A Healthy Lifestyle: How To Optimize Your Performance In Every Area Of Your Life With Tony Castillo

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

Hey everybody, welcome back to Another episode of the Change Proof Podcast. I'm Adam Markel. I'm your host. Oh my goodness. Ah, you're gonna be so happy today when you listen to this conversation that I am about to have with Tony Castillo. Tony Castillo is an elite nutrition expert, and I do mean that. He is a true expert, not a poser in that space. He specializes in sports nutrition, aiding athletes, business leaders, and anyone seeking to boost their performance. through nutrition, and performance is the key here. That's what we're talking about— performance in every area of our lives, whether it's on the field or in the bedroom or in the boardroom or wherever else it is that you want to perform at your absolute best. Tony's background in dietetics led him to work with Major League Baseball teams such as the Toronto Blue Jays, the University of Florida. Tony's journey started in middle school as an overweight student and continued into high school until he jumped into the diet We know what that's like, resulting in unsustainable weight loss. Today, Tony is on a mission to teach others about the significance of healthy lifestyle modifications that can optimize performance in every area of life. I mean, sit back, as always, enjoy, buckle up, and enjoy this conversation today with Tony Castillo. I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. Oh my God, dude. I'm already laughing my ass off at the start of this show. I wish people could have heard our 5 or 10-minute banter and back and forth and the ground we covered just in getting our mic set up and getting into the space. I should let the audience know then, just a little bit here. We each have an ejection button today. It's a virtual ejection button. Basically means if either of us do not bring it during the conversation, we have the option to eject the other person out of the podcast. It's like podcast Darwinism or whatever we're gonna call it. So adaptation. Hey, look, you have an impressive background and a very interesting background, and I get to interview a bunch of people. I read a lot of bios. Yours is not an average intro or bio. My question to you is actually what's not written. One thing, there's a lot of things, but what's one thing that's not a part of that standard intro bio that you would love for people to know about you right out of the gate?

Number one, Adam, thanks for having me. No ejection buttons on this podcast. Hopefully I'm ready though. We're ready. So we got to bring the most important things, get people interested right on topic. I would say One thing that is not in my bio that is, I think I need to share more about my own journey is my own resilience of when I was younger. As you know, we're both currently talking in English. Both of my parents are from Dominican Republic. When I was in first grade, I had a parent-teacher conference. I didn't, my parents did with my teacher. And my teacher said to my parents, because I was very quiet, he will never speak English. Because I grew up in a home where they, both my parents spoke Spanish to me. At that moment, right after that parent-teacher conference, my mother said, we're going to stick it to this lady. I was put into extra classes after school, learning how to read and write even better in English to make sure I knocked it out of the park. So I learned resilience at a very young age because I wanted to excel. I wanted to be the best. I wanted to show people that I'm going to make it. And Adam, we're talking English, buddy. I never got A's in English. I always got B's. I'm gonna also be very honest on this show. So that is one thing I haven't shared about myself, and it's not in my bio, but I got B's in English, but I'm here talking it, speaking it, doing my best and thriving after the first grade, being told that I wouldn't ever be able to speak it nor have a platform where I could talk or even almost get ejected on a podcast, but hopefully not.

Yeah. For me, when I hear that, I'm thinking to myself, that is a great resilience story right out of the gate. So this, you made it over the first hurdle, that's for sure.

That's right.

You dropped that resilience bomb right out of the gate.

Yeah.

You were saying right before we hit record was that a lot of what you do in the world and a lot of what I do in the world are very different things, but we're one through line, one common denominator, if you will, is performance. When I'm speaking to business leaders and organizations about their performance, sometimes it's their sales team, sometimes their marketing folks. Sometimes it's the performance of their culture and what that looks like, because performance culture has changed and will continue to change from one that I refer to sort of an extraction model of performance culture in the past, in an old paradigm that I think isn't sustainable any longer. And this new paradigm, which we're talking about at Workwell, our company, and in these things, which is about how you sustain performance, how you create longevity, how you create well-being in the workplace, true well-being. That helps people to just continue to grow and perform and increase their capacity instead of going the other direction to being more depleted and more seemingly burned out all the time. So when it comes to performance, whether it's on the field of play, because I know you have a lot of experience there and/or in the bedroom or in the boardroom, there's some things that are really similar. I'd love for you to give us your philosophy, let's say, of performance, of sustainable performance. That's my first question. It's not a, An easy question, but I really wanna get your philosophy right outta the gate.

I love that, Adam, and I love that you said sustainable performance because when it comes to nutrition, which is my area of expertise, we always hear about these fads that come up. What is the next best thing that we can biohack or optimize? But so many people don't have the foundations right. How many business leaders, athletes that I personally work with skip the foundations thinking that it's gonna be that pair of blue light blocking glasses. It's gonna be that greens powder. It's going to be that fasting. It's gonna be that ketogenic diet, but it's gonna be those mushrooms that we eat. But what are you doing foundationally for your nutrition? How are you going to sustain yourself for that? One person that comes into mind was a CEO I was working with, and he said to me, if you can get me to look good, feel good while eating pizza and pasta, because he had a, a New York Italian background. He's like, you're going to make me the happiest man alive. And guess what? We made it happen because we have to find foods that we love and make it sustainable. It's just like any athlete going onto the field or a CEO going into their boardroom or a husband, wife, whoever that may be going into the bedroom. They want to make it sustainable. They want to do this for a long time. It may be a short ride, but they want to do it for a long time. So, what we want people to focus about, the things that I really hammer down is getting the foundations right. So they can make this sustainable instead of jumping on plan to plan to plan, having the yo-yo dieting experience, or having their weight go up and down, up and down, whatever their goal is. We really want it to be sustainable. That's what we focus on. We want them to enjoy it because if we don't enjoy it, we're not gonna stick to it. It's gonna lead to things such as the binge-restrict cycle where we restrict something, then we binge it, and then we feel guilty and we want to avoid that. That's not sustainable at all. It's not a good mindset to be in, right? And as your book Pivot, right, we have to pivot what we're doing because we hear so much misinformation from untrusted advisors. What do I mean? We hear from people who say they're doctors, but they're psychiatrists. What do they know about nutrition? I think they do have some behavior change models, but what about the food do they know? Then there was a gentleman, I'm forgetting his name, but he spoke about his opinion on nutrition. Adam, unfortunately, nutrition is a science. And I don't care what your opinion says, science is going to have some sort of backing to it. Nutrition is not an opinion. And so many people have their opinions on it. And I will state nutrition is not a one-size-fits-all. That is absolutely true. However, there is science that shows that certain foods will give you energy. Certain foods will help with muscle building. Certain foods will help with our hormone health. Now, when we start to neglect that—

I'm going to call timeout here. One second. No whistle. I got a whistle around here. I could blow the whistle on the field. And the only reason I want to call Tom out at this moment, in addition to giving you a chance to hydrate yourself right there— Always hydrate. Which I was doing while you were speaking, so this is perfect— is to say, hey, listen, in the environment, not just this environment, but in the environment throughout my adulthood that I can recall, the information we've been getting about nutrition has gone forwards, backwards, up, down, side to side. I mean, it has changed so much. So, when you talk about it being science, science-based, That it's not about opinions, et cetera. I get that. That makes sense to me. I'm imagining some people are going, yeah, but every 6 seconds they say eggs are good, eggs are bad. Like, just as an example. So how do we get on the same page about what nutrition is when then the people that we listen to or hear about are all over the map seemingly? Am I imagining that? Have I got that wrong?

