Beyond the Gym: Embodying Fitness as a Lifelong Quest with Ben Biondi

Ben Biondi of Rise Fitness and Kickboxing unpacks the layers of living a truly fit life. Together, we navigate the peaks and valleys of fitness plateaus, sharing stories of personal transformation and the potent blend of mental, spiritual, and physical wellness. Ben brings a trove of knowledge from the frontline of personal training, reminding us all that knowledge doesn't stop once you've reached your goals – it's an ongoing expedition that shapes each step of the way.

 Witness how a supportive community can foster not just a confident and healthier individual, but also a purposeful life. We dissect the significance of routine over the whims of motivation, advocating for the power of consistent action. Whether it's the 14-year-olds hitting the gym at dawn or seasoned adults chasing a healthier existence, this episode illustrates the transformative impact of embracing fitness as a lifestyle.

Wrapping up, we share the pivot from personal passion to entrepreneurship in the fitness realm – a testament to the power of embracing change. The journey from battling personal demons with broken back to establishing a flourishing business is not just inspirational but a roadmap for anyone looking to redefine their life through health and wellness. Join us as we celebrate the victories, the challenges, and the unyielding spirit of growth in the quest for a balanced life.  Ben's expertise, and the tales of those whose lives have been altered by fitness will leave you ready to lace up your sneakers and pursue the best version of yourself.

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Explore a mindful path with Zaw Maw's coaching—Foster balance, healing, recovery, and meditation in your life's journey through his supportive and wisdom-based guidance.

Explore a mindful path with Zaw Maw's coaching—Foster balance, healing, recovery, and meditation in your life's journey through his supportive and wisdom-based guidance.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back to A Therapist of Buddhists and you brought to you by the Recovery Collective. If it's your first listen, welcome. Our collective community listeners know we dive deep into collective solutions for health and wellness. Today we have a special guest joining us Ben Biondi, the passionate owner and head personal trainer at Rise Fitness and Kickboxing in beautiful Annapolis, maryland Maryland. Get ready to be inspired as we explore the transformative benefits of physical exercise and how it can positively impact every aspect of our lives. Now, if you've ever wondered how to break through fitness plateaus, optimize your workout routine or achieve your body composition goals, then you're in for a treat. But Ben brings a wealth of expertise and insights that will help you unlock your full potential and elevate your fitness journey to new heights. But that's not all. We'll also delve into the connections between physical, mental and spiritual health, uncovering the holistic approach to wellness that goes beyond just breaking a sweat. So, whether you're a seasoned gym goer or just starting your fitness journey, this episode is packed with valuable nuggets of wisdom that will inspire you to take action and reclaim your vitality. So grab your workout gear and tune in. Let's spring into action together as we explore the power of movement and its profound impact on our overall well-being.

Speaker 1: 1:21

If you like what you hear, share with others, and it really makes a difference if you spend a brief moment to subscribe and like the podcast. More and more people are certainly noticing the podcast and hitting that button can lead to people finding us in an easier way. With that, I want to say happy thing-john to Zola and all our listeners. I'll thing-john, also known as the Burmese new year water festival, is a vibrant and joyous celebration marking the beginning of the traditional Burmese calendar. It's a time of renewal, cleansing and rejuvenation, where people come together to wash away the old year's troubles and welcome fresh beginnings, with water symbolizing purity and blessings. So whether you're participating in these festivities or simply soaking in the spirit of joy and community, may this Thin John bring you abundant happiness, prosperity and blessings for the year ahead. And by the time this is released, we've got one or two days left of that celebration. So that's all. Happy Thin John, and tell us a little bit about your experiences with uh celebrating this in burma and celebrate it back in burma for a while.

Speaker 2: 2:31

But, uh, we are going to a burmese buddhist monastery on saturday, uh, so that'll be fun to get a little cultural experience. Absolutely, it's a good symbolic uh festival yeah, it's.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it and it's a good eats and community. I'm glad to participate in that with you, with our little ones as well. So now that we've done all that, Ben welcome.

Speaker 3: 2:56

How's everybody doing?

Speaker 1: 2:58

Thank you for joining us. And a great topic, not just a collective solution to health and wellness, but we're talking about fitness and we're certainly hitting your world and your expertise and kind of start us out by giving our listeners a brief overview of your background, your expertise and how you got into this industry of fitness.

Speaker 3: 3:20

Well, I always like to start by saying I never like to think of myself as an expert Me either.

