1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,460 This episode is brought to you by 511 Tactical, 2 00:00:02,460 --> 00:00:04,400 a company that I've used for over a decade 3 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,080 since they supplied the uniforms for Anaheim Fire 4 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:08,920 when I worked out in California. 5 00:00:08,920 --> 00:00:11,480 And they have partnered with the Behind the Shield podcast 6 00:00:11,480 --> 00:00:14,500 to offer you, the listener, 15% off, 7 00:00:14,500 --> 00:00:15,800 not just a single purchase, 8 00:00:15,800 --> 00:00:18,280 but an ongoing discount every time you shop 9 00:00:18,280 --> 00:00:20,400 at 511tactical.com. 10 00:00:20,400 --> 00:00:22,200 And I will give you the discount code in a moment. 11 00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:25,640 I just wanna go on a kind of product focus for a second. 12 00:00:25,640 --> 00:00:28,640 In episode 125 of Behind the Shield podcast, 13 00:00:28,640 --> 00:00:31,600 I spoke to podiatrist Dr. Mike Donato. 14 00:00:31,600 --> 00:00:33,960 And we discussed a concern that I've had, 15 00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:37,120 which is the footwear for first responders. 16 00:00:37,120 --> 00:00:37,960 If you're a firefighter, 17 00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:39,400 obviously if we're doing an extrication, 18 00:00:39,400 --> 00:00:40,700 if we're fighting fire, 19 00:00:40,700 --> 00:00:42,800 our bunker boots are definitely the best things. 20 00:00:42,800 --> 00:00:44,660 They offer a high level of protection. 21 00:00:44,660 --> 00:00:47,280 But the day-to-day calls, the EMS calls, 22 00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:48,960 all those kind of areas, 23 00:00:48,960 --> 00:00:50,600 they are absolutely overkill, 24 00:00:50,600 --> 00:00:52,480 some of the boots that we are being given. 25 00:00:52,480 --> 00:00:54,400 And I wanted to find a kind of happy medium 26 00:00:54,400 --> 00:00:56,080 between protection and comfort 27 00:00:56,080 --> 00:00:59,640 as a lot of these heavy, heavy boots are causing 28 00:00:59,640 --> 00:01:02,480 overuse injuries, knee pain, ankle pain, back pain. 29 00:01:02,480 --> 00:01:04,840 And 511tactical has come up with a shoe 30 00:01:04,840 --> 00:01:07,000 called the Norris Sneaker. 31 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:09,800 Now this has the feel literally of a skate shoe. 32 00:01:09,800 --> 00:01:11,480 It's incredibly comfortable. 33 00:01:11,480 --> 00:01:13,080 It has puncture protection on the bottom. 34 00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:15,760 It has the toe protection on the front, 35 00:01:15,760 --> 00:01:17,480 but they've taken a lot of the weight away 36 00:01:17,480 --> 00:01:19,200 and made it far more comfortable. 37 00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:21,620 I think many of us will admit that as an alternative 38 00:01:21,620 --> 00:01:24,220 to duty boots, we turn to sneakers, 39 00:01:24,220 --> 00:01:26,200 which are also very comfortable, 40 00:01:26,200 --> 00:01:27,540 really don't offer any protection. 41 00:01:27,540 --> 00:01:30,720 So this is a great happy medium between the two. 42 00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:32,080 If you want to see this, as I said, 43 00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:35,260 it's called the Norris, N-O-R-R-I-S Sneaker. 44 00:01:35,260 --> 00:01:37,760 Go to 511tactical and that discount code 45 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:42,760 that I was talking about is SHIELD15, S-H-I-E-L-D-1-5. 46 00:01:43,400 --> 00:01:45,560 That will be applicable for all of your purchases. 47 00:01:45,560 --> 00:01:47,400 The only time that's not going to work 48 00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:49,720 is when they have an additional sale 49 00:01:49,720 --> 00:01:50,860 that's actually going to be higher. 50 00:01:50,860 --> 00:01:53,840 So if they're offering a 20% or 25% off, 51 00:01:53,840 --> 00:01:55,480 obviously that 15 is going to be invalid 52 00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:57,280 because you're going to get even more off. 53 00:01:57,280 --> 00:01:59,760 So for the Norris sneaker and all the other things 54 00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:01,960 that I'm going to showcase that I personally use, 55 00:02:01,960 --> 00:02:03,440 I'm not going to start talking about things 56 00:02:03,440 --> 00:02:05,040 that I don't use, but the products of theirs 57 00:02:05,040 --> 00:02:07,040 that I think they're amazing, 58 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:10,520 go to 511tactical, put in SHIELD15 59 00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:13,280 and save 15% every single time. 60 00:02:14,120 --> 00:02:17,320 Welcome guys to episode 261 of Behind the Shield Podcast. 61 00:02:17,320 --> 00:02:18,720 As always, my name's James Gearing 62 00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:23,120 and I'm very excited to bring to you this week, James Wilkes. 63 00:02:23,120 --> 00:02:25,040 Now I sat down with James in California. 64 00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:27,360 He is a lifelong martial artist. 65 00:02:27,360 --> 00:02:32,080 He won the Ultimate Fighter television show for Team UK. 66 00:02:32,080 --> 00:02:34,920 He trained some of the most elite law enforcement 67 00:02:34,920 --> 00:02:37,040 and military personnel in combatives 68 00:02:37,040 --> 00:02:40,640 and he's also the man behind the movie, The Game Changers. 69 00:02:40,640 --> 00:02:42,100 So great conversation. 70 00:02:42,100 --> 00:02:44,680 We really explore so many of the benefits 71 00:02:44,680 --> 00:02:47,500 that I have seen personally from a plant-based diet. 72 00:02:47,500 --> 00:02:49,960 This doesn't mean a purely vegan diet, 73 00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:52,440 but either removing meat temporarily 74 00:02:52,440 --> 00:02:56,000 or increasing the amount of plant-based food 75 00:02:56,000 --> 00:02:57,740 in your diet versus processed 76 00:02:57,740 --> 00:03:00,640 and all the chemicals and hormones and things that we see. 77 00:03:00,640 --> 00:03:02,480 So a great conversation. 78 00:03:02,480 --> 00:03:04,080 I really enjoyed picking his brain. 79 00:03:04,080 --> 00:03:06,080 So before we get to the interview, please take a moment, 80 00:03:06,080 --> 00:03:09,160 go to the podcast app that you're listening to this on, 81 00:03:09,160 --> 00:03:12,040 subscribe to the show, leave feedback 82 00:03:12,040 --> 00:03:13,240 and then leave a rating. 83 00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:15,820 The five-star ratings do make us more and more visible 84 00:03:15,820 --> 00:03:18,120 to other people looking for a project like this. 85 00:03:18,120 --> 00:03:21,200 And then use your social media, email, word of mouth, 86 00:03:21,200 --> 00:03:23,520 whatever it is and help share these incredible episodes. 87 00:03:23,520 --> 00:03:24,920 There's so much information 88 00:03:24,920 --> 00:03:26,960 in each one of these people's stories 89 00:03:26,960 --> 00:03:29,640 that I know will change lives around the planet. 90 00:03:29,640 --> 00:03:33,280 So with that being said, I introduce to you, James Wilkes. 91 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:34,440 Enjoy. 92 00:03:34,440 --> 00:03:54,120 James, I wanna start by saying thank you so much 93 00:03:54,120 --> 00:03:56,520 for inviting me here to your office. 94 00:03:56,520 --> 00:03:57,640 Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. 95 00:03:57,640 --> 00:03:59,880 It's exciting to be talking with you. 96 00:03:59,880 --> 00:04:01,120 Brilliant. So for everyone listening, 97 00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:02,720 where are we right now geographically? 98 00:04:02,720 --> 00:04:04,920 So we're in Laguna Hills, California. 99 00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:08,440 And so that's about an hour south of LA, 100 00:04:08,440 --> 00:04:10,720 about an hour north of San Diego 101 00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:12,840 on the West coast of the United States 102 00:04:12,840 --> 00:04:17,120 and moved here, what, 19 years ago now. 103 00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:18,240 Brilliant. Let's start with that. 104 00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:19,280 I mean, I'm gonna go chronologically, 105 00:04:19,280 --> 00:04:21,560 but what brought you here specifically? 106 00:04:21,560 --> 00:04:22,960 Originally came out here in 2000 107 00:04:22,960 --> 00:04:25,280 after I finished my degree. 108 00:04:25,280 --> 00:04:28,640 Thought I'd take six months to train in martial arts, 109 00:04:28,640 --> 00:04:29,480 some more martial arts. 110 00:04:29,480 --> 00:04:30,960 You know, I had, I've been training for years 111 00:04:30,960 --> 00:04:33,960 in martial arts, but came out to train with Paul Vunak, 112 00:04:33,960 --> 00:04:35,800 who developed the unarmed combat program 113 00:04:35,800 --> 00:04:38,600 for the Navy SEALs, called the Rapid Assault Tactics. 114 00:04:38,600 --> 00:04:39,920 So I thought, well, I finished my degree, 115 00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:42,880 I'll come out to the States and train for six months. 116 00:04:42,880 --> 00:04:45,800 Then I'll come back and get a job in London or whatever. 117 00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:49,320 And loved the weather, loved the martial arts training, 118 00:04:49,320 --> 00:04:51,480 and I'm still here 19 years later. 119 00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:53,200 Was it California you came to initially? 120 00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:55,760 Yeah, Paul Vunak lived in Orange County, 121 00:04:55,760 --> 00:04:58,200 so that's sort of why I'm still here. 122 00:04:58,200 --> 00:05:00,720 Brilliant. All right, well, I wanna talk about the military. 123 00:05:00,720 --> 00:05:01,840 So let's start at the very beginning, 124 00:05:01,840 --> 00:05:03,200 even before you were born. 125 00:05:03,200 --> 00:05:05,000 I know your granddad was a bit of a badass, 126 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:06,960 so let's start with him and then we'll work forward. 127 00:05:06,960 --> 00:05:11,560 Yeah, so allegedly he basically faked his birth certificate 128 00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:14,840 so that he could fight in World War II. 129 00:05:14,840 --> 00:05:19,840 So he was around 14 or 15 and really wanted to join the war. 130 00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:22,680 So faked his birth certificate 131 00:05:22,680 --> 00:05:26,360 and then was parachuted in, fought in Arnhem. 132 00:05:26,360 --> 00:05:29,120 Most of the people that he was fighting alongside were killed 133 00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:32,200 and somehow he seemed to like dive into a river 134 00:05:32,200 --> 00:05:35,360 and swim down and got away and survived. 135 00:05:35,360 --> 00:05:38,040 And so after he got out of the, after World War II finished, 136 00:05:38,040 --> 00:05:40,160 he sort of still had that fighting spirit. 137 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:42,760 So he used to go to the pubs and get in fights 138 00:05:42,760 --> 00:05:44,120 and that sort of thing. 139 00:05:44,120 --> 00:05:46,440 And then it's sort of from there, he had two sons. 140 00:05:46,440 --> 00:05:50,040 One is my dad, Gary, who's been a big inspiration for me. 141 00:05:50,040 --> 00:05:51,840 And the other one is my uncle, Mark. 142 00:05:51,840 --> 00:05:55,320 And Mark went on to become a very high sort of ranked 143 00:05:55,320 --> 00:05:58,240 Kikishinkai karate fighter. 144 00:05:58,240 --> 00:06:00,600 I ended up in 1986, he got the fastest knockdown. 145 00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:02,400 It was like four point something seconds 146 00:06:02,400 --> 00:06:05,360 with a spinning hook kick to the temple, 147 00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:09,120 knocked the guy out and won some big fight there. 148 00:06:09,120 --> 00:06:11,320 But then my dad was into Kung Fu. 149 00:06:11,320 --> 00:06:13,560 And so they sort of got me into, 150 00:06:13,560 --> 00:06:14,760 I think it was in the blood basically. 151 00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:18,800 And then they got me into martial arts from there. 152 00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:21,880 Yeah, so firstly, 14 years old volunteering to do that. 153 00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:23,520 That's insane in itself. 154 00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:26,520 But it's interesting you say he came back and he was fighting 155 00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:30,040 because that's what I think our generation was kind of told 156 00:06:30,040 --> 00:06:33,240 about our forefathers and why I think there was so much 157 00:06:33,240 --> 00:06:36,400 violence around football and all that was that we are kind of 158 00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:39,640 a warring nation and once World War II was done, 159 00:06:39,640 --> 00:06:42,280 remember we had the Falklands conflict, but that was it. 160 00:06:42,280 --> 00:06:44,560 But there was no one to fight. 161 00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:46,880 So I know when I grew up, I mean, you know, 162 00:06:46,880 --> 00:06:50,560 some of the violence in the soccer stands was just insane. 163 00:06:50,560 --> 00:06:53,800 But it's interesting observation that we kind of were 164 00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:57,080 a very feisty group of the nation. 165 00:06:57,080 --> 00:06:57,920 Absolutely. 166 00:06:57,920 --> 00:06:59,200 There's a lot of around soccer, 167 00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:01,760 there's a lot of sort of tribal mentality too. 168 00:07:01,760 --> 00:07:05,720 And it sort of reinforces sort of us versus them mentality. 169 00:07:05,720 --> 00:07:07,080 But yeah, it's quite warlike. 170 00:07:07,080 --> 00:07:11,600 Yeah, now I always ask the people that have got World War II 171 00:07:11,600 --> 00:07:13,200 generation in the family, because it's fascinating. 172 00:07:13,200 --> 00:07:15,760 Did your granad ever talk about the war? 173 00:07:15,760 --> 00:07:18,920 I don't really have many memories of it. 174 00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:21,480 Because he died when I was quite young 175 00:07:21,480 --> 00:07:23,680 of a heart attack, unfortunately. 176 00:07:23,680 --> 00:07:25,160 He was a big smoker and that probably played 177 00:07:25,160 --> 00:07:27,000 a big role in that as well. 178 00:07:28,440 --> 00:07:29,840 But yeah, I didn't really talk about it. 179 00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:32,240 My other grandfather talked about it a little bit. 180 00:07:33,360 --> 00:07:35,360 And I think, you know, anytime I talked about guns 181 00:07:35,360 --> 00:07:36,880 or fighting, he really didn't. 182 00:07:36,880 --> 00:07:39,880 My other grandfather, my mom's dad really didn't like that. 183 00:07:40,760 --> 00:07:42,200 You know, because they've been through real, you know, 184 00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:43,840 because I think when I was younger, I thought it was cool, 185 00:07:43,840 --> 00:07:47,440 like military stuff, you know, shooting people. 186 00:07:47,440 --> 00:07:49,120 You know, when you actually think about it, 187 00:07:49,120 --> 00:07:50,760 like is that really what you want to be doing 188 00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:52,480 is, you know, killing people. 189 00:07:52,480 --> 00:07:54,560 Those people don't even want to be there in the first place. 190 00:07:54,560 --> 00:07:57,600 I'm not saying there's not ever a case for war, 191 00:07:57,600 --> 00:08:00,120 but a lot of those wars are sort of, you know, 192 00:08:00,120 --> 00:08:01,920 funded by ulterior motives. 193 00:08:01,920 --> 00:08:04,840 And, you know, I think the individuals, soldiers, 194 00:08:04,840 --> 00:08:08,680 get put in these positions where they sort of led to believe 195 00:08:08,680 --> 00:08:11,200 they need to fight for this cause and very patriotic. 196 00:08:11,200 --> 00:08:13,440 But in many cases, if they really thought about it, 197 00:08:13,440 --> 00:08:14,920 would they want to be there fighting? 198 00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:18,880 Yeah, there's definitely that double-edged sword 199 00:08:18,880 --> 00:08:21,440 that a lot of the people had on the show where, 200 00:08:21,440 --> 00:08:24,240 I mean, obviously they're aware of some of the ulterior motives 201 00:08:24,240 --> 00:08:28,320 of some of these conflicts, but then what kind of makes them 202 00:08:28,320 --> 00:08:31,480 justify is when they go to some of these places 203 00:08:31,480 --> 00:08:34,680 and they see there are still horrible things happening, 204 00:08:34,680 --> 00:08:37,160 and they lose friends and that at least gives them 205 00:08:37,160 --> 00:08:39,800 that intrinsic purpose of being there now. 206 00:08:39,800 --> 00:08:40,960 But yeah. Yeah, totally. 207 00:08:40,960 --> 00:08:43,160 I mean, I've also, you know, because I train the military a lot 208 00:08:43,160 --> 00:08:46,480 and I've had, you know, friends come back and, you know, 209 00:08:46,480 --> 00:08:48,160 they've been manning a security checkpoint 210 00:08:48,160 --> 00:08:53,440 and some old men, you know, come up to them with a trash bin, 211 00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:56,920 you know, garbage bin, and opened it up 212 00:08:56,920 --> 00:08:59,320 and there's like a couple of his dead grandchildren in there, 213 00:08:59,320 --> 00:09:02,240 you know, and so, you know, the people are always scarred 214 00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:05,480 by that and the PTSD, and I think that they should be offering, 215 00:09:05,480 --> 00:09:07,400 you know, much better counselling for those troops 216 00:09:07,400 --> 00:09:10,200 that come out when they return from war 217 00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:11,520 because there's a lot of, a lot of, 218 00:09:11,520 --> 00:09:13,320 I can't imagine that situation. 219 00:09:13,320 --> 00:09:16,440 No, no, I mean, we do touch on that a lot with this project 220 00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:20,080 because obviously military first responders, you know, the ER, 221 00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:22,560 yeah, there's many, many areas where, you know, 222 00:09:22,560 --> 00:09:24,680 people do not only see horrible things, 223 00:09:24,680 --> 00:09:26,200 but then the environment that they're in, 224 00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:28,760 we talked before we started recording, like, sleep deprivation 225 00:09:28,760 --> 00:09:31,880 and, you know, the work weeks just compound that. 226 00:09:31,880 --> 00:09:34,320 And yeah, we do, there's no question we have a, 227 00:09:34,320 --> 00:09:36,080 not even in our community, but just generally, 228 00:09:36,080 --> 00:09:39,000 we seem to have a mental health crisis going on at the moment. 229 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:40,280 Yeah, totally. 230 00:09:40,280 --> 00:09:42,720 All right, so then you come into the world. 231 00:09:42,720 --> 00:09:47,040 So firstly, what was your family dynamic like? 232 00:09:47,040 --> 00:09:48,560 So what did your dad do and your mom, 233 00:09:48,560 --> 00:09:51,280 and then how many siblings did you have? 234 00:09:51,280 --> 00:09:57,880 So my dad did a lot of, he actually did truck sales, 235 00:09:57,880 --> 00:09:59,680 or lorry sales, if I'm saying it in English. 236 00:09:59,680 --> 00:10:03,120 Yeah, so he did a lot of that, but like as time moved on, 237 00:10:03,120 --> 00:10:05,080 he moved into self-storage, 238 00:10:05,080 --> 00:10:07,400 so that's what he's still doing now. 239 00:10:07,400 --> 00:10:11,760 My brother is from my mom's first marriage, 240 00:10:11,760 --> 00:10:13,800 so he's my only sibling, Richard, 241 00:10:13,800 --> 00:10:17,280 and he was into fitness and bodybuilding, 242 00:10:17,280 --> 00:10:19,760 and he was a personal trainer for quite a while, 243 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:21,160 and now works with my dad. 244 00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:26,160 You know, and that's it, it was an upbringing in a town 245 00:10:26,160 --> 00:10:27,160 called Melton Mowbray, 246 00:10:27,160 --> 00:10:30,320 which is known as the rural capital of food in England, 247 00:10:30,320 --> 00:10:33,680 and yeah, that's about it. 248 00:10:33,680 --> 00:10:35,960 Brilliant, and what got you into martial arts? 249 00:10:35,960 --> 00:10:38,120 So my family got me into it originally, 250 00:10:38,120 --> 00:10:41,560 my dad put me into karate, kikijin kai karate, 251 00:10:41,560 --> 00:10:44,480 when I was eight years old. 252 00:10:44,480 --> 00:10:46,600 And to be honest, I didn't really like it at that time, 253 00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:49,800 I was sort of being pushed into doing it, 254 00:10:49,800 --> 00:10:51,520 and did it for a couple of years on and off, 255 00:10:51,520 --> 00:10:53,840 and then sort of took a break, 256 00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:56,240 but started getting into the martial arts films, 257 00:10:56,240 --> 00:10:58,720 especially Bruce Lee and to the dragon, 258 00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:00,400 you know, that type of thing, 259 00:11:00,400 --> 00:11:03,720 and that's when I sort of really started getting into it. 260 00:11:03,720 --> 00:11:08,440 And then so when I was 15, I started studying taekwondo, 261 00:11:08,440 --> 00:11:10,400 but also started really looking into, 262 00:11:10,400 --> 00:11:13,920 no actually probably 14 maybe, 14 around there. 263 00:11:13,920 --> 00:11:17,680 And then when I was 15, sorry later on, 264 00:11:17,680 --> 00:11:22,280 like maybe close to 16, I got attacked on the street, 265 00:11:22,280 --> 00:11:23,280 basically got beaten up, 266 00:11:23,280 --> 00:11:25,560 started realizing that all of those 267 00:11:25,560 --> 00:11:29,000 choreographed karate routines really weren't that effective, 268 00:11:29,880 --> 00:11:32,000 perhaps counterproductive actually, 269 00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:35,800 and started really digging into different martial arts 270 00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:37,400 and trying to figure out what went wrong, 271 00:11:37,400 --> 00:11:38,680 what could I have done better, 272 00:11:38,680 --> 00:11:40,960 and studying different styles. 273 00:11:40,960 --> 00:11:42,120 Basically what Bruce Lee was doing 274 00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:44,120 is the search for truth in combat, 275 00:11:44,120 --> 00:11:45,280 and so that's what I started doing. 276 00:11:45,280 --> 00:11:47,800 Bruce Lee would say, research your own experience, 277 00:11:47,800 --> 00:11:50,120 absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, 278 00:11:50,120 --> 00:11:52,000 add what is specifically your own. 279 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:53,240 So I sort of took that approach 280 00:11:53,240 --> 00:11:54,440 and started realizing that Bruce Lee 281 00:11:54,440 --> 00:11:57,080 wasn't just a martial arts movie star 282 00:11:57,080 --> 00:12:02,000 that he'd already really thought about what really works, 283 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:04,720 and started looking at the immutable principles of combat, 284 00:12:04,720 --> 00:12:08,440 so the risk to reward ratio, economy of motion, 285 00:12:08,440 --> 00:12:10,160 things like that, and started applying that, 286 00:12:10,160 --> 00:12:12,680 looking through that lens at various martial arts, 287 00:12:12,680 --> 00:12:13,680 and trying to put that together, 288 00:12:13,680 --> 00:12:15,680 not just eclectically here and there, 289 00:12:15,680 --> 00:12:17,400 but synergistically trying to weave 290 00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:19,160 those martial arts together. 291 00:12:19,160 --> 00:12:21,320 Yeah, I was talking to Clint Emerson, 292 00:12:21,320 --> 00:12:22,440 the Navy Seal the other day, 293 00:12:22,440 --> 00:12:25,640 and he was a big Bruce Lee fan at the same time. 294 00:12:25,640 --> 00:12:27,680 And it was amazing looking back now, 295 00:12:27,680 --> 00:12:28,640 because I was the same. 296 00:12:28,640 --> 00:12:31,320 I did karate, then I did taekwondo, 297 00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:33,640 I actually won some national championships, 298 00:12:33,640 --> 00:12:36,600 and then went to a boxing gym, got my ass kicked, 299 00:12:36,600 --> 00:12:39,320 and took it to a boxing gym, got my ass kicked. 300 00:12:39,320 --> 00:12:41,000 More recently, Jiu Jitsu got my ass kicked. 301 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:44,000 And so you realize on this journey that, 302 00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:46,280 okay, there's elements of this that are good, 303 00:12:46,280 --> 00:12:47,640 and taekwondo ended up being great, 304 00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:49,400 as I was a stunt man for a while. 305 00:12:49,400 --> 00:12:50,680 It looks awesome on film, 306 00:12:50,680 --> 00:12:52,120 spinning kicks, jumping kicks. 307 00:12:53,440 --> 00:12:55,200 But yeah, that constant humbling, 308 00:12:55,200 --> 00:12:58,240 but you look back now where we've got MMA, 309 00:12:58,240 --> 00:13:01,000 and we've got CrossFit, the Tao Jikun Do, 310 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:03,480 that's pretty much what he was thinking about 311 00:13:03,480 --> 00:13:04,680 in the 60s and 70s. 312 00:13:04,680 --> 00:13:07,320 No, it was ahead of his time, for sure. 313 00:13:07,320 --> 00:13:08,560 And the same sort of thing happened to me, 314 00:13:08,560 --> 00:13:09,760 and I was doing well in taekwondo, 315 00:13:09,760 --> 00:13:12,280 I was winning most of the tournaments that I was in. 316 00:13:13,120 --> 00:13:15,840 Probably first or second place in all the tournaments I did. 317 00:13:15,840 --> 00:13:18,080 And then, yeah, and when I was 16, 318 00:13:18,080 --> 00:13:20,240 I went to train with a guy called Jeff Thompson 319 00:13:20,240 --> 00:13:21,080 in Coventry. 320 00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:22,720 Was he the bouncer? 321 00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:24,520 Yeah, he was the bouncer on a bunch of books. 322 00:13:24,520 --> 00:13:26,200 And he was like, what's the problem? 323 00:13:26,200 --> 00:13:27,040 Yeah. 324 00:13:27,040 --> 00:13:27,880 Smack him in the face. 325 00:13:27,880 --> 00:13:30,680 Create a fence, yeah, ask a question, engage the brain, 326 00:13:30,680 --> 00:13:32,200 knock him out, three second fight, 327 00:13:32,200 --> 00:13:34,640 that basically was one of his books, I think. 328 00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:37,120 So I went and trained there, 329 00:13:37,120 --> 00:13:38,880 and that was a huge wake up call for me, 330 00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:41,040 like you said, going to a boxing gym, 331 00:13:41,040 --> 00:13:43,120 you realize things don't work. 332 00:13:43,120 --> 00:13:44,400 Because I wanted to find the best. 333 00:13:44,400 --> 00:13:46,960 So in England at the time, he was sort of, again, 334 00:13:46,960 --> 00:13:47,920 ahead of his time, 335 00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:50,280 combining lots of different martial arts. 336 00:13:50,280 --> 00:13:52,280 And I remember going in my taekwondo gi, 337 00:13:53,600 --> 00:13:55,880 I think I was like 16 or 17, 338 00:13:55,880 --> 00:13:58,320 I had a red belt in taekwondo at the time. 339 00:13:58,320 --> 00:13:59,520 Was that T-A-G-B? 340 00:14:00,840 --> 00:14:01,840 It was ITF. 341 00:14:01,840 --> 00:14:02,680 ITF, okay. 342 00:14:02,680 --> 00:14:03,520 Yeah. 343 00:14:03,520 --> 00:14:04,480 Yeah, that's the same one I did. 344 00:14:04,480 --> 00:14:05,320 Yeah, okay. 345 00:14:05,320 --> 00:14:06,680 And then I went WTF after that. 346 00:14:06,680 --> 00:14:07,520 Yeah, yeah. 347 00:14:08,680 --> 00:14:13,360 So, yeah, so basically I went to Jeff Thompson's place, 348 00:14:13,360 --> 00:14:15,280 and it was like this scenario setup 349 00:14:15,280 --> 00:14:18,680 where you basically had to act as the bouncer. 350 00:14:18,680 --> 00:14:21,120 So you stand up and face the wall, right? 351 00:14:21,120 --> 00:14:23,080 With your eyes closed, covering your ears. 352 00:14:23,080 --> 00:14:26,440 And then there's like about 25 guys maybe, 353 00:14:26,440 --> 00:14:29,000 all sort of discuss what their plan is they're gonna do. 354 00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:31,080 And then you basically engage with the, 355 00:14:31,080 --> 00:14:32,800 there's 25 people all walking around, 356 00:14:32,800 --> 00:14:35,680 you pretend you're a club or something, right? 