No, you are absolutely right. And what we can say is that nutrition is constantly changing. It is a science, but it is constantly changing in certain aspects. So what do I mean by that? So when we talk about cholesterol, we should know, especially, so going on the egg one, I think that's a great one that I love to discuss, right? It's a myth. What do I mean by that? You can eat as much cholesterol as you want, whether it's from eggs, whether it's from shrimp, whatever that is that your food of choice is from cholesterol or even red meat, it's not gonna affect your actual cholesterol in your body. There is exogenous, which it means you're eating from the outside, or endogenous in the body. The cholesterol we have endogenously is genetic. 99% of it's genetic. So you could eat, put it this way, 100 eggs and your cholesterol's not gonna do anything because it's just going to excrete. Your body's gonna get rid of it.

Because in that individual, that one individual is capable of doing that, right?

Absolutely.

Okay. We'll come back to this later. That's a great distinction there. Yes.

Yeah. So to your point, it is absolutely right. Nutrition is evolving, but we also have to look at where we're getting this information from. So what do I mean? A lot of studies are done on rats. Yes, they can be transcribed or brought into what it would look like in a human. But again, a rat is not a human. It is very close. And that's why we do a lot of studies on it. But what happens when we take—

There are a few similarities.

We're talking about rats. Uh oh, don't tell the mom and dad.

I forgot who we're talking about. All right. A little digressive. Sorry. I apologize.

No, I loved it. As soon as I saw you say, hold on, I was like, oh, I see where he's going with this. So. Again, when we take these human studies, we don't have enough time to actually run it on humans. The most studied, recognized, published, the Farmingham study, which is based out of a town in Massachusetts. And I believe it goes back now 5 generations of families where they studied what they ate, how they exercised. So I could tell you right now, that would be the best population we can have. But if you live in Farmingham, Massachusetts, you're eating something completely different. than if you're living in South Florida or if you're living in California. So again, what we have and what's around us is very important as well, because if we go, for example, to Europe, we see they eat different foods. They're walking a lot more, especially with what happened with COVID I personally live in South Florida. A lot of New Yorkers, a lot of Californians were moving down here, and it's a different lifestyle because in New York or California, they were walking to work. They were taking the train. In Florida, it's sitting in a car, Burning your butt off trying to get to your meeting. So it's a lot more of a sedentary lifestyle. So what we can say about nutrition and what the research says is you have to have someone who can read the research, then help you explain it or understand it. Because a lot of people go say, I know how to read research, but they read the one study that deals with one person and not how does that actually affect many of us? A prime example was a doctor who's a doctor of psychiatry and has nothing to do with nutrition. Came on and spoke about spinach being bad for you because of oxalates and it causing some sort of organ damage. But that was one person in India and they were eating excessive amounts of spinach and greens powders. And they already had, I believe it was a kidney and liver issue. So yes, if you have these issues and you understand, yes, it can be damaging, but you're taking 1 out of 8 billion. Let me tell you, if you had 1 in 8 billion chances in anything, you're probably not going to take it. You want to reduce those chances where it becomes a 1 in a million. Or even 1 in 1,000, right? You want to reduce that risk. So you have— want to have a better understanding. And as nutrition evolves, we have new biomarkers that we're looking at, right? When it comes to longevity, humans have not lived this long ever, ever. So with that, we need to understand that this nutritional science that is coming out, we have to take everything with a grain of salt. We have to make sure that we're listening and understanding where is this coming from? How was this done? So to answer your question, nutrition is constantly evolving. It is not a one-size-fits-all, but we have to get it from trusted people. So those are people that know how to read research and people that are actually in the nutritional sciences. So,

and then there's this idea that we're responsible, we have a responsibility on some level for discernment. Is yes or no?

Correct. Absolutely. We have to, right? Because we have to understand who we listen to.

Got it. So when nutrition is evolving, you know what? I wanna back up. Let's, I wish I could do that noise to just Reverse. Because I'm listening to you at the same time, or maybe not at the same time, obviously, as people are listening, but hey, it's like time and space collapse. It's the same moment for them. What's your origin story? I'd be thinking, I am thinking, what's that first domino for you? I know a little bit about it just because of having researched your history. So when you talk about diet, you talk about body, the health of the body and where those things sat, sit. Where were you? Where were you when you were a younger person in terms of those things, which I think is a catalyst, a pivot, if you will, into the work you do today? Would you tell us a little bit about that?