Speaker 3: 3:27

I've got nothing left to learn, and certainly in an ever-changing industry and world, there's always new stuff to learn. There's always new concepts, new science, new discoveries, new discoveries and, uh, my myself and my gym and the other trainers at the gym put a huge focus on continuing education because, in my opinion, if you're not learning um, then you're becoming obsolete. So, um and I certainly didn't feel that way always that was a learned uh behavior and certainly something that was taught to me through recovery and through a great mentor of mine who was the original owner of the gym. So I spent most of my life in the restaurant business doing the exact opposite of what I do now Lots of debauchery, late nights, drinking, stressful situations, terrible hours. You know, just if you enjoy that sort of lifestyle which I did it's not horrible. There was a lot of money to be made, but you can certainly take it to an unhealthy level, and there's lots of those people around if you're looking for them. So that was my experience in the restaurant business and at some point it just got me into way too much trouble. And that's when I would like to say that I decided to get sober. But I decided to get sober because I was pretty much forced into it through a whole string of events that caused me a lot of trouble. So as I got sober, I remember thinking to myself that I was very unhealthy.

Speaker 3: 5:19

I had terrible back problems. I was overweight, which didn't help the back problems. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't tie my shoes without getting out of breath. My fastest mile running was slower than what some people walk a mile. I couldn't do 10 pushups. I couldn't do a pull-up. I was just really out of shape.

Speaker 3: 5:42

It was embarrassing, but I also knew that if I made that aspect of my health a priority at first, then recovery would take a backseat. So I'm not saying that health shouldn't to some degree come before recovery, shouldn't to some degree become come before recovery, but I think we have to tread uh lightly on where we put our focus when we're making certain changes and not to change everything at once. So for me I chose to focus on my recovery first, and it wasn't until after my first year that I got into um, fitness. Me getting into fitness looked like. Well, let me backtrack a little bit. So my back issues involved five herniated discs, two fractured vertebrae in my neck, two fractured vertebrae in my back, five arthritic facet joints and something called a tethered spinal cord, which is like severe scarring of the sheathing around your spinal cord. How are you walking.

Speaker 3: 6:53

It's a bit of a miracle really, but there's some science behind it. So I went to a surgeon. I went to two different surgeons. They both recommended surgery. They both told me not to lift anything over 20 pounds and told me to never set foot in a gym. And I said, well, I don't really go to the gym, but that doesn't sound like a good plan to me. So I went to a neurosurgeon a neuro back surgeon as opposed to an orthopedic back surgeon and he said well, there's a few things that we can try. First, we can give you some injections. So I got five cortisone injections, l1 through L5 simultaneously, and he said if these work, this should buy you some time to have a little bit of comfort. Enough to get into a gym and make some progress, lose some weight, strengthen your core, and that's really your best bet.

Speaker 3: 7:50

So I had lots of different reasons for getting into the gym. One was to try to fix my back. One was to lose some weight. One was to just generally be a healthier individual. I didn't really touch much with my diet, although I did stop drinking soda, which was a big help, and I was sitting at Chicken Ruth's with a bunch of fellas eating a really greasy breakfast and I said I think I'm going to get a gym membership and they were like, oh, that's great, good for you. I was like I'll see you guys later. They're like, oh, right now. And I was like, yeah, I'm leaving right now. So I, like paid my check. I didn't even finish my breakfast.

Speaker 3: 8:28

I went to the biggest gym in town and I got a membership and I worked out for like three hours and I was so sore and that didn't deter me at all I went back the next day and just worked on whatever body parts were not sore and they were very sore the next day too. So then by the third day I pretty much couldn't move my body. But it was exhilarating. You know what I mean. It was so hard, it was so tough, everything felt heavy, everything felt impossible. I was looking around at other people in the gym making assumptions, like they were in the shape that they were in just naturally right, that they hadn't put in any work, and I quickly realized that for a lot of people that wasn't the case. Everybody has a story. Even the people that were in good shape most of their life still have some sort of story about a point where they were struggling with fitness.

Speaker 3: 9:24

And that's part of what I want to talk about today is just how to make this a permanent piece of a person's life right, because it's not just a thing that you do and then you're done with it. It has to be ongoing, much like recovery, much like spirituality. We don't just do it once and graduate. It's a constant part of our life and if it's going to work it has to integrate well, it has to feel comfortable. It can't feel intrusive, it can't be inconvenient. I mean, sometimes it is. That's just how life is. Some things are inconvenient, but most of the time we find in life, but certainly in when it comes to health and wellness if something is not convenient, then eventually people just throw up their arms and give up.

Speaker 3: 10:16

So I lost about 50 pounds in nine months. I haven't had to get any back injections that was 13 years ago. I haven't had any back problems that were debilitating other than just some minor pulls, most of the time not doing anything you'd expect, like gardening, raking leaves, picking up a sock you know what I mean. Not really any injuries. Lifting weights and at 47 years old I lift probably triple to quadruple what I ever lifted in my life injury-free. If I do get injured, it heals quickly. I attribute that to rest and self-care, like stretching mobility active stretching, passive stretching.

Speaker 1: 11:14

So let me ask you your journey to that moment at Chicken Ruth's. What was the impetus? There was the hey, debilitating back pain and broken back literally. I don't know if you were in recovery at this point, but what would you say, was your really push to? I know it was Chicken Ruth's, but what were some of your big motivators to go? Now's the time you mentioned a couple of those things, but what was it for you?

