you all know, the summer programs can be really expensive. So we can only pick and choose what they do and the times and the ages don't always line up.

So a lot of, a lot of days was just me and those three. And they are at each other's throats and then they're at my throat and then I'm at their throats. So it, it's not like, you know, it's not all lovey dovey all the time. I don't think anybody who doesn't have multiple kids, especially at this age, really understands how chaotic it gets and how hard it is.

And that feeling of helplessness can be very overwhelming because you just want them to listen to you. It's not. It's not that easy. You wish it was like, why don't you just discipline them? Like, uh, you don't know, you don't know the struggle. [00:15:00] So I've gotten a lot better. And my dad is, was an amazing influence on me, an incredible role model, but he had a major character flaw that he passed down to me as parents usually do.

Uh, my temper is a little short. And, uh, so I tend to blow my stack a little more than I would like. So if I could have one skill mastered right now, just. Zen, like it's just the ability to see them break things in my house and just do completely belligerent acts to each other and just be like, okay, let's just talk about that.

It's just, you know, let's talk about our feelings right now. Why would you, why did you do that? I want to know your rationale behind that decision. You know, that would be, that would make my life a little bit easier and probably my blood pressure would lower a few points. You know, you're, you're two steps ahead of the fact that you, you know, that about yourself, right?[00:16:00]

You gone, you know what? This is the one thing I think my dad could have done better. And you're not criticizing him as a dad. You're not going, you suck. No, it's Hey, he was great. I think this could have worked better. And I see this in my life and I want to do this better. Right? We have so many people out there, it drives me insane, and I think every generation does it, but they get to a certain point in their life where like, my parents were wrong about all this, or my parents had no clue what they were doing, and just like, they blame failures on their parents, and it's like, well you were there man, you, you, you saw what was good and what was not, from your point of view, you know?

Now you're seeing it from the other side. So take some ownership on that. Your parents weren't completely out there. Most likely now. Yeah, that's, I think that's a hard part of, yeah, that's a hard part. That's

the hard part about your child, you're pretty much responsible [00:17:00] for, but everything that's bad, you're also responsible for. It's a two way street. And I will say this, and I don't want to throw the baby boomers under the bus too much because. They did a lot of great things, but there is a certain trait with them as parents that I'm speaking from experience with my parents and from my friends as fellow Millennials who have big parents that they are not the quickest to own up.

To their shortcomings as parents. So basically they want, and this is ironic. They want the, uh, you know, the participation trophy. Then when they, I got you here, you're alive, you know, you're healthy. Like, listen, it's not an indictment. Okay. There's just a certain point where we take a step back. We reflect and like, oh man, when I become a parent, I don't want to do that.

It doesn't mean you're a bad parent. And you have to, like you said, ownership's very important. And I plan to take ownership when my son grows up to have a short fuse. You know, I'll be like, well, hey, I try. I didn't do that great there. I could have done [00:18:00] that better. But at the end of the day, if that's like the worst character flaw he has, and that's my biggest concern with him, I think I would have done a pretty good job.

But that's really the job of a parent, right? To mess these little humans up as little as possible on the way to adulthood. Now, I, I will say on, on the baby boomer side of it, uh, we're really the first generation to move to that perspective as far as like, with that, looking back going, we need to be more introspective about our lives and that generation, that wasn't a thought that wasn't something they were taught.

That wasn't something that was ever taught to them. Right. Their parents, if you go back a step beyond that, their parents were like, you're here, you're fed, shut up and be happy, get to work. Uh, you know, I look at my grandfather who was out picking cotton at five years old, all day long, beside his dad. [00:19:00] Um, like.

All day long, we're talking 12 hours at a time all day, his older sisters would come pick him up in the wagon because he would fall asleep walking home from picking cotton all day. And he was right there in the field next to his dad at five years old picking cotton, right? So you look at the difference in our society.

We're the first generation really start having that luxury to look back and go. You could have done that better. They're just like, you know what? I was better. You should have met my parents. You know? Yeah. I think there's, I think there's something we can learn from every previous generation. And that's why I hate when, you know, cause I'm sensitive to my generation being labeled a certain way.

I think that you can't group all baby boomers in a bucket, just like gang group, all millennials in a bucket. I am definitely, um. I subscribe to some, some aspects of baby boomer parenting, a little bit of tough love. You know, I'm not all crunchy granola woo woo stuff [00:20:00] with my kids. You know, I'm very practical.

I'm very grounded, but I'm also sensitive to their feelings. So I think there's once again, essential masculinity, you just. You gotta give them what they need when they need it and you cannot let them run the show and you have to let them know who's boss. So there's, there's also room for, you know, communication and, um, there's nothing wrong with talking to your kids about their feelings.

Uh, but I'm also not a rubber dirt on it kind of guy. I am a. I'm like, is there blood? No. Okay, let's go. I don't want my kids to think every bump and bruise is, uh, a catastrophe. So there's a little, a little bit of column A for my, for my dad, a little bit of column B from, uh, from me. How old are you outta curiosity?

I'm 41. Okay, so you're a gen. I'm an elder. I'm an elder. I'm an elder millennial. I'm actually on the co I'm actually running the line between Jen. Jen, you're Jim. Y. What's the Zillennial? I guess Zillennial, that's the cute little nickname they have for us. But, um, yeah, and you know, [00:21:00] and I understand where Baby Boomers are coming from.

Cause now when I see Gen Z, I'm like, what in the hell's going on here? I'm not the kind of guy, I will not, I will not, however, be the kind of... guy who's like, Oh, you listen to his trash. My music was the best. I might believe that I might listen to only my music. And I listened, I listened to a lot of newer stuff, but I'm like, I don't get it.

I don't really care to tell my kids that they wouldn't listen to it. How about it? Because I know exactly how my parents felt when I was listening to, you know, when Blair Notorious B. I. G. And, you know, all the, all the rap music I grew up on, they're probably like, what the hell is this? Cause it was so new.

And I'm sure something new is going to come along with my kids or teenagers that I will have no understanding or really appreciation of, but they like it. It's cool with me. I always laugh about the music because you hear the stuff is like, I'm, I'm extraordinarily eclectic in my music taste. So like, I. I grew up in the right area and the right era to like, [00:22:00] I, I listened to Nirvana when they were GarageBand before they hit the labels, but I also like would shoot pool with my friend in his dad's basement.

I'm listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival and Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimmy Hendrix. Right. So we, we had that whole all the way out to like, I played a cello when I was younger. And so I also listen to classical music. So I have this really stupidly eclectic, I'll have all this stuff in like one playlist.

My wife's like, what kind of playlist is this? I was like, I don't know. Yeah. Oh, I got Beethoven. I got in Nirvana. I got Guns N Roses. It's yeah, I, I, I definitely have ADHD because I cannot, I cannot just settle on one musical genre. Like it's for me, I grew up listening to a lot of Southern rock cause my dad's from Ohio and we were in Florida.

