***SUPER SPECIAL** Mental Health Matters - Let's get Physical and Mental

Hello everybody, it is Mental Health Matters. See, I did manage to stop myself from saying the other words. So anywho, oh sorry, my back is still bugging me a little bit, so I have to hop up and down from time to time. And, um, so yeah, all is good in the world. All right, so why are we here? Well, I don't know, because it's Saturday night, 9 PM Eastern.. And y'all decided to come join me because tonight I hope there's a Mark Thomas out there, but if you're not, that's okay. I'm happy to see all of you no matter who it is, all of you. And those of you who are watching the replay, God bless, and let's have fun tonight or whatever time of day you happen to be watching this. Now I have a ton of stuff we're going to talk about today. So Mr. DJ is here in the back room with me and he is going to be watching your comments. And wherever they might be. And, um, he's gonna let me know when I need to reply to stuff and/or do the roll call and all that fun stuff because there's so much stuff to cover tonight. I want to stay on track for you and it's a lot. I know I put this link up Tuesday or Wednesday, which is way early for me since y'all know that follow me on a regular basis, you're lucky to get it 4 or 5 hours ago. So, um, that's how excited I am about this particular one. Tonight, what are we talking about? Hmm, let's get physical and mental. Now I have to pause because being a child of the '80s, Let's Get Physical would be the Olivia Newton-John music song. There we go. So anytime I say let's get physical, I immediately hear that song in my head. But we're also going to talk about the mental strength. So for those of you who are brand new, why are we here? Because 2 out of every 3 gun deaths that people talk about are suicide. And if we're not going to help people with their mental health, we cannot help lower the numbers when it comes to gun deaths. So Mental Health Matters is about giving you tools and ways to help yourself and others around you, because let's be real, one of the things in the self-defense community we talk about is you are your own first responder. And that means all around. You are the one who decides what food goes into here. You are the one who decides what thoughts go in here. You are here to feed your brain and your body, and we're going to talk about that tonight and how to set super spectacular goals that will actually help you move forward in a direction you want to. Now, I listen to so many things on a regular basis and I have been doing this since I was in my teens, and that's a couple decades ago for some of you young whippersnappers out there. So like I said, Let's Get Physical, '80s song, I'm pretty sure. Maybe it was '70s, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's '80s. So here's the deal, I'm gonna walk you through where my brain gets some of the information that we're going to talk about tonight. Because I have 76 days until I go on vacation, and the fam and I are going very special place this year. Um, it is the— it's probably possibly going to be the vacation of a lifetime, but I'll tell you more about that when I'm there, probably. Chances are. So DJ and I already talked about this a little bit. I will have to do some live streaming from there. It probably won't be on the proper schedule, however, because there's going to be a significant hour difference in our life. All right, so what are we going to talk about? Getting physical and mental. A couple of years ago, I did a program called 75 Hard. Oh, and I had visuals here for you, but apparently when I closed this— oh wait, no, I do have it. Yay. All right, so let me go to the correct slide. So a couple of years ago, I did this thing called 75 Hard checklist for every day. So in this program, what it did was it would ask you to do 2 45-minute workouts, one indoor and one outside, follow a strict diet, no cheat days, no alcohol or junk food, drink a gallon of water every day, um, and then 10 pages of a nonfiction book and take a progress photo every day. With that, I actually did it for all of the days. However, I think I kind of messed up possibly on the photos because I don't have a before and after picture for you, hence the reason we have the stock photo there instead. Now I did it. It was great. I lost a lot of weight and I was in really good shape considering that I averaged 260 pounds. By the end of this, I was down to 220 pounds. So I have the number in my head, but I do not have a picture for you all to see. Um, and I am not shy with these pictures. If I had them and I thought about going back and looking, I would have got it for for you. But in all my excitement of trying to explain to you the journey, I forgot. So here's the thing. I am not suggesting you have to come in and do the 75 Days Hard with me. However, I'm going to talk to you tonight about what did I learn from that and how is that going to change the next 