Speaker 3: 11:50

One of the biggest things. This is going to sound funny because we're all a little bit vain. I had like 10 really nice Hawaiian button down shirts, hawaiian button down shirts and I couldn't wear a single one of them without my belly button popping out the bottom of the shirt and that's not exactly what they're supposed to look like. That's not the look they're going for when you put that on and I was a little bit embarrassed. I was embarrassed about my physique, I was embarrassed about my weight, but there was the physical aspect of it too.

Speaker 3: 12:27

Like we you know, some friends of mine suggested we go on a hike and like 20 minutes into this hike, man, I was just spent Ask me to again, like ask me to run, and it was just like embarrassing. I just physically I knew that it was not going to get any better unless I did something about it. Eventually I wanted to have kids and I wanted to be able to play with those kids. I had nieces and nephews that I wanted to play with and they take well you know, I mean they kids take a lot of energy and I just didn't have it Like I didn't stand a chance, a grown man not able to play with kids for more than five minutes because I'd get wore out and I was just like that just doesn't sit well with me physically broken to not just physical health but gym member.

Speaker 1: 13:30

There is an example of that progression and I love that you shared. Part of the message you want to get across to the listeners today is for this to continue, this has to integrate in your life pretty well, and that's the same for whether it's recovery from substances and no longer using to finding happiness in your life. So what are some of the key challenges people face when starting this journey and how do you help them overcome these challenges? Because you certainly experienced it.

Speaker 3: 13:56

Aside from my own personal experience and the education that I've gotten over the years, I've been able to draw a lot of really strong parallel lines with what I learned in recovery and that's been such a huge help. A lot of as a trainer. A lot of what I have to focus on, or where I'm able to help people, is to make a connection. People are like afraid they're legitimately afraid to walk into a gym or start a program or take some sort of adventure Like just like recovery, like I would love to quit drinking and quit smoking, crack or whatever it is, but it's scary because what am I going to do? How do I even start? What do I do? And going to the gym and getting back into shape or getting into shape for the first time is much the same way. So I was able to draw a lot of parallels with recovery in the sense that you have to build some bonds with people, you have to trust people, and the roadblocks that I see most people hit is that they don't have the foresight to see the value in it.

Speaker 3: 15:21

Right, we will spend money on a car wash, getting our nails done, eating out three times a week. I can't afford a gym membership or I can't afford training and it's like, well, you're choosing not to afford that and if you think you can do it on your own, that's great, but if you can't, the resources are there and they're not cheap, but they're worth it. And I won't say for everybody, because everybody's scenario is different, but for most people it is affordable if we dig deep and we prioritize our health. One of the best questions that I heard somebody phrase was if you were lying on your deathbed, how much money would you pay to be able to get up and walk out of the hospital? What would your health be worth at that point?

Speaker 1: 17:27

It's the ultimate example of whether it's physical health or working with Zal and life coaching or recovery coaching or therapy, whatever it is you're investing in yourself, you're putting value in yourself, as opposed to a car wash your car to make it shiny. It's doing the internal and external, all of the work, and I think that's a great potential motivator to your point.

Speaker 2: 17:52

Yeah, you're saying about that connection, because the thing about the desire for change, it can be an event, but then how do I sustain it? You know to renew it over and over again, but then the gym membership and then what you do, also like mentor or personal trainer, if there is a connection, like there is more of a motivation to renew it. You know, and if you're hinting at about recovery too, that in recovery people help others and that's how they help themselves. You know so like that connection, or I guess in simple terms, it's more like a purpose. After I have discovered the purpose, like that is like the renewal for every challenges, that, okay, this is why I'm doing what I'm doing. You know so, like was there also a point in your journey where that clarity of purpose became clear and that like motivates you to keep going?

Speaker 3: 18:46

There's been several points and they've come from all different directions. I think some of the first moments that I had were I never realized, I never imagined that at various points in my career that half my clients would be under the age of 20, all the way to like 14 years old. Some of them would come in before school and train. I mean, I wouldn't be caught dead in a gym or up at 5 am when I was in high school or junior high school or whatever. So at that point you realize you're working with a special type of person who's just highly motivated in wanting something better for themselves or striving for something. But then the other half of the kids that I trained literally walked through the doors only knowing the top of their shoe. Well, they didn't want to talk to other kids, they didn't want to talk to other adults, they had zero confidence and within a very short period of time they may not have lost any weight, but what they did do is start lifting their head up and realizing that other people in the gym were cheering them on. And I'm not saying that that's every gym necessarily, but our gym is pretty unique in that we have a very supportive community which I lean on all the time. Even though I'm the expert I need their help all the time, just like in recovery. But then when some of these kids, guys and girls lift something they never thought they would lift or run a speed, they never thought they would run or jump a height, they never thought they could jump. And then they're like, wait, I can, if I can do this, what else can I do? And it really boosts self-esteem to the point where I'm in this one kid, one of the first kids I worked with super shy, just really. I mean just hard to talk to. I mean you could have a conversation with him and he just literally wouldn't answer you. That's how introverted he was. And at the end of the month he's like walking up to random members and just being like hey, what's up? What are you working on today? I'm just waiting for Ben to get done with his next client because we're going to do some squats. I'm just waiting for Ben to get done with his next client because we're going to do some squats. And it's like that guy just said more in like two seconds than he said in the last month To a complete stranger, you know. So for me I was like wow, there's so much more than just physical fitness to all of this.

