Drug Addict Turned Fitness Guru- Austin Blatt of 4D Wellness — SECOND ACT: Real Recovery Stories with Michael Smeltzer

Second Act is brought to you by The Last Resort family of programs. The Last Resort is a group of nationally recognized and accredited addiction treatment centers near Austin, Texas, that specialize in treating adults in an environment designed to foster healing, connection, and true recovery. Our mission at The Last Resort is to provide a nurturing and transformative healing experience to individuals and families seeking recovery from the impact of addiction. Welcome to Second Act, brought to you by the Last Resort family of programs. I am very excited. I've been excited to introduce this guy to you. I'm here with Austin Blatt. One of the reasons I'm so excited to talk to you, bro, is you kind of embody— when people talk about holistic treatment or holistic wellness, like, a lot of times they say that, but they're really just kind of doing one thing. And, uh, you actually have this energy about you where you, um, truly— I mean, very obviously focus on the body, right? Oh, physical wellness. I say that because you're absolutely built. Let's know— let's not, let's not ignore that. But, um, the more I get to know you, I, I The thing that I love about your approach is you actually live it when you talk about mindset and you talk about diet, nutrition, physical wellness. We've touched a little bit on spiritual wellness, and so it'll be fun to get into that. But first and foremost, thanks for being here.

Welcome, man. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited, dude. I love being out at the Lash Resort. It's my absolute dream job to walk into a room full of men, like, super eager to learn. Like, today I was out there too, and we did TDE, Base metabolic rate, TEF. I walk the guys through macros and how to like calculate their own, like a total, like peek behind the curtain as to like, this is what your dietitian is doing, this is what your nutritionist is doing, this is what your, your coach is doing. This is how they get their formulas. These are the numbers, these are the metrics. I got all the guys, right? Notepad out, pens out, rifling off questions. It's, it's a dream job, right? And that's one of, you know, 30 lectures we bring out there. So super happy to be here.

And I should have prefaced this by saying, so Austin does work with the lab. Last Resort family of programs with 4D Wellness. 4D Wellness is your company.

Yep.

We're going to talk about how you got to the point where you're at now, where you're running this amazing company and doing so many other amazing things. Uh, but I want to get into the nitty-gritty, man. Let's take, let's take it back. I honestly, I don't even know like where you're from, your backstory. I don't know, I don't think we've ever gotten into that.

Yeah.

So tell me a little bit about your journey in recovery and give us like kind of the snapshot of what it was like.

Yeah. So I've been trying to get sober since I can remember. You know, I was— my name's Austin. I was named after a cheap bottle of champagne called Asti Spumante. My biological parents were in Tijuana, Mexico, doing excessive amounts of cocaine, drinking cheap champagne. That's where I was conceived. And so they thought it would be funny to name me after that cheap bottle of champagne.

So, like, not Austin, the city we're in.

Not Austin, the city. No, no. I think that's like a really good way to just kind of like, kind of like understand my biological parents and like, you know, sort of where I came from. You know, fast forward the clock, I was adopted. Still have my mother, love my mother, great woman. And then I have a man who adopted me. He's my father. He raised me. So I got his last name. I talk like him. I walk like him. I act like him.

That's dad.

That's dad.

That's dad.

He's the man. But, you know, we had a weird childhood, you know, but we'll kind of breeze over that because what it always looks like is if I talk about my childhood or some of the fucked up things that happened, it always looks like I'm, I'm pointing the finger and like, I don't want to do that as a new parent, as a new, as a new dad, which my daughter is the light of my life.

Yeah.

Talk about—

you realize how easy it is to screw things up.

I realize how easy it is to screw things up. And I realize, like, at the very least, they kept me breathing and they kept me alive and like, that in and of itself is a pretty big accomplishment, right? Like, you know, and I'm really fortunate where, like, in my situation, my wife is top tier, right? Like, so it makes it very easy for me. So, like, I'm not trying to pass judgment or blame my, you know, any of that. But I grew up in a crazy environment. You know, we like to party, we like to get after it. And getting sober was always tricky, man. High school was You know, I started buying my first ounces of cocaine when I was 15.

You're taking after your parents.

Yeah, taking after my parents right away. And, you know, that escalated into pills and it's— it really got bad when hydrocodone got introduced to the equation. And I was Xanax, hundreds of Xanax all the time. And we used to go on these family vacations, we'd go skiing and I would leave the hydrocodone at the house. I'd be like, you know what, because I have I have a really bad back. We leave the hydrocodone at the house.

Rookie mistake, bro.

But I didn't know. And I did this like every year for like years. And it wasn't until I get to college, I get introduced to OxyContin. My whole life changed. But when I would, you know, I was warned about being dope sick when I get introduced to the OxyContin. And so then finally we were talking 7 years later, I draw the connection like this has been happening to me since I was in high school. But yeah, dude, tons of crazy stories, man. And none of it really is, you know, any different than like what you hear from everybody else, man. I ended up in prison, ended up in several psych wards, a couple of real suicide attempts. For 10 years of my life, I did not see the point. I hated everything. I hated everyone. I was truly fucking miserable. I was lost. I had no purpose. I, I couldn't figure out how not to do dope and I couldn't not not do dope, you know? And, you know, but I like to draw attention to the alcoholic part of it too, right? I can really get lost in like talking like about shooting cocaine in your neck, right? And shooting heroin and all that. That was a huge part. But like, dude, I qualify as an alcoholic through and through. And my, my worst alcoholic was— I had opened up this bar in downtown. That's what I did for work was I worked in bars and helped open up bars and things of that nature.