75 days of my life? Because this was hard for sure. 75 days of 2 complete 45-minute workouts, actually indoor and outdoor, was actually not the hardest part. Following a diet, also not the hardest part. Drinking a gallon of water, oh heck yeah, that was the hardest part because some days my body was like, yeah, I can drink that gallon of water, and then some days drinking a gallon of water was like, I don't know, forcing cod liver oil down my throat. I loved reading my 10 pages of a nonfiction book every day. I got to do a lot of reading, and I'm going to share with you some of the books that I read while I was doing this. And then the taking a photo— I didn't take a picture of my body every single day because I thought that was a little bit crazy, but I did take a progress photo of either me or what I was reading or one of my walks or something along those lines. So tonight we're going to talk a little bit more about what Andy Frisella says his 75 Hard is. You can go to the 75 Hard website and it will tell you what to do. And that's, that's where this screen print is from. And it's not just about a fitness challenge. It really is about getting your mental state in line. Uh, what else? You can— it says to take complete control of your life in 75 days, and yes, maybe so, possibly. However, in the darkness there, it says you start doubting yourself. And in the end of this, he shows his before and after, and it's a hard thing to do. Have I done it since? No, I actually haven't. I have failed multiple times when trying to do this. However, the idea is if you keep going, if you can stay consistent, here are his pictures from doing this for 75 days. Now, I don't have any brain pictures to share with you guys tonight, but imagine this is an example of your willpower. On the left is how it is right now. 75 days from now, doing something you don't necessarily want to do, like drinking a gallon of water or reading 10 pages a day, which is also, uh, for a lot of people. Um, but imagine the strength you get in your brain for doing stuff you don't necessarily want to. Here's what I believe: you will absolutely grow in confidence, self-esteem, self-worth, self-belief, fortitude, and grittiness, because you have to get gritty to get through the 75 heart Now here's the other part of this. We are all super awesome, amazing at making excuses as to why we can't do stuff like this. So he covers that. I've only clipped two of my favorite things that were on his basically why can't I do this page, which is I'm on the XYZ diet training hard program, so I can't do 75 Hard. And 75 Hard is like, no, No, no, no, no excuse there. Just no cheat meals and no alcohol. You could go on any diet that you're currently on that doesn't include alcohol or cheat meals, and it's not that hard, and we're going to get into that in a little bit. Then, I haven't exercised in years and I'm too out of shape right now to do 2 workouts every day. And that was totally my excuse when I started. Um, I'm like, 75, 2 45-minute workouts twice a day? Is he crazy? And I'm just like, because when I worked out when I was in high school, that meant running and lifting weights and all of these other things. And I'm like, I can't do 2. I'm gonna go to the gym twice a day for 45 minutes? That not, not happening. Well, yes, I talked myself out of it. And then I did exactly what he says here. See in the pink down the bottom? It could literally be as simple as going for 2 45-minute walks a day. And that is exactly what I did. And I brought my dog with me. So I got— sometimes I would get 2 outdoor workouts a day. So there's always a way is kind of the thing. All right, Mr. DJ, would you like to say hi to everybody for me?

Absolutely. I'm gonna give you the roll call at the same time. Here you go. Tonight we're joined by Crabby Turtle. The Pink Hand Waving was out there. Hope he still is. G23 is out there tonight. So sorry if I had 93. Viejo, it's nice to see you again, buddy. Welcome back in. Abigail Sorge Finnegan has joined us. So is Hillbilly Up. Chasing Ghost, I believe, was— Chasing Ghost is here. And 2 Live Moo is the most recent one in the room. He's saying he's out there saying good evening. And I highlighted a, uh, a comment earlier on because we, we need to remember to play to our strengths and find ways to not defeat ourselves. And G23 says, water is zero problem for me, reading would do me in. See, and I flip the flop on that one. I can drink 4 or 5 gallons of Dr Pepper a day, and that's water, right? Sitting down in front of those 8 tall drinking glasses of water per day, I mean, maybe if I had to chug through them sort of thing. And I'm being real about that. If I were to— if I were to commit to this kind of thing, that's what I would have to do, right? Be like, okay, you got it, take your water, take your lumps, move on. So that's what I got. Wait, Misty Mrs. Wade is also in the room.

Just—

and I know Jamie J. Yeah, Jamie J. 586 is out there too.