Speaker 3: 21:39

And then one of the other big moments, I think, for me was there's been at least half a dozen times two kind of long and mildly embarrassing stretches where I was struggling. I'm working in a gym as a trainer with a full client load At this point. I've trained well over 300 clients and I can't make the time or find the time or find the motivation to work out myself. And I'm like man what is the problem with that? And I'm like man, what is the problem with that? And it didn't take me long to finally just realize that if we're waiting for motivation, we're going to be waiting a long time.

Speaker 3: 22:30

Like I don't go to the gym every day and work out because I'm motivated every day. I'm actually very infrequently motivated. I just do it. It just becomes a habit. The motivation comes after you start the workout, much like in recovery when we say you have to act your way into a new way of thinking and not think your way into a new way of acting. The physical action of just walking through the door and getting started is normally enough for most people to stir up some motivation to get a workout done. But if you're waiting to go to the gym for like some miraculous amount of like motivation, man, it could be weeks before you wind up walking through the door, and the longer you're away, the harder it gets to go.

Speaker 1: 23:22

Yeah, for sure you're taking some of my thoughts right out of my mind and you're voicing it and I I thought was what are my takeaways so far from the conditions you're setting up to rise fitness?

Speaker 1: 23:37

And and part of it is what separates Rise Fitness and kickboxing.

Speaker 1: 23:44

You alluded to man.

Speaker 1: 23:45

If you can have the motivation to work out on your own, great, but, to your point, that's not always the case with anything in terms of growth, whether it's physical, mental, emotional, and it sounds like part of the culture that you've created at Rise is that community and that support, and it's so much, I'll say, easier when those conditions are there, because whether it's me as a therapist that, hey, I'm not always the healthiest person mentally or it's physical you name it Zal with his meditation practice and helping people meditate, that we're not 100% all the time and the ability of creating a culture, in your case, a gym that can't think your way into good living. Sometimes you've got to live your way, you've got to do the things. In your case, it's in the platform of physical health, but you're explaining, beyond the physical benefits that can and, residually, will happen. If you do this thing, you're going to be aware of your mental health and emotional health. I think you'll be more conscious of that if you add certain aspects of growth and recovery, in your case, physical health.

Speaker 3: 25:05

Am.

Speaker 1: 25:06

I summing it up, yeah.

Speaker 3: 25:10

And I sum it up real, with a lot of people I'm more blunt, I'm almost always tactful and I'm very client-centered. So I'm not a bossy coach. I make decisions with clients, I don't make them for them, because I honestly believe that just will never work if you do it that way. But when people ask me, people will say, ben, can we talk for a minute? Well, well, maybe it'll be one of my clients or maybe it'll just be another gym member who's not my client. I'm really having a tough time with motivation and I look at them and I just say, fuck motivation, forget about it altogether, because it's pretty worthless, it's not accountable and it will not show up for you most of the time. But consistency, consistency will, will help you every time. Just get here. And the more you build on that, the easier it becomes to just be consistent whether you're motivated or not. It becomes to just be consistent whether you're motivated or not. And then to bridge that gap, we have trainers. We have people that are always looking for workout partners. So if you can't afford to pay a trainer, find somebody who just needs a workout partner, who you can sort of jive with a little bit, and I've had several workout partners since being there, and I wouldn't be where I was today without them for sure.

Speaker 3: 26:47

When I first started working out, I was so on fire. I didn't need a workout partner. I was like going to show the world I could do this. Right, that was easy, that was like the honeymoon phase. That was like the first year, the equivalent of like the first year of recovery, when life is simple, right, and then you get married and then you have kids, and then you get a more demanding job and then you have less time and you're getting less sleep and it's like hard to have the energy or hard to have the time to work out. And if you have, like I'll tell people I might miss my workout throughout the day. Like I'm trying to get it in and it just doesn't seem to be happening. And at the worst case scenario, I'm like I'm just going to work out before I go home and I'll be heading for the door at like seven o'clock at night and somebody will be like Ben, I thought you said you were going to work out before you left and I'm like, ah, shit, I didn't say that. All right, I get it, I see.

Speaker 3: 27:54

And so I've tell on myself all the time I try to make my plans known so that if I try to change them somebody will call me out on it. I tell my workout partner what the workout is ahead of time so that I can't get halfway through and say we're getting close to the end. He knows we're only halfway through. I already told him the plan because it's real easy for me to be like well, that feels pretty good, that's enough work for today, and it's like no dude, that was not the plan.