Oh, there's so many, but I would say the first origin of what happened was when I was 13 years old, Adam. I was overweight. I went to, I got blood work. I remember for the first time I had a bone scan to see if I already hit puberty or not. So I went to go see a urologist with my mother. It was super embarrassing. Because both were female. I'm a 13-year-old kid, boy, thinking like, oh my God, I'm in a room with my mom and a female doctor. What's gonna happen? Well, they told me, Tony, everything's normal. You're just overweight and you have gynecomastia, which is just a fat mass and it, it's man boobs. That's what it was. And I was being made fun of, Adam. And it was a hard place for me because both my parents were divorced by then by 5 years. I had a sister who had Down syndrome, so I was being a helper caretaker with her. And now I was going to school and being made fun of. It was tough, but I had to be resilient. And when I went to that urologist appointment, this is what the urologist said to me at 13 years old. She said, you can either get testosterone replacement therapy or plastic surgery. How is it that those are the only 2 options at 13 years old? For me, it blew my mind. I luckily did neither of those 2 options, but I thought to myself, my gosh, why isn't there anything else I can do? So all throughout high school, I continued to be overweight. I was an offensive lineman in football being at 250 pounds. And it wasn't until the end of high school where a friend of mine gave me a bodybuilding meal plan and a bodybuilding weightlifting plan, and I lost the weight. But Adam, I went to college. Beer, pizza, tacos, freedom tasted way better than any of that meal plan that I was doing. So I gained all the weight back and I yo-yo dieted. I tried everything, every powder, potion, pill. Hydroxycut was popular at the time as a fat burner. Fun fact, fat burners only burn 0 calories or up to the amount of calories as a Hershey's Kiss. So they are useless. Fun fact. And I also did a ballerina skinny tea, which helped women with weight loss that my girlfriend, who's now my wife at the time, was taking. And I was taking it behind her back because I was like, why does this only work in women? It didn't make sense to me. It was a laxative. So these things that when I started at 13 years old and I learned diet culture from my mother, because even to this day she says I can't keep bread in the house because it makes her fat. I used to keep a bucket of Cheetos cheese balls in my room because my mom didn't want them out there. So I would eat hidden in my room. So all these moments in my origin stories led me to this point. So I lost the weight, gained the weight, went to college, yo-yo dieted. Exactly same thing I tried. It was Atkins was popular at the time, the South Beach Diet, going to the gym and hearing people talk about different protein powders, different pre-workouts. Then I'd go to a local supplement store and they'd tell me, hey, you need to take this to make your veins look bigger. You need to take this for weight loss. And I'm like, Wait, why am I taking all these things and it's not giving me the results I want? It wasn't until I was working out 2 times a day, I was eating about 1,500 calories a day, and it was a Halloween, funny enough. Oh man, I can't even, I think it was like 10, 15 years ago, I broke my foot dancing. And the first thought that came into my head, Adam, was, how am I gonna work out? And I knew in that moment that something wasn't right. Yeah. I knew that something, that shouldn't have been my first thought. It should have been, how should I heal? Not how am I gonna work out with this broken foot? So from there, I took a year off college. I got my bachelor's in biology and chemistry. Then I found out there was a degree in nutrition. And Adam, I had no clue you could get a degree in nutrition. I thought you literally worked at a gym and bam, there it is. You knew the knowledge or a weekend certificate, but there was so much more to it, right? So that origin of a 13-year-old kid trying to figure it out started to manifest itself when I was in my 20s. Yeah. And it wasn't until I faced the music that that actually showed.

So a lot of people have been through that. The reason I wanted you to share your story, and I appreciate you doing that, and there were parts of it that I didn't know. And so thank you for being transparent about those things. I imagine what didn't get said in there, but you said earlier, was the fact that you also were learning English, learning a language, not easy, and et cetera. So that level of being, yeah, just vulnerable, just in a tender place. I think we can all relate to that in our own way, in our own stories. The dieting thing has been a big deal in the world, but in the United States in particular, I think for a very, very long time. A lot of confusing stuff, a lot of money spent, a multibillion-dollar industry. I'm not entirely certain that all the motives are— or maybe the motives are okay, but in the end, a lot of the way that those motives are manifested are not actually, I don't even think, ethical.

Absolutely. You're right.

So that's an issue. People have been lied to and all that. So I want to give people Even though that's not the, the gist of this podcast, because we have access to you now, I do wanna give people some really good information, whatever we can give them that is just really solid. Because I find myself in my resilience keynotes, talks, and even in the follow-up training that we do with organizations, we talk about habits. We talk about how do you ritualize recovery? So our version of resilience is that it's not about grit. It's not about grind. In fact, quite frankly, those things are getting in the way of performance when that becomes the extreme, which it often does. Especially in any performance culture, but rather that you must recover. You must learn how your body becomes stronger, how your mind becomes stronger, how your emotional state and even your spiritual state can be stronger when you create these recovery zones. And nutrition, or what you eat, for example, what you ingest, makes a huge difference. So I'd love to get some of your best practices, if you will. I've been doing just Fascinated with Blue Zones of late, hearing and have heard a lot about the Mediterranean diet forever and ever and ever. So, whatever myths we can bust in this short little time, whatever things we can provide as sort of solid foundational principles people can start to build their house upon, that would be fantastic, Tony.

You got it, Adam. So, the first one, as I sent in an email a few days ago, hydrate or dydrate. One of my most passionate things I am about. And it's ridiculous to hear that I'm passionate about hydration. Yeah. Cheers, right? As we were talking earlier, I love hydration because it's such a low-hanging fruit. I think so many of us are chronically dehydrated and we think, oh no, I drink enough water throughout the day. Our body's 60% water. So anytime we are dehydrated, even by 2 to 3%, that leads us to not only be hungry, but it's a decrease in performance by anywhere to 7 to 10%. As we're talking about, performance can range in anything. When we're talking about, let's say, on the field, if you were lifting 10% less, that's a huge difference. If you're giving a presentation and you're 10% less there, meaning that you're not giving your full self, you're not only doing a disservice to yourself, but to your audience, right? Because you're not fully there because you haven't recovered. You don't have enough water to actually get through the day. And then finally, when I think about hydration, you can easily manage it by doing 3 things, which is the WHAT method, W-U-T. Weight, urine, and thirst. And I'm sure people don't want to hear about their pee, but we're going to be talking about it today, Adam, in regards to hydration. So thirst, we'll go backwards. So thirst is the most unreliable because it is located close to the brain where hunger is. So sometimes when we feel like we're hungry, we could actually be thirsty. Urine, you want your urine to look like lemonade. If it looks clear, a lot of people are like, oh, if it looks clear, it looks like water, we're hydrated. It actually means you're not getting enough electrolytes, which are sodium, Potassium, magnesium, and chloride in that order. So fun fact, one myth I wanna bust is coconut water is not hydrating. It is actually one of the biggest proponents of dehydration because it is high in potassium. And someone who has high blood pressure, they typically give them a potassium pill to help them excrete out the sodium. So coconut water is a natural diuretic, so you wanna stay away from that. So you wanna make sure you drink water with salt. And this is the thing, when we have highly processed diets or ultra-processed diets like we do in the United States, that means we have a lot of sodium. So typically that's why we are told to stay away from salt on our food. However, if you're someone who follows the Mediterranean diet or thinks about Blue Zones, you see them add salt liberally. Well, that's because the foods aren't processed and they're not adding salt to those foods. They're literally getting the foods and cooking them and adding the salt. So salt is a necessary electrolyte, especially if your urine's coming out clear. Now, if your urine looks like apple juice, or as I have seen it, like a Guinness beer. I once had a, yeah, I once had a player say, Tony, Tony, come look in the urinal. And I'm like, all right, all these years I got a master's in nutrition. I get to look in a player's urinal. I think I made it, mom. So I go look in this player's urinal and it looked like Guinness. And I'm like, you're kidding me, right? You put something in here. You're just, you're pulling my leg. He's like, no, this is what happened. Like, what'd you do yesterday? He's like, well, this was a pitcher. He's like, I decided to go out with some of the boys. We were drinking beers, doing a couple shots of Fireball. Oh my God. And I'm like, well, that's probably not what you should have done for your performance, but that's a whole nother realm we could talk about. So he had that. So we tried to hydrate him. We gave him electrolytes, we gave him water. He was pulled after the first inning, cuz if you know anything about baseball, he gave up 10 runs. The manager was, yeah, that's a pretty big number, but the manager pulled him out. He had nausea, he had headaches, all these signs. So urine light like lemonade, that's what you want it to be like. So we talked about thirst. The final one is weight. So in order to calculate your personal hydration needs, Adam, you need to take your body weight, divide it by 2. So a very simple number I like to use is 150. If you weigh 150 pounds, you need to drink 75 ounces of water a day as a minimum. Now, if you're someone who works out or trains, for every pound you lose in a workout, you need to drink 24 ounces of water to rehydrate what you've lost. So a couple examples I love to give. I was working with a marathon runner and he was just practicing. He was doing a 10-mile run. He lost 10 pounds in that run, Adam. Now, am I gonna have him drink 240 ounces of water? Absolutely not, cuz then he could be waterlogged. So this is where we focused on those electrolytes because electrolytes are like a sponge. They help hold that water in our body right now. Most people lose anywhere between 1 to 2 pounds during a typical workout depending on the humidity, the heat, what's going on, how hard of a workout it is. So that's where we add another 24 to 48 ounces, but You can personalize it by getting on a scale, weighing yourself before your workout and right after your workout, and see how much fluid you've lost. And some people might gain weight, some people might maintain weight, and that just means you've hydrated well. So it's not a place of worry, but there are people who do lose it. So hydrate or dehydrate, very simple, actionable foundational tip for people.