So we listened to a lot of Allman brothers. Um, a lot of Creedence, a lot of stuff like that. Also, a lot of Springsteen, everybody loves Bruce, everybody loves [00:23:00] Bruce. I love Bruce and I didn't really appreciate Bruce until I got older. Um, and then as I, as I got a little more, I got really into Aerosmith. I was really, I was a classic rock kid for a while.

And then I discovered rap music in about 91, 92, my, uh, uh, I sort of every once in a while watching UMTV raps when my parents weren't looking. And then one day I was working at a grocery store that I think everyone, a lot of people have this kind of story where it's like the cool older kid. And he handed me a tape.

This wasn't the first tape he gave me. He gave me several Tara tape first. So that was my first exposure to kind of like heavy metal, I guess, besides Metallica. You know, I wasn't really into, into heavy metal at that point. And, uh, but he gave me a mix tape of, uh, of, uh, group called the Wu-Tang Clan. And I was like, as a, as a nerdy kid, I was a ninjas.

What is it? He's like, yeah, they're, they're like ninjas. I'm like, whoa. And so listening to hip hop like that, [00:24:00] in that, getting exposed to that early on in 94 ish. Really changed my whole musical trajectory and I became immersed and, you know, I, and for, for the most part, I think hip hop music raised me. And then as I got older, I still love hip hop to this day, but I got into little, like, I guess, seen emo, you know, stuff like that, like fallout boy, things like that.

And then 1 and everybody has this story too. If you start listening to pop punk, inevitably, it leads you down the hardcore or the metal core rabbit hole. And you turn into the guy who's wearing the studded belt, camo cargo pants, and the band tee, and that's you. And that was my uniform for like, a decade.

And so, you know, Killswitch and Gage, and all these bands like that. And so, the best part about, you know, Having kids, one of the best parts, sorry, don't want to trivialize it too much is exposing them to your music and seeing which stuff they like and which stuff they, they, they gravitate towards like my, my son, he's seven and he loves August Burns [00:25:00] Red, which is extremely heavy for a seven year old.

He loves kill switch too. Um, but he also, he all, he's not really into rap, but he just, he loves music. He really likes metal, but you know, we play the temptations here. I try to, I try to expose them to Motown and stuff like that, because I would like them to hear when people actually saying with actual instruments and, and let them hear that.

And sometimes he's a, he's got a lot of energy. So when you turn on August Burns, Red, the house turns into a mosh pit. Sometimes you got to turn on some, uh, some temptations to chill things out. A little soothed out just a little bit. It's like, okay, we time to wind down. I actually programmed my children from like the time they were infants.

So at bedtime, every night we turn on Adele 25, like every night. And my, my oldest is 11 now, almost every night of her life. I turn on Adele 25, that album at bedtime. And to the point where both my children are 11 and nine, [00:26:00] they can be like up here, just like bouncing. I turn on a Dell 25 and they're like, no, and they automatically start coming down.

People were like, you program your children, guys, it's a Pavlovian Pavlovian response. They associate, they associate that music with getting tired and relaxing. Yeah. That's chill time. And smart. That's smart parenting. As a parent, it saved me a lot of headaches over the years. It's also cost me a few when we've been like traveling.

Oh yeah. I realized I didn't have the album on my phone. So we're like in the hotel, my wife and I are scrambling through like Amazon music or Spotify, trying to find the album. No, they can't sleep without it. You know, so there, there was, there's a loaded into that as well. Yeah, Eric. Before we start digging in, what's one thing everybody should know about you?[00:27:00]

It's a good question. I think above anything else, you should know that my family is the single most important thing to me and everything I do is really for them. And, uh, there's really nothing that I, that even comes close in my hierarchy of importance. It's just my wife, my kids. For everything else and then everything else kind of falls underneath that guys.

We've been getting to know Eric just a little bit in this part of the show. We wanted to let you know who he is and give you some insight into him, into why we're having this conversation. The next part of the show, we're going to dive into dad bods and your health. We're going to roll it to our sponsor and we'll be right back with more from Eric Kinray.

Now before we go any further, I wanted to share with you guys, I don't always tell you how much I love doing my podcast. Like I passionately love what I'm doing. And one of the [00:28:00] things that makes my life better as a podcaster is to work with a company like grow your show, grow your show is a one stop podcast.

Do it all. Now. I use Grow Your Show for my marketing, but Grow Your Show is literally a one stop shop. You can record your episode and just drop it off with them and they take it from there. It's amazing. If you are interested in picking up podcasting as a hobby, or maybe you're looking to expand your business and use podcasting in that aspect, talk to my friends over at Grow Your Show.

Adam will take care of you. I guarantee it. I trust him. He's my friend. He's my business. Colleague, and I wouldn't trust anybody else with my show guys. Welcome back in the first part of the show. We just spent some time getting to know Eric and who he is and what he's about this part of the show. We're going to dig into dad bods and your health.

Now, Eric, let me, let me get this out there just because it's a fascinating detail. You've been a pro wrestler, a bakery owner, a gym owner, your CPT, and now you're working with dads to try and help them get their health together and balance that and being a [00:29:00] dad, right? What's been your favorite thing to do so far?

My favorite thing to do is blowing people's minds because I think there's a lot of preconceived notions about fitness and especially nutrition and things that you can and cannot eat. And my specialty is helping men understand that their lifestyle doesn't have to change that radically in order to improve their health.

You know, you can still go out to eat with your family. You can still go on vacations with your wife. You can go on date nights. You can do these things, but it's about balance. It's about picking your spots. It's about moderation. And many people just think it's chicken and rice and broccoli day after day after day.

And it's not that. At all. So I think that is my favorite part and really helping these guys, you know, overhaul their mindsets because a lot of this process, that's why I, that's why I changed from just like a fitness coach to fitness and mindset coach, because. The mindset is everything. How we approach [00:30:00] our daily life will dictate how, uh, great our results are.

And oftentimes the internal reflects in the external, you know, so for a lot of people, they are always looking for the magic bullet, quick fix, the plan that will change their life, but it is not about the how. You get there. It's about the, who you need to be to get there. Oh, come on. No 32nd abs. I wish I could say, Hey, I'd be, I wouldn't be here right now.

I wouldn't need to do podcasts. If I could, if I could give you a 32nd fix to, to get in great shape, I'd be a billionaire. Yeah. Now, Eric, how do you go from wrestler to food influencer? Man, the trajectory of my life is so weird. Even if you go backwards, the fact that I, that my last pivot was from junk food influencer.

My Instagram was just about my, my life, my family and the junk food that I liked was kind of a hobby of mine, [00:31:00] um, that I pivoted to fitness and mindset coach. It's very weird, but I'm, I'd love to get to that in a second, but going all the way back. When I was in high school, people asked me what I wanted to do.