Speaker 3: 28:22

This is the plan, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't listen to your body. We should always listen to our body. Some days we just don't have it. I have had a couple of days like that recently where I went to go lift a certain amount of weight and you got to put your ego aside and just say that is too much today. You got to put your ego aside and just say that is too much today. Not every day is going to be the best day in the gym. That's a fact and you just have to deal with that.

Speaker 1: 28:48

Yeah, what comes to mind is selling motivation is a good sales tactic, but creating a culture of consistency is beautiful for health and wellness and that's the long-term benefit. Is consistency, because, to your point, we don't always have that motivation. Yeah, that's good. I like to go back a little bit and talk more about the beyond the physical benefits and how I think that's also part of the consistency is. To your point, we're not always reaching our goals or gains and that doesn't always motivate us. It might early on and see those quick gains, but can you do a little bit more of how the physical fitness impacts mental and emotional wellbeing?

Speaker 3: 29:33

So there was a study done a while back and it was more or less a questionnaire handed to thousands of doctors and it came back with them having all different opinions about the benefits of physical fitness. But there was one benefit that 100 of doctors agreed on and that was an immediate positive impact on a person's mental well-being. An immediate positive impact on a person's mental well-being that means that same day that you walk into the gym, you have gained no muscle, you have lost no weight. No muscle, you have lost no weight, but you have positively, immediately affected your mental well-being. And that really, when I read that, I thought to myself why does nobody focus on this more, right?

Speaker 3: 30:32

So we ask a question when we are doing like client leads, and we ask three questions what are you looking to do? Lose fat, lose weight, build muscle or just blow off some steam? And some people say all three, some people pick two and some people just say I'm blowing off some steam. If they lose weight, great. If they gain muscle, great. That's not why they're there. They just understand that they're better moms, better employers, better employees, better fathers, better brothers and sisters, whatever it may be, because they go to the gym and it helps reduce their stress.

Speaker 3: 31:13

It helps, give them some clarity, it helps them unwind, it helps them get a better night's sleep, which obviously helps people's mental well-being. So they're not necessarily there for anything specific other than they know when they leave they feel better. I mean, that's hard to argue with.

Speaker 2: 31:33

Yeah, I also want to go back to what you said in the beginning about the connection piece, uh, with this uh, well-rounded well-being as well. Is that like, um, that thing about mood follows actions? You know that, but then sometimes I cannot motivate myself, that I cannot force myself to do something. But if I've also like I would be like waiting for that moment of inspiration to do what I'm supposed to do, like waiting forever, you know. But then when you are being accountable with the gym member or the trainer, or if you see somebody else who is doing it like you feel more inspired.

Speaker 2: 32:07

But then before that, there is a need for a sense of belonging. You know, that's how recovery has been for me too, that if I don't not see anybody who's sober and happy, why would I want to do it? So, promoting that culture of a sense of belonging where people are like oh yeah, I'm one of this group and I want what they're doing and what they're having. So that piece I feel like that's kind of cultivated at your gym too, about that team effort as a community. But also what you were saying about the mental well-being kind of makes me think about the metaphor that I've heard of is like a spoke of a wheel. You know, when one good thing's happened, the other thing started spreading too. You know, I feel like physical well-being is like that too, where you start doing it, you know, and then other things just start unfolding. Yeah, I'll just stop there. It was great.

Speaker 3: 33:01

I was going to say that's a great point, zal, and that's definitely one of the things I want to talk about. So, like me, personally, I did not change other than drinking soda. I did not greatly change my diet when I first started working out and I saw a lot of pretty big changes because of how hard I worked, and so that's not always common, but if somebody puts in enough work, they're going to see pretty good changes despite their diet. But you will absolutely hit a roadblock if you don't change your diet. And I walked into the gym that I was going to. This was before I started training was going to. This was before I started training. I had just enrolled to take some courses at the community college and get a personal training certificate, and one of the classes was health and nutrition.

Speaker 3: 33:50

And I remember walking into the gym. I hadn't gone to a class yet, I hadn't started. But I walked into the gym and I said to one of the trainers who I had looked up to started by walking to the gym. And I said to one of the trainers who I had looked up to and I didn't even really know that he knew me, but he, he, he did, because that's he was a good trainer. Good trainers know they're. They're the members of their gym and they're keeping an eye on them.

Speaker 3: 34:11

And, um, I asked him what was going on. Why was I not getting a six pack yet, cause I'd made some pretty good progress? He said, ben, it's not your workouts, dude. You come in here and crush it Like I see the workouts you do. It would make most people throw up right, like most people at this point, I think, would not handle what you do. And you've only been doing this for like nine little over nine months now. Like that's really I remember where you do. And you've only been doing this for like nine little over nine months now. Like that's really I remember where you were. Like you said, that's really impressive. You said the only thing I can tell you is you can't exercise your way out of a poor diet. And I had a little temper tantrum and started stomping my feet and I was like the reality of the situation.