A couple of micro questions to do with that. So I personally use LMNT, used in the past Liquid IV, heard there was, there's some things about that that weren't optimal, like the amount of sugar that was in it, et cetera. I'm not doing a pitch for either of those 2 companies, but do you have a particular hydration method as a supplement that it's a go-to for you? Are either of those 2 or something else something you use?

Absolutely. So it just depends on the level activity. So if it's anything under 45 minutes, I like to use a low sugar, low calorie electrolyte replenishment because anything under 45 minutes, you're not really doing anything of enough vigor that you need that extra sugar in there. Anything that's between 45 to 60 minutes, that's when you can add something that has some sugar. So why do you need the sugar? Not only replenishing the glycogen or the muscle fuel that you've just used in that workout, but also the sugar that's used helps your intestines absorb the water. So most people don't know that there's 5 receptors in our gut, and one of them is called GLUT4 when it comes to hydration. And what happens is when the carbs are in that sports drink, it'll help the water get shuttled into your muscles, into your body, into your brain quicker. So sugar can be an advantage for some people depending on the kind of activity they do. And if it's anything over 90 minutes, that's when you can have that full sugar sports drink. So that's when you want something with a little bit more. And 90 minutes of continuous activity, I need to be clear about that because some people, they might do 90 minutes of a walk. I'm talking about vigorous activity. It's a run, a weight training session, something of that nature. So when it comes to a brand, so a lot of people I work with depends on how natural they want to be. I even have a recipe which I'm more than happy to share. It is literally, I'm trying to pull it up right now. It is 4 tablespoons of sugar, a quarter teaspoon of salt, a quarter cup of boiling water. You mix those things together, then you add a quarter cup of any juice that you like, or 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, and then 3 and 3/4 cups of cold water. You mix all that together and you have your own homemade sports drink. And again, I said sugar because it could be maple syrup, it could be honey, because remember, it helps that hydration. It helps the water actually get absorbed in your body. That's the first one. When it comes to any other brands, I do like Element. I think that's a great one. Element Tea. I do like Liquid IVs depending for what you're doing. And there's even the Gatorades and Powerades. They all have a place. It just depends on what kind of training and what kind of fuel you actually like and what you will actually be consistent and sustainable with.

So let's talk about hydration or dehydration for a minute, cuz I think you covered it, but when I'm discussing this, And I don't have the expertise that you do. I think more than enough information for myself, certainly, and to be dangerous for other people as well. I think dehydration is a big deal, and people don't realize how often they are in fact dehydrated. And when they have neck pain or back pain or they have headache or low energy or any of those things, and they think it's because they haven't eaten or they haven't something else, they need more coffee, more sugar. Often it is dehydration, and many of us start the day, wake up dehydrated, if you will, because we perspire in our sleep and we wake up and the first thing we do, instead of grabbing water and doing an H2O flush, which is what I do to start the day, instead they start with coffee or tea, which are dehydrating things. I mean, there's already something in caffeine that's gonna pull water out. So could you tell us a little bit more about dehydration and what the pitfalls of that are and how do we How do we be aware of it? How do we avoid it if we can?

Adam, I love that question and we'll dive into that. So let me ask you a question. If I had a piece of beef jerky in one hand and a piece of fresh red meat like beef, which one is more flexible?

The beef.

The beef, absolutely. 'Cause if I were to bend that piece of beef jerky, it's gonna rip right in half. That's what our muscles look like when they're dehydrated. So you're talking about neck pain and muscle pain. It looks like a piece of beef jerky. So, of course, you have a pain and now you can injure yourself just by doing a little stretch to the side.

Or back spasm, which people often have those spasms that are just excruciating. They go, well, why is that? And there are emotional factors. There's lots of stuff goes into why you have a back spasm, right? But often it's also a dehydration issue, right?

I always tell people it could be— nutrition is just a piece of the pie, right? So many things are going into it. So, my goal is to make sure we dot our T's or dot our I's, cross our T's. When it comes to nutrition. And what that means is making sure you're hydrated, because if you do have a back spasm or neck pain, we want to make sure it's not due to dehydration. And if it's something else and you have to go to another recovery mode, anything of that nature. And the other thing with dehydration most people forget, Adam, is when we're on a plane. So you spoke about when we're waking up from sleep, but when you're on a plane, it is suboptimal for human performance. What I mean, the pressure on the plane is like being on a mountain because you're at a higher altitude. So the pressure up there is tighter. So you breathe more, you breathe more out. You don't notice it, but that's why people get jet lag. So a lot of the people I work with, they travel for work, and if they're on a plane cross-country, that's a 6-hour flight and they don't— so the number you need for that is 8 ounces per hour of flying. You've now dehydrated yourself. So great ways to add, if you don't like to use the bathrooms in the planes, add an electrolyte packet. So the signs and symptoms of dehydration, headache, nausea, it can go all the way to a heat stroke. I've seen so many signs of people just literally passing out due to dehydration that it is scary, right? And it leads to that drop in performance. It leads to a drop in fatigue in our legs. It leads to a drop in concentration. And these are things we think about all the time, how we can better it. And I tell so many people that I work with, start drinking more water. And to your point with coffee and teas, what's been shown more recently in research is that the caffeine actually helps excrete sodium. So what we do if we do wanna drink, or if you're a heavy coffee drinker, I always recommend adding some sort of salt to that next meal because that will help keep the water in. So you definitely wanna do that. And I'm 100% with you. I love the idea of an H2O flush, but waking up and having that glass of water in the morning to not only get rid of that dry mouth, but also to get you ready for the day. So honestly, it's just such a low-hanging fruit that we can get our muscles to look like that nice Fleshy beef so we can move around and be ready and mobile and ready to go versus the beef jerky.