I told them I'm going to be a pro wrestler and they laughed. I don't blame that's a wild thing to say for a 17 year old kid, but I did it because whenever I say, whenever I verbalize something out loud, when I put it, I'm not one of those guys just like, I'm going to do this. And then I just, I fall off and hope people forget about it.

I, before I even say it, I've already visualized it. It's already happened. And I was going to be a pro wrestler come hell or high water. So I did that, did that for a decade. A decade or so got out of that, got into personal training and personal training. I, I love food. And when Instagram came about the first couple of things I posted were food.

And then over time, my wife and I, one of our favorite pastimes. Eating, you know, I think there's a lot, there's a [00:32:00] misconception about people who consider each other soulmates and people who have happy marriages. They think they have a lot of common interests. It's not the case at all. My wife and I are very different people.

She is not a nerd whatsoever. She doesn't like anything nerdy unless you count plants and personal development, which is not that nerdy. So we bonded over food. A lot of times, one of our favorite little pastimes, we'd go out to. We'd find out about some new pop tart that came out and we'd hunt for it at all the Walmarts.

You know, this is before kids. We had all the time in the world. And so eventually people started asking me like, Hey, how does that taste? You know, you know what, I should start reviewing these things. And then around the same time, Instagram rolled out the video feature to many people should grin, but nevertheless, we've seen where.

That time has proven that they made the right choice, but, uh, it was 30 second videos. So I started doing fun sized reviews and I would just sit in my car. I wouldn't edit them at all. I would literally take a bite of something. And as I'm spitting crumbs out, uh, chewing [00:33:00] with my mouth open, talking with my mouth full, I would give the reviews of these things.

Sometimes I would do it in my kitchen. Then when I had kids, my popularity skyrocketed because I started doing reviews with the kids and probably guests. They aren't great co stars in terms of, um, I guess, uh, direction. They just kind of do their own thing. And that's, that's the fun. They say crazy things.

They do crazy things and a lot of good times doing that. But eventually I grew out of it. And, uh, my kids, I think, grew out of it too. They don't want to be a captive person. And it's just not fun to eat in front of the camera. It's just fun to enjoy the food and be mindful. And so I, um, started going on a little bit of a...

Uh, personal development journey, which, uh, I, like I said, I don't want to get into that part because I think that's probably the most important story I have to tell today. And then I found myself not finding joy in those things anymore. And I found myself being more fulfilled by once again, helping others.

And I had done some powerlifting coaching in the past and done [00:34:00] pretty well at that. So I got back into this and at first it was just dads, but I don't mean to correct you. Uh, I have actually expanded my, my scope to non dads as well. But my, my demographic I would say is men of an advanced age. Notice. I didn't say old men of an advanced age.

So 30 plus year old men who have maybe lapsed in their fitness, who maybe like to make excuses about how their life's too busy or the kids are keeping, you know, keep too occupied. Uh, we don't buy that. We do not buy that. You have to take care of yourself. You have to hold yourself to a high standard and, uh, that's what I do now.

And I love doing it. Just being in that position where I can help others and be a leader and be a mentor and change people's lives is amazing. And, and forgive me for that. I was, I did actually know you were aware, or was aware that you had moved into a fuller, uh, scope of work. I knew you started with tired.

Yep. And [00:35:00] expanded from there. Uh, I just, that name stuck out of my head with tired dad fitness. Like, I know this is where you started, but I didn't know you actually expanded. So I apologize for that guys that that's on me. That's okay. I think a lot of people know me from that and the, and the, and the name tired dad fitness club.

Isn't really ironic. It's because so many guys will say, Oh, I can't work out. I'm tired. I, and I say, join the club, dude. We're all tired. Every one of us that has kids and jobs, we're all tired, but we have to start looking for reasons instead of finding excuses. And a lot of times you just walk out in your house, you look around, you see those kids, that's your reason.

Okay, that's the reason you do it. So you can, you want to be healthy so you can play with them, you can watch them grow up and you can be a good role model. That's it. Now, what do you think of the whole dad bod argument? Now, let me be very clear. This can be anybody, right? It's just called a dad bod, but [00:36:00] it's generally men over 30 most of the time.

And I've heard like, I, I think it's a, it's a load of crap. I don't think this is true. Right. But you see those, uh, YouTube videos where guys go around and ask women, you know, what do you prefer? What do you prefer? And about half the time when we're like, Oh, I prefer the dad bod. I like to be a little round to me.

That's an excuse. Like women are just making, throwing that out there because it takes the pressure off them to be in as healthy of a shape, but I don't think anything that encourages a person to be unhealthy. It is a good trend. What, what do you think about this whole dad bod trend? I can't stand it personally.

I think it's a narrative that has been pushed by. The media to help keep men soft and weak and to accept the bare minimum or below the bare minimum and to stop, you know, chasing these, these physical goals that we, we set for ourselves in our twenties. And all of a sudden, since we got, [00:37:00] we got older, we have kids and responsibilities was to just sacrifice those things, sacrifice our health.

For those things. It's ridiculous. And I do agree with you. When I hear women say that it smacks of insecurity to me because they don't want a man who might be desirable to other women. So they don't want to have to worry about other women looking at their man. They want a guy who's doughy, soft, doesn't take good care of himself, doesn't dress well.

is unkept because that way they have the control. They have the power. There's nothing wrong. Listen, I love, I'm a, nobody takes this out of context. I have two daughters. I love my wife. I worship the ground she walks on. Some people might even label me a feminist and I wouldn't have a problem with that.

But here's the thing. We got to call a spade a spade. And when people say that it's just the same thing when, you know, uh, guys do it with women. You know, it's the same thing if you're okay with your wife being a little bit heavier. A lot of times I think that's just because you are insecure and you [00:38:00] don't want to have to worry about her cheating on you.

And a lot of times you see this happen in these relationships where the man or the woman gets in really good shape. And then there's some, some tension because the other one doesn't get in shape and they're worried. They're insecure about their relationship because now they're like, Oh, he's got to leave me for somebody else.

It's very easy to each other, accountable in relationship and to hold each other to a high standard of physical fitness. But like I said, I'm good at diatribes. I can ramble for a long time. I just do not like the idea of a dad bod. I think that we are all, we are all. Uh, meant to look different. We all have different muscle, muscle belly insertions, different metabolisms, different builds.

I do not personally have a very aesthetic build, very classical build. I have a wide blocky waist. I have smaller arms. I have tiny calves. My wife's calves are bigger than mine. I have no problem saying that, that she has crazy calf development. And you know, you know what though? [00:39:00] Those aren't excuses. You make the best for what you've given and that's all you have to do like you can still be lean Athletic and fit doesn't matter.

You don't need to look like the guy on the cover of men's health The guy that works out for a living. Okay, you don't need to look like that All right, but you need to hold yourself to a high standard. You need to take care of yourself You need to eat right you need to exercise and you need to be a good role model for your kids and other men Let me, let me take this, go say, let's, let's segway this just for a second.