Running bars.

Yeah.

Which is not a good job for an alcoholic.

You can drink all day long.

Or I should say it is a good job for an alcoholic, right? It ends up not being so good down the line.

Yeah. Yeah. It, uh, but anyway, I opened up this, I opened up this bar and I'm like, you know what? I know this, this general manager. Well, we're going to drink all day long and I'm going to stop doing heroin. Um, So I stopped doing the heroin. We got the job. We, uh, I made all the money. I went back to my house and now I don't have any work. I have a bunch of money and I'm kicking this heroin habit. And so in my head, I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to drink it away, bro. I'm just going to drink it away. And so I drank from sunup to sundown. Somehow this turned into months and I didn't really realize it. And it got to the point where I was having seizures all night. I'd wake up in the morning and I would army crawl into the bathroom and I'd puke up this yellow vial for about 30 minutes. Shaking violently. And then I would pray that I could make it to the kitchen, open up some IPAs— was the only beer I could stomach— open up some IPAs, um, and try and like calm the nerves a little bit. And then it was like an art form, and then mix in the vodka at the right time. And if I did that, I could stop like violently shaking. Uh, it was fucking miserable.

That's terrible.

It was a miserable way to live, and I didn't know how to stop it.

And How old were you at that point?

At that point, I was out of prison. Dallas had more or less kicked me out of the bar scene, so I had gone out to Fort Worth. That pegs me at like 28, 29, 28, 30.

And so the progression, I assume you started when you were what, a teenager?

Yeah, I started, I had my stomach pumped. So this is when my biological father was still around. I had my stomach pumped twice when he was around, 5 and 7. I guess he thought it was funny to only bring beer. And so like, I would end up drinking.

I'm sorry, 5 years old?

5 years old?

7 years old? You had your stomach pumped because you got into the booze?

Yeah, I was drinking beer on the boat.

Okay.

Yep.

That might be the earliest I've heard.

Yeah, that's a crazy one.

Yeah.

Now, so like, again, I really try not to talk about, you know, my parents much because— or my biological parents, or how you want to— it's complicated. Because I don't want to blame anyone. But yeah, it was a crazy— it wasn't like a very healthy environment. Yeah, yeah. And it's hard to know what's true or what's false.

It's—

my mom's version can be different than, you know, my dad's version, and it can all be different than biological father's version, which I see him every 20 years. So, uh, who knows really.

Uh, so you're 28 years old, violently shaking, doing the thing that drug addicts do. You got your concoction that works for you, your time in and out. Um, Is that when you finally found recovery? Was there a few more years to go? What did that look like?

There was a bunch more psych wards after that.

What were you going to psych wards for? Walk me through, like, how you get thrown into it. I mean, I've also been put into some psych wards, so I know, but I'm just saying, walk me through. What's the flavor of how it—

Sometimes it was as simple as I had no money and a psych ward, like, had to take you if you were suicidal, which I always was.

You just say, I want to kill myself.

Yeah.

And then they plan, intent, and then they put you in.

A few of the times the suicide ideation was totally fake. It was just to get in there. Yeah, because I would have to detox before I could go to a sober living, at the very least. Yeah, right. And yeah, dude, although there were some times I was in the psych ward completely whacked out of my mind, trying to kill myself, trying to find a pen, like, couldn't do it anymore, man. Couldn't do it anymore. Didn't want to do it anymore. Didn't know how to stop doing it. Couldn't manage to kill myself. I mean, what happened in that house with that alcohol was I just kept praying, like, okay, and like actively praying, like, please kill me, please kill me, please kill me, please don't wake up, please don't wake up. Uh, the same thing, you know, driving to the dope man, bro, full-on tears, driving the car, pulling over every exit, stopping, I'm not gonna go, I'm not gonna go, I'm not gonna go, and driving more.

And then that feeling, it's like autopilot.

Yeah, yeah. Then you get the bag and you're like, okay, Can I put all of this in one needle and it hopefully kill me? And then your tolerance just skyrockets and it's just, just this.

Yeah, dude, it's wild to hear, like, knowing you now, it's wild to hear you talk about that, you know, just because the convos I've had with you, we talk about our families, we talk about working out, and, and you're this, like, motivational bro that's, like, there for the guys. At the Last Resort. Yeah, it's kind of crazy to hear you, you know, you talk about yourself that way. And so, so you were shaken to the core. You wanted to die. You're hooked on dope. You're hooked on alcohol. What happened? What changed?

There's a guy named John Patton. He owns Patton Sober Living. Yeah.

Yeah.

John, he took a fucking huge risk on me, man. He let me into his house still detoxing. He runs a respectable sober—

Yeah. Which you typically don't.

You do not do this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You typically don't do that.

Somehow, you know, we begged our way in there. My dad helped me get in there. My dad was like, I'll give him one month's rent and you figure it out for month two. John rolled the dice. I got sober, met a guy named Dan Peranzino, who was my first sponsor. He really showed me like how gym could be a good outlet. And I linked together like 3, maybe 4 months worth of sobriety. Oh yeah, I thought I had discovered fire, bro.

Yeah, yeah, 90 days, I get it.