All right, thank you. All right, so, so this is specifically for Hillbilly, so the rest of you just plug your ears, okay? But for Hillbilly, no, light beer does count as alcohol. However, I think if you drank hard seltzer, that wouldn't count as alcohol. So, um, yeah, for anyone who is new to the channel and doesn't know why that is funny, go watch Hillbilly. You'll see him blow up a couple hard seltzers because he is hard set against hard seltzer most time. So yeah, we have— what is it? We always have our strengths and our weaknesses, and none of us have the same ones. And Dr Pepper, that is a challenge for DJ. But here's some of the tricks that we can play in our heads, which is things such as— for me, I'm not going to compare the Dr Pepper, but it's like for the food thing. How do I set myself up to win? And this is a Tony Robbins thing that I learned, which is our life is based on our rules and we get to make the rules for our life. And we need to be smart, but not too smart to set ourselves up to win. Because often what happens is we will talk ourselves out of or into what we can or cannot do. I.e., when I said in the beginning, I looked at that 2 45-minute workouts a day, I'm like, no freaking way. I do not have the time or the energy to do an hour and a half of workouts at the gym twice a day. And I actually did not read that slide that I just showed you where it says you can just go for 2 45-minute walks a day. And that is exactly what I did. I actually did one 45-minute walk outside and then on yucky weather, I would do something like VR boxing or something along those lines. And then that was that. So now when I'm setting myself up to win, the idea behind my 75 Hard training, which I already did once— and if you want to do the full deal, you go right ahead. Um, my goal is getting ready for vacation, and I have 75 days starting tomorrow. So for those of you, um, who want to join me, I'm actually throwing up a link at the end of this So you can come backstage here with me so we can chat more specifically about your goals because there's always a way. So with that, what am I changing with 75 Hard to make it 75 Brooke Cheney? Give me a second because I don't know how to go through this without just making you click through all of this. Here is my 75 custom checklist. So for me, drinking plenty of water means at least 2 liters. I have a single water bottle that as long as I finish that one water bottle, which I know I can do easily, I just don't do it on a consistent basis, that is going to be my 75 hard. Then eating protein-rich foods, 10 grams or more per meal. That is a hard rule. In that if I want to put something in my mouth, I am going to make sure there's at least 10 grams of protein in the food that is in front of me. Now, does that mean I have to just sit there and eat cans of tuna? Because that's a pretty high protein shake, uh, protein meal. Uh, does that mean I have to drink a protein drink for everything that I do? No. But what it does do is it gives me flexibility. In that, let's say I want a cupcake. I'm going to allow myself to have a cupcake after I eat my 10 grams of protein, or maybe at the end of the day, or it'll make me think, I'm like, all right, well, if I want this cupcake, then where do I find my protein first? Because chances are I want that cupcake, it's in front of me right this very second, and I'm looking at that cupcake and I'm like, if I can stop myself, say, all right, how do I get 10 grams of protein in here first? Then I'm like, ooh, I get to go eat a can of tuna. And if I go eat a can of tuna, usually I'm not going to want that cupcake after a while. So I've done tons of fitness challenges over the years, and from— and there was a time when my husband and I were actually significantly into bodybuilding and would travel around the country and train with some of the best trainers in America and actually in North America because some of our trainers are from Canada. But it's just like, there's always a way to make it so that you can win the game. And if reading is your challenge, then okay. For me, I love to read 10 to 20 pages a day because it gets me back in the habit and I really like learning. And if you can't read because you've got dyslexia or you've got problems like that, then listen to 10 minutes of a book or something every day. Working out every day is not a problem. I'm currently going every day with my mom. I had some back problems, so I didn't work out for a few days this past week, but I know that again, because I've trained, I can have seated workout programs. I can do workouts without going to the gym. I can do bodyweight workouts and just go out in the yard and squat for 15 minutes or whatever, and then do some— any, I don't know, pick stuff up, put stuff away, right? Just be outdoors. Because I know the outdoor workouts for me, when I did the actual 75 Hard, really made a difference. So like I said, at the end, we're going to talk about your custom checklist. And I promise, if you have any regrets or thoughts or reasons why you can't take the 75 Hard Challenge in its, in its completeness, the 45-minute workouts, the dieting, no alcohol, junk food, drink a gallon of water and read, and your progress, we can adjust it so you can do it. Because I believe I can do it because I've done it before. I believe you can do