Cause I want to touch on something you said, uh, gentlemen, please hear this very clearly, you're not all going to look the same in your best shape or when you're healthy. Okay. Uh, I have, I have monster calves and I don't have to, like I have genetically, I don't have to work, keep muscle on my legs, my thighs and my calves.

Just genetically, they're usually sculpted and huge, right? I don't have to work for that. Uh, and that's all genetics. I have [00:40:00] really low insertions on my deltoids. And so like, I will never have the big shoulder cap look that you see on a classic bodybuilder same because the insertions are lower. And so even when my shoulders get bigger.

My shoulders don't look as blocky as some guys who you see, right? Who have that quote unquote, perfect insertion point and guys, you need to understand there's a lot of differences in genetics. Some guys have naturally the way their separations in their abdominal walls. Look, they have a six pack. Some people have an eight pack.

Few people actually have like almost a nine pack, right? It's, it's kind of nuts when you start getting lean and you understand that design in your belly is all about the fascia. So you're not all going to look the same and please don't think that you have to try taking drugs are pushing yourself harder is not going to change the natural [00:41:00] genetics.

So don't think you're all going to look that way. Understand that we're all just built differently. You can still be healthy. You're just not going to look identical to. Like a pro bodybuilder necessarily, or let's be more realistic, like the physique guys or anything. Yeah. I mean, comparison is the thief of joy.

I love that saying. I find myself saying it to myself a lot. You know, I used to be 310 pounds. And so because I lost all that weight, my, there's a kind of a film of loose skin. So the best I can get and at my leanest and I mean really drawn out, really lean, I got a four pack and it's not even that pronounced, you know, there's just.

It's just genetics and a combination of genetics. And you know, that, that, uh, that abuse, I, I, I put my body through when I was younger. So, but like I said, you can still get lean. You can still be in great cardiovascular shape by eating a good diet, exercising consistently and holding yourself to a high [00:42:00] standard.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I just wanted to. Right. We like to pretend that guys aren't as insecure as women are about the way they look, but it might be worse. Yeah, we might be. I mean, dudes will work out to impress other dudes. That's how insecure we are. Like, it's like you see how jacked that guy is amazed.

You're looking jacked, bro. Like girls don't work. That's not why girls train, you know, girls, girls train, you know, just for themselves largely. And then sometimes some of them want to train to, you know, get a guy's attention, but dudes, we are, I would say in my experience, uh, we have more bodies, much more body dysmorphia on the male side than women do.

I think there's, and that's, it's funny because there's, you know, up until recent years. Nobody really wanted to admit that the beauty standards for men were as unfair as they are for women. But it's true because that's why I hate the dad bod. The dad bod is so hypocritical. Like you want every woman [00:43:00] to look like a swimsuit model, but you can walk around looking like a pear.

That's ridiculous. You should be held to the same standard that they are. If we're going to, if we're going to have these unrealistic standards. Right. But that's the point they're unrealistic. You don't need to look like the men's health cover model and you're the girls you're going after don't need to look like swimsuit models.

You need to look like real people, real jobs who, and real responsibilities and real lives, but that, you know, they take care of themselves. Yeah, exactly. I had a friend who had aspirations of, uh, you know, getting into bodybuilding a little bit. He was, he was Jack, like he was in great shape. Mm-Hmm. Worked out hard, had a good training plan, but his biceps, the way the inserts were, he always had this like tight little round knot in the middle.

That's me. That's, and it was really strong. Yeah, that's right. Just gets, yeah. Right. And he was always so secure about it. He's like, it doesn't matter what I do. It's like, dude, you cannot change the [00:44:00] genetic insertions of that muscle. Make that long. You can't elongate that. Yeah. I would say I look kind of like a, a muscular scarecrow when I get really lean and it could be worse, you know, like the, the, the blocky waist and stuff like that.

But like I said, I, as I've gotten older and body dysmorphia wreaked havoc on me for a very long time, I'd be lying if I said I still don't have a little bit of it, but that's, I think just. Maybe me holding myself to a, a, a higher standard than most, but you know, when I was younger, I'd say that a lot of my, my self confidence issues and my resulting eating disorder was a result of not dealing with that body dysmorphia in a healthy way.

Well, I think any guy who actually starts like lifting and taking lifting somewhat seriously develops a find a body dysmorphia, even if you don't want to call it that. I remember, so I broke my neck in 2020. I went down, I was doing a yoke walk with yoke straps. Cause the gym I was at didn't have a [00:45:00] yoke.

So I had yoke straps on a bar and I went down, I ended up breaking my neck. Right. I was carrying 600 pounds, fell back, land on the bar, snap my C5 across it. Uh, and my dad was like, so you're done, right? You survived that by the grace of God. But I was like, no, a year or two, I'll be back there. It might take a year and a half, two years to get back up to that weight.

But all you, he's like. I've just never had the desire to pick up 600 pounds. I was like, well, that's fine. That's, you don't have to have that desire. I do. He said, so what's enough? What's after 600 pounds? Is that it? Are you done there? I was like, 700, of course.

He's like, when is, and I had to really stop and think like, when, when is enough? And it is, it's this kind of body dysmorphia to a point of, it's like, what is strong enough? Well, I want to see what my maximum capacity is. Yes, that for me, that's [00:46:00] enough. When I hit that genetic limiting, no matter what effort I put in, I'd plateaued and we're not going to make more than a half pound jump here or there.

And I, I definitely have gotten close to that genetically for me, right? There's, there is just that wall where without major radical changes or maybe even some chemical help, you can only go so heavy, uh, for your body, right? Everything starts to hurt at that point. Yeah. I was going to say, even, even with, even if you're on PEDs, they don't necessarily strengthen ligaments and joints to the point sometimes.

You, you surpass your genetic potential for muscles, uh, from muscular growth. And then the ligaments and stuff end up tearing. You see it happen all the time. So that's just another pitfall for this whole quest for unrealistic, uh, achievement. I guess now I just, I was always a big fan of sneak. Okay. I do. I really, I took that.

I think it was Aristotle who said something about if you don't live [00:47:00] up to your genetic pen, if men don't push themselves to their physical potential, at least once in their life, they're, they're missing out. And that's paraphrased, of course, but it's like, I just, I just wanted to know, like. Without taking any kind of drugs, just like eating well and, and training hard.

Right. What can I get up to? And, you know, I got to that. It's like, could I do more? I want to at least see kind of thing. Right. But we developed that. Right. What's what's some guys I was never, uh, I didn't want to look like a body builder. I didn't want to get bulky. Right. Like that, but I wanted to be strong.

So it was like, okay, you know, what is, do I need to put on a little more like physical size? To get stronger. Yeah. So, you know, back forth, right? But yeah, you developed that kind of Where is that limit? Where do you want to, where do you want to get to if you start working out with any kind of seriousness, just because it's like, Oh man, you start feeling good, right?