357 00:14:35,680 --> 00:14:37,360 And so some people were just milling around, 358 00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:39,320 everyone's got boxing gloves on, 359 00:14:39,320 --> 00:14:41,760 or some sort of hybrid glove where you can punch in 360 00:14:41,760 --> 00:14:42,600 and grapple. 361 00:14:42,600 --> 00:14:43,440 First red flag. 362 00:14:43,440 --> 00:14:44,760 Yeah, yeah, everyone's going, 363 00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:46,040 hey, what's going on here? 364 00:14:46,040 --> 00:14:47,880 So anyway, I'm wearing my taekwondo gi, 365 00:14:47,880 --> 00:14:49,960 but of course those lads were just training 366 00:14:49,960 --> 00:14:52,920 in like shorts and t-shirts and like, yeah, I didn't care. 367 00:14:52,920 --> 00:14:56,120 And someone starts asking me a question, 368 00:14:56,120 --> 00:14:58,280 I start engaging, got a lot of adrenaline 369 00:14:58,280 --> 00:15:01,360 and they'd use, they'd be swearing at you 370 00:15:01,360 --> 00:15:02,640 and start shouting, shoving you, 371 00:15:02,640 --> 00:15:04,880 and you say, just training that I hadn't really experienced 372 00:15:04,880 --> 00:15:05,720 before. 373 00:15:05,720 --> 00:15:07,000 And then I remember someone asking a question 374 00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:11,440 and someone else smacking me from the side in the jaw, 375 00:15:11,440 --> 00:15:12,760 knocked me down to the ground. 376 00:15:12,760 --> 00:15:15,640 And then it was like, they said, pick three guys 377 00:15:15,640 --> 00:15:18,080 that were just gonna jump on me and start attacking me. 378 00:15:18,080 --> 00:15:20,040 I remember within like five or 10 seconds, 379 00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:22,600 my taekwondo gi, you know, cause they were thin 380 00:15:22,600 --> 00:15:25,600 compared to like jujitsu gi's, it was ripped off 381 00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:29,200 and just hadn't experienced anything like that. 382 00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:30,760 And then another part of session that day, 383 00:15:30,760 --> 00:15:34,000 I remember grabbing someone's throat, you know, 384 00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:35,520 I grabbed his trachea when we were starting 385 00:15:35,520 --> 00:15:36,600 to grapple on the ground, 386 00:15:36,600 --> 00:15:38,600 I had very little grappling experience. 387 00:15:38,600 --> 00:15:40,160 And I remember him grabbing my nuts 388 00:15:40,160 --> 00:15:41,720 and just like yanking them. 389 00:15:41,720 --> 00:15:44,080 And so I went down to defend that 390 00:15:44,080 --> 00:15:45,520 and then he locked his fingers. 391 00:15:45,520 --> 00:15:47,120 And I remember like being able to join his fingers 392 00:15:47,120 --> 00:15:50,240 around the back of my trachea and that's when I tapped out. 393 00:15:50,240 --> 00:15:52,280 And that was just a whole different world 394 00:15:52,280 --> 00:15:54,080 and a really big wake up. 395 00:15:54,080 --> 00:15:56,320 Cause I'd read a lot of the books and it was theoretical 396 00:15:56,320 --> 00:15:59,040 and I was like, okay, I need to start doing some of this 397 00:15:59,040 --> 00:16:01,480 stuff when you actually get in there and do it. 398 00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:02,720 So it's a huge wake up. 399 00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:04,080 Yeah. 400 00:16:04,080 --> 00:16:05,480 Yeah, I just had an experience recently, 401 00:16:05,480 --> 00:16:09,160 I did Sheepdog Response, Tim Kennedy's class. 402 00:16:09,160 --> 00:16:10,000 Great. 403 00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:11,480 I mean, I love the fact that they're going around 404 00:16:11,480 --> 00:16:12,880 to law enforcement specifically. 405 00:16:12,880 --> 00:16:14,120 I mean, it's great for civilians too, 406 00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:17,920 but you know, men and women in blue need options. 407 00:16:17,920 --> 00:16:18,760 Absolutely. 408 00:16:18,760 --> 00:16:21,240 But God, rolling with some of those guys, 409 00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:24,640 so I actually roll with Tim and some of the other cadre, 410 00:16:24,640 --> 00:16:27,080 you know, and you're doing your jujitsu stuff 411 00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:27,960 and I'm a striker as well. 412 00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:29,200 So at least I have an understanding of, 413 00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:30,680 oh, I could actually pop you here. 414 00:16:30,680 --> 00:16:32,520 But yeah, Tim sticking his fingers in your eyes, 415 00:16:32,520 --> 00:16:34,360 smothering you, covering your mouth and nose. 416 00:16:34,360 --> 00:16:37,680 And you're like, you just forget if you stay in one art, 417 00:16:37,680 --> 00:16:40,120 especially if you start entering like a sport realm 418 00:16:40,120 --> 00:16:45,040 of that art, yeah, you can get such a false sense of security. 419 00:16:45,040 --> 00:16:47,640 And you know, if you're not in that crucible 420 00:16:47,640 --> 00:16:51,520 that you were put in, yeah, you realize that you're not 421 00:16:51,520 --> 00:16:52,920 as prepared as you thought you were. 422 00:16:52,920 --> 00:16:53,760 Yeah, no, totally. 423 00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:55,240 I think even just regular people, 424 00:16:55,240 --> 00:16:56,680 they go on a mat just on jujitsu 425 00:16:56,680 --> 00:16:59,600 and they don't realize like how, you know, 426 00:16:59,600 --> 00:17:01,920 it really sort of puts people's egos in check. 427 00:17:01,920 --> 00:17:04,320 But then when you start combining all these different arts, 428 00:17:04,320 --> 00:17:05,960 yeah, it becomes exponential. 429 00:17:05,960 --> 00:17:09,440 So yeah, that's how I started to sort of start my journey 430 00:17:09,440 --> 00:17:11,440 to even dig into it more and really search 431 00:17:11,440 --> 00:17:13,320 for the truth in combat. 432 00:17:13,320 --> 00:17:15,080 Right, so then where did that take you? 433 00:17:15,080 --> 00:17:16,400 What was your, rephrase it, 434 00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:17,720 what was your career aspirations 435 00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:19,240 when you were high school level 436 00:17:19,240 --> 00:17:21,000 and then where did you end up going? 437 00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:25,160 I wanna do something in leisure and sort of fitness 438 00:17:25,160 --> 00:17:26,880 and that type of stuff. 439 00:17:26,880 --> 00:17:31,880 And I applied for sort of a leisure degree 440 00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:35,840 or something, fitness type degree in Bournemouth University. 441 00:17:35,840 --> 00:17:38,120 And you know, my grades weren't that great 442 00:17:38,120 --> 00:17:42,000 and at A levels, they're called in England, as you know. 443 00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:44,760 And so I ended up like shifting onto another course 444 00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:47,040 that was basically called Land-Based Enterprise. 445 00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:48,560 It was a Bachelor of Science degree 446 00:17:48,560 --> 00:17:50,720 and it looked at land use actually 447 00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:55,720 from a sort of soil perspective and gradient perspective. 448 00:17:56,880 --> 00:17:59,360 And it basically looked at the diversification of land use 449 00:17:59,360 --> 00:18:01,640 from the primary sectors like agriculture and mining 450 00:18:01,640 --> 00:18:04,240 because the agriculture was becoming more efficient. 451 00:18:05,560 --> 00:18:07,440 We were getting more imports, you know, 452 00:18:07,440 --> 00:18:08,520 mining was decreasing. 453 00:18:08,520 --> 00:18:10,200 And it basically looked at the diversification 454 00:18:10,200 --> 00:18:12,000 of that land use into tertiary sectors 455 00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:14,040 like leisure and tourism. 456 00:18:14,040 --> 00:18:15,600 But it was a science degree because it looked like 457 00:18:15,600 --> 00:18:18,600 what is this land usable for and what can we do with it 458 00:18:18,600 --> 00:18:20,760 and what are the demographics nearby? 459 00:18:20,760 --> 00:18:24,520 To be honest, it wasn't something I was that interested in. 460 00:18:24,520 --> 00:18:26,200 Just sort of, you know, I'd already sort of planned 461 00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:27,960 on going to Bournemouth. 462 00:18:27,960 --> 00:18:29,720 My girlfriend was going at the time, you know, 463 00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:31,640 and so just ended up doing that. 464 00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:34,120 But what ended up happening was I just spent a lot more time 465 00:18:34,120 --> 00:18:37,760 studying martial arts in university than I did for my degree. 466 00:18:37,760 --> 00:18:42,760 So I still graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree 467 00:18:43,320 --> 00:18:46,600 with honors, but you know, probably barely just 468 00:18:46,600 --> 00:18:50,200 because I really didn't spend much time doing that. 469 00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:55,200 In fact, I never read one of the entire books. 470 00:18:55,520 --> 00:18:57,320 You know, I'd always read like the introduction, 471 00:18:57,320 --> 00:19:00,120 the first paragraph of each chapter in the conclusion, 472 00:19:00,120 --> 00:19:01,880 you know, of any of the books I was studying 473 00:19:01,880 --> 00:19:04,400 and managed to sort of get by doing that. 474 00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:05,720 But I was studying so much martial arts. 475 00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:09,120 I was doing, at the time there was Wing Chun there. 476 00:19:09,120 --> 00:19:12,480 There was boxing from, there was actually an older guy 477 00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:14,640 that had been in the Olympics, you know, years back. 478 00:19:14,640 --> 00:19:16,400 Yeah, but it was pretty old school. 479 00:19:16,400 --> 00:19:17,680 But he'd bring some new boxes in. 480 00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:20,680 So I was doing some boxing, kickboxing. 481 00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:22,400 I was doing Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, 482 00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:24,200 which had a lot of the same throws as Judo, 483 00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:28,280 but it was sort of a little bit more self-defense oriented. 484 00:19:28,280 --> 00:19:31,640 Although to be honest, I wish I'd done more Judo. 485 00:19:33,440 --> 00:19:34,480 But yeah, so I just studied, you know, 486 00:19:34,480 --> 00:19:36,360 a number of martial arts while in college, 487 00:19:36,360 --> 00:19:39,160 just as much as I could basically. 488 00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:41,080 Yeah, that's funny because I did sports science 489 00:19:41,080 --> 00:19:42,760 in University of North London 490 00:19:42,760 --> 00:19:46,280 and I fought for the college's WTF. 491 00:19:46,280 --> 00:19:47,800 And then there was a boxing gym. 492 00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:48,640 So I did that. 493 00:19:48,640 --> 00:19:50,240 I actually did hockey first, 494 00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:53,960 but I got so pissed off with the kind of, 495 00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:55,960 oh, you know, you missed that shot. 496 00:19:55,960 --> 00:19:58,600 So you got to drink the whole top shelf of the, you know, 497 00:19:58,600 --> 00:20:00,680 at the pub or wear a dress. 498 00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:02,680 I'm like, or I could just not play with you anymore 499 00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:04,520 and go do something that doesn't involve. 500 00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:07,040 Yeah, public humiliation and intoxication. 501 00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:09,040 Yeah, I also, I almost played, 502 00:20:09,040 --> 00:20:11,760 I've been playing rugby for 10 years in school. 503 00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:13,640 And so I also really enjoyed rugby, 504 00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:15,960 but it sort of came to this point where, you know, 505 00:20:15,960 --> 00:20:17,920 there's always an opportunity cost with your time, right? 506 00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:20,280 And so it was sort of a choice at that point 507 00:20:20,280 --> 00:20:22,440 between should I keep playing a lot of rugby 508 00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:25,040 and like minimize my martial arts training, 509 00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:27,920 but I just really enjoyed the combat sort of sports, 510 00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:30,440 but also the self-defense aspect. 511 00:20:30,440 --> 00:20:33,000 And so really focused on martial arts. 512 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:33,840 Yeah, that's interesting. 513 00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:34,840 I never thought this before. 514 00:20:34,840 --> 00:20:37,560 I know our generation as Brits, 515 00:20:37,560 --> 00:20:39,360 we, and wrestling wasn't really that big. 516 00:20:39,360 --> 00:20:41,720 And obviously, you know, the MMA world, 517 00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:43,960 you come to the American and Russian fighters, 518 00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:46,040 you know, that wrestling is their thing. 519 00:20:46,040 --> 00:20:48,440 Did you find that at least the rugby training, 520 00:20:48,440 --> 00:20:50,640 that impact that, you know, the tackle side 521 00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:53,000 that helped you with the wrestling portion of it? 522 00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:54,200 Yeah, I think that's a huge help. 523 00:20:54,200 --> 00:20:55,520 I mean, just taking the knocks, right? 524 00:20:55,520 --> 00:20:57,640 And just getting sort of toughening you up a little bit 525 00:20:57,640 --> 00:20:58,640 and tackling people. 526 00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:00,880 I definitely think that helped a lot. 527 00:21:00,880 --> 00:21:04,680 Funnily enough, another sport that I used to play was, 528 00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:06,280 and I've got back into it more recently, actually, 529 00:21:06,280 --> 00:21:07,240 it was table tennis, 530 00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:09,040 which seems totally on the other side, right? 531 00:21:09,040 --> 00:21:10,240 It seems like it. 532 00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:13,600 But that was also really good for reaction speed, 533 00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:15,440 hand-eye coordination. 534 00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:17,040 I also used to play the drums in a band. 535 00:21:17,040 --> 00:21:18,360 I think that was good for coordination. 536 00:21:18,360 --> 00:21:20,560 So I think all these things, you know, 537 00:21:20,560 --> 00:21:23,360 these different modalities of sports 538 00:21:23,360 --> 00:21:25,160 give you different insights 539 00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:27,560 and you benefit in certain ways. 540 00:21:27,560 --> 00:21:29,200 And then in college, I did all these sports 541 00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:31,520 and then sort of towards the last year or so, 542 00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:34,680 I learned about this guy called Phil Norman, 543 00:21:34,680 --> 00:21:36,320 who was actually originally on that, 544 00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:38,240 he won that, what was the show called? 545 00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:39,160 Gladiators? 546 00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:40,000 Yes. 547 00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:40,840 Or whatever. 548 00:21:40,840 --> 00:21:41,960 So he won that show. 549 00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:44,880 But he was also a student in Jeet Kune Do. 550 00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:47,000 He used to come out every year and train with Dan Inosanto, 551 00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:48,720 who was Bruce Lee's training partner. 552 00:21:48,720 --> 00:21:51,240 And then he was also trained with a guy called Eric Paulson, 553 00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:53,760 who went on to become my coach in the States 554 00:21:53,760 --> 00:21:55,040 in combat submission wrestling, 555 00:21:55,040 --> 00:21:58,000 who's also a Jeet Kune Do instructor. 556 00:21:58,000 --> 00:21:59,880 And so I started training with those guys 557 00:21:59,880 --> 00:22:02,800 and that's sort of how I started getting into the, 558 00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:04,480 learning about, you know, 559 00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:06,480 I obviously knew about Jeet Kune Do from Bruce Lee, 560 00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,440 his system, but that's when I started learning 561 00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:10,640 about the various instructors 562 00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:12,720 that we're currently teaching today, 563 00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:17,240 which sort of led me out to new training out here. 564 00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:18,080 Right, yeah. 565 00:22:18,080 --> 00:22:20,360 Cause I know when I was looking at, 566 00:22:20,360 --> 00:22:22,840 cause Dan was more the Filipino martial arts, wasn't he? 567 00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:23,680 Yeah. 568 00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:25,040 And then Paulson was more of a grappler. 569 00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:25,880 Yeah. 570 00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:26,720 Primarily. 571 00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:27,560 Yeah, exactly. 572 00:22:27,560 --> 00:22:28,920 And I went, there was a, was it Bob Breen? 573 00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:30,440 Yeah, he came with Bob, yeah. 574 00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:32,040 I never went, but I remember, you know, 575 00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:33,400 his academy was the closest one. 576 00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:34,960 I kept meaning to go and I never did, 577 00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:36,000 cause I had all the other stuff going on. 578 00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:37,960 Yeah, so Phil Norman was friends with Bob 579 00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:41,280 and so we used to go up there as a group, you know, 580 00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:42,120 and train. 581 00:22:42,120 --> 00:22:42,960 Right, brilliant. 582 00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:46,280 So then take us through to moving to America. 583 00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:49,880 So yeah, so it was 2000 and, you know, 584 00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:52,000 I just thought we'll take these six months off. 585 00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:53,200 And I originally thought, okay, 586 00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:56,160 I'm going to train at the Dan Inosanto Academy, right? 587 00:22:56,160 --> 00:22:58,680 So, you know, Dan was Bruce Lee's main training partner 588 00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:00,640 and not just partner, but he would teach him stuff. 589 00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:02,800 And Bruce would obviously teach him, you know, 590 00:23:02,800 --> 00:23:04,640 a lot of techniques and then training methods as well, 591 00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:06,000 but they were trained together. 592 00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:08,160 And so, you know, there's this big split 593 00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:09,280 in the Jeet Kune Do community. 594 00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:11,320 I don't know if you're aware of it, 595 00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:13,960 but there's like, there's basically the Jeet Kune Do concepts 596 00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:16,880 and then there's what they call original Jeet Kune Do. 597 00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:18,480 So there's sort of these arguments of like, 598 00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:20,480 which is the authentic Jeet Kune Do. 599 00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:23,000 And then within the original Jeet Kune Do, 600 00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:25,240 there is sort of subsections. 601 00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:27,840 So there's like the era that he was in Los Angeles 602 00:23:27,840 --> 00:23:31,440 or the era that he was in San Francisco. 603 00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:32,960 So they actually teach different curriculums 604 00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:34,720 based on what he was teaching at the time. 605 00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:36,720 Yeah, because people who train in San Francisco, 606 00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:38,120 that's really mostly what they did. 607 00:23:38,120 --> 00:23:40,640 So they teach what they learned from him in San Francisco. 608 00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:42,760 But of course, Jeet Kune Do wasn't really about that. 609 00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:44,840 It was about adapting over time. 610 00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:46,960 And it was more about the concepts. 611 00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:49,080 And so I sort of fall, 612 00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:50,840 I definitely think there's some great instructors 613 00:23:50,840 --> 00:23:53,360 and great training in the original Jeet Kune Do 614 00:23:53,360 --> 00:23:55,520 and it's interesting to learn and so forth. 615 00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:58,040 But I fell more on the sort of concepts side, 616 00:23:59,120 --> 00:24:02,120 which is what I think Bruce would have carried on to do, 617 00:24:02,120 --> 00:24:03,480 is to continue devolving. 618 00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:04,560 Like if he was alive today, 619 00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:06,200 what would he be doing in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu 620 00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:08,000 and other things incorporating that? 621 00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:08,960 Absolutely. 622 00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:10,280 He was already getting into grappling, 623 00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:11,160 as you'll see in his book. 624 00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:13,600 He was training with Gene LaBelle. 625 00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:17,200 And so I fell more on the concept side, basically. 626 00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:19,160 And so I originally was coming out to train 627 00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:21,040 with Dan Inosanto for six months. 628 00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:22,280 Who I've been trying to get on the show. 629 00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:23,720 I went and did a seminar with him recently, 630 00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:24,560 but I'm working on it. 631 00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:25,680 Oh yeah, he's amazing. 632 00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:26,800 I mean, I would love to sit down. 633 00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:27,960 Even just talking about the Philippines, 634 00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:29,040 he's so passionate. 635 00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:31,680 Yeah, and he's so, like if you go, 636 00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:34,520 it's like a history lecture when you learn the techniques. 637 00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:38,520 He talks about with boxing, for example, 638 00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:39,600 the position that we have now, 639 00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:41,280 sort of the head chin down 640 00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:44,040 and sort of forwards with the hands up, elbows in, 641 00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:45,120 how that came about. 642 00:24:45,120 --> 00:24:48,440 And it's actually when the Americans went to the Philippines 643 00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:50,720 and the Philippines of course would also fight with knives. 644 00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:52,920 And so they'd have a reverse grip. 645 00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:54,320 And because if you, 646 00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:55,960 yeah, you didn't wanna fight with your palms up 647 00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:57,120 because they'd do the reverse grip 648 00:24:57,120 --> 00:24:59,400 and the knives could cut your own wrists. 649 00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:02,160 And then also if your head's already far back, 650 00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:04,240 the old school wrestling style. 651 00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:05,680 And originally one hand was out, 652 00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:08,440 one hand was on the hip, the rear hand. 653 00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:09,280 So if your right leg's back, 654 00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:10,600 your right hand was on your right hip. 655 00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:13,080 And then it went to the American boxing, 656 00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:15,280 went to both hands sort of forward with the head back, 657 00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:17,080 with the palms facing up. 658 00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:18,720 You've seen the old school boxing. 659 00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:20,360 But when the Americans went over to the Philippines, 660 00:25:20,360 --> 00:25:22,760 so the Philippines, if you had your head back already, 661 00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:24,160 when a knife swung at you, 662 00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:25,880 you really couldn't go further back. 663 00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:27,560 So they would sort of very guarded, 664 00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:30,600 right with their arms up high with the knives 665 00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:31,440 and they could slash out. 666 00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:33,160 And if someone slashed at you, 667 00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:34,000 you could evade it 668 00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:35,840 because your head was forward to start with. 669 00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:38,520 So the Americans went and just boxed the Filipinos 670 00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:41,520 and the Filipinos beat all the Americans. 671 00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:44,440 And that's when the style of fighting 672 00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:49,440 to what we see today in boxing actually began in the States. 673 00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:52,640 Anyway, so every time he teaches you a technique, 674 00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:54,800 he goes to this five, 10 minute lecture 675 00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:56,240 about the history of this technique. 