I felt so good, like I felt so good. I was like, the obsession had been removed, right? Like, uh, fell into a 12-step program. I did anything anyone said, right? And I remembered that feeling of like, you got an idea, I'll do it. You got an idea, I'll do it. And then in the meantime, I'm reading book after book, listening to podcast after podcast, just taking it all in because like my brain like clicked back online. It's like, this is the fucking feeling. Like, I remember being like a cognitive human being and it's like back. And, and like this voice that told me from the moment I woke up, dude, from 15 years old, 15 years old, all the way to 34 when I got sober, is from the moment I woke up, dude, this voice said how much money I have, how much money I need to steal, how much work I need to do to get the money. If I can't get the money, when the liquor store opens, when the drug dealer wakes up, how much dope he's going to have, Where is he located? How can I get— you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, it goes all day long until you go to sleep. It had stopped. And so now there's like this empty space in my head, right? There's this— there's this calmness that's been replaced by like this mind-body-spirit, by 12-step, by community, whatever. And I'm like, what do I do with all this time, right? So I just started studying and learning and like growing.

And were you always into fitness?

Yeah.

Was that always a thing for you?

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty fortunate. My mom loved fitness. She was always in the gym. And so, like, I follow into the gym from a young age, from a young age. And I always knew the feeling.

Then you got sober. That was like still like a home for you. You kind of started lifting weights and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah. Lifting weights, cardio, running. A lot of weightlifting. You know, I always felt like the way I presented wasn't actually just like sort of my natural state, you know what I mean? You shoot dope your whole life and snort cocaine like you— like a maniac and drink alcohol for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It's going to deteriorate your body. And as soon as I just cut that out in a very short time, I was like, oh, I'm supposed to look like this. Like, I knew I wasn't supposed to look like that.

Oh, so you're sober, you're, you know, you're, you're feeling good, you're feeling life, you know, the way it's supposed to be felt, or, you know, a more clean and pure version of life. And then, uh, did you stay sober and live happily ever after?

No.

Yeah, I kind of set you up for that one.

No.

So what happened, man?

Oh shit, uh, you know, uh, I mean, the short and sweet version. Well, I got this badass job. I've always managed to get good jobs, man. You know, even in addiction, I could score a good job. But I got this really good job in sobriety, lost it due to something that I didn't do. Like, it truly wasn't my fault, but it doesn't change the fact that I got really bitter about it. I got really resentful about it, and it just slowly ate me up from the inside until one day, dude, All I remember, I mean, I have no red flags, no, don't go there, no, don't do that. I just could smell it in the spoon. Like, that's the first recollection I have of going, oh shit, this is gonna end poorly, you know? And then back to the races.

How long were you out?

4 years.

Yeah, I had a similar experience, man. I had 2 or 3 months back in, uh, 2012, and then, you know, my grandfather passed away, and I blame, you know, I kind of like, poor me, poor me, and I kind of used that as an excuse to go back out and I was just going to get high one time, you know, just get high one time. I just want to get high one time, man. I'll come back and start making my amends again. And of course, that one time, you know, lasted 4 years. And, and I finally dragged my ass back into the 12-step rooms and it was a nightmare, you know. But so after 4 years, you come back and what worked for you, man? You went to treatment. I assume you hit some sort of rock bottom or something like what? What got you back?

And I love the topic of rock bottom.

There's always some lower, right?

There's always something lower. And my story has— we could war story and fucking crazy shit, right? But no, it wasn't necessarily rock bottom at all. What it was was I had somebody who cared and somebody who supported me, and that had been missing. And she was— she was like, no, this is fucking ridiculous. Like, you're not going to kill yourself. Like, I'm not going to watch this happen. You're going to a paid treatment center, which had always been missing. I end up at these state-funded fucking shitholes or trying to do it in a sober living, which I almost did, man. I got close, but I needed a little bit more. And she came together, got my sister on the phone, and the two of them paid for me to go to a paid treatment center down here in Austin. And I was just so fucking thankful to have a bed, to have food, to have people who genuinely cared for me and like That was a huge game changer for me because for the longest time and probably all self-inflicted, right? I'm not pointing fingers at it. If anybody I love is watching this, I'm not pointing a finger at you. It was probably self-inflicted isolation, right? But I was all alone, man. I was all alone. No one gave a fuck. And then I end up in this pretty treatment center where like all these people are telling me stories about how fucked off their life was, but how sober they are now. And I'm a great bullshit detector. And I could tell that I've just gone 10 for 10 with these fucking people who said they did the things I did and they're sober. And I'm like, how in the fuck did you do that?

And you believed them, right?

Explain to me how I'm going to do exactly that.

Yeah.

And believe it or not, bro, I did exactly what they said. I got exactly what they promised. And here we are.

Is that the 12 steps or is it, you know, a little version of that?

It was mainly the 12 steps, bro. Mainly the 12 steps. You know, I, you know, as a guy who spent a lot of time in prison reading on nutrition and fitness, doing a lot of push-ups—

it's not where most people do their light nutrition reading, you know, in a prison cell.

I did.

But that's, that's That's where you, you know, that was your college, right? Yeah.

And I just have like this burning, like I'm currently in the middle of a crazy biohacking podcast. I just love that shit. And so 12 steps, main focus, right? But then let's throw everything else at it, right? I talked to a guy who's into yoga. I'm like, all right, let's try that. Cool. Talk to a guy who's into running. He tells him it's good for his recovery. All right, let's do that too. Bring that in here. Talk to a guy who's really into like neuroscience and like neurofeedback. Okay, let's bring that in here too. And before long, I just kept bringing in all these different things and attacking this thing from all angles and finding out sort of the gurus and their specialties and like kind of created 4D Wellness that way.

Oh, that's a perfect segue. Let's— okay, let's talk about 4D Wellness. Yeah. So you get sober, you're, you know, feeling better. You're taking little bits and pieces. You got your nutritional reading from prison. You got the yoga teacher, you got the podcast. I assume it's a lot of the stuff I listen to too.