It's an addiction. You get, you do get addicted to it. It's it's, I don't think [00:48:00] anybody, I think everybody that started working out understands that. It's just like, you get a little vein all of a sudden you're like, Oh my God, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. I want more, more vascularity, more size, more strength.

I used to trade my best friend. She developed traps. She's like, Oh my God, I have traps. It's cool. Right? I was like, what's, what's the big deal? She's like, no, no, no. Like, okay. Some people have genetically big arms, but you have to work to actually have like traps where there's actually a line from your neck to your shoulder.

She was so proud. So just great moment in her life. She finally developed traps, you know, it's, yeah, it's a lot of fun. You said you dropped a hundred pounds, right? So you're up at three, what was it? Three, something three, 10, three, 10. Yeah. How, how tell us that story. Cause a lot of dads, a lot of men right now are going, well, you're, you're, you're skinny.

Yeah. [00:49:00] I wish I could say that it was the last time I lost a bunch of weight, but it wasn't, you know, My story involves a lot of failure and a lot of setbacks. And one of those was my relationship with food. And I've always loved to work out. I think this is a common story, right? Love to try. I get clients coming all the time.

I love to work out, but my diet, this, my diet, that food. Yes, I know. I understand. Fortunately, food's like 90 percent of your results. So we got to dial that in. And that's what takes a lot of work. But when I was a kid, I ate a lot. Now I have a sister. She's a good metabolism. I did not. We largely the same things.

My parents, uh, big boomers had no idea about nutrition. Of course, just a lot of pasta, a lot of bread with butter with the pasta, a lot of milk, a lot of milk with the bread, with butter, with the pasta. And, you know, we still eat fish and a lot of home cooked meals. It wasn't a lot of fast food. We had pizza Fridays, of course, as every 90s kid does, and we'd go out to eat on [00:50:00] the weekends.

And my dad, you know, he liked to eat Oreos and he liked ice cream. And I would join him. I would just have eight Oreos instead of four, you know, and when you're a parent, you have these blinders on, I think, or at least my parents did. They just see a happy kid and they don't really pay any mind to what's.

You know, coming in the high school years and how brutal kids can be and how, how much your, your self confidence can take a hit when you don't, um, like what you see in the mirror. And so I, uh, I kept eating and I, like I said, I've always loved food. I'll always love food. So don't get it twisted. But I, I had a lot of.

A lot of bad habits and a horrible issue with food and football did not do me any favors because when you play offensive line in Florida, the bigger you are, the better. So there's a lot of days between two days we'd go, you know, we'd work out in the morning. Go to Taco Bell, get the 10 for 10, you know, 10, they don't do it anymore.

I don't think what it was 10 [00:51:00] tacos for 10 is hell of a deal. Hell of a deal. Hell of a deal. So it was like a big box. We just eat that and go back to train. And then I, after the second, second practice, I'd go and get a big gulp and like some, I don't even know what I would eat, like a Charleston chew or something.

I'm probably dating myself by. Saying Charles people like, what's a Charleston Chew? You know? Uh, and a lot of junk food. Just, I just always, always eat Hot Pockets. Big Hot Pockets were huge, you guys. Hot Pockets are still around, but in the nineties, hot Pockets were a kid's staple. Like if your parents worked out of the ho if your parents weren't home and they were working in the summer, you lived off Hot Pockets and ramen.

And that's all. That's all we ate, really. So, uh, my sister stayed thin. She was just as active as I was. You're both, we always played sports, but you know, I got up to three 10, my senior year. And, uh, I was a pretty darn good football player, um, for my genetics. I actually, you know, had a few division three offers that I declined.

I just didn't feel like, you know, crushing my body for, um, for no reason. I mean, the education would have been cool, [00:52:00] but like I said, I wanted to be a pro wrestler. So I, uh, the summer. After my, my senior year, I decided to lose, um, the weight. And so I just got this idea in my head. I'd heard about the Adkins diet.

And I got this book and I basically did the Atkins diet for a year straight. I didn't eat sugar. Um, I didn't need a carb as far as I can remember. It was a lot of Caesar salad, a lot of cheese and meat, of course, uh, pork rinds, just disgusting, archaic, not, not, it's not a good methodology in terms of nutrition, however, it's served its purpose because it allowed me to eliminate my.

Biggest weakness at that point. And the thing that was causing me, um, the was destroying me essentially. I was pre diabetic and I had, I was, you know, my blood pressure was through the roof, the doctors, he got all these weights. So, um, I was drinking a ton of [00:53:00] soda. Ton of regular soda. As soon as I cut that out, that was the first thing I did before I even started Atkins.

I lost 20 pounds in probably two weeks just from the sodium and the sugar and the carbohydrates that were in my body. And then once I eliminated everything else, as far as junk food goes, you know, I would eat like an Atkins bar. I would have, you know, some meat and cheese for lunch and then a Caesar salad for dinner.

I was eating very low calorie, but very high fat and high protein. So the weight just started flying off and I'd go to the YMCA, I'd work out and I'd play full court basketball for an hour every day. And, uh, I lost, I lost over, like at that point, I think my cleared about 80 ish pounds and, um, I looked terrible, you know, skinny fat, but I was healthy.

So that's all that mattered. And, uh, I didn't, once again, going back to the how versus the who, I didn't change anything about my mentality. I just programmed myself. I'm going to do this plan. I'm going to stick to it. Until I get to where I want to go. And it wouldn't be the last time I did [00:54:00] this. And that was my problem for a decade plus essentially spinning my wheels, yo yoing up and down in my weight because I wasn't addressing the who I was addressing the how, and that's it.

So my relationship. The food never got better. And so when I went to college after that, I had my first battle with depression and binge eating disorder, and I ended up gaining like 30 or 40 pounds. But like I said, I don't want to, I'll just keep the happy ending where I lost almost a hundred pounds, but really the happy ending is me right now.

Not, not that first step. And I just don't want people to think like you, nobody figures it out right away like that. Nobody figures it out in a summer like, ah, I did it. This is it. My life's forever changed me. Some people might, uh, for a 17 year old, 18 year old kid, they have a lot of learning to do. And I definitely had a lot of learning to do now.

I wanted to touch base on that before we get into the next section of the show, just because. I want to silence the arguments before there is an argument, right? I, I've met a lot of [00:55:00] people who unfortunately as a podcaster, I, I meet a lot of people who are influencers or coaches of one sort or another.

And the ones that get under my skin are the, and it's not a, it's going to sound bad, right? It's the 22 year old life coaches. Yep. Who aren't even out of school yet. They it's like you, you haven't lived life, but they're also fitness coaches. Right? It's like you've never been fat in your life. Like you were genetically blessed with an introduced to a healthy lifestyle early on.