676 00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:57,920 And it's just fascinating. 677 00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:00,560 And so, and Dan Inosanto is amazing. 678 00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:05,200 Probably the most, if not one of the most 679 00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:07,920 overall knowledgeable martial artists in the world. 680 00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:12,120 But as I was talking to them, 681 00:26:12,120 --> 00:26:14,920 Paul was saying, well, in the 70s and 80s, 682 00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:16,880 when we trained at the Inosanto Academy, 683 00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:20,720 it was, the floors were painted red 684 00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:22,720 because there was always blood on the floor. 685 00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:24,120 So they didn't want all these blood stains. 686 00:26:24,120 --> 00:26:25,680 They just painted the floor red. 687 00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:27,320 And because it was like a hardcore gym. 688 00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:29,480 But of course, when you run a martial arts gym, 689 00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:31,240 you sort of have to start commercializing 690 00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:34,000 and then you're in LA and you start getting business people 691 00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:37,200 and celebrities and they can't get hit. 692 00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:38,760 Like they don't wanna get hit in the face that hard. 693 00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:39,760 People think they want to, 694 00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:42,800 and then they get punched in the face and they quit. 695 00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:46,680 So I think that sort of hardcore mentality from the 80s, 696 00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:48,920 when Vunak was really training there a lot 697 00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,480 in the early 90s, that sort of shifted. 698 00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:54,760 And so Paul said, 699 00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:57,360 why don't you come and be my apprentice? 700 00:26:57,360 --> 00:26:59,880 So Paul Vunak would train to teach these two days 701 00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:02,960 what he called IPTP, Intensive Personal Training Programs. 702 00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:06,080 People fly in, you train five hours a day, 703 00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:07,200 two and a half hours before lunch, 704 00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:10,080 you have lunch with Paul, two and a half hours afterwards. 705 00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:11,240 And then you do that for two days 706 00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,160 and you can come out as often as you want 707 00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:15,240 and then train with Paul. 708 00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:17,160 And so it'd be like one to, 709 00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:22,160 one to, I don't know, four people that we'd have in these 710 00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:24,120 intensive training sessions. 711 00:27:24,120 --> 00:27:25,400 And so Paul said, why don't you do that? 712 00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:28,040 So I thought, well, that sounds pretty good. 713 00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:29,920 And Paul's sort of known as the black sheep 714 00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:31,400 of the Jeet Kune Do concept family, 715 00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:33,400 because he would get into fights. 716 00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:35,960 He used to go out and train the Navy SEALs in Virginia 717 00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:37,600 and they would go out to the biker bars 718 00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:39,400 and literally go and test the techniques 719 00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:40,800 that they'd been doing in the day. 720 00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,440 Yeah, he got arrested a bunch of times, 721 00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,520 would get pulled out for national security reasons to go, 722 00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:49,640 he'd be getting sentenced and they'd come in 723 00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:53,000 and the SEALs would stop him from being sentenced. 724 00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:54,400 Because they needed him there, right? 725 00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,680 So, yeah, so some people sort of frowned upon him, 726 00:27:57,680 --> 00:27:59,640 but Paul was really into like, 727 00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:02,720 what is gonna really work in combat? 728 00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:04,480 And he sort of took the floodlight of information 729 00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:08,080 from down in the Santo and turned it into a laser beam, 730 00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:10,520 basically for fighting and focused on that stuff. 731 00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:13,560 But basically, so I decided, okay, 732 00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:16,960 I'm gonna go and train with Paul Woonak for six months. 733 00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:19,040 And it was amazing, because it was like in the morning, 734 00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:22,080 we'd maybe do some Jiu Jitsu 45 minutes, just him and I. 735 00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,880 And then we'd train people for five hours, 736 00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:26,960 which I was learning a ton all the time. 737 00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:29,240 And then in the evening, we might do a bit of stick training 738 00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:31,640 or just him and I, just incredible. 739 00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:34,640 Originally the plan was for six months and that dragged on 740 00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:36,240 and I was sort of his main apprentice 741 00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:38,040 and sort of protege for a long time. 742 00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:44,680 So anyway, I would also still go up weekly 743 00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:47,280 to the Inosanto Academy at that time and train there. 744 00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:50,000 So I sort of got the best of both worlds. 745 00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:51,760 And it just sort of grew from there, 746 00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:53,280 originally six months and then, 747 00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:56,040 that was my visa, it was a six month visa at the time. 748 00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:57,400 And I just sort of went back for a couple of weeks, 749 00:28:57,400 --> 00:28:59,720 came back for six months, back for a couple of weeks. 750 00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:00,560 And it just sort of grew from there. 751 00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:02,040 I started training people, 752 00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:06,240 out of someone's garage at the time. 753 00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:08,240 And it just sort of grew from there. 754 00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:09,720 All right, so then what did the next few years 755 00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:11,520 look like after that? 756 00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:12,840 Just continued training really. 757 00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:15,640 I started training a lot with Eric Paulson, 758 00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:16,840 in the combat submission wrestling, 759 00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:19,560 who I'd already trained with in England, 760 00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:20,640 but started training out there. 761 00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:22,280 I started training with a guy called Chris Brennan, 762 00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:24,360 who was a really good jujitsu black belt. 763 00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:28,480 He was fighting in Pride at the time, things like that. 764 00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:31,840 And my whole focus was on just martial arts really. 765 00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:35,160 And I was teaching, I started training 766 00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:36,520 various government agencies. 767 00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:38,240 So I got, started training the Marines 768 00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:39,440 down at Kent Pendleton, 769 00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:42,040 the US Marshals, the rest response team, 770 00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:45,480 which is basically the SWAT team, DEA. 771 00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:49,360 And then of course, in 2001, after 9-11, 772 00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:52,400 I started also training the US Air Marshals, 773 00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:53,440 Federal Air Marshals. 774 00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:56,640 So I just totally engrossed in that. 775 00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:01,120 And it was really about self-defense and street tactics 776 00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:04,320 and military tactics has always been my main focus. 777 00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:05,720 But there was sort of this, 778 00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:09,520 this sort of urge to test myself. 779 00:30:09,520 --> 00:30:11,120 And you can't do that morally on the street 780 00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:12,600 with the techniques I was teaching. 781 00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:14,760 So the closest thing, although it's not real, 782 00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:17,000 I mean, sorry, it's real. 783 00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:19,160 It's not like WWE or whatever it's called. 784 00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:20,280 It's got boundaries. 785 00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:21,640 It's boundaries, yeah. 786 00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,120 And so I don't want people to think that the UFC 787 00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:26,120 and MMA is not real, because it is, 788 00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:27,240 but there's a lot of restrictions. 789 00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:28,800 And so, but it's the closest thing 790 00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:30,480 that you can test yourself in. 791 00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:35,440 And so I just, you know, occasionally like once 792 00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,640 or twice a year, you know, maybe I take a year off, 793 00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:41,400 whatever, I'll just have some professional fights. 794 00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:43,120 Not because I was trying to become a professional fighter, 795 00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:44,320 but I just wanted to test my skills 796 00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:46,720 against someone that was really trying to take me out. 797 00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:50,760 You know, so that's what I did for a number of years. 798 00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:51,600 Yeah. 799 00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:53,640 So I know you ended up representing Britain 800 00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:55,640 in the UFC show. 801 00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:58,320 What was the actual house experience like? 802 00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:00,720 Being aware that, you know, reality, 803 00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:04,200 the word reality in reality TV is a loose term. 804 00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:06,360 You know, I mean, I, as a, put it this way, 805 00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:11,000 as a viewer, I could see that you take a house of fighters, 806 00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:13,800 you remove televisions, but you put in alcohol. 807 00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:16,040 Seems like shaking the snow globe a little bit. 808 00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:17,840 So what was your experience from the inside? 809 00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:19,960 Yeah, well, first of all, I just mentioned how I got, 810 00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:21,920 you know, onto that show and why I decided to do it. 811 00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:26,560 So it was 2008 and I was turning 30 years old. 812 00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:28,840 And I was living with a couple of roommates, 813 00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:33,200 Tom and Mark, and they were training in martial arts as well. 814 00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:36,080 And, you know, we were watching one of the ultimate fighters 815 00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:37,600 and I said, I could be all of those guys. 816 00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:39,240 And they said, yeah, well then go on then. 817 00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:41,560 If you think you can do it, show us. 818 00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:46,320 And I just thought, well, I don't want to look back 819 00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:48,080 and say, yeah, I did a lot of martial arts. 820 00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:49,600 You know, I was good at martial arts. 821 00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:51,480 I could have been in the UFC if I wanted to be, 822 00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:53,640 because like anyone can say that, right? 823 00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:54,920 So I just wanted, yeah. 824 00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:57,320 So, yeah, maybe you could, maybe they couldn't, 825 00:31:57,320 --> 00:31:58,520 but like, I didn't want to look back and say, 826 00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:00,040 I could have done this, right? 827 00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:02,600 Or I should have done this or I would have done this. 828 00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:06,760 So I just, when I decided to start, you know, 829 00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:08,480 taking the fighting seriously in 2008 830 00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:09,800 and see how far I could get. 831 00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:10,840 So I had a couple of fights. 832 00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:13,960 I won the well-to-weight world championship 833 00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:17,600 for gladiator challenge, which was like a sort of tier B 834 00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:21,400 or C sort of MMA show, fought in the king of the cage. 835 00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:25,040 And then basically, you know, 836 00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:26,600 I'd been training with Joe Stevenson, 837 00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:29,560 who had won another version of the ultimate fighter. 838 00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:32,080 And the ultimate fighter people had called out to him 839 00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:33,400 and said, have you got anyone you recommend? 840 00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:36,080 And he said, yeah, this guy, James Wilkes. 841 00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:37,880 So I actually skipped the first trials. 842 00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:38,720 I didn't need to go to them. 843 00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:42,000 I went to the second trials and then pretty quickly, 844 00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:44,440 you know, I was selected to fight. 845 00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:45,640 And of course I'd been living here, 846 00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:48,840 but obviously I'm British and, you know, from the UK. 847 00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:50,600 So they said, okay, well, you've got to fly back 848 00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,320 and in three days, you've got to fight 849 00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:56,640 to get on the British team. 850 00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:57,560 So I had to fly back. 851 00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:00,280 I was jet lagged, fought on the, 852 00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:04,520 fought one of the UK guys and won the fight in 30 seconds 853 00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:05,360 with a heel hook. 854 00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:06,880 Cause of course at the time, 855 00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:09,320 the grappling in America was quite a bit better 856 00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:12,440 than it was in the UK. 857 00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:15,840 In fact, when I first came out here, 858 00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:18,440 there was only one black belt in Brazil 859 00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:20,000 and in the whole of the United Kingdom. 860 00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:21,760 Really, whereabouts is that? 861 00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:23,800 I think he was based in London. 862 00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:26,000 He was Roger Gracie's dad. 863 00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,360 And his name was Mauricio Mato Gomez. 864 00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:31,120 And I remember grappling against Roger Gracie 865 00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:35,640 when he was like 16, maybe in a blue belt. 866 00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:36,760 And I think I was a white belt. 867 00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:38,040 Back then, yeah. 868 00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:41,560 Tapped me out a couple of times, obviously. 869 00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:42,400 Welcome to my world. 870 00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:43,240 Yeah. 871 00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:45,880 And, but anyway, so I, yeah. 872 00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:47,320 So I tried out the ultimate fighter 873 00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:51,760 and the house was, as an interesting experience, 874 00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:52,760 it is reality. 875 00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:55,720 I mean, there's no, they don't tell you to do anything, 876 00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:57,560 but they do give you alcohol. 877 00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:00,840 And when you edit a reality show, 878 00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:02,400 you can ask people certain questions 879 00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:03,800 to get them to say certain things. 880 00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:05,520 And you edit it, right? 881 00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:07,320 So you've got 100% of your footage 882 00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:09,480 and maybe you show 5% of it. 883 00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:12,440 And they can misrepresent what you're saying. 884 00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:14,720 So for example, they ask you, 885 00:34:14,720 --> 00:34:18,360 what is the worst song you've got on your iPod 886 00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:20,080 or whatever it was at the time? 887 00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:21,600 And I said, nah, I don't know. 888 00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:25,280 Or the fun that, the song that most people would make fun of 889 00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:27,160 or something like that. 890 00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:29,400 And I still like it, but it was like Brian Adams, 891 00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:30,640 Everything I Do. 892 00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:31,480 Classic, but. 893 00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:32,320 Yeah, it's good, it's good, right? 894 00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:33,160 It's a good song. 895 00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:34,000 But still, it was like, 896 00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:35,720 which is the worst song or the song 897 00:34:35,720 --> 00:34:36,720 that people make fun of? 898 00:34:36,720 --> 00:34:39,480 So then on television, they said, 899 00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:41,880 here are the favorite songs of the people 900 00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:42,720 in The Ultimate Fighter. 901 00:34:42,720 --> 00:34:44,480 And then they cut to me saying, 902 00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:45,960 Brian Adams, Everything I Do. 903 00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:50,240 So they can tweak stuff, but basically it was real. 904 00:34:50,240 --> 00:34:52,680 They can just edit it in a certain way. 905 00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:57,560 And then the worst part was as it got towards the end, 906 00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:01,000 because as people were lost and out of the competition, 907 00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:02,800 early on in The Ultimate Fighters, 908 00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:04,440 they would leave the house. 909 00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:05,280 But not anymore, right? 910 00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:06,320 And when I was on, not anymore. 911 00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:07,960 So basically you've got people 912 00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:09,640 that are now not training as hard. 913 00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:11,320 No, they've got nothing to win. 914 00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:12,480 They're sort of sitting around maybe 915 00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:15,200 in case someone gets injured and step up. 916 00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:17,880 But basically they've got no incentive to train properly, 917 00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:19,880 to get up early. 918 00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:23,560 So they're drinking like crazy, partying in the house. 919 00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:24,760 And like the night of the finale, 920 00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,280 people were up like 3 a.m. the night before, 921 00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:30,080 screaming, throwing each other in the pool, 922 00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:32,120 getting in some fights, throwing flour 923 00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:35,840 on people's faces, just goofing around. 924 00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:39,160 And you're trying to, as a serious professional, 925 00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:40,960 you're trying to sleep and get ready 926 00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:41,920 for the fight the next day. 927 00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:43,960 So that definitely wasn't easy. 928 00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:47,960 And not being away from who's now my wife 929 00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:51,080 and from all your friends, no television, no phone, 930 00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:54,600 no newspapers, no magazines, no internet, nothing. 931 00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:57,360 It's an interesting experience. 932 00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:01,040 Yeah, and like I said, just from a viewer's perspective, 933 00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:05,520 if you were gonna move the chess pieces around 934 00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:08,640 to maximize the possibility of drama, 935 00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:11,400 then I think they had that down with the removal 936 00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:15,240 of any healthy stimuli and then introduction of alcohol. 937 00:36:15,240 --> 00:36:16,480 Because I mean, we all know, 938 00:36:16,480 --> 00:36:17,800 there's very few people that drink. 939 00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,960 They're like, oh, I think I'm gonna write some poetry today. 940 00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:22,360 We normally get a bit rowdy. 941 00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:24,120 Totally, and talking about healthy stimuli, 942 00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:29,120 so I actually created a chess board 943 00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:30,520 out of a piece of cardboard box. 944 00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,160 They wouldn't let you buy any pack of cards, nothing. 945 00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:35,160 So I created a chess board out of a cardboard box 946 00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:36,600 that the food came in. 947 00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:38,800 And what else did we do? 948 00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:40,080 Oh, we did bottle caps. 949 00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:43,200 So I blank mark a pen to create the squares. 950 00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:45,800 And we used different bottle caps 951 00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:48,880 and different things to make the chess pieces. 952 00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:50,720 And then in fact, I ended up getting that signed 953 00:36:50,720 --> 00:36:52,880 by everyone on the British team, UK team, 954 00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:55,520 Dana White, Lorenzo Fittito, and all those guys. 955 00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:57,200 So I still got that at home. 956 00:36:57,200 --> 00:36:59,400 That provided some mental stimulation. 