Probably.

And you're put— you're putting all these things together. The name 4D Wellness, where does it come from? And then the conception of 4D Wellness, take us through that.

Yeah. Uh, 4D Wellness actually, uh, it stands for Fourth Dimension Wellness. Uh, it is a line in the Big Book, but it's so much more than that. Yeah. Right. And you could really rabbit hole into what Bill Wilson meant. You can rabbit hole into what Fourth Dimension means. And I encourage anybody who likes 4D Wellness or follows Fourth Dimension Wellness, like create your own fourth dimension. Like it is whatever you want it to be.

Yeah.

And it's fine.

It's that extra dimension that's beyond what, like what we experience on a regular basis.

Yeah. And I think the general construct is, right, like, let's conquer the 3 elements we're in control of, right? Like mind, body, spirit, and see like where we end up.

Oh, I love that. Yeah, yeah.

Um, it actually started in a PHP house. I managed a PHP house for about 2 years. We saw around 1,500 guys come through the door. This is for a company called, uh, Infinite here in Austin. Um, saw a lot of guys come through the door, got to help a lot of fucking dudes. And like, I, I had already sort of established this holistic wellness sort of mindset, and I get the pleasure to work with all these guys. They're built in, they come right to my doorstep. And so I have like this petri dish to study like what works and what doesn't work. Yeah. And like guys who like get this thing and get sober, like what is general habits of these people, right? Versus guys who get this thing and are, are here, they have everything they need, right? Shelter, food, people who care for them, everything's required, but you're still a miserable fuck and you're definitely not going to stay sober. Yeah, right. What are their habits? Right. And so I just— and I got to watch it unfold over and over to the point where, like, for the most part, you know, I could tell you after living in that house for a week, probably the trajectory of which way you're going to go, because I get to study these dudes not in front of counselors, not when they're putting on a show.

Right.

Like, what are your habits at the house? Yeah. And when no one's watching you, how are you really showing up? Right. And, and it is It was fucking awesome. Like, it really was, right? And then, you know, there's always a group in the house. It's like just asking me 21 fucking questions. The favorite part of my day. All right, let's sit down, gather around the kitchen table. What are we talking about today? Because I just nerded out in this area for so long. And most guys have this intrinsic, like, internal desire to, to look good and feel good. And, you know what I mean? They want to understand how to optimize their day. And that's my favorite subject.

Do you ever worry about over-optimization? Right? Because I'm one of these guys that's always trying to optimize too. And I can tell, I mean, you're a very intense individual, right? Like, I like— you're, you're like about each step and you like know the details. I'll ask you a question about one thing and you like know the, the stats behind it and like where to go. But do you ever worry like about being trapped by the optimization or like, or do you feel freedom in it? Do you feel like, man, I'm just like, the more I optimize, the better I am?

Sometimes I can do too much, if that's what you're saying.

Yeah, well, I don't know.

I was—

it was a genuine question. Like, I don't know.

Yeah, no, sometimes you could do too much for sure.

Do you ever just like look at a piece of bread at a restaurant and you're just like, I fucking can't, you know, I just like, I want to eat that, but I just fucking can't?

I go through phases, man. If we're talking about like optimizing nutrition, I go through phases. Right now I'm in sort of a like a honeymoon phase because I just did this crazy cut, kind of accomplished that goal. And now I'm like, you know, the truth of the matter is guys who have like crazy amazing physiques, they can hold that physique for probably 2 or 3 weeks out of the full year. It's not like, you know what I mean? When you look at Instagram, you have that calendar centerfold look 12 months.

Yeah, it's just not realistic.

It's not realistic. It's not.

It's not. Is that because of the bulking and cutting cycle or is that just—

It's a lot of reasons.

Is it even healthy to look—

that's where I'm going.

Okay.

Yeah. Is it's not for me. It's some guys are just naturally super lean, right? You can kind of always— those guys just look amazing no matter what. I'm not necessarily one of those guys. I'm a big dude. And for me, I have to really get away from doing intense cardio, which is not good for my heart. It's not good for my head, right? I have to do like a slow and low cardio. I have to like really monitor my lifts and I have to be all over my food and it just becomes a lot, and it's really fun, it's really challenging. But right now, to answer your question, I'm in like a honeymoon phase where I'm just kind of— I'm not eating— when I say eating whatever, you got like cookies under the table and shit?

I gotta check, man.

None of that will ever— that's not what I do, that's not what I like. Yeah, like I'm eating more carbs with every meal, I'm eating more fruit, I'm eating more, you know, going out to eat once a week. And for me, that's a huge honeymoon phase. Yeah, uh, Yeah. Okay.

That answers my question.

Yeah.

But, but so you don't feel like you're over-optimizing, it's more seasonal. It's like, I, I'll go with whatever I'm, whatever my goals are. Yeah.

Right now the concentration is running at the moment. Right. And so I've switched out of, you know, that sort of IG-looking body, right?

Yeah.

Um, to let's concentrate on like mental health and like heart health, right?

Blood flow, heart cardio. Blood flow.

Feeling good, dude. Yeah.

Neurotransmitters.

Bro. Just feeling so good. And it's so challenging.

I hate it.

I hate it, but it's— I love it, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's a war. I stare at my tennis shoes hoping they'll disappear. I get on the treadmill, I'm, I'm a full mile and a half in before my body feels like, okay, fine, we can do this.