And now you're trying to tell people how to lose weight, but you've never been heavy and you've never understood. So I wanted to silence that right off the bat because that bothers me. I know a lot of men are like, what do you know about being overweight? Okay. Eric's been up and down. This isn't, this current state of his life is not where he's always been.

He's fought weight over and over again. It wasn't a one time thing. He's gone up and down. He's had [00:56:00] the emotional and mental impacts of that as well. And I wanted to establish that with everybody before we move into the next part of the show, guys. Just so you know, this is a real conversation with someone who understands.

What it's like to yo yo on your weight. What it's like to try and figure it out on your own. What it's like to try and put these habits into your life. Now we've been talking about dad bods and your health and into Eric's story and background a little bit more. We're going to dive into fitness for men over 30 in the next part of our show.

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Now, let's go on to the show Guys, welcome back in the last part of the show We were discussing dad bods and your health and getting a little more of eric's actual background Uh, because I think that really speaks to him being able to sync up with your life, right? I know it syncs up with my life really well.

In this part of the show, we're going to dig into fitness for men over 30 because life changes, right? Your body changes, uh, practical experience every five years. Uh, I know those have been landmarks for me. It's like 20, 25, 30, like there are major changes. I pick [00:58:00] up about every five years of my body and the way it responds to training, the way it responds to food, the way my metabolism is affected, my need for sleep.

And so we're going to get into, you know, how this can work for you. You don't have to be unhealthy. In fact, you shouldn't be unhealthy. But there's a lot to it. So getting into this, Eric, I wanted to start with how mental health ties into men's fitness, because I don't think a lot of people understand that.

At the risk of sounding like one of those alpha male personal development guys. I think there's a major link between your physical fitness and your mental health. I think that if you are struggling with anxiety. Or struggling with depression that eating a good nutritious diet and exercising consistently will definitely improve your mental health.

Now, I'm not saying obviously [00:59:00] this is not my wheelhouse. I've had my battles with depression, anxiety. Binge eating disorder, all that stuff, and you cannot cure it with just good diet and exercise, but it's a supplement. It's a definite key to your recovery. If you really are invested in your mental health and you want to improve it and you're tired of feeling horrible all the time, one of the first steps you need to take is to take care of your physical health.

There is a lot of research that shows that exercise released endorphins can help with depression. We know that. But also, when you see something in the mirror that you like, and your body starts to change, and you start to see it develop in a positive way, it makes you feel better about yourself, which in turn has, you know, it's a kind of a snowball effect that will help your mental health overall.

And on top of that, You know, there's been links between junk foods, specifically sugar, and I [01:00:00] can speak, and this is just purely anecdotal. I can speak from experience that my mental health improved once I removed refined sugar from my diet. I removed most processed foods outside of, you know, protein shakes and things of that nature.

But once refined sugar was removed from my diet, my mental clarity and my, and my outlook and my, uh, just general nature. Changed and obviously it has a lot to do with dopamine and finding good sources of good sources of dopamine instead of these unhealthy sources of dopamine. And I think that when I, and I try to relate this message to everybody, if you really want to improve your mental health, stop searching for instant gratification.

To make yourself feel better, you know, eating junk food, instant gratification, gambling, instant gratification, porn, instant gratification, spending money, instant gratification, all these things, search for delayed gratification. It's a lot harder, but the delayed gratification stuff is so much better for you.

And it'll be so much more worth it [01:01:00] in the long run. And the best version, best form of delayed gratification, in my opinion, is developing your body. Now, Eric. I, I was looking through one of the hardest things being podcast host is like, okay, how do I convince what should take hours conversation right into enough of the conversation that it benefits my audience and that helps them to know that, you know, you could be someone they could connect with for that.

So I want to break down your process a little bit, uh, as you work with men over 30. Some of the things that you mentioned in, well, let me rephrase that. Some of the things that as I was researching for the show. That you look into with men are mindset, time management, diet strategies, and effective training methods for busy men.

How do you start to structure this for your clients? Where do you start and how does [01:02:00] this, you know, correlate together? Time management is typically the first thing we talk about because it's 90 percent of the time people will come to me, men will come to me and they'll say, I just don't have enough time, feel short on time, I can't do this, I can't do that, and we take a look at their day, their schedule, and we really break it down, and I think that if you're listening to this right now and you find yourself saying you don't have enough time, I think if you really sat down and broke your day down hour by hour, you will.

Could either see some time sucks that are, that are happening. Some, some little leaks where you could, you could get 30 minutes back, or this is my favorite fix. And it's the hardest pill for many men to swallow. You're going to have to wake up earlier and go to bed earlier too. Cause if you, if you got kids and you want to work out a lot of times, the only time you're going to have this first thing in the morning, because by the end of the day, the last thing most of us want to do.[01:03:00]

I actually, I'll go back because I like to go a little more practical. We'll talk about the nutrition part first, because I have to hear what they eat. They tell me what they eat. I tell them that's crap. That's crap. Take that out. That's good. You're not eating enough protein. We need more vegetables and fruit.

You're an adult. Come on, eat like it, so on and so forth. And then we kind of combine the time management part because everybody needs, uh, uh, an eating strategy that is sustainable. I call it a template. Or, you know, eating schedule, uh, I have, I eat four meals a day. I eat them at the same time every day.

And there's a couple reasons for this. Number one, that regimented structure is good for consistency to keep your blood sugar stable. I'm not, I'm a big anti snacking guy. I don't like snacking between meals because what happens when you snack is your blood sugar goes up. You want to eat more inevitably.

You want to snack more so we don't snack. We eat our, we eat our meals and we keep them moving. So I, and I figure out like some guys eat three meals a day. Some guys eat five does just depends on what their schedule is. So we get that going and then inevitably we have to [01:04:00] cross the mindset part. Uh, the training parts, I don't mean to diminish my own, my own product here, but the exercise part is the X's and O's as I call it and it's.

Kind of the least important part. I love design training programs and you need to be doing resistance training. And you need to be doing cardio. If you want to get in the best shape you can be, but that's the last part. And the least important part, as long as you do it, we're good. It doesn't have to be crazy stuff.

The mindset though. Is what's going to keep you in the game and sustainability is very important to me. I want my clients to get results with me, but I want them to get results the rest of their life without me. I don't want them to need me forever. I want them to get what they get with me and either improve after we stopped working together or just maintain the results because of the changes they've made to their mindset.

And a lot of men have limiting beliefs. I already talked about one. I don't have enough time. You do have enough time. You just don't want to face the fact that you have to wake up an hour earlier and, and get it done. You just don't want to do [01:05:00] that. So let's take our limiting beliefs and flip them on their heads.

I don't have time. You do have enough, have enough time. It's going to suck, but you do have enough time. Let's make it happen. Let's find that time and limiting beliefs are I can't, you know, I'm never gonna, I can't do this with my current job or I can't do this. My family obligations. You can do this. You will figure out a way to do this.