957 00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,120 Brilliant, I remember one of the seasons, 958 00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:06,400 his name was Jonathan, wasn't Davy a sudden thing, 959 00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:09,640 but he was the kind of white guy, had the dreadlocks. 960 00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:11,720 But when all the tomfoolery was going on, 961 00:37:11,720 --> 00:37:13,400 he was always out in the garden, 962 00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:15,120 meditating, doing yoga or something. 963 00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:18,160 And I was amazed at the discipline that he had 964 00:37:18,160 --> 00:37:20,560 to separate himself, even though, I mean, I don't know, 965 00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:22,200 what, they had 12 in the house or something, 966 00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:24,160 to be the only person out there. 967 00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:26,080 And I think he ended up winning as well. 968 00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:27,320 But I don't know what happened to him though. 969 00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:29,600 He was a hell of a jiu-jitsu guy, I know that. 970 00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:33,000 But, so then you won the Ultimate Fighter. 971 00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:35,400 So then what was that after? 972 00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:36,240 I mean, what was your journey like? 973 00:37:36,240 --> 00:37:37,600 Yeah, it was an interesting experience really, 974 00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:39,640 because I'd sort of really set my mind 975 00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:41,560 on winning the Ultimate Fighter, 976 00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:43,480 but hadn't really thought about 977 00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:45,320 what if I won? the consequences of that. 978 00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:47,240 Yeah. You know, I thought I felt pretty confident 979 00:37:47,240 --> 00:37:52,240 that I could win, but I only had this sort of one goal. 980 00:37:52,240 --> 00:37:56,640 And, you know, to be honest, like I enjoyed fighting 981 00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:59,920 after that and sparingly training for it. 982 00:37:59,920 --> 00:38:01,040 And there's elements that I, you know, 983 00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,920 I was really sort of early on, I was very nervous going at, 984 00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:06,280 you know, walking in front of 20,000 people to fight 985 00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:10,360 to start with, but I feel like you've always got 986 00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:11,760 to put yourself in those situations 987 00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:14,400 where you're uncomfortable, it makes you grow as a person. 988 00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,800 But to be honest, I just didn't have the drive to fight 989 00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:19,120 in the sport, because first of all, 990 00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:22,560 it wasn't my main sort of area of expertise 991 00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:25,520 or desire or interest, because my interest was always 992 00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:27,280 sort of street self-defense, which would include 993 00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:31,080 like multiple attackers, you know, verbalization, 994 00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:36,080 posturing, fight evasion, mental awareness, 995 00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:40,520 knife defense, using a knife, using improvised weapons, 996 00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:42,480 gun defense, you know, all sorts 997 00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:44,680 of different elements basically. 998 00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:46,000 So it wasn't my main interest. 999 00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:48,840 And I just didn't really have the passion for it 1000 00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:51,120 as I did, you know, going towards the ultimate fighter, 1001 00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:52,280 I really set a goal. 1002 00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:54,880 And after that, I didn't really have a goal 1003 00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:55,720 that was driving to me. 1004 00:38:55,720 --> 00:38:58,360 And I felt now, I felt like I was just fighting 1005 00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:02,000 for a paycheck, you know, it just wasn't as interesting 1006 00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,520 to me, and I thought like, felt like I had to fight now 1007 00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:07,240 because I signed a contract and now it's, you know, 1008 00:39:07,240 --> 00:39:10,760 I'm making $50,000 a fight or whatever with the sponsorship 1009 00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:12,120 and then with the pay from UFC. 1010 00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:15,080 And just felt like I was fighting because I had to, 1011 00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:18,800 you know, it wasn't as interesting for me as it was, 1012 00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:20,600 like leading up to the ultimate fighter. 1013 00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:22,520 Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that burning desire, 1014 00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:24,520 that internal why is so important. 1015 00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:26,720 You see that even with people who have done very well, 1016 00:39:26,720 --> 00:39:29,960 like Georges St. Pierre, like you could see again, 1017 00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:33,160 as a fan watching that there was a certain point 1018 00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:37,200 where you're like, why would you want to keep fighting? 1019 00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:38,040 Right. 1020 00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:38,880 You know what I mean? 1021 00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:40,440 You kind of peaked, you've out wrestled wrestlers, 1022 00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:41,800 you've out boxed, you know what I mean? 1023 00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:44,160 It's such an incredible athlete, 1024 00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:47,200 a certain point, I know the same with the fire and police, 1025 00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:48,200 a certain point where like, 1026 00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:51,200 where's that balance between loving this job, 1027 00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:53,480 but then this job starting to be detrimental 1028 00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:55,720 to your family, your health, you know, 1029 00:39:55,720 --> 00:39:59,000 and if I think the smart ones know when to also 1030 00:39:59,000 --> 00:39:59,840 say enough is enough. 1031 00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:01,360 And it could be, you know, what you did, 1032 00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:02,720 just winning the ultimate fighter 1033 00:40:02,720 --> 00:40:04,160 and then going, all right, I'm good. 1034 00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:06,120 But there's other ones that, you know, 1035 00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:07,960 keep fighting and fighting and fighting, 1036 00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:09,520 and that might be great for them, 1037 00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:12,560 but you also see the detriments of that, you know, 1038 00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:15,200 the fighters that are in their 40s, you know, 50s, 1039 00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:17,640 even that, you know, getting Parkinson's 1040 00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:18,480 and all these things too. 1041 00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:19,600 Sure. 1042 00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:20,920 Yeah, and I think, I know, you know, 1043 00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:22,400 guys that are still fighting in the UFC, 1044 00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:24,080 and some of them are definitely doing it 1045 00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:25,680 because they're super passionate about it, 1046 00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:28,760 but I think quite a few of them are doing it because, 1047 00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:31,080 I mean, it's hard to turn down that paycheck, 1048 00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:33,400 and for a lot of them, you know, 1049 00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:35,920 what else would they do that was paying that kind of money? 1050 00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:38,240 So I think that's sort of sad though, 1051 00:40:38,240 --> 00:40:39,920 when you're doing it just for the money. 1052 00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:41,000 Yeah, exactly. 1053 00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:42,520 Because, I mean, there are so many other ways, 1054 00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:45,040 but I think a lot of these fighters, 1055 00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:46,400 when you hear the backstories, 1056 00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:48,280 and a lot of them have come from pretty rough upbringings, 1057 00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:53,280 which I think is definitely a good ingredient for a fighter, 1058 00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:57,360 but, you know, are they also being shown 1059 00:40:57,360 --> 00:40:58,440 that there are other ways? 1060 00:40:58,440 --> 00:40:59,600 Just because you're a great fighter, 1061 00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:01,760 doesn't mean that you couldn't be the next, 1062 00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:03,200 couldn't write the next amazing book 1063 00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:06,800 or be a great teacher for kids, you know, whatever it is. 1064 00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:09,120 Right, so then I know you hurt your knee, 1065 00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:11,720 and that'd be a great segue into the movie and everything, 1066 00:41:11,720 --> 00:41:14,560 but up to that point, as an athlete, 1067 00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:16,720 who, you know, did very well, 1068 00:41:16,720 --> 00:41:19,480 what was your nutrition like at that point? 1069 00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:22,880 So I was mainly eating what people would sort of consider 1070 00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:25,520 as a healthy sort of athletic diet. 1071 00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:30,320 So I was doing extra lean turkey, chicken breast, 1072 00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:33,720 brown rice, broccoli, a lot of brown rice and broccoli 1073 00:41:33,720 --> 00:41:34,560 with the chicken breast. 1074 00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:35,400 Yeah, so the bodybuilder diet. 1075 00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:36,960 I mean, I still do oatmeal, you know, 1076 00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,360 which is what I still eat today. 1077 00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:44,360 So, and I'd have, you know, I'd have steak occasionally, 1078 00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:45,480 not all that often. 1079 00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:46,600 Sometimes I'd go to In-N-Out. 1080 00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:49,640 So I would definitely eat some sort of, some process, 1081 00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:51,480 you know, sometimes some crisps or chips, 1082 00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:52,800 whatever you want to call them, 1083 00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:54,240 depending on which country you're in. 1084 00:41:54,240 --> 00:41:57,200 But I was mainly eating pretty healthy, 1085 00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:00,120 what people would consider pretty healthy. 1086 00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:03,080 Towards the end, before I switched to going plant-based, 1087 00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:07,680 I would eat, I started looking at sort of more of a paleo-type 1088 00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:11,560 diet, so I was eating grass-fed beef and like air-chilled 1089 00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:15,880 chicken and those sorts of foods. 1090 00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:18,560 But for most of it, it was, you know, 1091 00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:20,160 as I said, it's like extra lean stuff. 1092 00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:22,440 I thought that like, you know, 1093 00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:24,520 chicken and turkey was the way to go with, you know, 1094 00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:26,240 with plant foods and other veg, you know, 1095 00:42:26,240 --> 00:42:30,440 some other vegetables, but it was pretty boring, honestly. 1096 00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:31,720 Yeah. Well, I think that's it. 1097 00:42:31,720 --> 00:42:34,920 Is again, one of the things of the podcast is, 1098 00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:38,040 is trying to reverse engineer some of the bullshit 1099 00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:39,040 that we've been taught. 1100 00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:40,760 And we kind of are from the same generation. 1101 00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:43,720 Like if you want to work out and you go work your way 1102 00:42:43,720 --> 00:42:46,360 through the YMCA bodybuilding machines, you know, 1103 00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:49,000 and you want to eat well, just have a giant bowl of pasta, 1104 00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:51,040 you know, and now we're realizing, well, you know, yeah, 1105 00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:53,400 if you want to be a bodybuilder, absolutely. 1106 00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:55,160 Those are great machines for bodybuilding. 1107 00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:57,280 But if you want to be a tactical athlete, 1108 00:42:57,280 --> 00:42:59,840 you may find some incredibly weak links in that chain, 1109 00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:01,480 if you're only using machines, for example. 1110 00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:03,560 Yeah. Well, I think one of the biggest things, 1111 00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:06,880 the difference between say bodybuilding 1112 00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:08,440 or what most people do at the gym, 1113 00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:11,440 and then sort of technical athlete training, 1114 00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:14,040 is that we work a lot of linear stuff, right? 1115 00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:15,640 As at the gym. 1116 00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:18,080 So you're pushing and pulling on that plane. 1117 00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:19,360 It's just like straight. 1118 00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:23,120 But if you look at all sports and like most tactical stuff, 1119 00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:25,360 like realistic functional things 1120 00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:27,200 that you're going to be doing out in the field, 1121 00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:28,960 there's a lot of rotational stuff. 1122 00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:31,720 And I think that's lacking in most people's training, right? 1123 00:43:32,720 --> 00:43:34,960 It's that rotation with the core 1124 00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:37,160 and the stability and that type of thing. 1125 00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:38,080 Yeah, absolutely. 1126 00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:40,720 And what I found, because I teach at a gym 1127 00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:44,120 and it's predominantly a CrossFit gym. 1128 00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:46,560 And I think that modality is great. 1129 00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:48,120 I think our coaching staff, 1130 00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:51,120 we've got a very young coach who does the programming. 1131 00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:53,680 Excellent now, you know, floor work and accessory work 1132 00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:55,280 and all that stuff built into the warmups 1133 00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:56,680 and really, really good. 1134 00:43:56,680 --> 00:43:59,760 But I noticed for a tactical athlete point of view, 1135 00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:01,000 that kind of like you're saying, 1136 00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:03,280 our feet don't move very much. 1137 00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:04,800 We're standing in place. 1138 00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:07,240 Whereas most tactical athletes 1139 00:44:07,240 --> 00:44:09,120 are moving some sort of weight over distance, 1140 00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:12,800 a fire hose, a ladder, chasing a perp, whatever it is. 1141 00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:14,440 And that was the element that was missing. 1142 00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:17,120 So the class that I teach is a lot of sandbag sleds, 1143 00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:17,960 those kinds of things. 1144 00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:18,800 Yeah, I love that stuff. 1145 00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:20,000 Unilateral carries. 1146 00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:21,960 Brilliant. 1147 00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:24,240 So then talk me through the injury 1148 00:44:24,240 --> 00:44:26,920 and then the epiphany that you had after that. 1149 00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:28,880 Yeah, and so, and it's also the stuff 1150 00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:30,400 that's not covered in the documentary 1151 00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:32,640 that of why I actually retired 1152 00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:34,480 so that we can go into that stuff as well. 1153 00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:35,320 Yeah, because I mean, 1154 00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:38,880 the goal is to bring some unique things to the conversation. 1155 00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:41,200 Yeah, so it's tricky because you make a documentary, 1156 00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:44,120 but you can't cover every aspect and go into every detail. 1157 00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:45,960 I mean, even when we interviewed a lot of people 1158 00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:48,280 for the documentary, which we'll talk about in a minute, 1159 00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:49,920 some of the interviews were two hours long, 1160 00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:51,560 four hours long, and these experts, 1161 00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:54,160 and it's tough to like get it down into 90 minutes. 1162 00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:58,240 But anyway, so no, so what happened was 1163 00:44:58,240 --> 00:45:01,520 I was sparring with Fabricio Vadum, 1164 00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:04,560 who later became the heavyweight champion 1165 00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:06,320 at one point of the UFC. 1166 00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:10,560 He had like 70, 80, 90 pounds maybe on me 1167 00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:11,400 because I fought at 170. 1168 00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:13,040 And I was two weeks out from a fight 1169 00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:16,160 that I'd been given on short notice. 1170 00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:19,240 And basically sparring and I was tagging him 1171 00:45:19,240 --> 00:45:20,640 and he was getting pretty angry with me 1172 00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:21,960 and he was sort of trying to hit me. 1173 00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:24,880 And of course I've got a lot less power than he does, 1174 00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:28,720 but because I'm lighter, I was faster than he was. 1175 00:45:28,720 --> 00:45:30,400 And he was getting annoyed. 1176 00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:32,000 And then we were supposed to just be kickboxing, 1177 00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:33,480 but he's basically stormed at me, 1178 00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:34,720 sort of blasting me in the face. 1179 00:45:34,720 --> 00:45:37,720 And then a flying knee took me off the ground, 1180 00:45:37,720 --> 00:45:39,480 hit me in the sternum, took me off the ground. 1181 00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:41,200 And when I landed, there was sweat on the floor 1182 00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:45,400 and my feet slipped out from under me, you know, sideways. 1183 00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:48,560 And then the sweat stopped. 1184 00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:50,440 And then even though it was supposed to be kickboxing, 1185 00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:51,800 he sort of sprawled on top of me. 1186 00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:53,320 So I had his weight on top of me, 1187 00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:55,560 like maybe 260 or whatever he is. 1188 00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:58,040 And then my weight, I was like probably 185 1189 00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:00,680 leading up to the fight and basically stopped. 1190 00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:01,880 And then all of his weight and my weight 1191 00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:03,600 went through my knees. 1192 00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:08,600 And I tore my MCL on one leg and the LCL on the other leg, 1193 00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:12,640 about 50% on one and like 30% on the other. 1194 00:46:12,640 --> 00:46:16,720 It was extremely painful at the time. 1195 00:46:16,720 --> 00:46:17,960 But then the next day I realized, 1196 00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:20,920 I got to pull out this fire, unfortunately. 1197 00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:23,080 And so I started really just thinking, 1198 00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:25,840 what can I do that's productive with my time? 1199 00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:28,280 And so I knew I'd have like six months 1200 00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:29,240 where I really couldn't train. 1201 00:46:29,240 --> 00:46:32,960 And so I thought, well, I'll just start spending my time 1202 00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:35,640 digging into the peer-reviewed research on nutrition 1203 00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:38,640 for optimal recovery and then athletic performance. 1204 00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:40,240 And that's when I came across a study 1205 00:46:40,240 --> 00:46:42,200 about the Roman gladiators. 1206 00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:44,840 So they unearthed 68 gladiator skeletons, 1207 00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:46,600 5,000 bones in Ephesus, Turkey, 1208 00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:49,280 which at the time was the only known for sure burial site 1209 00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:51,200 of gladiators in the world. 1210 00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:54,000 And scientists analyzed the bones and they can tell 1211 00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:55,840 there's a strontium calcium analysis, 1212 00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:57,560 there's a radioisotope analysis. 1213 00:46:57,560 --> 00:46:59,000 Again, we didn't cover everything in the film 1214 00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:00,160 because you can't. 1215 00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:02,680 But they basically indicated that they were eating 1216 00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:05,000 the vast majority of the calories from plants. 1217 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:06,480 And that's when I thought, well, that can't be true 1218 00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:08,760 because you've got to eat animal protein, 1219 00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:10,840 especially meat to be strong and healthy, 1220 00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:13,680 especially as an athlete and even more so as a man. 1221 00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:16,760 And so that's when I just started really digging in 1222 00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:18,960 more and more to the research and then realized 1223 00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:22,720 that we've really been fooled by the meat industry 1224 00:47:22,720 --> 00:47:24,280 into believing that we need those foods 1225 00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:25,440 to be strong and healthy. 1226 00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:30,120 And so that led into the game changer's documentary, 1227 00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:30,960 which I made. 1228 00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:33,440 Because the documentary doesn't touch on everything. 1229 00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:37,160 So basically I continued after I'd healed up 1230 00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:38,920 and it actually took a little bit over a year 1231 00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:41,440 until I was really training properly again. 1232 00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:45,160 Because I had some things like I had PRP, 1233 00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:47,400 platelet rich plasma therapy in the knees, 1234 00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:48,600 which again now there's been studies 1235 00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:50,600 showing that it's questionable on its efficacy 1236 00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:52,600 and it may be placebo, it might be because you're told 1237 00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:55,400 to rest for a month after the injection, but whatever. 