it. It might not be easy, but most things in life that are awesome are not easy. So with that, I want to give you some of my additional resources. Probably the first person that I ever— oh, where'd it go— that I ever read or did anything was Og Mandino. And I forgot to do the present thing. And you guys who've been here before, you've seen this, but there The Greatest Salesman in the World was a book that I read when I was in high school, when I was actually dealing with suicide and suicidal thoughts and all those horrible things. And The Greatest Salesman in the World is really about becoming your best salesman to yourself for the best life that you can have. And in there, there are these scrolls and you're supposed to do them in a prescribed manner similar to what 75 Hard does, but this one's a bit longer because it's 30 days and I think it's 11 or 15, I don't know, 10 scrolls I guess, so 10 months of doing this. So having started with this in high school, uh, 75 Hard, you know, only 75 days, not 100 and 30. Yeah. So, you know, relative. Now, did I ever get through all 130 days or 100? Well, yeah, yeah, 300 days. I don't know. I can't do math. But anyway, the point is each time you do something that's hard, you get a little bit better. So from Augmandino, the next person that I really started to learn from And this is because I watch a lot of late night TV. I'm going to go with that. And Tony Robbins was the next one. And it's one of those things where if you've not seen him, you guys, some of you caught the live where I came from Unleash the Power Within when we were in New Jersey. And Tony Robbins really talks a lot about faith. And focus and being attention to what is going on in your brain. When you guys hear me talk about asking better questions, how can I enjoy the process? He has definitely helped get me through a lot of these mental challenges, physical challenges, because nobody wants a diet, not anything. And no, nobody, nobody in their right mind wants a diet. However, Um, Tony Robbins gave me very important questions like, okay, so I'm gonna go on the strict diet plan, how can I enjoy the process? And you're all like, no one enjoys the process. I'm like, I know, but if you ask yourself, how can I enjoy the process, your brain is really good at coming up with that. Because if you find yourself, well, I can't do this, I always fail, you're going to be right. But if you start asking yourself how questions, how can I enjoy the process, then all of a sudden you have more ability to continue on. All right, let's see. Viejo, I'm with you. 20 years ago, I was at 255. Doc made ultimatum. I went to 155, and that's why all the ladies are always after him. Later settled in at 165. Tough. Yeah, tough process, but brought incredible strength of mind with it. And that's the thing, is like, even if you try and fail, it's still better than not trying at all. And when you try and you succeed, you can't measure the accomplishment because like that 75 Hard that I did the entire thing for real was a very proud moment in my life. Like I've really done something that not everyone can do. And this is one of those little things where people are like, well, if I can do it, you can do it too. And I'm like, mm-mm, not true. Some of the accomplishments you do are only the things that you can do. Like, I have one accomplishment in my life no one else can ever do because I was the first girl to ride at the Jackson, Wyoming rodeo on Saturday night on a bareback bronc. No one can take that one away from me because I'm the girl. So other things, however, people can do that you've done. Yeah. And like Abigail says, making it simple. That's another Tony Robbins thing for me is Tony always talks about KISS, keep it simple, sweetie. Because when we make it too complex, then it's so much harder. I mean, the meal planning, Oh my gosh, if there is something that I will obsess on and totally screw stuff up with is, hmm, I'm going to follow the Atkins diet. Okay, so I can have bacon and I can have cheese and I can have some vegetables but not all vegetables, and I have some fruit but not all fruit. And then I get nuts because I'm trying to figure out, oh, can I have a strawberry and not a raspberry? Or is it an apple and not a peach? And I will go making it so complex that I fail, which is why the one that you saw is, you know, 10 grams of protein. It's really simple, and I'm not focusing on what I can't have. I'm focusing on what I must have to help my body recover, and protein is number one. And so if I focus on protein and say, okay, I can have a protein shake and I can throw strawberries in there because I'm not low carb and my focus is just on protein. So the simpler we can make stuff for ourselves, the easier it is for us to have that. Now, Mr. Moo tells me 1 egg has 6 grams of protein, so I could eat 2 hard-boiled eggs. I have no interest in eating 2 hard-boiled eggs. However, If I put 2 eggs on the griddle and have some fried eggs, I could do that. And I can even have toast with that because the rules I've set up is so I can focus on the protein, but I can have what I want with it. Now, does that mean I'm gonna go have 2 eggs and a slice of cake? No, because the point of this is for to make changes that I could actually stick with because so many things are hard to do. Okay, uh, I think I got