Yeah, that's how it goes.

Yeah, running, it's a struggle. And, uh, but it's good, man. It's really good. And I get off, I feel great. And, you know, the next probably 2 months will be very cardio focused. So like, I'll lose a lot of muscle mass. I'll actually gain a little bit of pudge, uh, which is a weird thing. That's what happens.

I love that you're setting yourself up for that. You're like, you're like, no, it's coming.

I know it's coming. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, well, now it's time to just nerd out, man. Yeah, this is what I wanted to do with you. It's the whole reason I scheduled this thing with you. I just want to nerd out. Let's talk like protocols. Like, um, we'll start big picture, right? Men and women of all ages, like, not, not getting super specific. Are there like a couple things that you just want to soapbox about that's Everybody should be doing this thing, but they're not doing it, whether it's diet or, or even a pharmaceutical or a supplement or something. Is it, are there like 2 or 3 things that you're like, man, if everybody did this, everybody would be happier and just feel better about themselves?

There's a lot.

Give me 5 or 10 if you want. I'm just saying, like, is there something that kind of, because I know it, like, you know, a middle-aged mom from Brooklyn maybe doesn't need what a 20-year-old dude from Austin, Texas needs. Like, that's different. There are those things that just like everybody needs, right?

I'm going to start with the processed food soapbox.

Let's go. We can talk Make America Healthy Again too. We don't need to get political, but like, you know, if you want to attack big food for a little bit, I'm game.

Yeah. Big food and big pharma always sort of get attacked by me. But from a very like, here's the data sort of way, especially if I'm presenting to a room, you know what I mean?

They have made us sick. They have made us sick.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, it's, I was in, uh, me and my wife and my baby were leaving a concert, uh, 2 weeks ago. We go into, uh, Dollar General. It's freezing. I look, as I look over at my daughter, she's like 15 months old and she's such a trooper. She's having such a good time. I look over and she's blue. I'm like, it's too cold, baby. We gotta go. We gotta, we're, we're gonna turn around.

It's not good.

But she's such a good sport. You don't even realize it. Uh, so we truck it out of there. Uh, it's like a 3-mile walk back to the car in the freezing cold. I'm holding her. We stop off in this Dollar General, and, you know, we look around. I was like waiting for an Uber, right? And, uh, there's nothing in there my family will eat, right? There's— we're not eating really any of this.

It's so hard.

And so we grab a water. We grab a water, and we're just hanging out the front. And, uh, you know, I see this— I see this mom, and like, God bless her, right? Like, God bless every mother in the world, dude. That's such a such a challenging job. And so my heart goes out to her, but I see her with her two kids and she's got the cart loaded up with Mountain Dew and Dr Pepper and all these things. And you could tell they're buying actual groceries for their home.

It's like their normal, like, yeah, diet.

Yeah, this wasn't like for a party, you know. And I just, I, you know, it's, it's so hard not to walk up and just like hug her and be like, listen, you can't do this. Like, because you're destroying so many things in this little young human. And, and like, to her defense, she probably has no idea what's available, what's happening.

And that's what's available. Yeah, especially at a Dollar General, right? You're not even at like a local market where there's like maybe some better options. Yeah, ultra processed. Yeah, high sugar, high corn syrup, uh, you know, all that stuff. What was the stuff you were telling me about the other day that's in all all the oats and grains, glyphosate, glufa?

Yeah.

What does it go by?

So in the United States, we dump glyphosate, which is mainly Roundup. And then there's another one that starts with a T. I can't remember the name.

So it's like a pesticide or herbicide. It's a pesticide, bro.

And that's really what's happened to the oats and the grain in this country, right? It's not the oats and the grains by themselves, by their very nature.

They're not inherently bad.

Exactly. They're not inherently bad. It's how we've treated. And now Now it's to the soil. It's on the soil level. If you were to stop spraying them today, I don't know this for a fact, but I would assume it would be several, several years.

Probably decades to even just like get it all out.

Yeah. I was listening to a regenerative farmer in Florida talk about his surrounding neighbor farms about how they're still spraying with this glyphosate and there isn't a pesticide within miles in any direction, or a pest within miles in any direction, but they still spray it anyway.

It's just what they do just to, you know, Yeah, it's, it's fucking crazy. So that's toxins in the food. And, and I, I assume the Dollar General story was really geared towards, you know, sugary sodas and like highly ultra-processed foods.

You're going to give your kid diabetes for sure. For sure, your kid's going to get diabetes. And about 50% of this country right now has diabetes.

You remember when we were kids, and I might get myself in trouble here, but there was like 2 fat kids in the school, you know? Like there was like no overweight overweight, you know, there was like one or two, right? Now everybody's overweight, bro.

We were at the water, uh, like a, a splash pad with my daughter. She's so cute. Splash pad with my daughter, and dude, she was one of three kids who weren't like obese, right? And it's, it's so sad. It's so sad. It's like, this is so reversible. But like, I, I gotta see the fridge. Like, what is in your fridge? And I promise you It— mom is— mom's busy, she's tired, she has low budget, and these are the cheap things that are available that are time and easy. But— and she doesn't know she's setting them up for lifelong problems.