Speaker 3: 34:55

I knew you were going to tell me that. I just was hoping that maybe I was missing something, and so I was like all right, I guess that's it. And so, as people train physically, they realize that most of the roadblocks come from other aspects of health and wellness. Well, if I train, I should probably eat better. If I train, I should probably sleep better. If I train, I should probably work on reducing my stress.

Speaker 3: 35:26

These are people that have learned this or heard it somewhere or read it somewhere. And then there's a whole nother segment of the population who has no idea, like me. Other segment of the population who has no idea, like me when I first started. They have no idea that it is nearly impossible to lose body fat or build muscle if your cortisol levels are through the roof and that it will mess up all your other hormones, that if you don't sleep well, that will affect your cortisol. Having higher cortisol and not getting good sleep will affect your food choices.

Speaker 3: 35:59

You will choose to eat things that are crappy without even knowing you're doing it. It's almost like an autonomic response. You will pick a bag of potato chips over something else because you're tired and your cortisol levels are high and your body says give me the potato chips, I know it'll make me feel better right away, and you don't even know that your body's doing all that right. So if you start with like exercise, that's a great place to start. In recovery we say not to change everything all at once. I mean some people go that route. They quit everything, they quit smoking, they quit whatever else they're doing. But we try to say, one step at a time, and that's not just in the gym or recovery, that's like any change in life.

Speaker 1: 36:49

And, if I can, piggyback, if I can piggyback, that's like cause and effect. That also can lead to people being depressed. So then you have the, the mood disorder or cause and effect.

Speaker 3: 37:00

Feel depressed, so keep going yeah, well, yeah, I mean, if you're trying to change everything at once by friday, you're gonna fail and then you're gonna be depressed about it. I'm a failure, I can't do this. I'm what I must be worthless. All this other negative self-talk and and lack of compassion for self, and when we're making changes in our life, we should absolutely be the most compassionate towards ourself. At that time, like that's a good time to learn what that even means. And that's funny when you hear a bunch of meatheads in a gym talking about self-compassion, because that's the kind of conversations that we have.

Speaker 3: 37:40

We talk about science-y stuff, fluffy stuff, and then we go lift some heavy shit. But we realize I mean I've talked to certain members and I know I can tell by looking at their face they're like I can't believe he's talking about this, because they don't under under, like they just don't picture it coming out of my mouth until they get to know me. And it's like I'm here to tell you that coming in here and lifting weights is like just a small piece of the pie. And so, um, if we try, human beings like to profess that we can multitask, and the fact is like 98% of us absolutely suck at multitasking. There's been so many studies done about it and we just we aren't good at it. We don't have the bandwidth to do two things well at once.

Speaker 3: 38:38

So in coaching, especially when it comes to behavioral change and health and wellness, I take a very slow approach with everybody and we change just one thing and we don't move on to changing another thing until you've pretty much mastered the thing that we started with. And what happens is you build on that. So we come in and we start lifting weights. We start coming in regularly and lifting weights consistently. Then we hit a roadblock.

Speaker 3: 39:07

Okay, where's this roadblock coming from? How do we get over this roadblock? Okay, well, it maybe is your diet. Let's take a look at your day. Do you get a good night's sleep? Do you have a stressful job? Do you eat like shit? And so we start picking apart a person's life and basically saying here's a list of things that maybe we can look at, and they say and I just look at what do you want to start with? You know, maybe they don't want to change how they eat, maybe they don't want to change how they eat, maybe they don't want to drink less alcohol, because alcohol stands in the way of you. Our liver is hugely responsible for building muscle and burning fat and so many other processes, and it stops all those processes to digest alcohol, to process alcohol, and won't resume those other processes until that's through you.

Speaker 1: 40:02

And we've got an episode just on that.

Speaker 3: 40:06

I'll put that in the episode, note One drink too many. It's crazy, though, because people will be weekend warriors and they've been crushing it in the gym for like a year and somebody says man, why do they look the same? Why do they look the same as they did a year ago? Because they drink three days a week, really hard, and their body is focusing on recovering from that instead of recovering from their workouts. So that's just one small example.

Speaker 3: 40:35

Somebody may look at me and say well, ben, you know what, I'm not going to quit drinking, okay. Well, what else can we focus on? Could you sleep better? Do you have issues with stress and stress? You can talk a whole podcast about stress, because there's environmental, there's cultural right. I mean, in different cultures, certain things are acceptable.

Speaker 3: 41:00

I may ask a client to work on their diet and it's a problem for them because their culture is so heavily revolved around food that I'm like asking them to, like you know, run a marathon, and with no practice it's like, like. So how do you overcome all that stuff incrementally? You just have to pick low-hanging fruit sometimes just to make a little bit of progress with somebody so that they can see the benefits of some of the changes, to really integrate them into their life and feel comfortable with them. And then you start picking some of the bigger battles, or they pick them really. I say what do you, you know? Again, I always say what do you want to work on next? What do you feel like you're having the most trouble with? And that's to me that is like the epitome of where all this sort of ties in. It's like we change our eating habits to a degree. We learn how to deal better with stress, different habits like staying off of our cell phones, turning off electronics before going to bed. They all seem very insignificant alone.