through all the ones that DJ had starred for me. Um, oh yeah, and I don't remember— I mean, you brought up G2/3's zero problem with the water, and some people are like that. Some people, like, a gallon of water is nothing. I still remember when I was super excited. I'm gonna say around 1999, 2000, somewhere in there. Oh wait, no, it's a little later than that. But Tony Robbins— oh, 2000. Yeah, okay. So water was a problem for me in that I would do some of this fitness stuff. I'd be like, okay, I'm gonna drink a bottle of water. And back then my bottled water was 20 ounces. I'm like, yes, look at me, I did 20 ounces! I was super excited that I did 20 ounces. And then I joined the Tony Robbins fire team, and all of a sudden fire team is like, all right, you must drink a liter of water before bed. This is the girl who's excited about 20 ounces of water going in her body over the course of a day, and now we're doing a liter of water because in fire team what we do is we build the fires that all the people are going to walk over at UPW, and we sweat a lot because it's hot building, building fires so that you have coals for thousands of people to walk over. It's hot, hard work, so we need to be hydrated for that. So that helped get me better at drinking water and understanding that how much is enough. Well, if our clear— the question was, are you clear? And what fire team really meant was, when you say are you clear, it means is your pee clear because you're drinking enough water? And that amount is different for everyone. And if you take multivitamins, it never happens because Multivitamins tend to go straight through you, so be careful. Don't drink until you are gonna die or anything like that, because that would be horrible, because water can kill you. It's been proven. Uh, I don't know how many of you have heard all of this, but, um, out in California when the Wii console came out, the gaming console came out, a radio station had a contest that said whoever can drink the most water without peeing will get the Wii. So a mother who was dying to get this thing for her kids went and drank, I don't know how much, I don't know how many gallons of water. However, she actually drank too much and it, um, basically diluted her to the point where she died. So can too much water kill you? Yes, it can. Does it have to be a lot? Yeah, probably. Um, oh yeah, so I'm gonna throw up Abigail because when you stop trying to find a diet, simply cut out soda, starting to do 30 minutes of cardio every day and start drinking more water, and I stopped making myself miserable. Again, back to the simplicity. All of us know that there is a simple path to fitness and health and all of those things. Most— this is where when people say knowing is half the battle, I'm like, action. Actually taking the action is the hard part. So good job, Abigail. Congrats. Um, you found the magic key, basically. And we all have the magic key. We do. We all know what we need to do. Um, sorry, the back thing. All right, so anywho, like I said, there's gonna be an invitation at the end for y'all to come join me in the back room. It's gonna be short because Hillbilly is here. Um, and, uh, sorry, speaking of Hillbilly, I see one more that just got starred. Um, yeah, so Hillbilly, I, I understand. I'm thinking like Oprah may have the same plan because she's unfortunately good— does this all the time. So, but yeah, you can, you can do that. I don't know, I go with the Bruce Lee thing, right? For those of you haven't watched or don't know a lot about Bruce Lee, one of the things was he is one of the first guys who would work out with the TENS units where it would literally just— he could sit there, write his book, and he would be getting shocked and having his muscles tense up and it would actually make him stronger. So you can kind of just sit there and, and, and do that sort of thing. All right. So with that, Mr. DJ, I am going to get the join me here link up while you guys— oh, wait, wait, wait. No, I forgot. There was, there were a few more things I want to show you. So give me just a second. I may have mistaken for resources. Billie Jean is marketing. This is another one of the people that I listen to that allows me to learn better, have a better mindset. Ed Mylett is— Ed Mylett I met through Billie Jean because Billie Jean was interviewed on Ed Mylett's show, and Ed Mylett has some really cool people that he, uh, interviews. And then through Ed Mylett I met Dean Graziosi, who actually partners up with Tony Robbins. He also has some really cool stuff, and they have free events that you can do online to really learn about them and be introduced to really cool people. And then there's Jocko Willink, who basically my favorite video he has out there is Good, and he talks about when stuff goes wrong. Just remember to say good. And this goes back to the real, real thing about remembering your life is happening for you, not to you. And that's actually a Dean Graziosi saying that he says all the time, is you can make that shift that life isn't happening to you, it's happening for you. And then for those who haven't met him before, David Goggins. If you want to read a crazy person who just goes for it and has no excuses and all of that. Um, David and Jocko are pretty hardcore on that whole idea. So with that, Mr. DJ, now it's you.