But if you tell yourself and limiting beliefs will kill. Any sort of progress you have or any, if you have a goal in mind, whether it's physique business, if you have limiting beliefs in your head and they're always popping up, they're going to kill you. They're just going to stop you dead in your tracks because the mind is so powerful.

What's the saying? Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. That's what I'm talking about. Limiting beliefs will keep you trapped. So we just got to flip them on their head and you got to believe that you can do these things. And in the grand scope, it's, these aren't huge changes.

There are little [01:06:00] tiny changes that add up over time, you know, small efforts, uh, done over extraordinary amounts of time result in extraordinary results. So those are, that's kind of the, you actually really boil it down to that little four part process, but it is, it's the time management, it's the mindset, it's the nutrition, it's the training and that's it.

One of the things I found with myself and, and several of my clients over the years has been right in that time management, it's, it's the stuff we, those instant dopamine hits that we really want to keep. Like I had a lot of television time to be more productive. I had to give up. I actually audited it at one point and it's like, man, I'm, I'm spending all my free time watching shows because I've got like eight shows I'm trying to keep up with between getting off work and bedtime every week.

And it's like just sucking all of my free time out. So I'd like to go back on the television shows. This is actually pet peeves names comes in. Well, since I'm [01:07:00] a practical guy, when it comes to tongue comes to, you can, you can serve two masters there. You know, you get an iPad, you get a phone, we got streaming, get on that treadmill, get an elliptical and, and binge watch your shows, do two hours of cardio while you're watching your shows.

If you really, if you really want to, if you got the time to do it, Hey man, then you can kill two birds with one stone. Replace the couch guys, we need to move more in general as a society. So yeah, replace the couch. But yeah, that's where part of my bias, like tying back to the first part of our conversation comes from is like.

How much time did I waste playing those games? Because I lost control over it. I was yielding that control to how much time I want to be in there. It was like, I wasn't doing anything for my health. I wasn't doing anything for my personal development. I wasn't doing anything professionally, like growing in any way, because I chose to do this other stuff.

So that was getting rid of the video games was the first step for me. And then getting my TV watching under control. [01:08:00] And getting off the couch and moving more. Right. But I, I look at guys schedules so many times, like, well, I can't sleep if I don't, if I don't, you know, just veg in front of the television for an hour.

Yeah, you can. What if I told you that watching TV actually. Is detrimental to your sleep that close to bedtime, that blue light exposure, not cutting it off soon enough will actually, you know, affect your sleep. I have two very important protocols for my lifestyle that I try to, uh, at least encourage my clients or my followers to, to engage in.

Number one is my wake up routine. I wake up first thing in the morning, I don't look at my phone, I drink water immediately. You're dehydrated when you wake up, drink 20 ounces of water, 30 ounces, or just chug it. Um, I, I had, since I'm in Florida and it's hot, hot as hell here, I add, uh, Himalayan sea salt, pink Himalayan sea salt to my water, plus a, plus a hydration supplement because I work out in my garage and it's, it's brutal.

And so I drink, I drink a [01:09:00] bunch of that and it tastes good because I have the. The hydration supplement, it's flavors. So Ghost, Ghost makes one that tastes like Redberry Sour Patch Kids. I'm sponsored by Ghost, but I'm still a huge believer in their products. So I use other, I use other companies, but don't tell them.

Um, but Ghost is my, they're still my favorite company. So, uh. It's I call it market research. And then I drink water and I go out, let my dogs out. And I sit on my little patio and I read and I reflect, and I would love to sit out there for an hour, but that's not how my life set up. So I blocked 15 minutes and I'll read, read, read some pages and I'll, and I'll sit there and I'll go in and I'll take my pre workout and I work out and that's how it goes.

And nighttime, same thing. My wife and I have a rule. We have an hour block when we actually get an hour, a lot of times, whether it's jujitsu or she's out of town, maybe we don't have time to sit on the couch together, but we'll sit there. We'll watch something. Maybe it's 45 minutes, depending on how tired we are.

We come in, brush our teeth, shut all the lights [01:10:00] off, except for our reading lights. AC, because of our nest, goes down to 64 degrees, which is, believe it or not, or 68 degrees, which is the optimal sleeping temperature. Did the research were nerds like that. And then we read for about 15 minutes and reading.

If you guys don't do it, well, actually for me, really help you sleep, really relaxes your mind. Sometimes just makes you sleepy when you're old like myself. So, um, and then I use a sleep mask, white noise, pitch black room. Boom. That's it. And that's why I can wake up at 4am every day, ready to kill it. 9pm, by the way, 9pm bedtime.

So you and I are on the same schedule four, four and nine. I'm seven hours, seven hours. That's to be a better nine. I'm up to four. Uh, but yeah, I, I have several similar, I do eight ounces of water. I found like, I have a lot of sinus problems. I always have, uh, with allergies. So if I, I can drink eight [01:11:00] ounces of water, right.

When I get up, if I try and chug much more of that, I end up throwing up. So that's, that's, that's prohibitive. That's not what we're trying to do. So yeah, get a little hydration started. I'll actually add a little Himalayan sea salt to it just to help it stay. And, uh, but yeah, definitely. I find a lot of people, I tell them, I go to bed at nine and get up before they're like, I could never do that.

You could, I say that I have the same conversation. I'm like, you could, if you wanted to, you could, you could do a lot of things. It will start with like a lot, but yeah. Everybody that says that I'm like, you aren't familiar with David Goggins. You need to read David Goggins book. If you think you can't do something, I need you to read David Goggins can't hurt me.

And then you will, you're, you will be blown away by what the human mind can. Motivate the human body to endure. So it's really not that hard to wake up an hour earlier. Dude, dude's a beast. I don't actually like to use David Go Goggin's reference, just because there, there, there are those people who are in that mindset.

1%. He's one per, he's the 1% man hyper elite. He's, he's a, [01:12:00] he's a rare, he's. He's not even a rare breed. He's a one of one. There's nobody like David Goggins, but that's, I just like to use as an example. Like if you really think that it's this hard, let's put it, put it in perspective here. It's not that hard.

And there's, but there's stories all throughout history of people using their minds to do amazing things with their bodies. And you know, I just don't think. For me, it's that big of a sacrifice or that big of a challenge to sleep a little bit less so that I can nourish my body with exercise. Eric, we gotta, we gotta start laying in this plane.

So let's go for our listeners. What are the first three steps? If someone hears this and it just. Clicks today, right? They're like, bam, wow. That really spoke to me. What are the first three steps that they can start right now, walking away from the show and implement to start this journey towards a healthier version of them.

Number one, and this is the hardest one. I'm going to start with the hardest one. You got to cut out. [01:13:00] Process foods and refined sugars. I know this sounds extremely ironic coming from a guy who used to be a junk food blogger, but it's worked for me and I've seen it work for my clients. I know you think you're going to have sugar cravings, but in my experience, once again, this is anecdotal.