And that's where chronic disease is coming from now. So, okay. So when I, when I asked you kind of about overarching protocols that you kind of answered my question, that's the low-hanging fruit. No pun intended, fruit. But you know, that's the low-hanging fruit is like, you got to stop eating the ultra-processed. Sugary sweets, like all that kind of stuff. Um, what about vitamin supplements? Is there something I— you know, magnesium and vitamin D seem to be really popular. Like, what, what do you think? What are the, like, catch-alls or the things that you—

yeah, so a lot of, a lot of vitamins and minerals are being processed out. So if you're eating these processed foods, they're getting processed out. Like when they say, like, enriched wheat, right? That means is they are taking the wheat, they're fucking spraying it with glyphosate, chopping it up into so many pieces that different parts of the minerals are being completely removed and then they're adding back in just like some random things they want.

Yeah. And so to say that it's got nutritious value, right? But it's not natural.

It's not natural. And your body can't absorb most of it because it doesn't come with the triage or the conglomerate of BCAAs and other things that your body needs to fully absorb that food. When Mother Nature, when she presented it, she's like, here you go, it's everything you need.

Fibers.

Got the whole thing, right? It's built together. It's perfect. Perfect. And then we have just destroyed it. Um, but yeah, you know, magnesium is a huge one. I really like magnesium threonate for sleep.

Magnesium threonate? Yeah, because there's different magnesiums.

Yeah, and they just do different things. Um, magnesium threonate is great for sleep. I do magnesium— I forget the one—

citrate or sulfate. Yeah, there's something, something like that. Yeah, I gotta check. I'm taking one too. I don't even know what it is.

There's a, there's a couple different ones. They'll mess with your tummy at first. Sometimes I get a client and, you know, very basic protocol that I run basically everybody through is fish oil.

For the omega.

For the omegas and the DHAs. And, you know, I talk about this a lot in my lectures is we sort of have to remember like where we evolved from and where we came from, right? And so like, you know, we'll do grounding, sunlight, affirmations, prayer, and all that in our morning routine because like that's what your ancestors used to wake up barefoot and like have to walk down to the river, right?

And that's the spirit, right? Feed the spirit right away. I love that.

And then everybody used to be conjugated around rivers and oceans, right? Because we ate a lot of fish and that's where we got a lot of our food from. And so today we're all, you know, Austin, Texas is in the middle of the land, so we don't eat a lot of fish naturally. But it doesn't change the fact that over millions of years of evolution, right, like your body is designed to take in these omegas, right? Uh, and these, these fish oils, and, and now you're not. And so, dude, so oftentimes you get a fish oil, a D3, because most people don't have to go outside anymore.

Yeah, we're not getting enough sun, so vitamin D.

So when your ancestors used to swing open their teepee barefoot, they get the sun on their face. Like, all of these things were just built into their routine.

I don't think my ancestors were in a teepee. I just, I just wanna throw that out there, but maybe something of the, of the, like, the cave. Let's just go back Okay, all the way back to the cave.

Yeah, just when they crawled out of their cave. Yeah, you probably were no teepee.

Yeah, yeah, maybe so. Maybe somebody in there. My mom always said I was— I had a little Iroquois in me, so maybe so.

Yeah. But you understand what I'm saying though, right?

Yeah, totally.

They would go outside. They would communicate with other people, right? They would have to go on walks to gather food. They would, you know, drink water. All of these super basic sounding things is really kind of a great approach to look at, like, what are you missing today? And, and today, and you know, that you just get prescribed pills for that. Oh, you're depressed? Here's a pill for that. Oh, you're fat? Here's a pill for that.

We're treating the symptoms and not the root.

Exactly.

Causes. I was just thinking you were talking about that routine and I was thinking about I can just imagine today how many people wake up, stare at their cell phone, scroll, scroll, scroll, walk out, drive through Starbucks, get a sugary, you know, latte or whatever before they even drink water. So all of a sudden, like, you're just hammering your body with all these things that are just not natural.

Absolutely. And that's, you know, it's part of the morning routine. I walk your guys at TLR, I walk them through a morning routine and we talk about like keeping your phone down. I don't. Like, you know, the first part of my morning routine, I'm up at, I'm up at 3 AM, and that's just because that's what I like to do, right? My clients don't have to get up at 3 AM. That's not—

when people hear 3, they think like, okay, this guy's a little fucking crazy.

I'm a little crazy.

5 AM is like, okay, you're a morning rider.

I've accomplished 20 things by 5 AM.

I'm a 5 AM guy. How do you do that with the kid, man? Is your, is your daughter sleeping through the night?

Because she sleeps through the night now.

But you have one, you don't have—

I have one.

Are you, are you gonna have number two?

Yeah, we're trying to work on number two, right?

Talk to me about your 3 in the morning routine after kid number 2 comes, man. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited for you. Yeah, because I got a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old right now. Yeah, that, that, uh, that morning is not, not always—

is it because they're just on different sleep schedules?

Yeah, and, and really, I mean, I could still wake up at, you know, 4:30, 5 AM if I wanted, but the problem is if you're— when you're up at 10 and then midnight and then 2, it's like you try to squeeze in an extra hour or two.

I do try and get a 30-minute nap in the afternoons though.

Ah, you're a little— a nap?

I just like to down, turn my phone off, kill the lights, lay down. If I fall asleep— and I don't really set a timer on it, uh, some days it's 20 minutes, some days it's an hour, uh, other days I'm snoring like a log for an hour and a half. I just let my body do its thing.

Yeah, and you have a schedule to where you—

yeah, a lot of afternoon, just kind of switching between jobs, you know, switching from this job to that job, uh, because, you know, I do wear a lot of different hats.

Have you noticed— do you know any, like, scientific proof that the nap is good for you, or anything happening? Is it helping your, like, muscle growth? Is it helping your brain reset?

I think it's just a reset. Yeah, it's a good chance for me to take a deep breath.