1238 00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:57,600 I didn't end up needing surgery on my knees. 1239 00:47:58,600 --> 00:47:59,760 So they healed. 1240 00:48:01,520 --> 00:48:03,280 I still get like, if it's cold outside, 1241 00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:04,600 still get a little bit of pain in there, 1242 00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:06,960 but generally they've healed really well. 1243 00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:10,520 But so I did end up actually training for a fight. 1244 00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:12,840 I remember shooting a double leg on someone 1245 00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:16,840 and they moved out the way and I hit my head on the wall. 1246 00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:21,360 There was a padded wall and it sent pains down my spine. 1247 00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:23,960 And I'd actually fractured, broken my neck, 1248 00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:26,720 you know, when I was younger. 1249 00:48:26,720 --> 00:48:28,640 And I was really worried. 1250 00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:30,160 I thought I'd broken my neck. 1251 00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:33,560 So I went and got an MRI and they said, 1252 00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:36,120 yeah, you've got, you know, severe stenosis. 1253 00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:38,280 Stenosis is the narrowing of a canal. 1254 00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:42,080 So basically around on the inside of my vertebra 1255 00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:43,280 where your spinal cord goes, 1256 00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:45,480 the bones have grown in from the front and the back. 1257 00:48:45,480 --> 00:48:46,480 Usually you've got space. 1258 00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:48,560 So when you get hit in the head, you know, 1259 00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:51,240 your head moves and your spinal cord's got some room 1260 00:48:51,240 --> 00:48:53,000 inside of the vertebra. 1261 00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:55,040 But the bones are grown from the front and the back 1262 00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:57,160 and they're actually touching my spinal cord. 1263 00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:58,600 So basically I went to four different, 1264 00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:00,560 got four opinions from experts and they said, yeah, 1265 00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:02,320 you've got, all of them said significantly 1266 00:49:02,320 --> 00:49:04,200 higher risk of paralysis. 1267 00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:06,080 And so I trained for a fight and I was feeling really good 1268 00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:08,040 after I'd started switching my diet 1269 00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:10,320 because the researcher came across. 1270 00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:12,200 But again, in a documentary, you don't have time to explain 1271 00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:14,200 all of the, you know, every single detail. 1272 00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:17,720 You know, like I say, I got injured after, you know, 1273 00:49:17,720 --> 00:49:19,600 while I was in the UFC, but I didn't explain like a couple 1274 00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:22,440 of fights in between after I won the ultimate fight. 1275 00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:24,120 You just, you just can't, 1276 00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:26,400 making a documentary is really tricky trying to figure out 1277 00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:27,560 what you can fit in. 1278 00:49:27,560 --> 00:49:29,040 You feel like before you make it, you know, 1279 00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:31,160 there's like 50 people that we filmed 1280 00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:33,160 that never made it into the documentary. 1281 00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:35,760 You just feel like you can fit loads in. 1282 00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:38,160 But in reality, you've got 90 minutes to not only put 1283 00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:40,440 the science in there, but tell some interesting stories 1284 00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:42,600 and go into detail about stuff. 1285 00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:45,880 So yeah, that didn't make it into the documentary 1286 00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:48,600 about why I medically retired from the UFC. 1287 00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:51,360 But so I basically just, you know, 1288 00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:53,480 woke up at two in the morning after I was starting 1289 00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:54,720 to read all this research and thought, 1290 00:49:54,720 --> 00:49:57,040 I've got to tell everybody about this 1291 00:49:57,040 --> 00:49:58,880 because I hate being lied to. 1292 00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:01,600 And I felt like we've been lied to here, you know, 1293 00:50:01,600 --> 00:50:02,600 let's make a documentary. 1294 00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:05,960 And so started off with a used camera off of Craigslist 1295 00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:09,480 called the Everett Motta, who was the director 1296 00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:12,040 of photography from the ultimate fighter and said, 1297 00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:14,120 hey, what camera do I buy? 1298 00:50:14,120 --> 00:50:16,040 You know, and I went on YouTube, 1299 00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:18,360 learned to do the three point lighting for interview setup, 1300 00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:20,520 bought a little wireless mic. 1301 00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:22,240 Knowing that that footage might not get used 1302 00:50:22,240 --> 00:50:24,400 in a proper documentary, I'd either edit it myself 1303 00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:27,120 and put it online on YouTube or something, 1304 00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:30,360 or I'd use that footage to get other people interested 1305 00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:32,360 and sort of grow from there, which is what happened. 1306 00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:34,080 Yeah, that's a brilliant way of doing it. 1307 00:50:34,080 --> 00:50:36,000 There's so many people I think trying to over plan 1308 00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:37,320 whatever it is they're thinking about. 1309 00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:38,480 And it's the same with this. 1310 00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:40,600 Remember listening to Tim Ferriss and one of his advices 1311 00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:43,120 to start a podcast he's talking about in the episode 1312 00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:44,480 was just do it. 1313 00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:45,320 Yeah, just do it. 1314 00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:46,160 Pull the trigger, you know. 1315 00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:49,360 Too many people wait so long to get things perfect. 1316 00:50:50,640 --> 00:50:52,400 And that hinders a lot of people 1317 00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:54,040 and it just never ends up getting done. 1318 00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:54,880 Yeah. 1319 00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:55,700 Like how many people do you think have said 1320 00:50:55,700 --> 00:50:57,080 they're gonna write a book one day? 1321 00:50:57,080 --> 00:50:59,280 Well, this guy, I'm about two thirds of the way 1322 00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:00,840 and I hit a wall, so. 1323 00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:01,680 But at least I started that. 1324 00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:03,240 You just gotta do it, you know? 1325 00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:07,000 Yeah, I think you just gotta do it and not worry. 1326 00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:09,680 I think they say like perfection is the enemy of good, 1327 00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:12,040 you know, and so we've always aimed with the film 1328 00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:14,280 to make things like an eight out of 10. 1329 00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:15,360 Because if, you know, people say, 1330 00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:17,040 oh, try and always give it your best. 1331 00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:18,360 And like, yeah, give it your best, 1332 00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:20,440 but like if you expect a 10 out of 10 for everything, 1333 00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:21,520 you're gonna hinder yourself. 1334 00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:24,320 And although the documentary took years to make 1335 00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:27,200 and it was ridiculous and, you know, 1336 00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:28,360 it took a long time to raise money 1337 00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:29,680 and a long time to shoot things 1338 00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:31,680 and a long time to learn about making a documentary 1339 00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:33,600 as you're making a documentary. 1340 00:51:33,600 --> 00:51:35,520 And right now we could do it for half the money 1341 00:51:35,520 --> 00:51:38,800 with half the amount of time probably now that I know more. 1342 00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:42,440 Yeah, but at the time, like first time filmmaker, you know? 1343 00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:45,240 But you just gotta get on and do it, I think, 1344 00:51:45,240 --> 00:51:48,560 and sort of go from there and that's what happened. 1345 00:51:48,560 --> 00:51:53,560 So 2013, so in 2012, I connected with Joseph Pace 1346 00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:58,040 who became the other producer and one of the two writers 1347 00:51:58,040 --> 00:52:00,600 and he was instrumental in getting this done. 1348 00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:03,320 He had been plant-based for 25 years. 1349 00:52:03,320 --> 00:52:05,080 He'd got some script writing experience. 1350 00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:08,560 He'd also done a lot of research in university 1351 00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:11,760 into the health aspects of a plant-based diet, 1352 00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:13,480 the environmental aspects. 1353 00:52:13,480 --> 00:52:18,480 He helped coordinate a 60,000 word report on health, 1354 00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:21,200 impacts on rural communities, the environment, 1355 00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:22,360 animal welfare. 1356 00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:25,040 So he just, you know, he really knew a lot about the space 1357 00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:27,800 and about script writing and so we teamed up. 1358 00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:30,400 2013, we raised some money. 1359 00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:32,760 We did some sort of preliminary filming. 1360 00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:35,080 Realized that it wasn't the quality that we needed 1361 00:52:35,080 --> 00:52:36,720 and there was some really interesting stories 1362 00:52:36,720 --> 00:52:39,000 and we needed like a master storyteller. 1363 00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:41,160 So we put it all on hold. 1364 00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:43,160 Almost the whole of 2014, basically, 1365 00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:45,320 we put together a little sizzle reel 1366 00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:47,120 and that's when we met Louis Tsouhoyos 1367 00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:49,160 who became the director. 1368 00:52:49,160 --> 00:52:51,600 So Louis has the most award-winning documentary 1369 00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:53,560 of all time, the first film he made. 1370 00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:54,400 Which is what? 1371 00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:55,920 It's called The Cove. 1372 00:52:55,920 --> 00:52:56,760 I've never heard of that. 1373 00:52:56,760 --> 00:52:57,600 Yeah, it's really good. 1374 00:52:57,600 --> 00:53:00,000 It's about the dolphins. 1375 00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:02,400 Well, it's about many things, 1376 00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:05,360 but it also looks at the dolphins in Taiji, Japan, 1377 00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:07,040 where they sort of trap them all 1378 00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:08,480 and then slaughter them for dolphin meat 1379 00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:09,880 and they save a couple of the best ones 1380 00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:11,160 to sell to SeaWorld. 1381 00:53:12,240 --> 00:53:13,480 It's about more than that, 1382 00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:15,760 but there's the trainer of Flipper in there, 1383 00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:17,720 you know, from the film who sort of ends up 1384 00:53:17,720 --> 00:53:21,560 going the other way and starts rescuing dolphins 1385 00:53:21,560 --> 00:53:23,360 instead of sort of entrapping them. 1386 00:53:25,240 --> 00:53:27,920 So we teamed up with him and then also in 2014, 1387 00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:29,440 we were fortunate enough to have a meeting 1388 00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:33,240 with James Cameron and he got behind the project 1389 00:53:33,240 --> 00:53:34,880 and it just sort of snowballed from there. 1390 00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:36,920 So 2015, I think it was April, 1391 00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:39,600 we started re-shooting again with this new crew 1392 00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:42,600 with a bigger budget, with, yeah, 1393 00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:46,320 just some really amazing people. 1394 00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:48,720 Mark Monroe, who's a top documentary writer, 1395 00:53:48,720 --> 00:53:50,760 Dan Sweetlick, who's a two-time Eddie winner, 1396 00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:53,600 that's the best award you can get for editors. 1397 00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:55,920 So just this amazing team, shooting in 4K, 1398 00:53:55,920 --> 00:53:57,560 better equipment. 1399 00:53:57,560 --> 00:53:58,880 So it took a long time, you know, 1400 00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:00,000 you shoot for a couple of years 1401 00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:01,800 and then they say for editing, 1402 00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:04,760 you need to allow for every 10 minutes in a film 1403 00:54:04,760 --> 00:54:07,080 you allow one month of editing. 1404 00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:09,040 So a 90-minute film, that's nine months, right? 1405 00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:10,360 And then you've got to produce the score, 1406 00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:11,560 which is the music track, 1407 00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:15,280 which a lot of stuff was composed for the film. 1408 00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:18,080 Then we came out, we sort of spent six months actually 1409 00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:21,400 editing Act One and there's like three acts in a film, 1410 00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:24,040 typically this is how you sort of format. 1411 00:54:24,040 --> 00:54:27,080 And we got offered to go to Sundance Film Festival, 1412 00:54:27,080 --> 00:54:29,560 but we only had two weeks to get it submitted 1413 00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:32,360 and we hadn't really done Act Three. 1414 00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:33,920 So we'd worked on Act Two for a few months 1415 00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:36,480 and then so we rushed in Act Three, got it out 1416 00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:38,360 and it was really well received at Sundance, 1417 00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:41,080 but we weren't really happy with it. 1418 00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:43,680 I feel like it was like a seven out of 10 or something. 1419 00:54:43,680 --> 00:54:47,760 And the ending was kind of flat because we'd rushed it, 1420 00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:49,600 the pacing was a little bit slow, 1421 00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:51,640 you know, that we could have improved the score quite a bit. 1422 00:54:51,640 --> 00:54:55,480 So in 2018, we went back into filming, 1423 00:54:55,480 --> 00:54:57,240 we filmed the story of the Tennessee Titans, 1424 00:54:57,240 --> 00:55:02,040 you know, the football players and the chef that, 1425 00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:05,000 Charity Morgan, this amazing chef that was cooking for them. 1426 00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:06,440 And we filmed a bit with Lewis Hamilton, 1427 00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:08,560 but we just improved the pacing and the music 1428 00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:10,880 and the timing and the ending. 1429 00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:15,160 And so we weren't really done with it until later on in 2018. 1430 00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:17,280 And then of course you go into distribution 1431 00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:21,360 and those negotiations take quite a while. 1432 00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:22,720 And we could have got it out sooner, 1433 00:55:22,720 --> 00:55:24,800 but these distributors, they wanted more control, 1434 00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:26,800 they didn't want us to put out resources afterwards. 1435 00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:29,160 And so we ended up self distributing 1436 00:55:29,160 --> 00:55:32,280 and it didn't come out until, what was it? 1437 00:55:32,280 --> 00:55:35,240 September of this year, 2019. 1438 00:55:35,240 --> 00:55:37,520 Right, now is that self distribution 1439 00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:40,600 why you see some films doing that one night showing 1440 00:55:40,600 --> 00:55:42,800 and then going to the online platform? 1441 00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:45,400 Yeah, so we did a one night, I think it was like, 1442 00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:48,080 it was over 1200 or maybe 1500 theaters, 1443 00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:50,560 I can't remember what it was, around the world on one night. 1444 00:55:50,560 --> 00:55:52,920 So we partnered with a company called Fathom Events, 1445 00:55:52,920 --> 00:55:55,440 and they specialize in this sort of one night event theater 1446 00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:57,480 where it wasn't just the film, it was also, 1447 00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:01,440 we did 22 minutes of bonus content that went afterwards, 1448 00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:02,680 like an after show. 1449 00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:06,840 And so yeah, we partnered up with them to specialize in that 1450 00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:09,400 because if you go with a traditional, 1451 00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:11,800 we wanted to get it out to the world as soon as possible. 1452 00:56:11,800 --> 00:56:14,000 And if you go with the traditional theater route, 1453 00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:17,640 with a traditional theatrical distributor, 1454 00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:19,680 you have to wait 90 days until you can put it 1455 00:56:19,680 --> 00:56:24,680 onto a transactional platform at least, for streaming. 1456 00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:27,680 And we didn't want those restrictions. 1457 00:56:27,680 --> 00:56:29,600 We had a lot of offers from Netflix 1458 00:56:29,600 --> 00:56:31,000 for it to be a Netflix original, 1459 00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:33,240 but again, it would have only been on there. 1460 00:56:33,240 --> 00:56:34,880 And there was restrictions around screenings 1461 00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:35,720 and things like that. 1462 00:56:35,720 --> 00:56:39,680 And so we really wanted as many people as possible 1463 00:56:39,680 --> 00:56:41,160 just to be able to have access to the film. 1464 00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:42,840 That was one of our main goals. 1465 00:56:42,840 --> 00:56:46,520 And so we basically negotiated with different distributors, 1466 00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:49,920 but we organized all the marketing and distribution. 1467 00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:51,880 So it's on Netflix, for example, and people say, 1468 00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:54,520 oh, it's a Netflix documentary. 1469 00:56:54,520 --> 00:56:55,360 It's not a Netflix original, 1470 00:56:55,360 --> 00:56:58,360 it just happens to be on Netflix as a licensed deal. 1471 00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:04,600 But it's also on Google Play, iTunes, Vimeo, Fandango Now. 1472 00:57:05,560 --> 00:57:07,120 This, just this next week, 1473 00:57:07,120 --> 00:57:09,280 we're coming out with DVD and Blu-ray, 1474 00:57:09,280 --> 00:57:11,280 which surprisingly a lot of people are asking for, 1475 00:57:11,280 --> 00:57:14,920 especially doctors who are asking for like 500 or 1,000 1476 00:57:14,920 --> 00:57:16,080 to hand out to their patients. 1477 00:57:16,080 --> 00:57:16,920 Oh really? 1478 00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:17,760 Yeah. 1479 00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:20,360 And so yeah, we just wanted it as wide as possible. 1480 00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:22,280 It's gonna be in China soon on a platform 1481 00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:23,640 that's got 800 million viewers, 1482 00:57:23,640 --> 00:57:26,800 twice the size of Netflix has worldwide. 1483 00:57:26,800 --> 00:57:28,800 So that's all we were doing is just trying to get it out 1484 00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:31,520 and so people could watch it. 1485 00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:32,360 Brilliant. 1486 00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:33,960 Well, I wanna just go back for a second. 1487 00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:38,960 So your own personal experience with switching 1488 00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:41,440 to plant-based, what did you, 1489 00:57:41,440 --> 00:57:42,800 James Wilkes find in your own life? 1490 00:57:42,800 --> 00:57:45,440 Yeah, so after I'd seen a bunch of the evidence 1491 00:57:45,440 --> 00:57:46,440 and met some of the athletes, 1492 00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:47,520 I thought I'm gonna give this a try. 1493 00:57:47,520 --> 00:57:49,440 I wasn't committing to do it forever, 1494 00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:50,560 which I don't think people should. 1495 00:57:50,560 --> 00:57:52,400 I mean, I think they should just try it 1496 00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:53,560 and see how they feel. 1497 00:57:55,120 --> 00:57:59,400 So I switched and I cut out red meat first 1498 00:57:59,400 --> 00:58:02,600 and then chicken and then dairy 1499 00:58:02,600 --> 00:58:06,360 and then fish and eggs were the last to go. 1500 00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:08,800 And I started feeling better honestly. 1501 00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:11,160 Like my recovery was one of the things 1502 00:58:11,160 --> 00:58:12,120 that just seemed faster. 1503 00:58:12,120 --> 00:58:14,440 And because my knees were injured at the time, 1504 00:58:15,840 --> 00:58:17,240 as you've seen in the documentary, 1505 00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:18,640 I was doing this ropes. 1506 00:58:18,640 --> 00:58:21,280 So the challenge was a 50 foot, two inch shipping rope. 1507 00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:24,640 So it's looped around, it's 25 foot in each hand. 1508 00:58:24,640 --> 00:58:26,240 And you're doing the battling ropes. 1509 00:58:26,240 --> 00:58:31,240 And the most I'd ever got was eight minutes. 1510 00:58:31,440 --> 00:58:32,840 And it was a gym of like, 1511 00:58:32,840 --> 00:58:34,760 and you had to do it at a certain pace 1512 00:58:34,760 --> 00:58:36,080 and you had to keep the waves going. 1513 00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:38,160 And it was the same style of ropes. 1514 00:58:38,160 --> 00:58:39,600 It wasn't mixing them all up. 1515 00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:43,200 Yeah, it's the up and down one, the whole straight. 1516 00:58:43,200 --> 00:58:46,720 And not sprint, if you sprint that, 1517 00:58:46,720 --> 00:58:48,760 it's tough to do it for like three minutes. 1518 00:58:48,760 --> 00:58:51,640 So it was more like a jog basically than a sprint. 1519 00:58:53,160 --> 00:58:55,600 But at that pace, I'd only got eight minutes before. 1520 00:58:55,600 --> 00:58:58,160 There was a bunch of collegiate or professional athletes 1521 00:58:58,160 --> 00:59:00,720 at the UFC fighters at this gym we were training at. 1522 00:59:00,720 --> 00:59:03,320 And the most I'd ever got was eight minutes. 1523 00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:05,200 If you got 10 minutes, you got your name on the wall. 1524 00:59:05,200 --> 00:59:06,760 And there was some people that got 20 minutes. 1525 00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:10,200 And so six weeks after I was like 100% plant-based, 1526 00:59:11,400 --> 00:59:14,120 I got an hour straight and my hands were bleeding 1527 00:59:14,120 --> 00:59:17,320 actually a little bit from the blisters that opened up 1528 00:59:17,320 --> 00:59:20,280 and still felt like I could have kept going honestly. 1529 00:59:22,120 --> 00:59:23,760 Yeah, and so again, that's just anecdotal. 1530 00:59:23,760 --> 00:59:27,720 It doesn't prove anything, but it's interesting. 1531 00:59:27,720 --> 00:59:29,360 And then another thing I didn't get to mention in the film 1532 00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:33,760 is my bench press, dumbbell bench press, right? 1533 00:59:33,760 --> 00:59:38,240 In each hand, I had been stuck at 105 1534 00:59:38,240 --> 00:59:43,160 for about five reps for over two years. 1535 00:59:43,160 --> 00:59:44,560 And so for some people, they say, 1536 00:59:44,560 --> 00:59:46,360 some people laugh and go, that's nothing. 1537 00:59:46,360 --> 00:59:47,200 Like, that's pretty weak. 1538 00:59:47,200 --> 00:59:48,480 I've got a pretty small chest. 1539 00:59:48,480 --> 00:59:49,880 105 dumbbells? 1540 00:59:49,880 --> 00:59:51,560 Yeah, some people laugh and say that's nothing. 1541 00:59:51,560 --> 00:59:53,640 And then some people say, oh, that's a fair bit of weight. 