Speaker 3: 42:14

But if somebody said, ben, how is it that you can be 47 years old and lift like you're 30? Age is a cumulative. Age is not like something that happens because we get older. To some degree it is biologically, but mostly age is a cumulative effect of years of bad habits. Mostly age is a cumulative effect of years of bad habits. The longer we're alive, the longer we've been partaking in those bad habits, so the worse their effects are.

Speaker 3: 42:46

So if you have been eating bacon every day for 40 years, you're going to have some problems associated with that. It's not that you're getting old, it's that you ate too much bacon, right? If you have been sedentary all your life, it's not that you're getting old, it's that you've been sedentary for longer because you're older. And a lot of people won't buy into that. You know. They won't buy into the fact that it's easier to just say it's because I'm getting old, I'm too old for that. They won't buy into the fact that it's easier to just say it's because I'm getting old, I'm too old for that, or I can't do that.

Speaker 1: 43:24

As to me, part of your coaching strength is not necessarily yes, there's motivation, but you're talking about the healthy consistency. In my language I say the exact same thing with a little different language. It's everybody copes, but people often want to find out okay, how do I cope in a healthier way? And with your coaching methods, you're helping people, not just while they're at your gym, but a lot of the work, the living, your way into good thinking or doing. The action happens. You help set them up with physical health, emotional health, potentially even spiritual health Maybe we'll talk about that next With the things they do outside of your gym and coping or doing behaviors that can make you feel like a 30-year-old instead of a 47-year-old. Happens with how you deal with stress, with how you eat, with how you uh to do those things. And I think one of the messages that I'm getting from you and I can relate to this- is.

Speaker 1: 44:27

I got home gym equipment. But how often do people with home gym equipment stop using the home gym equipment? And part of what Rise Fitness and kickboxing really does is provide whether it's through the coaching or the community, that new consistency. I mean, I can't tell you how many videos I've seen through your practice and it's dark because it's probably early morning but you know 10 to 25 to 30 people are all doing a kickboxing class together. You know, I think that's just phenomenal support and a new consistency, a new healthy coping skill. That to your point. How are they applying this to other aspects of their life to help them while they're with you in the gym?

Speaker 2: 45:10

Earlier was very valuable about change, like coming in many layers or many levels, but then like being patient with it. It goes back to your first point about like how do we make this to be permanent, like to be the integral part of your life, and like, with spiritual practice, exercise? It's uh, you know, in buddhism the first noble truth is life is, you know, there is suffering in life, which means life is always going to be problematic, which sounds like bad news. But then it's been a good news for me because there's always something to work on. So, like my attention is not lost, you know. So I take care of my physical health, only to realize that, oh, there are other things that I need to take care of too.

Speaker 2: 45:47

And we've seen this a lot in sobriety too, that when people stop drinking they realize, oh, there are other things that I can work on. So it motivates, it sustains that focus, attention to stay plugged in with, like things that are good. You know, it's like good action is kind of contagious. You know, in a way, that you start doing something good and you see more problems because your awareness kind of heightens that oh, I need to start eating better or I need to start sleeping, you know, more quality sleep, or I need to surround myself with healthier people. You know start sleeping, more quality sleep, or I need to surround myself with healthier people.

Speaker 3: 46:22

It just comes in many, many series and that's huge. Definitely the part about surrounding yourself with healthier people. The last certification I got was through a company called Precision Nutrition. I got a level one health and wellness coach and nutrition coach certification through them and immediately followed it up with a way more intensive level two master certification. That qualifies me now to the next step is to sit for my national board certification and there's so many different things that I learned in that class.

Speaker 3: 47:04

I mean it was so great to sit online on a Zoom meeting, a Zoom class, with like a hundred and some odd people on any given class, all very like-minded, like a hundred and some odd people on any given class, all very like-minded, all having very similar experiences, all suffering from imposter syndrome and doubting their experience and doubting their abilities and not knowing if they're going to be good enough as a coach to really have an impact on people, the way this program is telling us we'll be able to, and I can tell you I've taken on almost 15 clients since that certification, and many of them actually while they encouraged us to take on clients while we were getting the certification, especially if we already had the level one and I've had some amazing moments with clients, some of them I I wasn't even training, you know, as a um weightlifting client Like I was.

Speaker 3: 48:09

They were there for something completely unrelated to lifting weights, just general health. Their intention was not to lift weights, although some of them started, and so some of the tactics that we learn is like motivational interviewing getting to understand where somebody is existentially, where they are in their social network, where they are in their family. Do they have a sense of purpose? Do they feel like they have purpose? Do they want? Do they even care? Do they want purpose or are they fine for the moment, just sort of floating through life? Do their actions line up with who they believe they are Right? These are pretty deep questions that nobody thought they were going to answer walking into a nutrition console and people are like, well, you know, I don't understand.