Love it. What a great visual. Sometimes I will take a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar and put it in that water to flush at the beginning of the day. And, and I wanna say it's disgusting.

Yeah,

it is absolutely gross. It's the worst tasting stuff on planet Earth. So often I will like take sometimes orange juice, but often like vitamin C, you know, one of those emergency packets or something just to change To make the taste tolerable for myself, cuz I'm such a weenie. I gotta have things taste good for me. I just do.

Absolutely. We all do.

But I do that because I'm trying to affect the pH in my body. Do you know anything about that? Can you say anything about how important it is to be managing, creating equilibrium in our pH? Actually,

our pH is an exponential growth, right? We know that that's what pH is, is a logarithm if we're talking about mathematics. If anything we ate or drank actually changed the pH in our blood, we would be very poor at what we're doing. I mean, we would literally die. So all the pH waters, adding that lemon juice or adding that vinegar, it's gonna get to your stomach and get acidified no matter what. So having alkaline water is not helpful. It's not gonna do anything for your blood because if it did, we literally would all be dead. And so when I say exponential logarithm, If we even go up a little bit, it can call acidosis or alkalosis in our blood, and that could literally make us die. So when it comes to those things, when we see alkaline water, it really does no change in our body. What it could do is actually make you do number 2 quicker because we did have that in one of the facilities I worked with because one player really liked his water to be basic. So what happened was he was actually running to the bathroom and getting more bowel movements.

Wow.

However, if our body actually did not know how to manage that, We would probably all be dead because it's such a small range that we're in that the body is great at optimizing and surviving.

Basically, you're saying I torture myself in this way for no good reason.

For no good reason.

Thank you, buddy. And I appreciate that.

I'd rather be honest. I don't like to lie. Doesn't serve me well.

No, no, no, no. That isn't even an option here. And I'm so happy that you did just say that. Not only, I mean, for my benefit, but for everybody else's benefit. So it's perfect. Thank you for that. I appreciate it.

And with the vinegar, the one thing I will say as well, I've heard from dentists, I don't know this side of it, but it says, I'm glad at least you put it in water, but it could erode your teeth and your esophagus, which can cause things later on. So it's good that you have water in it because if not, you're causing teeth erosion and then esophageal erosion as well, which we want to avoid.

Let me go back more to the reason, or what is my motivation, or has been my, up till this point, had been my motivation in doing this, which has to do with inflammation. So again, we think about hydration and the purpose of hydration among, in addition to everything else you've said, it helps with inflammation. And a lot of our pain, a lot of people who are experiencing pain, whether it's in their back or their knees or their shoulders or their brains or wherever they experience their pain, a lot of it is inflammation related that we are inflamed in more ways than one in our world right now. So what can you say about anything to do with the hydration piece and inflammation or anything else that you know about? that would be anti-inflammatory for people in the ordinary course of a day?

When it comes to anti-inflammatories, one of my favorite to talk about is fish oils and then fruits and vegetables. Why fruits and vegetables have all the vitamins and minerals we need. It also contains the fiber which feed our gut bacteria that will help them proliferate or grow, right? More than any probiotic we can take. And I can state that with 100% certainty at this moment because the science doesn't know what these probiotics are doing. We don't have the research to understand them. And the way I like to explain one, the probiotic, then we'll go into inflammation, is a probiotic. Adam, if we lived in the Amazon jungle and we were to throw a house cat into the Amazon jungle, what do you think would happen to that poor little house cat?

Well, it would be eaten by something very quickly.

Very quickly. And that's what happens when we buy these over-the-counter probiotics. We're putting them into the Amazon forest in our gut. So, is it helping with inflammation or not? We don't know yet. We don't have the research yet. In 10 to 20 years, Adam, I'm going to come back on this podcast because you're not going to shoot me out. We're not going to go anywhere, but I might have an answer for you. Say, hey, this probiotic is actually helpful for that. Now, for inflammation, I like to think of inflammation as firefighters in a forest. When we have one fire, our body sends out those firefighters to put out that fire. Now, when we have 100 fires in the body, We don't have enough firefighters to help with that inflammation. And some inflammation is good. What am I saying with that? When we have a workout, we wanna have some, an inflammatory response so we can build muscle. If we don't have that inflammatory response, then we're not building muscle. Okay? Now when we try to find anti-inflammatories, I mentioned—

It's that inflammation followed by recovery that creates that.

Exactly. Absolutely.

Because again, we gotta add that recovery piece cuz otherwise the whole thing doesn't work, right? It just ultimately, if you were to go to the gym and stay in the gym and stay in the gym, you'll have inflammation. And then at a certain point you peak and then you decline, you have depletion and then ultimately injury and it goes down.

Absolutely need to recover. Adam, absolutely right. So with the fish oils, they have these things in them called omega-3s. We might have heard of them. And these are the things that are gonna be those anti-inflammatories. Now, if you eat fish, you should be having anywhere between 3 to 5 servings a week. And even on top of that, you should most likely be taking a fish oil supplement. Now you can get tested. There's an omega-3 index that you can actually test. And it'll actually measure your state of inflammation based on how much omega-3s you've had in the last 4 months. It's a simple blood test that you can either get at your local store, you can ask your doctor to do it, or you can order one online. I don't have any affiliation with any company, so that's not why I'm mentioning it. I do it a lot for my clients because they literally prick their finger, put 3 drops of blood, they send it in. The standard American has 4% or less of that omega index, and that shows inflammation, right? Yeah. We want to be at 8% or higher. Why? That shows that our body has enough omega-3s to fight off that inflammation with our joints, our tendons, our ligaments, our gut health, and our brain health. And one way to do that is by having a high-quality fish oil. So there's a very simple way to figure out what high-quality fish oil is. It's how much EPA and DHA are in that fish oil are closest to the amount of total omega-3s. So a lot of people might go buy a fish oil that is buy one, get one free at their local pharmacy. However, those typically, to give you an example, have 1,000 milligrams of omega-3s, but only 300 of EPA and DHA. That means 700 of it is total crap and you're wasting your money. You're literally hurting your body versus helping your body. So you wanna make sure you have a high-quality fish oil to make sure that you're actually fighting that inflammation. So when we're talking about inflammation, I think about how is your fish quality or fish oil, how much—

Just real quick, I wanna pause there for anybody that's going, okay, if I'm going to the store to buy this today, What am I actually looking for then? Is it 1,000 milligrams of EPA and DHA? Is that what we're talking about?