1542 00:59:53,640 --> 00:59:54,840 So it depends who you are. 1543 00:59:54,840 --> 00:59:55,680 To me, that's a fair bit of weight. 1544 00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:57,800 But if you're a power lifter or something, 1545 00:59:57,800 --> 00:59:59,960 then you're like, I've literally had people call me out 1546 00:59:59,960 --> 01:00:03,080 when I've given a speech before and they're laughing. 1547 01:00:03,080 --> 01:00:06,000 So whatever, I fought at 170, it was 105. 1548 01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:06,960 I think it's decent. 1549 01:00:06,960 --> 01:00:09,040 You can see my back is much bigger than my chest. 1550 01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:10,160 I've never had a big chest. 1551 01:00:10,160 --> 01:00:11,560 Yeah, well, most strikers don't. 1552 01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:12,400 Right. 1553 01:00:12,400 --> 01:00:13,920 I mean, I remember when I started lifting, 1554 01:00:13,920 --> 01:00:15,320 even when I was out here in the States, 1555 01:00:15,320 --> 01:00:16,640 I was struggling with 85s. 1556 01:00:16,640 --> 01:00:18,320 I was younger, like in my 20s. 1557 01:00:18,320 --> 01:00:20,240 So I built up to 105s. 1558 01:00:20,240 --> 01:00:23,480 And again, within weeks of switching, 1559 01:00:23,480 --> 01:00:26,040 I went up to 115s for six reps. 1560 01:00:26,040 --> 01:00:27,800 Again, totally anecdotal. 1561 01:00:27,800 --> 01:00:30,040 Doesn't prove anything. 1562 01:00:30,040 --> 01:00:30,760 It's interesting. 1563 01:00:30,760 --> 01:00:33,280 And I think it's reflective of the science 1564 01:00:33,280 --> 01:00:34,920 that we know about nutrition. 1565 01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:36,440 Now, what about your digestive system? 1566 01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:38,160 Because that's something that I know 1567 01:00:38,160 --> 01:00:39,960 didn't really discuss in the film so much. 1568 01:00:39,960 --> 01:00:43,760 And even in Joe and Chris's discussion, 1569 01:00:43,760 --> 01:00:46,080 anecdotally for me, that was one of the biggest thing I noticed. 1570 01:00:46,080 --> 01:00:47,760 So I'm not plant-based at the moment. 1571 01:00:47,760 --> 01:00:49,720 But just like you said, I did it for a while. 1572 01:00:49,720 --> 01:00:51,760 I did a hard reset kind of thing. 1573 01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:53,080 But I was amazed. 1574 01:00:53,080 --> 01:00:56,440 Removing dairy got rid of a lifelong stomach issue. 1575 01:00:56,440 --> 01:00:59,000 I was in hospital with abdominal pains and constipation 1576 01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:00,480 and all these awful things. 1577 01:01:00,480 --> 01:01:02,440 I won't go into too much detail, but it 1578 01:01:02,440 --> 01:01:04,200 sucks to be relieved of constipation. 1579 01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:08,760 And then my dad is a vet. 1580 01:01:08,760 --> 01:01:14,600 So the entire veterinary world, the fecal matter 1581 01:01:14,600 --> 01:01:16,840 is one of the diagnostic tools. 1582 01:01:16,840 --> 01:01:19,840 And I realized that switching to plant-based, 1583 01:01:19,840 --> 01:01:21,120 everything was working better. 1584 01:01:21,120 --> 01:01:24,960 And without being too graphic, the toilet paper usage 1585 01:01:24,960 --> 01:01:26,720 went down a lot, if you know what I'm saying. 1586 01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:28,640 So what about you for that side? 1587 01:01:28,640 --> 01:01:30,280 Well, first of all, I'd mention as well 1588 01:01:30,280 --> 01:01:32,760 that some people actually have, let's 1589 01:01:32,760 --> 01:01:34,640 say they don't have a problem with dairy, 1590 01:01:34,640 --> 01:01:36,200 or they weren't doing what they had to start with. 1591 01:01:36,200 --> 01:01:37,720 If people get inspired, they suddenly 1592 01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:41,320 jump into 100% plant-based from whatever they're eating, 1593 01:01:41,320 --> 01:01:44,840 that can actually cause some distress and upset as well. 1594 01:01:44,840 --> 01:01:47,040 So I don't want to sugarcoat things and say, 1595 01:01:47,040 --> 01:01:47,560 just switch. 1596 01:01:47,560 --> 01:01:48,360 And it's all great. 1597 01:01:48,360 --> 01:01:50,200 And it's easy. 1598 01:01:50,200 --> 01:01:51,160 It's completely easy. 1599 01:01:51,160 --> 01:01:52,080 Don't worry about it. 1600 01:01:52,080 --> 01:01:54,200 Because some people will experience 1601 01:01:54,200 --> 01:01:56,560 gastrointestinal distress in early stages 1602 01:01:56,560 --> 01:01:58,360 if they jump in 100%. 1603 01:01:58,360 --> 01:02:01,560 Because you've suddenly gone from not having enough fiber 1604 01:02:01,560 --> 01:02:03,760 to plenty of fiber. 1605 01:02:03,760 --> 01:02:05,280 And if your gut's not used to it, 1606 01:02:05,280 --> 01:02:07,960 and there's certain bacteria in your gut, in the microbiome 1607 01:02:07,960 --> 01:02:11,240 that's used to breaking down certain foods, 1608 01:02:11,240 --> 01:02:12,840 in an early stage, now I'm not trying 1609 01:02:12,840 --> 01:02:14,960 to discourage people from jumping in overnight. 1610 01:02:14,960 --> 01:02:17,680 But most people generally do better working gradually. 1611 01:02:17,680 --> 01:02:19,520 So I would just point out that some people, 1612 01:02:19,520 --> 01:02:22,680 I didn't really experience that myself, probably because I sort 1613 01:02:22,680 --> 01:02:24,600 of, it was only over the space of like six weeks 1614 01:02:24,600 --> 01:02:26,980 or two months or something that I sort of transferred over 1615 01:02:26,980 --> 01:02:28,760 to 100%. 1616 01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:31,920 So I don't remember really experiencing that. 1617 01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:33,800 But I would point out that people beware. 1618 01:02:33,800 --> 01:02:35,560 If they do switch overnight, that they 1619 01:02:35,560 --> 01:02:40,520 might have some issues in the first few weeks or whatever. 1620 01:02:40,520 --> 01:02:43,000 But personally, I don't know. 1621 01:02:43,000 --> 01:02:47,280 And I think, yeah, it's probably easier going to the bathroom 1622 01:02:47,280 --> 01:02:49,040 than it was before. 1623 01:02:49,040 --> 01:02:52,520 Doesn't take as long as it did before. 1624 01:02:52,520 --> 01:02:56,240 But I don't feel like I got huge distress from drinking dairy, 1625 01:02:56,240 --> 01:02:57,480 which I'd occasionally drink. 1626 01:02:57,480 --> 01:03:00,920 I wasn't a huge milk drinker. 1627 01:03:00,920 --> 01:03:02,720 So again, I don't want to oversell it. 1628 01:03:02,720 --> 01:03:05,000 It's not like it was a cure-all for me. 1629 01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:06,880 I didn't have gut issues really before 1630 01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:09,600 that I can really recall. 1631 01:03:09,600 --> 01:03:13,440 But certainly, yeah, in terms of going to the bathroom, 1632 01:03:13,440 --> 01:03:17,280 I mean, things are just feel just regular and better. 1633 01:03:17,280 --> 01:03:19,040 Yeah, definitely. 1634 01:03:19,040 --> 01:03:21,000 What about pain, inflammation? 1635 01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:23,360 Did you see any relief on that side? 1636 01:03:23,360 --> 01:03:26,640 Yeah, I feel like recovery from workouts felt better. 1637 01:03:26,640 --> 01:03:29,040 And then people say, oh, well, did your knees heal better 1638 01:03:29,040 --> 01:03:30,840 because of the diet? 1639 01:03:30,840 --> 01:03:31,920 I don't know. 1640 01:03:31,920 --> 01:03:35,040 Because we didn't have a controlled experiment. 1641 01:03:35,040 --> 01:03:36,440 Both knees weren't. 1642 01:03:36,440 --> 01:03:38,800 Like, if you could injure one knee exactly in the same way 1643 01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:40,640 and test it and then exactly the other way 1644 01:03:40,640 --> 01:03:43,400 and control for all variables, I don't know. 1645 01:03:43,400 --> 01:03:45,320 They healed well, but it did take a long time. 1646 01:03:45,320 --> 01:03:46,880 Like, after about five or six months, 1647 01:03:46,880 --> 01:03:48,960 I tried going back and training jiu-jitsu, 1648 01:03:48,960 --> 01:03:49,960 tweaked my knee again. 1649 01:03:49,960 --> 01:03:54,080 Someone pulled it another couple months in, tweaked it again. 1650 01:03:54,080 --> 01:03:57,080 Probably tried to go back in too early. 1651 01:03:57,080 --> 01:03:57,760 So I don't know. 1652 01:03:57,760 --> 01:04:00,880 I mean, I feel like I recover better than I did before. 1653 01:04:00,880 --> 01:04:03,320 And I feel like my endurance has improved. 1654 01:04:03,320 --> 01:04:06,680 And I feel like my strength went up. 1655 01:04:06,680 --> 01:04:10,240 But again, I can't prove that that's causal based on the diet 1656 01:04:10,240 --> 01:04:12,920 or even though I think that it's backed by what 1657 01:04:12,920 --> 01:04:14,440 I know about inflammation. 1658 01:04:14,440 --> 01:04:16,560 Because that's really the key thing, right? 1659 01:04:16,560 --> 01:04:19,920 Is that animal foods tend to be inflammatory. 1660 01:04:19,920 --> 01:04:22,360 Plant foods tend to be anti-inflammatory. 1661 01:04:22,360 --> 01:04:24,520 And so inflammation is geared around blood flow. 1662 01:04:24,520 --> 01:04:26,000 So we know that inflammation in the arteries 1663 01:04:26,000 --> 01:04:28,360 slows down your blood, which means you got less oxygen, 1664 01:04:28,360 --> 01:04:31,880 less nutrients to the muscles. 1665 01:04:31,880 --> 01:04:34,120 So you don't want to have that inflammation. 1666 01:04:34,120 --> 01:04:36,320 Now, just to explain, though, because people sort of say, 1667 01:04:36,320 --> 01:04:38,120 oh, inflammation bad, no inflammation good. 1668 01:04:38,120 --> 01:04:39,120 That's not quite true. 1669 01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:42,160 So you actually need acute short-term inflammation. 1670 01:04:42,160 --> 01:04:43,800 That's part of the recovery process. 1671 01:04:43,800 --> 01:04:46,920 If you didn't have inflammation, your muscles wouldn't grow. 1672 01:04:46,920 --> 01:04:49,520 And so you do need some of that short-term inflammation. 1673 01:04:49,520 --> 01:04:51,520 But you want to get through it quickly 1674 01:04:51,520 --> 01:04:55,120 so that you can train again more efficiently. 1675 01:04:55,120 --> 01:04:56,480 And then in terms of injuries, yeah, 1676 01:04:56,480 --> 01:04:57,640 you want to get through that quicker 1677 01:04:57,640 --> 01:04:59,440 because your injury will heal quicker. 1678 01:04:59,440 --> 01:05:02,600 And so I think my anecdotal experience is backed up also 1679 01:05:02,600 --> 01:05:04,480 by the science. 1680 01:05:04,480 --> 01:05:05,040 Yeah. 1681 01:05:05,040 --> 01:05:06,640 Now, because my whole perspective, 1682 01:05:06,640 --> 01:05:08,880 and I know as we were recording this now, 1683 01:05:08,880 --> 01:05:10,600 Game Changers came out. 1684 01:05:10,600 --> 01:05:14,200 Joe Rogan, Chris Cressa did a kind of critique. 1685 01:05:14,200 --> 01:05:14,880 I love Joe. 1686 01:05:14,880 --> 01:05:16,120 I think he's got a great show. 1687 01:05:16,120 --> 01:05:18,600 He's definitely someone who inspired me. 1688 01:05:18,600 --> 01:05:20,920 In their discussion, I know you're about to go and talk 1689 01:05:20,920 --> 01:05:22,280 to those guys yourself personally. 1690 01:05:22,280 --> 01:05:24,600 But the one area they didn't discuss 1691 01:05:24,600 --> 01:05:26,720 and the one area that resonated with me the most, 1692 01:05:26,720 --> 01:05:29,480 and I had Rip Esselstyn on the show before, 1693 01:05:29,480 --> 01:05:32,600 was it was specifically firefighters, which is awesome. 1694 01:05:32,600 --> 01:05:34,800 It was actually in the Friends of Firefighters building. 1695 01:05:34,800 --> 01:05:39,200 And I've had the head of that on the show as well. 1696 01:05:39,200 --> 01:05:40,960 But it's taking the average person. 1697 01:05:40,960 --> 01:05:42,040 So we're sitting here now. 1698 01:05:42,040 --> 01:05:45,440 I'm a pseudo-athlete, a weekend war-wrecking athlete. 1699 01:05:45,440 --> 01:05:47,480 You're an elite athlete. 1700 01:05:47,480 --> 01:05:49,080 So our experience is- 1701 01:05:49,080 --> 01:05:50,840 I don't know that anymore. 1702 01:05:50,840 --> 01:05:53,840 Regardless, you are already teaching. 1703 01:05:53,840 --> 01:05:56,040 And that's what the discussion was with them as well. 1704 01:05:56,040 --> 01:05:59,880 Like these elite athletes that you have on the show. 1705 01:05:59,880 --> 01:06:03,160 To me, for this platform that I have, 1706 01:06:03,160 --> 01:06:06,280 the real impact is how can we affect 1707 01:06:06,280 --> 01:06:07,920 the majority of the population, 1708 01:06:07,920 --> 01:06:10,920 many of whom, when we look out the window, 1709 01:06:10,920 --> 01:06:15,080 are obese, have high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetic. 1710 01:06:15,080 --> 01:06:17,680 And that was a very pertinent thing 1711 01:06:17,680 --> 01:06:20,000 that Rip was showing in the film. 1712 01:06:20,000 --> 01:06:22,600 And it's also something that I've seen over and over again. 1713 01:06:22,600 --> 01:06:25,960 The Game Changers has had people in my circle 1714 01:06:25,960 --> 01:06:27,760 switch to that and they've had effects. 1715 01:06:27,760 --> 01:06:29,720 So whether it's, like you said, 1716 01:06:29,720 --> 01:06:33,400 whether it's for a couple of months or your lifetime, 1717 01:06:33,400 --> 01:06:36,800 there is no question that switching to that diet 1718 01:06:36,800 --> 01:06:38,880 where there's an emphasis on plants now, 1719 01:06:38,880 --> 01:06:41,320 putting in nutrients that probably weren't there 1720 01:06:41,320 --> 01:06:42,920 when you're having your old brown and yellow 1721 01:06:42,920 --> 01:06:46,240 plate of mac and cheese and chicken fried steak, 1722 01:06:46,240 --> 01:06:49,920 whatever it was, is a huge benefit. 1723 01:06:49,920 --> 01:06:52,960 And the details obviously can be argued in the minutiae. 1724 01:06:54,160 --> 01:06:55,800 So tell me about that portion, 1725 01:06:55,800 --> 01:06:59,520 the FDNY firemen and some of the blood work changes 1726 01:06:59,520 --> 01:07:00,800 that they saw. 1727 01:07:00,800 --> 01:07:03,120 Yeah, so I can't remember how many fighters, 1728 01:07:03,120 --> 01:07:05,320 like 40 or so firefighters. 1729 01:07:05,320 --> 01:07:07,840 And so basically, Rip Esselstyn, 1730 01:07:07,840 --> 01:07:12,200 who's a former firefighter and former professional triathlete, 1731 01:07:12,200 --> 01:07:13,040 very good swimmer. 1732 01:07:13,040 --> 01:07:15,160 In fact, he's one of the executive producers on the film. 1733 01:07:15,160 --> 01:07:17,560 He actually is the one that introduced us to James Cameron. 1734 01:07:17,560 --> 01:07:18,400 And I don't know if you know, 1735 01:07:18,400 --> 01:07:21,440 but he just broke the world record in backstroke 1736 01:07:21,440 --> 01:07:24,040 for his age group, the 200 meter backstroke, 1737 01:07:24,040 --> 01:07:25,160 just a few weeks ago. 1738 01:07:25,160 --> 01:07:27,080 And then like a couple of weeks later, 1739 01:07:27,080 --> 01:07:29,720 he's beat his own record again by a second. 1740 01:07:29,720 --> 01:07:32,760 So he's still like a phenomenal swimmer and in great shape. 1741 01:07:32,760 --> 01:07:34,480 And has been plant-based for, I don't know, 1742 01:07:34,480 --> 01:07:36,040 20 something years or whatever. 1743 01:07:36,040 --> 01:07:37,600 Because his dad's... 1744 01:07:37,600 --> 01:07:39,200 Dr. Coldwell Esselstyn. 1745 01:07:39,200 --> 01:07:40,040 Yes. 1746 01:07:40,040 --> 01:07:42,320 Right, who did the research at the Cleveland Clinic 1747 01:07:42,320 --> 01:07:45,640 and was able to reverse heart disease, 1748 01:07:46,680 --> 01:07:48,360 evidence through under angiograms, 1749 01:07:48,360 --> 01:07:50,360 seeing a reverse of plaque build up 1750 01:07:50,360 --> 01:07:51,840 and the arteries opening back up, 1751 01:07:51,840 --> 01:07:53,480 they're using a plant-based diet. 1752 01:07:53,480 --> 01:07:56,800 So where were we talking about the dairy? 1753 01:07:56,800 --> 01:07:57,640 I'm sorry, so the firefighters. 1754 01:07:57,640 --> 01:07:59,480 Oh, the dairy firefighters, yeah. 1755 01:07:59,480 --> 01:08:03,480 So basically, Rip put them on a sort of whole foods, 1756 01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:06,080 plant-based diet for one week. 1757 01:08:06,080 --> 01:08:08,160 And I can't remember the exact number, 1758 01:08:08,160 --> 01:08:09,960 but there was a drop in total cholesterol 1759 01:08:09,960 --> 01:08:13,400 of like 23 or 26 points. 1760 01:08:13,400 --> 01:08:14,800 Of course, that's not the only factor. 1761 01:08:14,800 --> 01:08:16,560 But again, for a documentary, 1762 01:08:16,560 --> 01:08:21,200 if you go into like HDL, LDL ratios and things like that, 1763 01:08:21,200 --> 01:08:23,120 and explaining like, there's not just LDL, 1764 01:08:23,120 --> 01:08:25,640 there's VLDL and there's the fluffiness of the particles. 1765 01:08:25,640 --> 01:08:28,160 And like that sort of people are gonna glaze over 1766 01:08:28,160 --> 01:08:29,600 and not a lot of people aren't gonna pick that up, 1767 01:08:29,600 --> 01:08:30,680 not because they're not smart enough, 1768 01:08:30,680 --> 01:08:33,480 but like for a documentary, you can't go into all of that. 1769 01:08:33,480 --> 01:08:36,040 So we actually did test more than was shown 1770 01:08:36,040 --> 01:08:38,480 in the documentary and there was improved blood markers 1771 01:08:38,480 --> 01:08:39,400 across the board. 1772 01:08:41,200 --> 01:08:44,680 People lost body fat and weight during that week 1773 01:08:44,680 --> 01:08:49,520 and just better blood pressure and lower LDLs, 1774 01:08:50,520 --> 01:08:52,720 better LDL HDL ratio. 1775 01:08:52,720 --> 01:08:55,040 And RIP's done this over and over again. 1776 01:08:55,040 --> 01:08:58,120 So like not just in the documentary, 1777 01:08:58,120 --> 01:09:00,400 Whole Foods, for example, the company, 1778 01:09:00,400 --> 01:09:02,560 these companies that self-insure, 1779 01:09:02,560 --> 01:09:03,960 there's a vested interest in getting 1780 01:09:03,960 --> 01:09:08,960 their employees healthier. 1781 01:09:08,960 --> 01:09:10,280 So because they self-insure, 1782 01:09:10,280 --> 01:09:13,000 instead of just like paying for heart surgery 1783 01:09:13,000 --> 01:09:15,240 and paying for a bunch of diabetes medicine, 1784 01:09:15,240 --> 01:09:16,720 they take their sickest employees 1785 01:09:16,720 --> 01:09:20,400 and they put them on a one week plant-based retreat 1786 01:09:20,400 --> 01:09:23,400 with people like RIP Hesleston and they get healthier 1787 01:09:23,400 --> 01:09:25,520 and they get off their diabetes medication often 1788 01:09:25,520 --> 01:09:26,840 and they lose body fat. 1789 01:09:26,840 --> 01:09:29,320 And if that prevents them from having heart surgery, 1790 01:09:29,320 --> 01:09:31,960 then you're saving like 150 grand right there. 1791 01:09:31,960 --> 01:09:36,040 So it's pretty interesting to see these large corporations 1792 01:09:36,040 --> 01:09:37,000 like Starbucks, for example, 1793 01:09:37,000 --> 01:09:38,480 spends more on healthcare of its employees 1794 01:09:38,480 --> 01:09:41,200 than it spends on coffee beans. 1795 01:09:41,200 --> 01:09:45,680 So it's a large expense for a big company like that. 1796 01:09:45,680 --> 01:09:47,280 So they're sort of starting to recognize 1797 01:09:47,280 --> 01:09:48,960 that plant-based eating is the way to go 1798 01:09:48,960 --> 01:09:50,640 to really help offset that. 1799 01:09:52,080 --> 01:09:54,960 But anyway, so it's been repeated again and again. 1800 01:09:54,960 --> 01:09:57,320 The cholesterol drop is somewhere in the mid-20s 1801 01:09:57,320 --> 01:10:01,080 every single time on average for every group that he's done. 1802 01:10:01,080 --> 01:10:03,440 LDL comes down and just improve blood markers. 1803 01:10:03,440 --> 01:10:05,320 Now, of course, you could say, 1804 01:10:05,320 --> 01:10:07,600 well, the whole plant food, sure, they did better on that 1805 01:10:07,600 --> 01:10:10,640 because they now weren't eating processed plant foods. 1806 01:10:10,640 --> 01:10:11,960 You could say that the benefit was from that. 1807 01:10:11,960 --> 01:10:14,520 You could say it's from incorporating more plants. 1808 01:10:14,520 --> 01:10:17,960 It could be nothing to do with cutting down the meat, right? 1809 01:10:17,960 --> 01:10:21,360 But so you can't, that experiment, 1810 01:10:21,360 --> 01:10:24,120 it's not even a real, it's not an experiment per se. 1811 01:10:25,360 --> 01:10:28,520 It's sort of one of three tests or experiments 1812 01:10:28,520 --> 01:10:29,880 that are done in the film. 1813 01:10:31,600 --> 01:10:35,400 And we're not claiming that those three things alone 1814 01:10:35,400 --> 01:10:38,160 are evidence that the plant-based diet is superior. 1815 01:10:38,160 --> 01:10:40,400 They're just sort of illustrations of what we know 1816 01:10:40,400 --> 01:10:41,800 from the science to be true. 1817 01:10:41,800 --> 01:10:44,200 And there is certainly a double benefit, right? 1818 01:10:44,200 --> 01:10:45,520 Like there's always an opportunity cost 1819 01:10:45,520 --> 01:10:46,760 of everything that you put in your mouth. 1820 01:10:46,760 --> 01:10:49,600 So if you put in a whole plant food, 1821 01:10:49,600 --> 01:10:52,320 you're then not putting in a processed, 1822 01:10:52,320 --> 01:10:55,680 that's offsetting the white sugar and flour 1823 01:10:55,680 --> 01:10:56,720 that you could be eating 1824 01:10:56,720 --> 01:10:59,320 or the bacon that you could be eating or whatever. 1825 01:10:59,320 --> 01:11:01,040 And it seems clear from the evidence 1826 01:11:01,040 --> 01:11:03,040 that the benefit is twofold. 1827 01:11:03,040 --> 01:11:07,240 It's both from incorporating that whole plant food 1828 01:11:07,240 --> 01:11:10,320 into your diet and it's from excreting 1829 01:11:10,320 --> 01:11:14,000 the animal foods and the processed plant foods as well. 1830 01:11:14,000 --> 01:11:16,040 Yeah, and that's what I see, 1831 01:11:16,040 --> 01:11:21,040 is rather than focusing on the absolute proof 1832 01:11:22,560 --> 01:11:25,440 of which categorically is the reason for this, 1833 01:11:25,440 --> 01:11:28,560 it's like taking a step back from a layman like I am 1834 01:11:28,560 --> 01:11:30,480 and saying, but it's working. 1835 01:11:30,480 --> 01:11:32,280 Whatever, it doesn't need to be explained. 1836 01:11:32,280 --> 01:11:35,000 We're taking out processed food, we're putting in good, 1837 01:11:35,000 --> 01:11:37,600 they've got this rainbow of colors on their plate, 1838 01:11:37,600 --> 01:11:39,920 they've got this rainbow of colors on their plate, 1839 01:11:39,920 --> 01:11:43,000 they're getting way more nutrients than they ever did before. 1840 01:11:43,000 --> 01:11:45,200 And then what I found on my personal journey 1841 01:11:45,200 --> 01:11:47,680 was when I started factoring meat back in, 1842 01:11:47,680 --> 01:11:50,360 it had totally recalibrated my view of meat. 1843 01:11:50,360 --> 01:11:52,840 So now the quantity changed, 1844 01:11:52,840 --> 01:11:55,760 I'm not gonna have three meals a day of meat. 1845 01:11:55,760 --> 01:11:58,760 And if I do eat meat, it's gonna be a clean, grass-fed. 1846 01:11:58,760 --> 01:12:02,560 Ideally even some sort of ethical raising to it as well, 1847 01:12:02,560 --> 01:12:04,040 like really delving in, 1848 01:12:04,040 --> 01:12:05,880 taking that money that you had, 1849 01:12:05,880 --> 01:12:07,360 that you were spending on those three meals 1850 01:12:07,360 --> 01:12:09,640 and saying, all right, this is maybe a little bit more, 1851 01:12:09,640 --> 01:12:12,960 about where I shop now, it really isn't even that much more. 1852 01:12:12,960 --> 01:12:14,440 And then voting with your dollar. 1853 01:12:14,440 --> 01:12:16,520 Because if we keep buying the processed food, 1854 01:12:16,520 --> 01:12:18,640 we keep telling those companies, this is the demand, 1855 01:12:18,640 --> 01:12:20,240 keep sending us the shit. 1856 01:12:20,240 --> 01:12:22,520 Instead of saying, well, here's the money, 1857 01:12:22,520 --> 01:12:24,480 let's start in areas that you can, 1858 01:12:24,480 --> 01:12:27,840 let's promote local farmers to start growing local produce. 1859 01:12:27,840 --> 01:12:30,720 It doesn't have to be trucked 2,500 miles 1860 01:12:30,720 --> 01:12:31,720 across the country. 1861 01:12:31,720 --> 01:12:35,160 And let's encourage, if you do do the meat side, 1862 01:12:35,160 --> 01:12:39,400 well, let's encourage the polyface farms of the world. 1863 01:12:39,400 --> 01:12:43,360 Let's get the Joel Salatans to holistically raise the meat 1864 01:12:43,360 --> 01:12:44,840 if you're gonna do it that way. 1865 01:12:44,840 --> 01:12:49,320 So to me, if we spend time arguing about which is right, 1866 01:12:49,320 --> 01:12:50,920 which is wrong, we're missing the middle ground 1867 01:12:50,920 --> 01:12:54,080 where we've got a very sick nation overall. 1868 01:12:54,080 --> 01:12:56,080 And through just what you said, 1869 01:12:56,080 --> 01:12:57,640 introducing a lot more plant-based, 1870 01:12:57,640 --> 01:13:00,160 whether it's 100%, whether it's for a certain amount, 1871 01:13:00,160 --> 01:13:03,440 whether it's a tiny bit of meat, fish, eggs, whatever, 1872 01:13:03,440 --> 01:13:06,360 it's a win-win, you cannot fail. 1873 01:13:06,360 --> 01:13:08,320 I mean, that's what we're trying to get across 1874 01:13:08,320 --> 01:13:10,560 is like, we're not saying go vegan or go vegetarian, 1875 01:13:10,560 --> 01:13:13,360 but we do think that, I mean, I personally think 1876 01:13:13,360 --> 01:13:14,440 that there's strong enough evidence 1877 01:13:14,440 --> 01:13:15,880 to go 100% plant-based, right? 1878 01:13:15,880 --> 01:13:17,240 But what we're really saying to people is, 1879 01:13:17,240 --> 01:13:18,240 you should be really getting, 1880 01:13:18,240 --> 01:13:19,640 if you wanna be as healthy as possible 1881 01:13:19,640 --> 01:13:20,640 and perform as well as possible, 1882 01:13:20,640 --> 01:13:22,520 try and get the vast majority of your calories 1883 01:13:22,520 --> 01:13:23,680 from whole plant foods. 1884 01:13:23,680 --> 01:13:25,080 And then what those remaining things are, 1885 01:13:25,080 --> 01:13:28,840 like it's harder to prove the 95 to 100% plants 1886 01:13:28,840 --> 01:13:32,480 than it is to prove the 95% plants to the 50% plants, right? 1887 01:13:32,480 --> 01:13:34,960 And so, and the thing about plant-based diets, 1888 01:13:34,960 --> 01:13:36,280 you know, people think that the paleo diet 1889 01:13:36,280 --> 01:13:39,560 is the opposite of the whole foods vegan diet, it's not. 1890 01:13:39,560 --> 01:13:42,480 In fact, the longest study where they had a two-year follow-up 1891 01:13:42,480 --> 01:13:45,200 on the paleo diet, so they were taught, 1892 01:13:45,200 --> 01:13:49,560 the people in the trial were told to give up dairy, right? 1893 01:13:49,560 --> 01:13:51,720 They were told to eliminate or complete, you know, 1894 01:13:51,720 --> 01:13:54,000 as much as possible processed foods, 1895 01:13:54,000 --> 01:13:57,240 white sugar, flour, white bread, you know, this type of stuff. 1896 01:13:57,240 --> 01:13:59,560 They were told to increase their meat consumption, 1897 01:13:59,560 --> 01:14:02,480 and they were told to increase their fruits and vegetables 1898 01:14:02,480 --> 01:14:06,240 and, you know, berries and all this type of stuff, right? 1899 01:14:06,240 --> 01:14:08,760 So what actually happened on the two-year follow-up 1900 01:14:08,760 --> 01:14:10,920 is that they followed all of the recommendations 1901 01:14:10,920 --> 01:14:14,160 except for they did not increase their meat intake. 1902 01:14:14,160 --> 01:14:18,000 So to me, you just cut out dairy and animal food, 1903 01:14:18,000 --> 01:14:20,760 you just cut out processed foods, 1904 01:14:20,760 --> 01:14:23,200 which most people can agree are bad, 1905 01:14:23,200 --> 01:14:25,080 and then you increased your plant consumption 1906 01:14:25,080 --> 01:14:26,840 of fruits and vegetables, 1907 01:14:26,840 --> 01:14:28,880 but you didn't increase your meat consumption. 1908 01:14:28,880 --> 01:14:32,080 To me, that is moving from like a standard Western diet 1909 01:14:32,080 --> 01:14:33,640 to a more plant-based diet. 1910 01:14:33,640 --> 01:14:35,600 You're including more plant-based foods in there. 1911 01:14:35,600 --> 01:14:37,720 So I think that's one of the important things. 1912 01:14:37,720 --> 01:14:40,000 So if you want to include, you know, a bit of meat 1913 01:14:40,000 --> 01:14:43,080 or a bit of fish, a bit of eggs in your diet, 1914 01:14:43,080 --> 01:14:44,360 that's one thing. 1915 01:14:44,360 --> 01:14:47,680 Again, you know, I think the science is strong enough 1916 01:14:47,680 --> 01:14:49,200 to say that there's the opportunity cost 1917 01:14:49,200 --> 01:14:51,360 where you could have had more plant foods. 