Just psychological.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. I try and listen to what my body's saying, you know. But I love that morning session, dude, that, that 3 AM until my daughter wakes up, uh, or until I leave for work. Um, It's beautiful. And some mornings it's as simple as I'm just like standing there zoned out, dude. Yeah, just, you know, getting in that flow state, just zoned out, just putting around, drinking water before everybody else.

Yeah, it is, it is beautiful. I, I, I, I love that too. I'm a morning person as well. There's probably a lot of people that are watching this that think we're crazy because, you know, there are people that are genuinely just like night owls that don't like morning. Their alone time is at night. But I'm— ever since getting sober, the mornings, yeah, are special.

It was a night owl my, my whole life. I've never had before same. But now this is when I— when I get to think about my day and outline my path and like think about, you know, the direction I want to take 40 Wellness, or sit and meditate on a client and like his struggles and see if I can— my best ideas come to me in that 3 to 5 AM window, right? I go through this whole morning routine, this mind-body-spirit connection, and dude, it just gets me in this flow state, right? Where just like thoughts are coming and like things are getting on paper and ideas, and oh shit, can't forget to do that today, and that makes the to-do list, you know what I mean? If I wake up after my daughter wakes up, I just feel like I'm playing catch-up the whole day.

Yeah, trust me, I know. Yeah, trust me, I know, man. Um, all right, let's get into some— you know, so we're talking about recovery a little bit, and we're talking about mental wellness and overall wellness. The thing that I see, um, and we work with a lot of men at The Last Resort, but I've seen it with men and women, a whole lot of, uh, body dysmorphia, right? Like social media just teaching people or, you know, kind of brainwashing them. You got to look this way to feel okay about yourself. And so a lot of times when people get, get clean and sober, get the drugs out of their system, they, they immediately shift towards, I got to look a certain way, right? And which is not— it's not necessarily bad, right? Like, oh, I want to focus on my body, focus on wellness. I mean, you preach it, I preach it. We get them in the gym, but, but But how do you coach somebody that's just like hyper-fixated on like appearance, right? Because that can't be healthy, right?

No, it happens all the time. And I'll be real honest with you, a lot of times those clients go back out. Those are the ones I lose, you know? And, um, it's quite literally why this is a holistic wellness company. It's because I, I, I was guilty of it too. Get sober and think that like biceps curls are going to keep me sober. And like, yeah, they fucking didn't. They absolutely didn't. And so I make sure and have a team around me that, um, speaks the same language but with a different voice, right? Yeah, it's master's level clinicians who can really approach it from like a very calm, cool, collected approach. And a breathwork meditation coach who has the exact same thought process as me, but it's a different voice from a different angle, from more of a spiritual side. And Um, but honestly, the best thing for those people is structured routines. If, if you want to— I can't make you not hyperfocus on your physique, but what I can make you do, or try to make you do, is to focus on some other things too. And so you want to hyperfocus on physique, okay, make sure we're hyperfocusing on breathwork and meditation too. Yeah. Uh, and then make sure you have a community around you, those other supports, those other things that are in play where you don't fall down the rabbit hole. And, uh, you know, a lot of times this— those people end up asking me questions about steroids. And like, you know, I think that's a great conversation to have with dudes and, uh, one that I see guys make mistakes with all the time.

Yeah, I was gonna ask. I mean, you knew it was coming, right? When you talk about body dysmorphia and all that kind of stuff, uh, steroids, and then now you have GLP-1s, which people can get on young, which again, GLP-1s aren't necessarily bad for you. Like TRT, for example, not necessarily bad for you. Um, I just get nervous about how young people are when they start playing with these things to either lose weight.

Yeah.

Or build muscle.

Yeah.

So I, I don't know if you have a little—

you're just trading in one drug dealer for the next, right? Like, yeah, I just spent all this hard work, all this time, all this focus getting rid of a drug dealer. Like, why am I gonna opt for a new one, right? And, and that's what you're doing with those Uh, those fat loss drugs, man, that's— they don't outright tell you, but that you take that for the rest of your life, right?

Or you build the weight back. I was just learning about this Ozempic, so the GLP-1s. I didn't realize that when you lose all that weight, you're obviously— your muscles waste, right? And if you stop taking it, you gain the weight back because your metabolism has changed, but you don't gain the muscle back. So you're literally like worse off than when you started.

Big Pharma does not give a shit about you.

No, because they— yeah, they can just sell it.

If you think Big Pharma is the answer, bro, you You're just wrong, man. You're just wrong. And as soon as they figured out it actually happened with the birth control pill in 1963 or maybe '73, it's on my timeline of, I have a timeline of like what happened in American culture that like brought us to the point to today where—

Where big pharma's at.

Big pharma runs the country basically.

Corruption in the FDA and all that.

Yeah. But they figured out, you know, with the birth control pill that, oh shit. Because back then people used to take pills acutely for small times for, quick fixes. They figured out with the, uh, birth control pill, oh shit, we can get this person to take a pill every single day for years on end. That's a lot of money. Yeah. And so since then, magically autoimmune disorder is shot through the roof, right? In these, these chronic disease, uh, and so, you know, the, the Ozempic, you know, in my opinion, is a terrible idea unless you were just tragically obese piece. Um, they're trying to get it passed for kids to be able to take it now, and then Medicare will be able to pay for it. I mean, kids, you're paying for it, and then you're also paying for the SNAP, which is also, uh, you know, has Pepsi products.

They're trying to get kids to take Ozempic.