It's dependent on person, but anywhere between 1 to 3 grams of total fish oil a day with anywhere as close as possible to that 1 to 3 grams of EPA and DHA. You want to be as close as possible to that 1,000.

Yep. Perfect.

Anything in between, you're just getting a lot of filler.

How shocking. Yes. Shocking filler. Oh my God. Nobody can believe that.

Yeah. And even now, a lot of these supplements are showing like omega-9s, omega-13s, and they're trying to promote it as health benefits. But unfortunately, those are more pro-inflammatory versus anti-inflammatory. But the unbeknownst consumer says, well, if omega-3s are good, omega-6s must be better, omega-9s must be better, omega-13s must be better. But they are not. You wanna have a balance of both, right? Because to give you an example, Adam, I had a client I was working with that took this to the extreme. So they started to have fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They were taking a high-quality fish oil. This was a wide receiver in football. He went out for a pass and when he came back, he started to have a nosebleed because he was so anti-inflamed. The way we stopped it within seconds, I opened a bag of chips, he ate a couple chips, and those omega-6s that came from that stopped the nosebleed almost immediately, which is insane to hear. Wow. But sometimes these processed foods have a role in helping us balance what our diet should look like. But again, that's an extreme, and most of us don't eat to that level. So, that's just a reminder that both sides, because now if a high omega-6 diet, which is going to be a lot of processed foods, that's when we hear about metabolic syndrome. So, that's overweight, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, all those things that are in that metabolic syndrome.

It's true that so much of what consumers do, what people are doing is deal, and what doctors also are dealing with is sort of the issues that people have further downstream. So, it's rarely on the side of prevention. I think what you're talking about is prevention, and more often than not, it's more when things become acute. If we were to travel further up the river earlier in time, for example, would it be important to talk about how we actually eat? I know it's going to be like weird. It's like, or let's say we're back to sitting, you know, around listening to a lecture from our grandparents or our great-grandparents about chewing your freaking food. But I'm asking you, Tony, how important is it that you chew your food? Tell me, what can we— deoxidize your food better? Are you able to take in the nutritional value of that food better if you actually chew your food more in your mouth and slow down your eating process than the way people typically just woofing and scarfing their food down no matter whether it's good for them or not? Can you say anything about that, grandpa?

Absolutely. That's more about mindful eating, and that would help a lot of what's going on because what we do, especially in the States, is we just eat, eat, eat. We don't even pay attention to what we're doing. How many of us are on a work call, writing an email at our desk and just eating whatever's given to us? It could be a salad with chicken, which a lot of the people I work with, that's what they define as healthy versus taking 10 minutes outta your day, stopping what you're doing, actually eating, chewing slowly, understanding that you're eating something to nurture your body versus what can I shovel down my throat as quickly as possible to get back to work, right? Yep. When I lived in Europe for 3 months, a couple of years ago, I noticed no one was eating in their cars. No one was eating on public transportation. Everyone would sit down and eat, and it was a long event, whether it was breakfast, lunch, or dinner. And it's such a mind shift, Sam, because now when we have working lunches, we're at work. We're just trying to get this lunch done, get back to the office, get back to the grind, as you say, and we're not taking the time to actually mindfully eat. And if we think about it, I'm not sure about your grandparents, but my grandparents are most likely lived longer than my parents unfortunately say because of the food choices they've made and their lifestyle choices, right? Because when our grandparents were around, they were eating foods that were, they had to cook it. They didn't have the option of as many processed foods versus what I grew up with because my mom didn't have time to cook. My dad didn't have time to help make some other meals. So here's a snack, right? So going back to not only chewing and taking the time, but actually seeing what foods are available. Right? So absolutely, I would say if we were able to go back in time and slow things down for us all, even if we think about lunch in school, when I went to school, it was like, hey, how quickly can we get these kids in and out to get them back in the classroom, right? Versus, all right, let's take a 1-hour lunch. Let's take a 1.5-hour lunch so they can sit, eat, talk, socialize, and move forward with it. So I would 100%, if we could go back in time, I think if we could just eat more whole foods, if we could just slowly and mindfully eat and reduce the amount of ultra-processed foods we give, not only to ourselves, but to the kids and anyone around us.

Yes. Well, I appreciate very much you saying that, Tony. And again, I know it's not terribly sexy, but I think it's a really important thing. And when I'm making a recommendation in that area, or at least sharing what my own practices are, I give thanks for my food. I think about what I'm grateful for about What it took for that food to end up where it is. And I chew with gratitude sometimes. I just try to slow up the process so I can enjoy my food, obviously enjoy the experience of eating. Wow, there's an idea. But also to think in a grateful way, in a loving way, what that food is doing for me, what it took for it to actually be there for me. There's a lot of people, a lot of things went into that process anyway. That's a tool that I use to just slow up and chew a little bit more slowly and mindfully, to use your word, and gratefully and with love. And I think as sort of however that might sound for some people, some people are happy to hear that and some people will be like, ah, come on, come on, come on. I really feel it has helped me greatly. And I think that getting the most out of what you eat, I think is the key here too. Making better choices. Clearly, that's no news to anybody. That's something we've all heard. How to do that, what that looks like. I think that's where some confusion lies. But I also think whatever you're eating, if you could just simply be more mindful about what you're eating, even if it's a bag of Cheetos, as much as that wouldn't be my recommendation for lunch, I'd rather do this. I'm holding up—

There you go.

Right? Take a banana break as opposed to a Cheeto break. But whatever you're eating, eat it mindfully. I got whole cashews sitting on my desk. I mean, it's like, I wanna graze, I wanna eat, I like to eat, and I'm gonna burn up calories and need energy, same as everybody else on a continual basis. But it's like, well, how do you set yourself up for success? Because I find that, again, people don't think that far in advance. And so they actually by default are setting themselves up for failure. Is that part of when you're training and you're teaching these things to people, athletes or business folks, you kind of come at it from that mindset standpoint as well? Yes.