1918 01:14:51,360 --> 01:14:56,120 And again, some people will get inspired to go vegan, 1919 01:14:56,120 --> 01:14:58,840 and they'll take the meat off their plate, 1920 01:14:58,840 --> 01:15:01,000 and then maybe they're not replacing it with, 1921 01:15:01,000 --> 01:15:02,680 they just take the meat off and they just eat what's left. 1922 01:15:02,680 --> 01:15:04,120 Maybe they throw in more vegetables. 1923 01:15:04,120 --> 01:15:06,240 While you could be calorically deficient, 1924 01:15:06,240 --> 01:15:10,880 because vegetables are very low caloric density, 1925 01:15:10,880 --> 01:15:12,280 and so perhaps you weren't replacing it 1926 01:15:12,280 --> 01:15:14,000 with the best things. 1927 01:15:14,000 --> 01:15:16,280 There's certainly certain nutrients in animal foods 1928 01:15:16,280 --> 01:15:17,960 that you can get easily, so you could argue, 1929 01:15:17,960 --> 01:15:19,400 well, I could just eat a bit of meat, 1930 01:15:19,400 --> 01:15:21,200 then I can get it easier here. 1931 01:15:21,200 --> 01:15:23,720 But with a bit of forethought and planning, 1932 01:15:23,720 --> 01:15:25,800 you can really make it quite simple 1933 01:15:25,800 --> 01:15:28,440 to get all of the nutrients you need on a plant-based diet. 1934 01:15:28,440 --> 01:15:31,400 And of course, there are things like B12 1935 01:15:31,400 --> 01:15:34,040 that people should be supplementing. 1936 01:15:34,040 --> 01:15:36,680 But again, it's not about what I think, 1937 01:15:36,680 --> 01:15:40,480 in my interpretation of the evidence, 1938 01:15:40,480 --> 01:15:42,120 thinking that it's best to get 100% 1939 01:15:42,120 --> 01:15:43,040 of your calories from plants, 1940 01:15:43,040 --> 01:15:46,920 but certainly getting the vast majority 1941 01:15:46,920 --> 01:15:48,640 of your calories from whole plant foods 1942 01:15:48,640 --> 01:15:51,240 is basically scientific consensus. 1943 01:15:51,240 --> 01:15:53,440 Yeah, and what I've observed as well, 1944 01:15:53,440 --> 01:15:55,640 I think for me, if I know someone 1945 01:15:55,640 --> 01:15:58,040 who's really struggling physically, 1946 01:15:58,040 --> 01:16:00,840 I think a plant-based is a great baseline. 1947 01:16:00,840 --> 01:16:02,360 For many reasons, firstly, 1948 01:16:02,360 --> 01:16:06,400 they were discussing the vegan honeymoon. 1949 01:16:06,400 --> 01:16:07,520 I think that's what a lot of people find. 1950 01:16:07,520 --> 01:16:10,160 So initially, you're gonna feel great regardless, 1951 01:16:10,160 --> 01:16:12,560 whether you introduce meat or you don't. 1952 01:16:12,560 --> 01:16:14,120 You're gonna learn how to cook. 1953 01:16:14,120 --> 01:16:16,200 Huge thing in this country at the moment. 1954 01:16:16,200 --> 01:16:18,520 You're gonna understand what other fruits and vegetables 1955 01:16:18,520 --> 01:16:20,640 actually look like, how to prepare them. 1956 01:16:20,640 --> 01:16:22,680 So again, if you start pulling things back in, 1957 01:16:22,680 --> 01:16:26,680 it's less likely to be from a process thing. 1958 01:16:26,680 --> 01:16:31,080 But again, I don't see any negative side, 1959 01:16:31,080 --> 01:16:35,880 but you get these people from inflamed and chronically sick. 1960 01:16:35,880 --> 01:16:37,720 You get the blood sugar back where it needs to be. 1961 01:16:37,720 --> 01:16:40,280 You get their blood markers back. 1962 01:16:40,280 --> 01:16:42,280 You get the inflammatory markers down. 1963 01:16:42,280 --> 01:16:45,080 Through doing this, which again, like you said, 1964 01:16:45,080 --> 01:16:47,520 removing all the nasty stuff that they're eating, 1965 01:16:47,520 --> 01:16:51,840 then whatever that morphs into, if meat comes back in, 1966 01:16:51,840 --> 01:16:54,800 whatever it ends, you've set this baseline now 1967 01:16:54,800 --> 01:16:57,280 of a good nutritious plate of food 1968 01:16:57,280 --> 01:16:59,160 and understanding of preparation 1969 01:16:59,160 --> 01:17:01,840 and hopefully an understanding of the source. 1970 01:17:01,840 --> 01:17:04,080 Because one of the things, especially being a fireman, 1971 01:17:04,080 --> 01:17:06,680 we have hazmat teams on our department. 1972 01:17:06,680 --> 01:17:09,360 Watching a person in a hazmat suit 1973 01:17:09,360 --> 01:17:13,640 spraying our food with chemicals and that being okay 1974 01:17:13,640 --> 01:17:16,280 is fucking insanity to me. 1975 01:17:16,280 --> 01:17:18,080 Oh, you just soak it for an hour and then it'll be fine. 1976 01:17:18,080 --> 01:17:20,640 No, it's in every cell of the house. 1977 01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:25,080 Yeah, people think that the pesticides and stuff are just from contact. 1978 01:17:25,080 --> 01:17:28,600 They don't realize that most of the pesticides actually are systemic. 1979 01:17:28,600 --> 01:17:31,400 So they go into the soil and they're taken up by the roots and they're inside. 1980 01:17:31,400 --> 01:17:35,400 So people think, oh, a banana must be saved because it's got this thick skin. 1981 01:17:35,400 --> 01:17:39,360 They don't realize that it's gone up through the root system into the food itself. 1982 01:17:39,360 --> 01:17:42,320 Yeah. And what I was interesting, I know with Joe and Chris, 1983 01:17:42,320 --> 01:17:44,680 we were discussing it and they're talking about 1984 01:17:44,680 --> 01:17:48,040 the number of creatures that were killed growing, 1985 01:17:48,040 --> 01:17:49,920 but he did reference the pesticides and everything. 1986 01:17:49,920 --> 01:17:51,360 And I agree 100%. 1987 01:17:51,360 --> 01:17:54,480 I don't think that mono farming is healthy at all. 1988 01:17:54,480 --> 01:17:58,240 And it shouldn't be organophosphates and all these pesticides and things. 1989 01:17:58,240 --> 01:18:05,000 But if we go back to a holistic organic model again, 1990 01:18:05,000 --> 01:18:11,000 then I think it would be interesting to see the study of now the impact, even ethically. 1991 01:18:11,000 --> 01:18:13,080 And I'm not someone that's going to say, 1992 01:18:13,080 --> 01:18:16,320 I'm never going to kill an animal because I see that other side of it. 1993 01:18:16,320 --> 01:18:19,200 But you could definitely reduce it. 1994 01:18:19,200 --> 01:18:21,720 And then even with the meat consumption, 1995 01:18:21,720 --> 01:18:23,680 and I know that a lot of the hunting community, 1996 01:18:23,680 --> 01:18:27,280 they kill one deer and it lasts some months and months and months. 1997 01:18:27,280 --> 01:18:32,720 Whereas most consumers, three meals a day of a plate full of meat, 1998 01:18:32,720 --> 01:18:35,360 if you just took two of those meals out, 1999 01:18:35,360 --> 01:18:37,280 environmentally you'd have an impact. 2000 01:18:37,280 --> 01:18:40,320 If you then demanded holistic raised meat, 2001 01:18:40,320 --> 01:18:42,040 environmentally you'd have an impact. 2002 01:18:42,040 --> 01:18:43,920 If you demanded organic food, 2003 01:18:43,920 --> 01:18:47,040 fruit and vegetables and beans and legumes, 2004 01:18:47,040 --> 01:18:49,520 environmentally you'd have an impact. 2005 01:18:49,520 --> 01:18:53,400 So we can again vote with our dollar to force this nightmare 2006 01:18:53,400 --> 01:18:58,720 that our food has become this industrialization to go back to local farms. 2007 01:18:58,720 --> 01:19:00,360 And if you're in bigger cities, 2008 01:19:00,360 --> 01:19:02,840 then of course you can't grow it in the middle of New York City. 2009 01:19:02,840 --> 01:19:08,240 But New York State has so much arable land further out in New Jersey, 2010 01:19:08,240 --> 01:19:14,480 then we just help the LA's and the large cities of the world by one or two states over. 2011 01:19:14,480 --> 01:19:21,280 But we found ourselves in this bizarre Terminator 2 style environment, 2012 01:19:21,280 --> 01:19:22,440 but with our food. 2013 01:19:22,440 --> 01:19:23,160 Yeah, totally. 2014 01:19:23,160 --> 01:19:27,120 I mean, it's not black and white where if you eat all plants, 2015 01:19:27,120 --> 01:19:28,120 there's no animal deaths. 2016 01:19:28,120 --> 01:19:29,880 And if you eat just... 2017 01:19:29,880 --> 01:19:33,080 I think what you have to compare, though, is apples for apples. 2018 01:19:33,080 --> 01:19:37,920 So what sort of Joe will typically do is he'll take the best possible scenario 2019 01:19:37,920 --> 01:19:44,120 of hunting wild deer, which is not sustainable for the whole population. 2020 01:19:44,120 --> 01:19:46,200 And in a way, it's a little bit elitist, right? 2021 01:19:46,200 --> 01:19:49,960 Because Joe can afford to fly to Montana or wherever he does, 2022 01:19:49,960 --> 01:19:52,520 take a week off and go hunting. 2023 01:19:52,520 --> 01:19:55,040 And there's certainly people that live in rural communities that can do that. 2024 01:19:55,040 --> 01:19:58,680 But for people that live in LA, it's just not like a realistic scenario. 2025 01:19:58,680 --> 01:20:05,880 And also this sort of argument that there's more deaths of animals when there's wheat. 2026 01:20:05,880 --> 01:20:09,400 I mean, where are the majority of wheat and soy and everything? 2027 01:20:09,400 --> 01:20:09,880 Where is that? 2028 01:20:09,880 --> 01:20:13,160 In a realistic system, where is that being fed to? 2029 01:20:13,160 --> 01:20:17,920 95% of the soy crops that are grown in the Amazon are fed to livestock. 2030 01:20:17,920 --> 01:20:20,520 So those fires that are being illegally created now, 2031 01:20:20,520 --> 01:20:25,680 those are being laid down for both to grow crops for those animals and to let them pasture. 2032 01:20:25,680 --> 01:20:28,440 And also, there's been a lot of twisting of the facts. 2033 01:20:28,440 --> 01:20:35,000 So that main animal study came from a single acre in a 2003 study, 2034 01:20:35,000 --> 01:20:40,160 which said that there was 33 deaths of mice in a single crop area. 2035 01:20:40,160 --> 01:20:43,000 32 of those were actually found to be killed by predators. 2036 01:20:43,000 --> 01:20:44,840 Only one by the combine harvester. 2037 01:20:44,840 --> 01:20:52,320 And the fault with that study is that there was an assumption when they said that vegans kill more animals than, say, grass-fed beef. 2038 01:20:52,320 --> 01:21:01,120 There was an assumption that vegans and omnivores use the same amount of land as each other to grow the total amount of food. 2039 01:21:01,120 --> 01:21:02,280 And that's erroneous. 2040 01:21:02,280 --> 01:21:09,400 So when that study, there have been environmental scientists that have now reviewed that study and said, wait a minute. 2041 01:21:09,400 --> 01:21:18,680 And if you take the data from that study and take into account the amount of land that's used by a vegan versus an omnivore, 2042 01:21:18,680 --> 01:21:22,840 there are still far less deaths created by the vegans. 2043 01:21:22,840 --> 01:21:25,160 So there's a little bit of twisting, right? 2044 01:21:25,160 --> 01:21:27,920 Because people like to pick their things based on their bias. 2045 01:21:27,920 --> 01:21:34,040 And so, yeah, I mean, I think if you go in and we know about wild meat, not just in terms of the environment and animal deaths, 2046 01:21:34,040 --> 01:21:35,960 we know that wild-caught meat is healthier. 2047 01:21:35,960 --> 01:21:41,040 So the best, there's not really studies that I know of that have been done on elk. 2048 01:21:41,040 --> 01:21:47,120 But if you take in Australia, their sort of equivalent would be wild-caught kangaroo meat. 2049 01:21:47,120 --> 01:21:51,360 So that has actually been tested for the inflammatory markers. 2050 01:21:51,360 --> 01:21:57,760 They used both CRP, which is C-reactive protein, something called IL-6 and something called TNF-alpha. 2051 01:21:57,760 --> 01:22:00,840 And these are markers in the blood which are representative of inflammation. 2052 01:22:00,840 --> 01:22:12,400 So they tested sort of traditionally grown meat, factory farm type stuff, with the inflammation of these kangaroo meat that was wild-caught. 2053 01:22:12,400 --> 01:22:18,480 And certainly it showed there was about half the inflammation from these markers across each marker as there was from the meat. 2054 01:22:18,480 --> 01:22:22,640 So it was still inflammatory, but it wasn't as inflammatory. 2055 01:22:22,640 --> 01:22:25,600 And again, potentially better for the environment. 2056 01:22:25,600 --> 01:22:28,080 Certainly, I think there's an argument for that wild-caught. 2057 01:22:28,080 --> 01:22:33,320 I think it's questionable when we talk about grass-fed beef and grass-finished beef, 2058 01:22:33,320 --> 01:22:35,400 because a lot of cows are grass-fed anyway. 2059 01:22:35,400 --> 01:22:39,200 They're finished on grain. 2060 01:22:39,200 --> 01:22:45,200 But certainly, I think if you're going to choose some meat, I think going out and hunting some elk, 2061 01:22:45,200 --> 01:22:52,560 so long as you're not shooting it with lead bullets, by the way, because there's been implications of the lead in the meat and that sort of spreading throughout the meat. 2062 01:22:52,560 --> 01:22:56,120 So you're probably better shooting it without lead bullets. 2063 01:22:56,120 --> 01:23:03,720 It's probably going to be better to have small amounts of that than having factory farmed or even grass-fed beef. 2064 01:23:03,720 --> 01:23:10,600 Yeah. And that whole discussion to me, it kind of reminds me of the global warming discussion. 2065 01:23:10,600 --> 01:23:16,160 Like you got everyone who's for it, not for global warming, arguing that it's a thing. 2066 01:23:16,160 --> 01:23:19,400 And then the anti-community. 2067 01:23:19,400 --> 01:23:27,400 And I just remember standing in LA going, why are you two groups of ding-dongs are ready to kill each other over this? 2068 01:23:27,400 --> 01:23:31,080 I can't even see that mountain that's 50 feet away because of the smog. 2069 01:23:31,080 --> 01:23:33,080 So why don't we just focus on that instead? 2070 01:23:33,080 --> 01:23:37,880 The byproduct is probably going to be if global warming is a thing, we're going to improve it anyway. 2071 01:23:37,880 --> 01:23:40,000 But start with the things that you can see. 2072 01:23:40,000 --> 01:23:43,600 And the same thing with what we're talking about. 2073 01:23:43,600 --> 01:23:48,120 While we're arguing about veganism versus carnivorism, 2074 01:23:48,120 --> 01:23:51,520 the middle ground is can we please stop spraying our crops with pesticides? 2075 01:23:51,520 --> 01:23:58,760 Can we stop keeping our animals in these horrific factories and feeding them antibiotics because they're basically about to die? 2076 01:23:58,760 --> 01:24:01,320 And these chickens, their breasts are so big, they're breaking their legs. 2077 01:24:01,320 --> 01:24:03,880 And like, can we start there? 2078 01:24:03,880 --> 01:24:05,160 Then we can work out, you know? 2079 01:24:05,160 --> 01:24:07,520 And that's the thing. To me, it's almost a distraction. 2080 01:24:07,520 --> 01:24:16,560 I think these middle corporations are loving the fact that there's this back and forth because the middle ground is, you know, 2081 01:24:16,560 --> 01:24:20,040 is where most people are going to connect with, right or wrong on the outside carnivore. 2082 01:24:20,040 --> 01:24:21,400 That's where most people are going to connect with. 2083 01:24:21,400 --> 01:24:28,280 And right now we have a very unhealthy society, an absolute dependency on these chronic disease meds. 2084 01:24:28,280 --> 01:24:34,440 And as a paramedic, firefighter paramedic, the number of people that I've lost in a cardiac arrest, 2085 01:24:34,440 --> 01:24:36,480 I had a sack full of these meds. 2086 01:24:36,480 --> 01:24:41,920 I mean, we're talking tens of thousands of dollars in this bag that we're told this will fix this, this will fix that. 2087 01:24:41,920 --> 01:24:48,480 When the reality is exactly what you, you know, where you and Joe and Chris agree, which is however it's done, 2088 01:24:48,480 --> 01:24:55,640 changing what goes in these people's mouths as a, you know, the majority of it is the key, you know? 2089 01:24:55,640 --> 01:25:00,160 And that's what really frustrates me is both sides are right. 2090 01:25:00,160 --> 01:25:04,800 You know, both sides are thriving. Both sides are saying, look at me, this is working for me. 2091 01:25:04,800 --> 01:25:11,840 But, you know, instead of the information being immersive where, you know, they're listening to you, listening to them, 2092 01:25:11,840 --> 01:25:17,440 it's turned into this, you know, frickin Trump versus Clinton battleground. 2093 01:25:17,440 --> 01:25:20,960 And in the meantime, everyone's so distracted that they're still eating the shit. 2094 01:25:20,960 --> 01:25:24,120 And, you know, like game changers, for example, oh, I just heard that was bullshit. 2095 01:25:24,120 --> 01:25:26,560 I'm going to go back to McDonald's and get my burgers again. 2096 01:25:26,560 --> 01:25:32,240 Instead of as an interesting view, you know, person X, whether I agree with it or disagree, 2097 01:25:32,240 --> 01:25:38,640 it's definitely inspired me to look at my plate and go, OK, there's definitely some shit on here that I need to remove. 2098 01:25:38,640 --> 01:25:41,120 Right. Yeah, totally. 2099 01:25:41,120 --> 01:25:43,440 And the good thing is that's the thing about a documentary. 2100 01:25:43,440 --> 01:25:46,400 Don't just buy into whatever a documentary says. 2101 01:25:46,400 --> 01:25:47,920 Like look into yourself a little bit. 2102 01:25:47,920 --> 01:25:51,040 Research your own experience. Absorb what is useful. Reject what is useless. 2103 01:25:51,040 --> 01:25:53,480 Add what is specifically your own, as Bruce Lee would say. 2104 01:25:53,480 --> 01:25:56,720 And that for me was like, you know, I was originally on this search for truth in combat. 2105 01:25:56,720 --> 01:25:59,640 And I felt like I went for this search for truth in nutrition. 2106 01:25:59,640 --> 01:26:03,800 And I feel like I'm like a fairly smart guy that's like trying to be objective. 2107 01:26:03,800 --> 01:26:08,480 Of course, there's always like some biases and perhaps you believe in certain narratives or whatever. 2108 01:26:08,480 --> 01:26:11,920 But people should sort of it's tricky with nutrition, right? 2109 01:26:11,920 --> 01:26:21,200 Because people don't have the time and they don't have the necessary experience or the wherewithal and know how to read these scientific studies. 2110 01:26:21,200 --> 01:26:27,040 And there's so many and there's so much conflicting data that I do think it is tricky to know what to eat. 2111 01:26:27,040 --> 01:26:32,760 But I think, yeah, I think the issue with, you know, the factory farming and all this sort of stuff, 2112 01:26:32,760 --> 01:26:41,560 which I think most people would agree is not the right way to go, but is that people like want the most amount of food and the tastiest food for the cheapest amount. 2113 01:26:41,560 --> 01:26:50,560 So I think it's going to be hard to get away from that model because people just don't want to spend the extra money to pay for higher quality food. 2114 01:26:50,560 --> 01:26:52,720 You see, but it's interesting because you guys are in L.A. 2115 01:26:52,720 --> 01:26:57,600 So you don't have that arable land around you, but where I am in Florida, for example, 2116 01:26:57,600 --> 01:27:00,040 and most of America is pretty rich farmland. 2117 01:27:00,040 --> 01:27:09,760 If you look at it, I can go to my farmer's market and buy fruit and vegetables cheaper than the non-organic stuff in the grocery store. 2118 01:27:09,760 --> 01:27:13,480 Yeah, there are cattle farms around us. 2119 01:27:13,480 --> 01:27:20,160 There's a place called Earth Fair that has a great meat section if you're a meat eater, but it is it's grass fed, grass finished. 2120 01:27:20,160 --> 01:27:21,480 And it's really not that much different. 2121 01:27:21,480 --> 01:27:27,440 So I think there's also a fallacy of it being more expensive if you're in Newport Beach at Whole Foods. 2122 01:27:27,440 --> 01:27:36,000 I'm sure it's going to cost a lot more, you know, but, you know, if it's supply and demand, if everyone ends up demanding to have that kind of food, that's going to bring the price down. 2123 01:27:36,000 --> 01:27:44,400 Yeah, totally. I think I heard I can't remember what the guy's name was, but he was like the main purchaser for food for all of Walmart. 2124 01:27:44,400 --> 01:27:50,920 And he was saying it was like around 15 percent, 10 or 15 percent, when 10 or 15 percent of people were buying a certain like if they 2125 01:27:50,920 --> 01:27:58,840 10 or 15 percent bought organic fruits and vegetables all the time, it would basically bring the cost down nearly to the same as conventional. 2126 01:27:58,840 --> 01:28:00,840 I don't know if that's true, but that's what I heard. 2127 01:28:00,840 --> 01:28:02,960 So it'd be interesting to see. 2128 01:28:02,960 --> 01:28:05,240 And hopefully it does shift in that direction. 2129 01:28:05,240 --> 01:28:11,480 Yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to get some closing questions because I know I'm going to let you go. 2130 01:28:11,480 --> 01:28:18,160 So before we talk about where everyone get the film, actually, this is one more thing, because this is another area I want to discuss. 2131 01:28:18,160 --> 01:28:24,440 I know they talked about it on on their analysis, but the erections. 2132 01:28:24,440 --> 01:28:27,200 OK, so in the movie, you know, they do that experiment. 2133 01:28:27,200 --> 01:28:29,560 They do the meat versus plant based. 2134 01:28:29,560 --> 01:28:37,200 They find that there's longer and stronger erections for these men that they use. 2135 01:28:37,200 --> 01:28:38,440 What is the long term? 2136 01:28:38,440 --> 01:28:42,000 Because I'll interject with kind of my my understanding of some stuff in a moment. 2137 01:28:42,000 --> 01:28:45,760 But that was a one day kind of observation, a two day observation. 2138 01:28:45,760 --> 01:28:54,640 Talking to Dr. Spitz, what's his kind of data on longer term, like overall sexual health with people that have moved to the plant base? 2139 01:28:54,640 --> 01:28:59,880 Yeah. And so the penis is considered by urologists to be the barometer for men's health. 2140 01:28:59,880 --> 01:29:03,240 Like if you get erectile dysfunction, it's considered the canary in the coal mine. 2141 01:29:03,240 --> 01:29:06,800 So arterial disease anywhere is arterial disease everywhere. 2142 01:29:06,800 --> 01:29:09,280 It is manifest and you just call them different diseases. 2143 01:29:09,280 --> 01:29:11,840 But the arteries that go to the penis is on the smallest in the body. 2144 01:29:11,840 --> 01:29:14,960 And that's why we asked Dr. Spitz if he thought there'd be an impact. 2145 01:29:14,960 --> 01:29:21,720 So the work on animal based heavy animal based meals and arterial function has been done for over 20 years. 2146 01:29:21,720 --> 01:29:24,360 That's that's pretty well known in the scientific literature. 2147 01:29:24,360 --> 01:29:28,440 And so we thought it'd be interesting to ask him. 2148 01:29:28,440 --> 01:29:29,520 And he was taking a step back. 2149 01:29:29,520 --> 01:29:32,840 People say, oh, we showed, you know, cloudy blood. 2150 01:29:32,840 --> 01:29:37,720 That's hypertriglyceride. 2151 01:29:37,720 --> 01:29:43,400 I think it's called. I can't remember the basically having lots of fat in the blood, you know, animal saturated fat especially. 2152 01:29:43,400 --> 01:29:47,680 And so it's called postprandial lipemia, which means fat in the blood. 2153 01:29:47,680 --> 01:29:50,320 And there's lactescence, which means the milkiness of the blood. 2154 01:29:50,320 --> 01:29:58,360 And of course, we only showed that in Dr. Robert Vogel, who's the co-chair of the cardiovascular committee for the NFL, basically said something about this impairs your blood flow. 2155 01:29:58,360 --> 01:30:04,400 But we didn't go much further. If you actually look at the experiments that have been done in the past. 2156 01:30:04,400 --> 01:30:11,840 In alignment with the milkiness of the blood is actually up to 50 percent reduced endothelial function. 2157 01:30:11,840 --> 01:30:16,800 You can actually like under ultrasound, you can look at the size of the arteries and opening up. 2158 01:30:16,800 --> 01:30:23,600 So the endothelium is the lining of the arteries, which produces nitric oxide and also something called prostaglandin, which are vasodilators. 2159 01:30:23,600 --> 01:30:29,440 They allow the arteries to open up more oxygen, more nutrients to go to the muscles and other organs. 2160 01:30:29,440 --> 01:30:33,240 So it's not just that the fat looks cloud, the blood looks cloudy in the serum. 2161 01:30:33,240 --> 01:30:37,080 It's that there's actually a knock on effect for that. And it lasts six to eight hours. 2162 01:30:37,080 --> 01:30:44,240 So anyway, we wanted to see if this would have an impact on an erectile function. And Dr. Spitz says, well, it's never been done. 2163 01:30:44,240 --> 01:30:50,040 But there is a device called the RIDGISCAN that you can it's a penile plasmograph. 2164 01:30:50,040 --> 01:30:55,680 The RIDGISCAN is the brand name. And you can test circumference and rigidity and duration of erection. 2165 01:30:55,680 --> 01:31:05,560 So, OK, let's try it. So, again, as Dr. Spitz points out in the film, this is not a scientifically validated experiment. 2166 01:31:05,560 --> 01:31:08,640 Now, as filmmakers, we could have cut him out, cut that bit out. 2167 01:31:08,640 --> 01:31:12,040 But we wanted to be honest and open, which is what we tried to do throughout the whole film. 2168 01:31:12,040 --> 01:31:18,720 We always made sure that the science was anything that we reference was reflective as the preponderance of evidence. 2169 01:31:18,720 --> 01:31:21,920 Right. You can always check some, you know, pick some study saying anything. 2170 01:31:21,920 --> 01:31:25,360 But we wanted to make sure that it was reflective of the preponderance of evidence. 2171 01:31:25,360 --> 01:31:31,040 So we know that a heavy animal based meal will impair arterial function for up to six to eight hours. 2172 01:31:31,040 --> 01:31:34,480 We know that the arteries are some of the smallest in the body going to the penis. 2173 01:31:34,480 --> 01:31:39,280 So it's likely that it would show up there more than it would show up elsewhere. 2174 01:31:39,280 --> 01:31:45,800 Studies have been done on fiber intake, which is a surrogate marker for plants. 2175 01:31:45,800 --> 01:31:49,120 Right. Because fiber comes from plants and erectile dysfunction. 2176 01:31:49,120 --> 01:31:54,200 People with less fiber have more. So basically, people eating less plants have more erectile dysfunction. 2177 01:31:54,200 --> 01:31:57,840 And people eating more plants have more erectile dysfunction. 2178 01:31:57,840 --> 01:32:04,280 And I think, you know, my understanding is that Dr. Spitz recommends that his patients eat about a 95 percent plant based diet. 2179 01:32:04,280 --> 01:32:09,960 Unless they have prostate cancer, in which he recommends they have a 100 percent plant based diet. 2180 01:32:09,960 --> 01:32:13,320 Just to be safe, like the precautionary principle. 2181 01:32:13,320 --> 01:32:15,880 And so it's not just about erectile dysfunction. 2182 01:32:15,880 --> 01:32:20,520 It's also about prostate cancer and just men's health in general. 2183 01:32:20,520 --> 01:32:33,640 But yeah, there needs to be, and there actually are some studies underway to see if the thing that we did in the film plays out with the larger subsets and under, you know, tighter controls and that sort of thing. 2184 01:32:33,640 --> 01:32:36,680 I mean, on the Joe Rogan podcast, I haven't watched all of it yet, by the way. 2185 01:32:36,680 --> 01:32:43,200 But he was saying, you know, maybe they smoke, maybe they don't smoke, maybe it was the first night effect. 2186 01:32:43,200 --> 01:32:49,760 Maybe they had an orgasm one night and didn't. They were asked not to masturbate or have sex. 2187 01:32:49,760 --> 01:32:52,280 None of them smoked. They were fit subjects. 2188 01:32:52,280 --> 01:32:57,000 Dr. Spitz thought that that might be more indicative of like, it might show up more. 2189 01:32:57,000 --> 01:32:59,320 They might be more sensitive to the impact, right? 2190 01:32:59,320 --> 01:33:03,360 Being like high athletes, probably got good arterial function at that age. 2191 01:33:03,360 --> 01:33:08,200 Regardless of the diet, they're probably eating what most people consider fairly healthy. 2192 01:33:08,200 --> 01:33:11,560 All of them were eating meat, obviously. 2193 01:33:11,560 --> 01:33:15,200 And so it wasn't it's not a study that you can rest on. 2194 01:33:15,200 --> 01:33:17,360 It was one night of one meal, one night of the other. 2195 01:33:17,360 --> 01:33:23,680 By the way, we did do some pilot trials before that where we reversed the order and did meat on one night and then we had similar results. 2196 01:33:23,680 --> 01:33:25,840 We don't put that in the film. 2197 01:33:25,840 --> 01:33:30,720 But, you know, so, yeah, was it well controlled enough? 2198 01:33:30,720 --> 01:33:38,000 No, I mean, it wasn't it wasn't like 100 people and like crossover and then a random crossover again and like double blind. 2199 01:33:38,000 --> 01:33:40,640 And no, I mean, this but we said that in the film. 2200 01:33:40,640 --> 01:33:47,440 We let it play in there. It's all the like that one and the one with the the test tubes and the firefighter. 2201 01:33:47,440 --> 01:33:52,800 Those were like narrative illustrations of a reflection of the science. 