It's me letting us know that, uh, tonight we were joined by Misty, Mrs. Wayne, JH5862, Live Moo was in the room, so was the Chasing Ghost. Hillbilly Up came in, so Abigail Sorcha Finnegan. Viejo, good to see you again, pal. Sorryfan93, G23, and Crappy Turtle were the guests who participated. Check this out, sneaking in late and saying hi to everyone is Mr. Mark Thomas. And so those are the— that's the crew that, uh, tippity-tap typed in the text chat this evening. And I have a question for everybody: did you bring a friend? This last week I asked if you would. If you didn't, please try to do that next week and share out the live. If you don't think about it during the show. How about at the end when you're making sure you put that thumbs up, that you're sharing it out to that person that you might be inviting for next week? And that's what I got, except to say, how do you feel about dairy in the mornings? Because there are lots of great protein options there. The 2 eggs thing, the— this thing, if you can— if, if it can't be from an animal, I'm going with Greek yogurt because about a cup of that, that's 30 grams of protein, and you can put I don't do nuts, you know, whatever on, uh, I like something, but yeah, I like throwing in granola sometimes.

Um, and so it's definitely one of those things. Um, the other part of that is just, it's just everyone is unique, right? It's like some people can eat yogurt, other people will barf at the idea of it. Some people eat cottage cheese, other people like, no way. I mean, at one point I think I ate chicken breast for a year is what it felt like, or salads or whatever. And that's why it's like, set the goals up so you can win, right? I know for a fact I can have a package of, um, tuna and I'm done, and I can put some herbs in there and voilà. But it took me years of eating like clean protein to have that be the standard. So it's like, set it up so your thing works for you. Like maybe you play a game with yourself where it's like, all right, for every can of Dr Pepper, I gotta drink a cup of water. Well, no, but I'm just saying, like, it's like whatever would actually work for you is kind of the idea.

So I know I was trying to be a pain on that one in particular. I have to stand strong on something. Um, but one thing that I, I also think is important is finding something that will work for you without you having to make all kinds of compromises that you probably know when you're signing up to do it that you won't be able to follow through on. Like, if you need to cut out bacon completely and you know you're not going to make that, try to find something that shades around that. Try to find a substitute for it, or you can shop for another plan. Not every plan is going to be exactly for you. And my— the two things that I did when I felt like I needed to do something about my weight, and dramatically so, I switched from Coke to diet soda. Okay, don't, don't tell me how bad diet soda is for me. And all I did was— the only eating thing I changed was I resisted, not refused, I resisted fast food. And I looked at the saturated fat calories on everything. It didn't mean that I, I did not have a set limit, but when I looked at it, it at least gave me pause. And so it's like, do I really want to do this? Because I was going to have it with this, this, and this. And if I do that— and sometimes that was enough. Other times I'm opening it up and I'm going for it because I, I know that I'm the kind of personality when it comes to food that if I find myself too limited, then I'll begin to make reasons to cheat, or I'll just feel that I don't have to pay attention to something that really doesn't apply to me, does it? No.

Yeah. So, all right, hon. Well, Uh, we are out of here. I'll let you do the final wrap-up, and if everyone wants to join us in the back room here, you're welcome too.

Well, thanks for coming around, everybody. Remember, bring a friend next week. Until we see you all again, be safe, have fun, take care of your crew and yourself, and rock! We're out.