Absolutely. We have to plan. My role is really most of the time is planning throughout their day. What does it look like? What can you keep at your desk, right? Is it for some people because they don't have time? I love that you have the banana. I love that you have the cashew. Those are 2 wonderful snacks that are so easy to have, right? For some people it is a protein shake that they can have because that's just easy for them. Some people it's cottage cheese, some people it's Greek yogurt. Maybe they have a mini fridge at their desk, right? What are the things that they can keep around them? That's the first thing. And then for people who travel, we sit on a call and I'm like, all right, what are the places you have to eat around you? Let's make a plan of what those healthy lunch options are that you can get delivered to you. Many people have points with their hotel that they stay at. Can you call your hotel and ask them to save some things in your fridge because you are such a high level of the points with that company? Because when I worked in pro ball, we had to do those things. We had to set that up for the players. So it can be done, right? It's just, we just don't know that because we've never been on that side of it. So, it's all about planning, but the goal is not to always be super meticulous about it. It's what are the things you have set so that it can be sustainable? Because I also don't want people to have nutrition to be the only thing they constantly think about. Yes. It's what can we plan, set, and redo so that it is sustainable for you?

Exactly.

Right? It's not about every time we go, we have to think about all these things. It's like, no, no, no. What are the simple things you can focus on? And, and sometimes it's just as simple. I tell the people I work with, Where can you get fruits and vegetables at one of your meals? Because you may not be able to control other things at this moment in time, but how can we make it simple for you to get either breakfast, at lunch, or at dinner for you to just get one fruit or vegetable in? And sometimes that's—

If you had to pick one fruit or one vegetable, and we're gonna wind down here in a second, but while I got you, it's just fun to ask you these kind of things like, what's your go-to fruit? What's your go-to vegetable?

Right now my go-to fruit is blueberries. I absolutely love 'em. They're full of antioxidants. One of the best ones.

Yes.

Or any berries. I mean, I love bananas too. I love oranges, I love apples, but if right now I'm big, big, big into blueberries, vegetable, I would say I'm really big at, at this moment into broccoli. It's not a good smelling vegetable, but it is quite delicious in my head. I prefer it at the moment. So those are the 2 I really gear toward that. Maybe actually artichokes. I love artichokes. That's one that not a lot of people like to utilize. So one of those 2, but that's what I'm typically having.

You have that in the salad a lot of times at hotel. I travel a lot, same as A lot of people do artichoke. Pretty easy actually. In most hotels you can get that or it's part of the salad that's already there. Broccoli, blueberries, love 'em. Fantastic. So last question for you, Tony. I've enjoyed this tremendously. I'm sure our folks are enjoying the heck out of it right now. We'll probably do a part 2. I could see that coming. I could see—

Oh, you let me know. But what's your favorite fruit and vegetable? I need to cut you off. I need to know what yours are. You can't just ask me.

Oh buddy, I, you pretty much, so first of all, I just held up the banana. I like to, like when I'm playing golf, what am I taking in my golf bag?

Yes.

You know, like, like a meatball sub. Yes. Like in the middle of my round, hey, hold on guys, I gotta have this meatball sub right now before I hit my driver. I need energy. And I love a meatball sub.

Oh, that would be fantastic. Now I need to see a video of you with a meatball sub out on the golf course.

Exactly. No, it's a banana. Take out the banana. That's a lot easier to navigate on a golf course, for as an example, than the blueberries are. But what do I absolutely love? Love those blueberries. I love that banana. That would be my go-to there. Ah, spinach. Ah,

yes, spinach.

And partly because I wouldn't even look at it. I wouldn't smell it. I certainly wouldn't eat it when I was a kid. I mean, literally grossed me out. So the fact that I will eat spinach, I'll eat it clean, washed, but raw in a salad or cook it or whatever it is. I mean, and rocket, arugula. I mean,

in

any event, I love those green leafy things.

Yes, that works for

me. And broccoli is always great. But to me, it's got to be broccoli sauté. It's got to have garlic and olive oil. And that's how I like my broccoli. But

a good way. Come on, Adam. That's the way you got to have it.

A little more prep, a little more time, right? Man, I have— Tony, no ejection button. No.

Yeah, we made it.

We made it. Nobody got ejected. This is great. Oh my God. My very last question for you is, you think about your rituals for recovery. This is again back to the through line of what we teach. So, I'm being self-serving here, but I want to get your insight. When it comes to resiliency, what's your go-to recovery ritual? Do you have a go-to?

Absolutely. We have to, when we're talking about sustainability, if you don't have these rituals, you are doing yourself a disservice. You say you're doing something for sustainability, but if you don't have a ritual or practice around it, how are you claiming that it's sustainable? So define recovery, Adam. Okay.

So to me, how you recharge, like to me, recovery is the capacity to recharge your battery. As we know, I mean, the best analogy I can use these days is a stupid phone, right? Because everybody's obsessed about keeping their freaking phone charged because God forbid their phone ran out of juice, their life would end, right? We wouldn't be able to find our way around. Nobody could find out, where am I? North? South? I don't know. Like, if I don't get my news dripped to me every 6 seconds, if I can't, you know, and on and on and on, right? And I use this thing a ton. So, We won't let this thing run out of juice. And yet we let ourselves run out of juice all the frickin' time. And yet, as leaders in so many different contexts, people want the best performance from themselves and everybody they lead, and they don't understand the foundation for what performance is all about, which we started with, we're gonna end with, and that is sustainability. How do you sustain, keep your energy high, keep your ability to keep going, going, going? You can't keep going, going, going without recovery. So that's our definition of that word. What do you— I love that. Ritual for your own recovery is my question.

Absolutely. I do daily recovery. And what does that look like for me? That means 10 minutes of meditation. I have to meditate. I just need to be at a place of silence and to be present. And Adam, to be honest with you, you would ask me that 5, 10 years ago, I'd be like, that's super woo-woo. That's to be crunchy, crunchy granola. Like, I would never do that. And now if I don't do it, I notice that I'm just off keel. I notice that I get impatient more often than not. And it's interesting to see that. So the first thing has to be 10 minutes of meditation. Just sit down in quiet and just breathe. That's the first thing. The second thing is some sort of stretching routine. I have to get some sort of stretching in because my body, I work out, I do high-intensity interval training, I do strength training, I do running, I do a mix of things. And if my body's stiff and crunchy, I know things aren't going to go well. So I do A nice light 5, 10 minutes of stretching. And then finally, some sort of hydration. If I don't stick to hydrate, hydrate, no one will. So I always make sure I have some sort of hydration beverage around me to keep me ready for the next movement because I don't want to have my beef jerky muscles. I want to have them looking like fresh beef. So those are the 3 things that I think about. And the 4th one is find a way to laugh or to be a kid again. Yeah. So I have 2 kids and one of them is 3 years old and one of them is 3 months old. And Adam, anytime I can just laugh with my daughter, the 3-year-old, it just makes my day so much better just being a kid again. And I'm not a big fan of playing dolls, but I love to take her out to the park. And when we can go to the park and run around a little bit and I can act like a kid, it reminds me of my recovery. Like, this is why I do what I do and I love what I do.