2202 01:33:52,800 --> 01:33:58,120 If we just put a bunch of text up the whole time and talking heads, people wouldn't watch it and find the film interesting. 2203 01:33:58,120 --> 01:34:05,920 So when you're making a documentary, you've got to find a balance between like putting enough science in, putting enough interesting stories in, having an interesting narrative. 2204 01:34:05,920 --> 01:34:08,480 Like, it's a tricky thing to make a film. 2205 01:34:08,480 --> 01:34:16,640 Less than one percent, by far less than one percent of the science that we uncovered during the making of the film went into the film. 2206 01:34:16,640 --> 01:34:20,560 So it's tricky. So like anything you do, you can pick apart. 2207 01:34:20,560 --> 01:34:27,600 You know, you someone can make a paleo documentary, a carnivore diet, be quite easy to try and take down and pick apart the film. 2208 01:34:27,600 --> 01:34:33,040 But there have been, you know, there are some longer term studies on fiber intake and, you know, I think there should be more studies, 2209 01:34:33,040 --> 01:34:42,000 you know, randomized controlled trials on specifically a completely whole foods plant based diet versus perhaps a sort of nutrivol diet or whatever Chris Cress would call it. 2210 01:34:42,000 --> 01:34:45,360 You know, a paleo diet or a carnivore diet. It would be great to see those things. 2211 01:34:45,360 --> 01:34:49,000 But right now we have to look at the totality of the evidence. 2212 01:34:49,000 --> 01:34:55,320 And, you know, all of the world's leading health authorities are suggesting that we predominantly eat plants. 2213 01:34:55,320 --> 01:34:58,480 And so we have to kind of go with that. And then there's certain mechanisms. 2214 01:34:58,480 --> 01:35:01,400 We know that there's more oxidation and more inflammation from the animal foods. 2215 01:35:01,400 --> 01:35:18,760 We know that there's anti-inflammatory and antioxidant capabilities of the plant foods, which all suggest that we should be eating either the vast majority of acalyse and plants or exclusively plants for not just erectile dysfunction, but also prostate cancer and heart disease and cancer and diabetes. 2216 01:35:18,760 --> 01:35:31,480 Yeah. Yeah. You see, and that what what, you know, the film didn't expand on what the discussion with Joe and Chris didn't expand on as well was regardless of that specific dramatization. 2217 01:35:31,480 --> 01:35:39,240 One of the most least known facts of male health is that your erection is indicative of your overall cardiovascular system. 2218 01:35:39,240 --> 01:35:40,200 Yeah, it's really important. 2219 01:35:40,200 --> 01:35:50,120 And so if you were taking a blue pill because you can't get a boner anymore, understand that's the absolute worst thing you could do. 2220 01:35:50,120 --> 01:35:53,760 Yeah. And then again, asking, you're masking the underlying cause, right? 2221 01:35:53,760 --> 01:36:08,040 Yeah. And so if again, you go full plant based, if you replace processed food with with plants and have your, you know, you don't give up your meat, whatever understanding that this is in your control and you can reverse your cardiovascular health and you can get your erections. 2222 01:36:08,040 --> 01:36:15,360 And then you obviously that's going to there's no question there's a link with your libido as well, which may have a knock on effect to the health of your marriage. 2223 01:36:15,360 --> 01:36:26,640 But that's what I find crushing is in our in our profession, the sleep deprivation again contributes to hormonal destruction and their testosterone is in the toilet. 2224 01:36:26,640 --> 01:36:30,080 So you add that to then some cardiovascular ill health. 2225 01:36:30,080 --> 01:36:33,960 You know, I'm 45, you know, you shouldn't be inactive. 2226 01:36:33,960 --> 01:36:38,920 But that's like an hour kind of age group is like, well, I am 40, you know, that's why I know it's bullshit. 2227 01:36:38,920 --> 01:36:44,000 But it might be normal. It doesn't mean it's optimal or should be as normal for society. 2228 01:36:44,000 --> 01:36:45,480 Right. I mean, it's normal for humans. 2229 01:36:45,480 --> 01:36:46,920 Right. My grandmother's one hundred and two. 2230 01:36:46,920 --> 01:36:49,680 So I mean, I'm not even middle aged yet in her lifeline. 2231 01:36:49,680 --> 01:36:51,640 I'm going to give up sex for half my lifetime. 2232 01:36:51,640 --> 01:36:54,480 Yeah, it's interesting. My grandmother lived to one hundred and two. 2233 01:36:54,480 --> 01:36:59,640 Oh, really? In fact, she was actually alive in three centuries, which must be pretty rare. 2234 01:36:59,640 --> 01:37:02,800 Yeah. So she was born in 1899 and died in 2001. 2235 01:37:02,800 --> 01:37:05,800 Wow. I bet there's very few people that can claim. 2236 01:37:05,800 --> 01:37:09,680 Now, there's some people that's obviously a small amount of people that live to a hundred, 2237 01:37:09,680 --> 01:37:13,080 but must be a much smaller number that have actually lived in three centuries. 2238 01:37:13,080 --> 01:37:15,880 But yeah, and she ate meat and eat sugar. 2239 01:37:15,880 --> 01:37:18,720 Yeah. And you always get, you know, on top of that, you get those. 2240 01:37:18,720 --> 01:37:23,240 And I think, again, that generation, you know, I grew up on a farm in England. 2241 01:37:23,240 --> 01:37:28,480 So we had a vegetable garden and I don't remember using many chemicals. 2242 01:37:28,480 --> 01:37:32,680 And, you know, I think most things just grew, you know, and if they had worms eating them, they had worms eating them, you know. 2243 01:37:32,680 --> 01:37:36,080 It doesn't have to look like a symmetrical piece of art if you're going to eat it. 2244 01:37:36,080 --> 01:37:42,720 But I think that generation was set up for success because they did cook the local butcher, even if they were eating meat. 2245 01:37:42,720 --> 01:37:45,480 You know, I know for me, you know, meat was kind of a luxury. 2246 01:37:45,480 --> 01:37:48,440 So you weren't quantity wise. Right. You weren't having as much. 2247 01:37:48,440 --> 01:37:50,720 No, not even the junk food as much. Yeah. 2248 01:37:50,720 --> 01:37:58,960 Yeah. And then and then, you know, this whole argument about, you know, is is the the clean meat costs, you know, carcinogenic. 2249 01:37:58,960 --> 01:38:09,720 Again, let's focus on the process, you know, where we know absolutely if you put nitrites and all these horrible things in this meat, that's sickly in the factory farms. 2250 01:38:09,720 --> 01:38:13,240 We know hands down, drop the mic that that's absolutely carcinogenic. 2251 01:38:13,240 --> 01:38:16,720 So, again, stop focusing on, oh, is this one? 2252 01:38:16,720 --> 01:38:26,040 You know, I mean, if you need to agree with that, like, let's say you spend the same amount of money or a bit less money and you basically got meat that was higher quality. 2253 01:38:26,040 --> 01:38:34,280 Right. You cut out you spend that money that you were spending on factory farmed crap meat and you basically had half as much and it was better quality. 2254 01:38:34,280 --> 01:38:36,880 Then you're already making a step in the right direction. 2255 01:38:36,880 --> 01:38:39,920 Again, I do think that there's arguments to cut it out. 2256 01:38:39,920 --> 01:38:51,160 For me, I think they're fairly strong, both for the opportunity cost of not getting in more plants, but also because I do think there's things even inherent to me without the antibiotics, without the hormones. 2257 01:38:51,160 --> 01:38:57,280 I think there's environmentalism, people talking about carbon sequestration of eating grass fed cows, 2258 01:38:57,280 --> 01:39:04,800 but people forget that if you go grass fed to finish a cow on the grass, it takes up to three years versus the six months on grain fed. 2259 01:39:04,800 --> 01:39:10,520 So the amount of methane that they're putting out is actually six times greater. 2260 01:39:10,520 --> 01:39:18,360 Now, does the carbon sequestration of being grass fed offset that? 2261 01:39:18,360 --> 01:39:21,480 Yeah, my understanding is that it doesn't. 2262 01:39:21,480 --> 01:39:25,200 And you're going to get there's some people saying that we could do this regenerative agriculture. 2263 01:39:25,200 --> 01:39:36,320 But that's not again, what I would rather do since I don't have a strong enough understanding of that science, I have to go with the consensus of those scientists. 2264 01:39:36,320 --> 01:39:41,320 You know, and they're saying that we should be cutting out animals and that, you know, 2265 01:39:41,320 --> 01:39:49,080 the regenerative farming of animals is not the way to go in terms of that we should be shifting towards more plant based diets, including the IPCC, 2266 01:39:49,080 --> 01:39:56,280 the International Panel on Climate Change is suggesting that we should be shifting towards more plant based diets, 2267 01:39:56,280 --> 01:39:59,760 particularly from an environmental perspective. 2268 01:39:59,760 --> 01:40:06,080 And again, I mean, even if you're going to eat some meat, just reducing that by two thirds, 2269 01:40:06,080 --> 01:40:12,400 to say you have one equivalent of what meal, you know, I mean, that two thirds of the agriculture, 2270 01:40:12,400 --> 01:40:17,960 you know, what we see in South America is horrendous what they're doing, especially as a lot of that meat is feeding, 2271 01:40:17,960 --> 01:40:21,240 you know, a lot of the processed places that end up in fast food. 2272 01:40:21,240 --> 01:40:33,280 And, you know, so we can have a direct impact, you know, and again, bringing it locally without waiting for some politician to push some motion that's going to force some company. 2273 01:40:33,280 --> 01:40:38,560 We can vote with our dollars like every single person stop going to McDonald's tomorrow. 2274 01:40:38,560 --> 01:40:41,640 They would shut down, you know, within a year. 2275 01:40:41,640 --> 01:40:50,280 And I'm not saying demonize McDonald's, but I love the way they're being forced to now bring more, you know, seemingly healthy things are still not, you know, the best. 2276 01:40:50,280 --> 01:40:53,800 But I think people misunderstand the power that we have. 2277 01:40:53,800 --> 01:40:58,120 And we all look to the top of these people in the White House, like, oh, change our country. 2278 01:40:58,120 --> 01:41:00,880 That they're the top of this pyramid. We're the base. 2279 01:41:00,880 --> 01:41:11,000 And if enough of us get pissed off and be like, I'm tired of my kids, you know, school feeding them shit, you know, and I just it drives me. 2280 01:41:11,000 --> 01:41:20,640 It's it's we have so much power with so much potential if we just join together instead of argue and fix the most obvious things first and then work our way out. 2281 01:41:20,640 --> 01:41:25,240 Oh, yeah. Yeah. Power to the people. 2282 01:41:25,240 --> 01:41:28,440 All right. Well, then this transition, so we are getting a little late now. 2283 01:41:28,440 --> 01:41:32,480 The first question I love to ask people, is there a book that you love to recommend? 2284 01:41:32,480 --> 01:41:37,320 It can be about what we've discussed today or something completely different. 2285 01:41:37,320 --> 01:41:43,800 Yeah. And I think, you know, on this topic, I think How Not to Die by Dr. 2286 01:41:43,800 --> 01:41:50,160 Gregor, he was saying what, you know, it's not how to not die. 2287 01:41:50,160 --> 01:41:51,720 Right. Because people saying, well, you've got to die. 2288 01:41:51,720 --> 01:41:54,560 Yeah, it's not it's not how to not die. It's how not to die. 2289 01:41:54,560 --> 01:42:00,000 Right. So he looks at the leading causes of death and how they relate to to die. 2290 01:42:00,000 --> 01:42:03,200 And then he's now coming out with a book called How Not to Die, which I haven't read yet. 2291 01:42:03,200 --> 01:42:08,760 But interesting to see, because I really think he does a deep dive into the into the research. 2292 01:42:08,760 --> 01:42:13,680 So, you know, How Not to Die, I think is a great book and inspired my dad as well. 2293 01:42:13,680 --> 01:42:16,680 You know, after I talked to him, he talked to Dr. Esselstyn. 2294 01:42:16,680 --> 01:42:20,000 My dad's read that book twice now. So I think it's a great book. 2295 01:42:20,000 --> 01:42:21,920 Brilliant. OK, we'll just quickly talk about that. 2296 01:42:21,920 --> 01:42:25,160 So in the movie, your dad has a heart attack. 2297 01:42:25,160 --> 01:42:27,960 You know, he has stents put in, he switches to a plant base. 2298 01:42:27,960 --> 01:42:30,360 So here we are now quite a bit later. How's he doing? 2299 01:42:30,360 --> 01:42:32,120 He's doing really well. I just saw him last week, actually. 2300 01:42:32,120 --> 01:42:35,520 I flew back to England just for a couple of days to do some press. 2301 01:42:35,520 --> 01:42:39,280 And yeah, he seems to be doing really well. 2302 01:42:39,280 --> 01:42:43,880 You know, not it's not 100 percent on it, maybe like ninety ninety five percent. 2303 01:42:43,880 --> 01:42:46,360 But I think, again, that shift can make a massive difference. 2304 01:42:46,360 --> 01:42:47,920 He looks healthier to me. 2305 01:42:47,920 --> 01:42:51,440 And again, he was exercising before and he was eating what I would have 2306 01:42:51,440 --> 01:42:54,680 previously considered a pretty healthy diet, but he seems to be doing better 2307 01:42:54,680 --> 01:42:57,800 eating, you know, the vast majority of his calories from plant foods. 2308 01:42:57,800 --> 01:42:59,600 Brilliant. All right. Next question. 2309 01:42:59,600 --> 01:43:01,960 Is there a movie that you love? 2310 01:43:03,840 --> 01:43:05,560 Got to be into the dragon, I think. 2311 01:43:05,560 --> 01:43:08,440 If I can't choose the game changes, of course. 2312 01:43:08,440 --> 01:43:10,160 We're going to talk about the game changes at the moment. 2313 01:43:10,160 --> 01:43:12,280 So yeah, so I entered the dragon. 2314 01:43:12,280 --> 01:43:14,920 You know, it's just terms of martial arts film. 2315 01:43:14,920 --> 01:43:17,520 I think it's to me, it's the film. Right. 2316 01:43:17,520 --> 01:43:20,600 And then speaking of action movies, one of my other heroes 2317 01:43:20,600 --> 01:43:23,760 when I was young was Jackie Chan and obviously Schwarzenegger. 2318 01:43:23,760 --> 01:43:27,000 I actually doubled. I was a stunt double for I say double. 2319 01:43:27,000 --> 01:43:31,440 I worked in the Terminator two show in studios and I was the bad guy. 2320 01:43:31,760 --> 01:43:34,520 The motorcycle cop role of Patrick's character. 2321 01:43:34,520 --> 01:43:36,440 But, you know, he had Arnold back in it as well. 2322 01:43:36,440 --> 01:43:38,760 So how did you get involved with those guys? 2323 01:43:39,880 --> 01:43:42,120 So Arnold is buddies with Jim Cameron. 2324 01:43:42,120 --> 01:43:44,520 You know, they did the Terminator together, which sort of really 2325 01:43:45,640 --> 01:43:48,960 boosted Donald's career and Arnold's into plant based 2326 01:43:48,960 --> 01:43:52,080 eating for both health and but also for the environment. 2327 01:43:52,480 --> 01:43:54,320 And again, he's not vegan. 2328 01:43:54,320 --> 01:43:56,080 People say, oh, well, I was not vegan. 2329 01:43:56,080 --> 01:43:58,800 He's still he's never really drank milk, cow's milk. 2330 01:44:00,040 --> 01:44:01,760 He thinks it's for babies. 2331 01:44:01,760 --> 01:44:04,720 I mean, I probably take a step further and say it's for baby cows. But 2332 01:44:06,480 --> 01:44:08,080 and he's cut down his meat, 2333 01:44:08,080 --> 01:44:10,640 so he's cut down his meat consumption by 80 percent. 2334 01:44:12,240 --> 01:44:14,560 So I think that's the thing. 2335 01:44:14,560 --> 01:44:15,640 It doesn't have to be all or nothing. 2336 01:44:15,640 --> 01:44:17,080 But, you know, he's into the message. 2337 01:44:17,080 --> 01:44:19,200 And I think it's important that he gets across. 2338 01:44:19,200 --> 01:44:21,560 You know, his message is it's marketing. 2339 01:44:21,560 --> 01:44:23,280 You know, you've been lied to. You don't need it. 2340 01:44:23,280 --> 01:44:24,920 He likes the taste of steak still. 2341 01:44:24,920 --> 01:44:28,000 So like if you like the taste of it, then eat it. 2342 01:44:28,640 --> 01:44:32,080 But that doesn't mean that it's healthy or you need it to grow muscle 2343 01:44:32,080 --> 01:44:33,680 or maintain muscle or whatever else. 2344 01:44:33,680 --> 01:44:37,040 And I think it's important coming from basically the godfather of muscle 2345 01:44:37,040 --> 01:44:39,640 and bodybuilding, you know, to say that I used to believe this. 2346 01:44:39,640 --> 01:44:41,200 Then I realized it was marketing. 2347 01:44:41,200 --> 01:44:42,560 He's done a lot of his own research. 2348 01:44:42,560 --> 01:44:46,720 And and again, he's, you know, again, doesn't have to be all or nothing. 2349 01:44:46,720 --> 01:44:48,240 Is his message as well. 2350 01:44:48,240 --> 01:44:50,320 Just trying to shift in a more plant based direction. 2351 01:44:50,720 --> 01:44:52,840 Jackie Chan again, 2352 01:44:54,240 --> 01:44:56,320 because he was friends with Jim Cameron and again, 2353 01:44:56,880 --> 01:44:58,480 I think he's completely vegan. 2354 01:44:58,480 --> 01:45:00,720 He's into the environment, you know, like on set. 2355 01:45:02,400 --> 01:45:05,600 Apparently in Jackie's films, if you get a cup, you know, on the first day, 2356 01:45:06,320 --> 01:45:08,520 plastic cup instead of throwing it away, write your name on it, 2357 01:45:08,920 --> 01:45:10,800 use it the whole time. 2358 01:45:10,800 --> 01:45:13,800 So he's into the environment and, you know, into his health, 2359 01:45:13,800 --> 01:45:17,040 probably as he's getting older, so he's eating more plant based 2360 01:45:17,040 --> 01:45:18,760 and believes in the message. 2361 01:45:18,760 --> 01:45:20,040 Brilliant. All right. 2362 01:45:20,040 --> 01:45:22,040 So then we'll speak in the game changers. 2363 01:45:22,040 --> 01:45:23,440 Is there another documentary that you love? 2364 01:45:23,440 --> 01:45:25,120 You spoke of the Cove. Are there any other ones? 2365 01:45:27,360 --> 01:45:30,360 Trying to think of some things that I might. 2366 01:45:31,720 --> 01:45:33,840 You have seen Get Me Roger Stone? 2367 01:45:33,840 --> 01:45:36,560 No, that's a that's an interesting documentary. 2368 01:45:38,720 --> 01:45:41,000 You know, about how he's aided 2369 01:45:41,000 --> 01:45:44,480 a lot of the helping getting a lot of the presidents into power, 2370 01:45:44,480 --> 01:45:45,920 including Donald Trump. 2371 01:45:45,920 --> 01:45:48,760 Oh, that that kind of religious society? 2372 01:45:48,880 --> 01:45:51,440 No, no, it's just an adviser. 2373 01:45:51,880 --> 01:45:55,520 OK, a political adviser that I think also got into trouble recently. 2374 01:45:55,520 --> 01:45:59,160 I haven't really followed it, but it was an interesting documentary 2375 01:45:59,160 --> 01:46:01,480 to see how, you know, strings are pulled. 2376 01:46:03,360 --> 01:46:06,200 The Great Hack was a great one as well. 2377 01:46:06,200 --> 01:46:07,200 And if you've seen that. 2378 01:46:07,200 --> 01:46:10,280 No, I haven't. Yeah, that was really good. 2379 01:46:10,280 --> 01:46:12,840 Looking at the influence of. 2380 01:46:12,840 --> 01:46:17,880 Cambridge Analytica on the Brexit and on the presidential election. 2381 01:46:18,800 --> 01:46:22,760 Really amazing how they're tracking people's data and using that 2382 01:46:22,760 --> 01:46:26,760 and doing tens of thousands of different types of ads 2383 01:46:26,760 --> 01:46:29,520 to different individuals to make them vote in a certain way. 2384 01:46:29,720 --> 01:46:31,720 I think I did see that because that sounds very. 2385 01:46:31,720 --> 01:46:33,240 It's very recent. 2386 01:46:33,240 --> 01:46:34,440 It's a Netflix documentary. 2387 01:46:34,440 --> 01:46:36,520 I probably did then because I tend to watch a lot of that. 2388 01:46:36,520 --> 01:46:37,240 Yeah. Yeah. 2389 01:46:37,240 --> 01:46:38,920 Now that was great as well. 2390 01:46:38,920 --> 01:46:41,560 Interesting. Very interesting. 2391 01:46:41,560 --> 01:46:44,200 OK, then next question, is there a person that you'd recommend 2392 01:46:44,200 --> 01:46:48,080 to come on as a guest to speak to the first responders of military of the world? 2393 01:46:53,000 --> 01:46:54,920 I mean, Damien Mendes, great from the film, 2394 01:46:56,000 --> 01:46:58,320 you know, the special forces sniper. 2395 01:46:58,320 --> 01:47:02,720 And the other the other guy that's really interesting is Paul de Gelder. 2396 01:47:04,360 --> 01:47:06,920 He was also he actually worked with Damien. 2397 01:47:06,920 --> 01:47:09,280 So he was special forces in Australia as well. 2398 01:47:09,280 --> 01:47:12,560 But he lost his leg in his arm in a shark attack. 2399 01:47:12,880 --> 01:47:15,160 And now he's doing Shark Week with the Discovery Channel. 2400 01:47:15,160 --> 01:47:16,280 He'll skydive in. 2401 01:47:16,280 --> 01:47:17,360 I follow him on Instagram. 2402 01:47:17,360 --> 01:47:19,000 Yeah, he's an interesting guy. 2403 01:47:19,000 --> 01:47:22,840 And funny enough, he also happens to be plant based. 2404 01:47:22,840 --> 01:47:26,240 But but beyond that, he's got some interesting stories. 2405 01:47:26,240 --> 01:47:28,280 And his mindset is very interesting. 2406 01:47:28,280 --> 01:47:32,000 He'd be a really interesting person to talk to, I think. Excellent. 2407 01:47:32,040 --> 01:47:33,240 Well, thank you. All right. 2408 01:47:33,240 --> 01:47:36,120 So the last question before we go over where people find the film and 2409 01:47:36,120 --> 01:47:39,520 you know, contact you, what do you do to decompress when you're not 2410 01:47:39,520 --> 01:47:41,880 making documentaries and training? 2411 01:47:41,880 --> 01:47:46,240 Just exercise, honestly, like I feel like exercise is so key for 2412 01:47:46,720 --> 01:47:49,400 not just for like physical fitness, but for stress reduction. 2413 01:47:50,240 --> 01:47:55,280 And I love, you know, jujitsu grappling to me is like one of the best 2414 01:47:55,760 --> 01:48:00,040 things I could do because anything where you're like fully focused 2415 01:48:00,040 --> 01:48:01,680 and you can't think about anything else. 2416 01:48:02,280 --> 01:48:04,520 Like when someone's trying to choke you or break your arm, 2417 01:48:04,520 --> 01:48:09,920 it's pretty difficult to be thinking about the mortgage payment or, 2418 01:48:09,920 --> 01:48:13,160 you know, what, you know, the interview you've got the next day or, 2419 01:48:13,160 --> 01:48:16,440 you know, money issues, you know, whatever it is. 2420 01:48:16,440 --> 01:48:20,840 I think doing jujitsu is is one of the best things for me. 2421 01:48:20,840 --> 01:48:22,240 Brilliant. All right. 2422 01:48:22,240 --> 01:48:24,320 So then where can people find the game changers? 2423 01:48:24,320 --> 01:48:27,760 Yeah. So the film's available on, I mean, basically any platform 2424 01:48:27,760 --> 01:48:31,840 you could basically think of, it's on Amazon, it's on 2425 01:48:31,840 --> 01:48:36,520 Netflix, on iTunes, Vimeo, again, it'll soon be on DVD and Blu-ray. 2426 01:48:37,360 --> 01:48:40,200 And and also we're doing screenings now. 2427 01:48:40,200 --> 01:48:43,880 So we're starting to, it's like 4000 screening requests we've had. 2428 01:48:43,880 --> 01:48:46,960 So if you want to organize a screening in their community or their business, 2429 01:48:47,440 --> 01:48:49,360 we're going to have something online where you can sort of follow 2430 01:48:49,360 --> 01:48:52,120 the protocol and be able to do that. 2431 01:48:52,120 --> 01:48:55,360 And for some places, it's you know, there's no charge at all. 2432 01:48:55,360 --> 01:48:59,960 And for large businesses around the world, you know, 2433 01:48:59,960 --> 01:49:03,280 there's for large businesses there are, but there is for a licensing fee. 2434 01:49:03,280 --> 01:49:06,640 But yeah, just trying to get as many people to see as possible. 2435 01:49:06,640 --> 01:49:10,000 And then all the resources and recipes and shopping tips and tips 2436 01:49:10,000 --> 01:49:14,920 how to make the change towards more plant based eating is on GameChangersMovie.com. 2437 01:49:15,440 --> 01:49:19,560 The social media is Game Changers Movie on Facebook 2438 01:49:19,560 --> 01:49:22,120 and on Instagram and GC Movie on Twitter. 2439 01:49:22,120 --> 01:49:24,800 And then if you want to follow me personally, 2440 01:49:24,800 --> 01:49:30,720 it's Lightning Wilkes, W-I-L-K-S on Instagram. 2441 01:49:31,040 --> 01:49:33,040 Brilliant. Now, I love the film. 2442 01:49:33,040 --> 01:49:35,880 You know, I know, again, there was that discussion like trying to debunk it. 2443 01:49:36,120 --> 01:49:41,400 For me, I've seen so many people who have been inspired to look at how they eat. 2444 01:49:42,040 --> 01:49:45,440 Some of my members of my CrossFit Gym have come to me like James, are doing this now. 2445 01:49:45,440 --> 01:49:47,280 I've already dropped 10 pounds in a week. 2446 01:49:47,280 --> 01:49:50,360 So, again, it's inspiring people to eat well. 2447 01:49:50,600 --> 01:49:53,840 You know, I mean, I think Chris talks about the devils and the details. 2448 01:49:53,840 --> 01:49:56,240 Sometimes, you know, just forget the details. 2449 01:49:56,240 --> 01:49:59,600 Just look at the big picture, regardless of your experience, your interpretation, 2450 01:49:59,600 --> 01:50:02,960 like whether it's, you know, what the health as we're talking about before, 2451 01:50:02,960 --> 01:50:05,920 or folks over knives, everyone's going to have a different interpretation. 2452 01:50:05,920 --> 01:50:09,840 But if it's inspiring you to look at how you eat and improve it, 2453 01:50:09,840 --> 01:50:11,920 then you guys have won. I tell you now, you've already won. 2454 01:50:11,920 --> 01:50:14,720 For me, the number of people that have been inspired by it, 2455 01:50:14,720 --> 01:50:18,080 will they stay vegan, you know, full vegan the rest of their life? 2456 01:50:18,080 --> 01:50:20,080 Who knows? It depends on what happens to them. 2457 01:50:20,080 --> 01:50:22,560 But if you're going to improve the health of the nation, 2458 01:50:22,560 --> 01:50:25,920 to me, it's great because I see a whole bunch of people arguing, 2459 01:50:25,920 --> 01:50:28,320 doing absolutely fucking nothing to improve. 2460 01:50:28,320 --> 01:50:31,600 You know, we've got a very, very sick nation that we need to bring up. 2461 01:50:31,600 --> 01:50:33,280 So I want to thank you for making the film. 2462 01:50:33,280 --> 01:50:36,080 Yeah, no, thanks. And thanks for having me on the opportunity. 2463 01:50:36,080 --> 01:50:39,360 I mean, I think the main thing for me is if people just look at it 2464 01:50:39,360 --> 01:50:41,840 and open their eyes a little bit and sort of understand that, 2465 01:50:41,840 --> 01:50:45,280 you know, what they've been led to be believed to be true. 2466 01:50:45,600 --> 01:50:49,120 Maybe, you know, it's really not true. It's based on industry influence. 2467 01:50:49,120 --> 01:50:51,200 And if people just started eating more whole plant foods, 2468 01:50:51,200 --> 01:50:53,600 I think that would be a win, you know, for most people. 2469 01:50:53,600 --> 01:50:56,240 And however far they want to take it is great. 2470 01:50:56,240 --> 01:50:59,600 But, you know, do your own research, dig into it a little bit, 2471 01:50:59,600 --> 01:51:01,600 make some changes and see how you feel. 2472 01:51:01,600 --> 01:51:03,520 Yeah. And actually, it's funny because you mentioned earlier 2473 01:51:03,520 --> 01:51:05,920 about starting the film and, you know, waiting for perfection. 2474 01:51:05,920 --> 01:51:07,440 I think that's a perfect example. 2475 01:51:07,440 --> 01:51:11,280 You know, if it resonates with you, then just start. Change something. 2476 01:51:11,280 --> 01:51:12,640 Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to take you. 2477 01:51:12,640 --> 01:51:15,040 People used to come and check out my MMA gym, 2478 01:51:15,040 --> 01:51:16,800 which I sold because I was getting too busy. 2479 01:51:16,800 --> 01:51:20,000 But they'd say, oh, well, I'm going to wait till I get in shape. 2480 01:51:20,000 --> 01:51:22,800 And then I'll come down and then I'll come down and train. 2481 01:51:22,800 --> 01:51:24,080 And then I never end up showing up. 2482 01:51:24,080 --> 01:51:26,080 It's like, no, you get in shape by just coming down. 2483 01:51:26,080 --> 01:51:27,680 Like, yeah, it's going to you're going to suffer a little bit 2484 01:51:27,680 --> 01:51:28,560 when you first come down. 2485 01:51:28,560 --> 01:51:30,880 You're going to ache a little bit next day or whatever. 2486 01:51:30,880 --> 01:51:32,240 Just get in and do it. 2487 01:51:32,240 --> 01:51:34,800 And just, you know, again, it doesn't it's not all or nothing. 2488 01:51:34,800 --> 01:51:37,360 Just start incorporating like more plants. 2489 01:51:37,360 --> 01:51:40,000 Maybe you're having less meat on the plate and more plants 2490 01:51:40,000 --> 01:51:42,240 or maybe having some plant based meals that you like. 2491 01:51:43,120 --> 01:51:45,280 And to me, I think that's a win. 2492 01:51:45,280 --> 01:51:47,520 Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for taking. 2493 01:51:47,520 --> 01:51:50,160 It was almost two hours now talking to the audience. 2494 01:51:50,160 --> 01:52:18,160 Yeah, well, thanks again for the opportunity.