Yeah, they're trying to get—

what makes sense because they're treating— big pharma and big food, like, they're making them sick. Yeah, that's, that's the playbook.

Yeah.

Oh, that's terrible.

Yeah, so they, you know, feed them the sodas and then feed them the, the weight loss.

There's hope though, right? Like, I feel like people are waking up, man.

Oh, for sure.

Like, you and I are not the only ones that are realizing this. I mean, we had— and again, I don't want to get too political, but like, it is very apparent that there are people and lawmakers that are finally like talking about this stuff, and there's people in power that want to change this. I mean, there's even bills in states where the SNAP, you know, the food stamps, they're, they're pulling sugary sodas out of it. And so Like, are we gonna get there? Or do you think that they're just too fucking powerful? You know what I mean?

I think, dude, I think we're making huge progress. I think we're gonna get there. I think it is less political than they want us to believe.

Oh, totally.

I think both sides are in on this. I think it's for everyone.

How can you be against American health? I mean, you might be against a certain certain person's viewpoint on A, B, or C. We don't need to get into all that. But like, it's pretty obvious that Big Food and Big Pharma have made us sick, and then they keep us sick by only treating the symptoms, and they bill us continuously, like you said. Like, if you disagree with that, you're just— you're not being honest with what's happening. You know that? I don't care if you're on the left or the right, like, that just is what it is. Yeah. And I worry about 'Cause guys like you and me were out here fighting drug addiction, right? Which was a whole nother epidemic that Big Pharma played a huge part in. And these guys get clean and sober only to destroy their lives in other ways. Eating, going to the grocery store. Talk about a drug dealer. That's a drug dealer right there, right?

Yeah.

So.

Yeah. And dude, that's what happened to me too. You know what I mean? Like I'd get sober, I would detox on my own. I mean, you're talking white knuckling heroin detox. Detox, get 7 days sober, and I'd be like, okay, I think I can stomach some food, let's go to the grocery store. I'm not gonna buy dope with this money, I'm gonna go to the grocery store. And I thought like, I, I thought that was a big deal. I go to the grocery store, I buy the food, I get home, cook the food, put in the microwave, put in the oven, whatever it was. Yeah. And then feel like ass and have no idea that like I'm still blaming the withdrawals, but it's the food I'm eating. Yeah. And then I'm tired all day, I don't feel good all day, I'm slightly depressed, like all of these things. Like, I'm very, very like sensitive to that stuff almost. Yeah, you know what I mean? It was like as soon as I figured out how to optimize my nutrition, the whole fucking game changed. Like, the whole game. I was like, holy shit, man, I've been playing with, you know, one hand tied behind my back.

Totally right.

And like, as soon as I like felt good after eating food— and you know, it takes a little while, it takes a little while. It's not like you eat one healthy meal and then you call me up. And I get clients like this. They eat healthy for 2 days, they call me the third day, I still don't feel good.

I'm like, bro, it's like your body is used to that, like those Hot Pockets and ramen noodles you've been shoving down your—

yeah. And you can almost compare it to drug addiction in the sense that, like, you know, this quick easy fix of a milkshake is gonna feel fucking great while you're drinking it, right?

Well, there's studies—

what about after?

What it does to your brain is similar to drugs. There's a dopamine— is literally a neurotransmitter transmitter that it's a reward pathway, right? It's for when you eat food, have sex, like do things that are supposed to be good for you. But we just overdo these dopamine paths.

Yeah.

So I— an ice cream milkshake or whatever. Yeah, does the same thing.

Yeah, you gotta like learn to teach delayed gratification, right? And that's sort of where the gym really kind of comes into the whole picture, is teaching yourself and training yourself to do hard things and to like buckle down and Um, and it's a lot easier to eat healthy too that way.

Oh, we're, we're getting close to time, man. Let me, let's wrap up here with a couple. Yeah. Let me, I'm gonna jump and just throw some stuff at you, man. All right. Uh, you're trapped on a deserted island for the rest of your life. You, you can listen to one podcast and take one book with you. What podcast? What book?

I'm taking The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

I thought you might go Rogan just because he's kind of all, he like a lot of different topics. He's all over.

Yeah. Yeah. You ever listen to Andrew Huberman?

I love I was just listening to him. He had Dr. something Hines, you know, the function guy. You know what Function Health is?

Yeah, like, yeah, Functional Health.

Yeah, they just, uh, they're in Austin, I think. Yeah, yeah, they had a good episode.

No, that's Ways to Well. They're in Austin.

Ways to Well. Actually, Tyler Watkins, uh, from Ways to Well, I interviewed him for a different project, man.

No shit.

Good guy, good guy, really good guy. All right, do you think you could take like a— I feel like gorilla, you're gonna say no. Do you think you could take a chimpanzee?

Oh dude, I do not have a fighting bone in my body. I am—

but if you did, do you think you could take a chimp?

A very small one. A very small—

like a baby rhinoceros or something.

No, no, I mean, I am, I am hella strong. It's not just show, it's very much go, but I just don't. I just don't. I'm just not a fighter, dude.

I love that.

Yeah, that's why I hypnotize like the bigger you get, the less people want to fight you. It's perfect.

So that sets you up right at the end here, man. We did this whole beautiful interview and the headline is going to be, Austin says he would fight a baby rhino and a chimpanzee. Austin, I love you, brother. Thank you so much for taking the time, man. Uh, what you're doing with 4D Wellness is incredible. Uh, what you do with our guys at The Last Resort is incredible. You're the real deal. I appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks Gracias por haberme.

That's a wrap.

Yep.