I love that. What a great answer that is, Tony.

And, oh, thank you.

If we were in the movie Bull Durham, I don't know if you ever saw that movie.

Yes.

Yeah. Love that freaking movie. I'm a movie guy. It's like I'd be calling you meat. Come on, meat. I love it.

I love it. You

want to be the meat?

Yeah.

Good stuff. I've so enjoyed this conversation. And again, I would say out to our community right now, if you've enjoyed this conversation and more than just enjoyed it, if you learned something, if there's something valuable here, what I'd ask you to do is to share it with a friend, share with somebody that you think would really benefit from it. Obviously, I want you to do that for your benefit, for their benefit, but for our benefit as well. I don't know how the algorithm works. I just know everything relates to the algorithm. And when you share this stuff, it makes it more accessible and more available to other people. The other thing that will help us in terms of how that all works is simply to give the show a 5-star rating if you're willing to do that, or whatever rating makes sense to you, honestly. So, to take the time on your platform that you're consuming this and provide a 5-star rating or whatever rating, thank you so much for taking the time to do that. If you've got questions for Tony or myself, adamarkel.com/podcast. to leave a comment, and it will not be a bot or some other person or AI that responds. It will actually be us. So thank you so much for that. And lastly, if you want to check out exactly how resilient you feel in this very moment, like what's your resiliency score right now? It's simple. All you do is go to rankmyresilience.com, and that will give you in 3 minutes, 16 questions, but 3 minutes, I promise you, 2 to 3 minutes. most to answer those questions. It's gonna give you a snapshot of how resilient you are mentally, emotionally, physically, which we spent a lot of time talking about today, and even spiritually speaking. So take the time, give yourself that gift. It's entirely free. And I think it's a real important insight to just check in and go, yeah, how am I actually doing? And then apply the things that you heard Tony talking about today to make an improvement. Any incremental improvement is a very big deal, folks. Every study I've ever seen, I've written books, the latest one called Change Proof, all about how you create change. Change is most effectively created in small steps, not in trying to take one big thing. It's why the resolutions at the end of the year going into the new year don't work. It's too extreme. What we're looking at, watching Tony shake his head up and down and up, right? It's like all we're looking to do is create these micro changes, micro pivots, if you will. And then over time, you get the compounding effect. You get the hockey stick improvement because you've stuck with something, small, tiny little incremental changes. So whether that's to, to just start your day by hydration, meaning that you flush your system at the beginning of the day by drinking an 8 or 12-ounce glass of water at the beginning of the day. Yeah. You remind yourself in the middle of the day, you put it in your calendar to remind you to drink water throughout the day. You just do that one little thing, that tiny little thing. Oh my God. Right, Tony?

That's it.

Yeah. So, thank you all. Tony, thank you so much. This has been a blast, and I wish you all every happiness, every happiness and great health. Thanks to Tony today. We appreciate it.

Thanks for having me on, Adam.

Well, heck, I don't even know where to begin. I love that conversation. Oh, Tony, he is a great guy. Before we started our recording, it was funny. We were just sort of chatting and getting our mics set up and all this and that. And I said to him, and I've never said this to anybody else, I go, Tony, I hope you're feeling like you're going to bring it today. And he goes, oh man, I'm going to bring it. I'm going to bring it. Absolutely. I said, because, because I got an ejection button over here. So if you don't bring it, you're going to hit the ejection button. Then at a certain point, we're just goofing around and laughing about that. And I said to him, but by the way, you have the ejection button too. So if I don't bring it, you hit the ejection button. It's not a one-way street. This goes both ways. Oh, we started off laughing and the laughter and the fun and the insights, frankly, most importantly, did not stop. I just found myself leaning in so hard to what he was saying. Obviously, we're talking about sustainable performance. Everybody, again, sustainable performance. What does sustainable performance look like in a world where we're constantly being depleted, where so much is being asked of us and we're being drained whether we're consciously aware of it or we're not, we're always in this state of being drawn in, drawn into other agendas and other things. And that is depleting. And what can we do physically, mentally, emotionally, even spiritually to claw back our capacity, claw back our true performance capabilities? That's what we talked about today. And everything from hydration and how important it is to not be dehydrated and where it is that we can make changes, simple, small changes to that Which we do on a routine and a ritual basis even, that creates that dehydration state. How it is that we can take better care of ourselves in a busy world, on the move and in travel and in hotels and elsewhere, thinking about nutrition from a more realistic standpoint, not from the standpoint of the latest fad, the latest diet, the latest decision or soundbite around whether this is good for you, that's good for you, or this is bad for you, that's bad for you. I think we really were able to debunk a number of myths. He even debunked one of my myths. And I'm like, wow, holy smokes. I've been talking about the value of changing your body chemistry, at least your pH, using apple cider vinegar. And he debunked that myth for me today. So, I feel really benefited from him, from that, and a number of other things. So, today's conversation, which covered everything from our favorite fruits, our favorite vegetables, our go-tos, especially when we're on the road, Talking about fish oils and other important supplements, but we're going to do a second show on supplements. We agreed that we're absolutely going to have a supplementary podcast that's just about supplements. So if you wanted to hear more about supplements, in fact, other than the ones that we did discuss, we're going to have another show just about that. So today was a blast. I hope you enjoyed it. As always, if you did, please share it with a friend, a family member, a colleague, somebody that you think could really benefit from getting the information, the insights that you heard. Rate the podcast if you loved it today. A five-star would be super helpful to us. We appreciate you doing that. And if you've got a comment or a question for Tony or myself, adamarkel.com/podcast, leave the comment there and we will get to that ourselves. I promise. Again, wishing you the best in your day. Check out how resilient you are. Go to rankmyresilience.com. Three minutes. You're gonna get your own resilience score. Check in. See how you're doing. Be more conscious, more aware. of your own rituals for recovery. And ultimately, that's what resilience is. It's about recovery. If you're not planning for your recovery, if you're not thinking about it ahead of time, where it is that you can incorporate recovery as a ritual into your daily practices, well, then frankly, you're not gonna perform as well as you can, and the people around you are not gonna benefit from your great example either. So with that, I will say thank you so much for being a part of our Team, our community. We love the fact that this community is growing, and we appreciate your participation in all of that. For now, I will just say ciao and thank you.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.