So take it with a big, uh, block of sugar, a sugar cube. Uh, when I stopped eating sugar. After the detox period, because there was a detox period where I was still craving it. I stopped wanting it. I do not want sugar. Could I eat a gigantic bowl full of rice, potatoes, beans, or fruit? Of course, but these are healthy foods.

And as far as I know, I haven't heard any story of people were getting fat off of eating too many bananas. Okay. It doesn't happen. Oh, I eat too many chicken breasts. Like, no, it doesn't happen like that. These foods are. There's a reason these foods out there, these junk foods are designed, scientifically designed to make you want to eat more of them.

Nobody has ever eaten one chocolate covered pretzel and been like, yeah, that's [01:14:00] great. I'm good. It doesn't work like that. So that's number one. We got to get that out of the way. Number two, you got to move more. We are a sedentary society. A lot of our jobs are desk bound. So no matter how you can do it.

Whether it's just adding more cardiovascular work into your exercise program or just parking further away from the grocery store, taking the stairs instead of the elevator. I know it sounds trivial, but all of these things add up. I try to, I have an arbitrary goal of, you know, 15, 000 steps a day.

Sometimes I hit it, sometimes I don't, but I always get at least 10, 000 and the days I hit. I feel way better, especially when I can walk outside. Um, and lastly, and this is, uh, this is one that I think everybody could benefit from, I think you should start reading more personal development books. Now you're not going to get.

100 percent fulfillment out of every book, you're going to have to pick and choose the [01:15:00] lessons and the, and the, and the helpful nuggets that you get from these books. But once I started to read, I, I'm a big fiction guy, big sci fi guy still love it, but I started reading these books and they helped me become more introspective and I became, uh.

It became easier for me to reflect on the things I've done because and make sure it's, it's a bunch of different subjects, especially if you're a dad focused on a lot of fatherhood books, uh, and once again, you're not gonna agree with everything, but I think it's important. We find different perspectives.

So cut out the junk food. Move more and start reading. And obviously there's those little three B, three C, you know, eat more protein, drink more water, lift some damn weights. All right. What is next for Eric? What's next is fulfilling my purpose, continuing to fulfill my purpose. I. Have done a lot in my life.

I've been a professional wrestler. [01:16:00] I've been a bakery owner, a gym owner, a power lifter, you know, uh, done so many things. And I thought at a number of different times that I had my forever job, the bakery specifically. But now I know that this is my purpose. The fulfillment I get from helping others. The joy I get when my client hits new low weigh in or goes out to eat and doesn't eat the such food.

Nachos for the appetizer and the burger for the entree. That's such a huge W and I feel like I'm winning and it's kind of an extension and weird woods is going to be a little weird, but unless you've been a mentor or a leader, you can't really understand. It's like your kids, when your kids. hit a home run, you feel amazing.

It's just, it's, it's indescribable. And when your clients are able to change their lives and their outlooks and their bodies, it's, and their whole mindset, it is an incredible feeling because yes, they did it, but you played that. You played an [01:17:00] important role, a pivotal role in their development, and I just want to continue to do that.

And I am so grateful that I've been put in this position where men come to me and ask me to lead them and ask me to mentor them and help them change their lives because it is what I was put on this planet to do. Where's the best place for people to connect with you? You can find me. Oh, here we go. I got to say my name again.

Do not try to spell it out. Y'all I'm going to, I'm going to spell it out for you. It's Eric, the standard way. E R I C. Bear with me. E R I C K O E N R E I C H. Thank you. Pop it up on the screen there. Cause nobody's going to remember that. So that's my name, my legal name. government name, Eric Kenry. You can find me on Instagram, Eric Kenry threads at Eric Kenry.

I'm not calling it Twitter at Eric Kenry and, uh, uh, Facebook, Facebook too. So that I, I, there was a reason I switched from tired at fitness club to this. I just felt like it was more important that. I was the guy, I was the brand [01:18:00] and, uh, I don't want to be the guy behind the brand. So yeah, Eric Kenry is the men's fitness and mindset coach among many other things as we've talked about.

And of course, we'll have all those links guys in the show notes and the description, whatever platform you're enjoying the show on, whether you're on YouTube or on an audio platform. Now, I know the most important question in the show that everybody's waiting for is what is the most useful die in a game of D and D you guessed D for the actual answer is a D 20.

See, I thought, I thought that was, I thought it was a trick question. I was like, I'll pick the highest one. No, pick the lowest one. Um, if you've never got, if you guys don't know what I'm talking about, they're, they're, these are all different dye that are applicable in the game of D& D. And I'm sure they have uses somewhere else.

But, uh, if you've never played, you've probably never seen these dye there. Interesting to say the least, but I know you're all worried about that, right? That's the important now is, is not. Yeah, I'm worried. I I'm, I feel less than today. Cause I really thought I was going to [01:19:00] get a layup. I thought I was gonna get some, some star Wars.

Maybe that's not, you know, star Wars is one of my favorites. I love aliens, aliens and predators. I got a huge leg piece of, of, of those guys. Uh, my tattoos. Yeah. I'm a sci fi guy. I'm a sci fi nerd. So when you hit me with a fantasy, I mean, I've seen Lord of the Rings. I love them, but actually the nerd question, sorry.

It's okay. I tell people all the time, they're like, Oh, you, you, you watch, uh, you know, did you watch any Lord of the Rings, uh, miniseries or, you know, Netflix show I'm like, or whatever it was on, I go, no, I'm not that kind of nerd. They go, what does that mean? I mean, yeah, it's just, it's, there's different, different genres of nerd.

I'm just not a fantasy nerd. Right. People, people just, unless you are one, you don't know. Right. Some people are nerds. Some people are fantasy. Some people are sci fi. Yeah. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like an alien McNair nerd, like not a drag dragon wizard nerd. You know, it's just, you know what I'm saying?

Different kinds of nerds. I played mech warrior for a while, so big robots are cool, man. It's tight. [01:20:00] Exactly. Exactly. Pacific Rim. One of the greatest movies ever. Why giant monsters, giant robots fighting. Yeah. Once again, another great part of parenting is you get to watch a lot of amazing movies and it feels like you're watching for the first time because you have to watch them with your kids.

And so I'm a, I'm also a big horror movie buff. So I eagerly anticipate traumatizing my son with Texas chainsaw massacre energy. No. Eric, I want you to take us out if people listening to this hear only one thing today, what do you want them to take away from the show? This is my message to men of advanced age.

You do not have to accept mediocrity. You did not peak in high school and your best years sure as hell are not behind you guys. We're there. Ken, Ryan, myself. Thanks for joining us on the show today. Be better tomorrow [01:21:00] because what you do today and we'll see you on the next one. This has been the fellow man podcast, your home for everything man, husband, and father.

Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a show. Head over to www. thefallibleman. com for more content. And get your own Power Woman gear.