Speaker 3: 49:03

I thought I was doing this was nutrition coaching. I'm like I don't know any other way to explain it to you other than this is where it starts, because I can tell you what to eat. But if we don't focus on this other stuff, the minute I stop telling you what to eat, you're going to be lost again. You're not going to, you're still going to have the same habits. So we do things like this thing called notice and name, or, as you called it, zol awareness. Right, I have a behavior, now I can start giving, I can recognize it and then I can give it a name. I can call it what it is. And that's not always enough. Right, we have these behaviors, but behaviors aren't just a random thing that we do. There's always a trigger, there's something that happens that causes a particular response from us, whether it's automatic or subconscious or conscious, and so we can break the chain by identifying these triggers and then slowly eliminating them to the point where the behavior starts to change.

Speaker 3: 50:14

Why does somebody just pull into a McDonald's drive-thru when they swore all week long that they were not going to pull into a McDonald's drive-thru? When they swore all week long that they were not going to pull into a McDonald's drive-thru. They were done eating McDonald's, right. And I say to a client all right, well, let's walk me through your day. How did you wake up? Did you wake up on time, did you hit your snooze? And we just ask questions and we evaluate what happened and almost always something comes up that says that's it.

Speaker 3: 50:45

The last time you stopped at McDonald's you also had a really horrible day at work and your boss accused you of, like, not getting stuff done on time, and so you rolled out of there early and you missed an appointment and you stopped at McDonald's because you were angry and hungry and frustrated. And that's comforting to you. It's something that you're familiar with and you know. And they're like you're right. Okay, how do I this? You know, how do I break the chain of this habit? Well, now you know, if you have a day like that, at the very least to be on the lookout for mcdonald's drive-thrus and go the other way, you know, now you've identified something that may cause you to make a decision that is against your values or what you believe or want for yourself. And, as you said, zal, it's just learning to help somebody have a very basic level of awareness of why we do the things we do, then change is not as hard.

Speaker 1: 51:56

It's not like just shooting in the dark and just hoping that we just change right I think one thing we're all aware of being in a recovery community, Matt, having that healthy community can give us perspective with our unhealthy coping skills or unhealthy patterns that we do, and having that aha awareness from coach or someone who's been in this behavior before can be the difference from oh, let me rewire that neural pathway and begin to do something different. It's a good example. It's a good example.

Speaker 3: 52:35

I'll tell you a fun one that's really simple, that I love and that is like Zol pick a, pick a goal.

Speaker 2: 52:44

Just tell me about a goal that you have for yourself my kids, more quality time with my kids, or do you want a different goal?

Speaker 3: 52:54

no, that's fine. Why do you want to spend more quality time?

Speaker 2: 52:56

with your kids memories and I have positive impact on them and we have more meaningful time in life.

Speaker 3: 53:05

Why do you want to create more memories? Why do you want to have more impact?

Speaker 2: 53:10

It's important and I want to pass on what was given to me from my parents and the values and the meanings given to me from my parents and the values and the meanings.

Speaker 3: 53:21

So I'm not going to go all the way through, but I've. Technically, I'm going to ask you why two more times, and every time I ask you that I get more information about why it is important for you to spend more time with your kids. You didn't start off by saying anything about your parents and what they passed on to you, or that love was important. Right, you just wanted to spend more time with your kids. If I just stopped there, that's a great goal, but it's kind of flimsy, right, it doesn't have a lot of depth to it. I don't get a lot of understanding as to why that's important to you and what sort of like. If, if, let's say, hypothetically, you were really struggling with doing that, the more information I have about why it's a problem and what you feel like makes it important and where that importance comes from and how that ties into your deeper values as a person, then I can start identifying and helping you identify why it's hard to do. Maybe you work long hours, okay. So then we say well, zal, I don't know if that's going to happen with the hours that you're working. Is it possible to budget differently so that you can work less hours and spend more time with your kids and the more information we have. Like. If you later on, in a similar discussion, divulge to me that you're a financial wreck right now, well then, obviously working less hours maybe isn't going to help.

Speaker 3: 54:55

So then it becomes about maybe we need to organize your time differently, right? Can you do a time journal for the next week so that we can have a really good look at how you're spending your time? Maybe you don't need to work less hours. Maybe the time is already there. It's just being spent unwisely, right? And if we just clean it up a little bit like a hard drive, right, that's got all that crap in there and you just organize it.

Speaker 3: 55:24

You don't really do much. And suddenly you got like two extra gigabytes. Then suddenly you're like ben, I've got like two hours a day, as it turns out, to spend with my kids every day. If I just do this, this and this differently, or I wake up an hour earlier or whatever it is. And so for me, like I said, all I wanted to do was take a nutrition course. I didn't know what I was going to be learning in this course. I really didn't understand that, but I didn't run. Once I found that out, I didn't run the other way. I was like man, this is so much better than just talking about don't eat pizza.

Speaker 1: 56:12

Yeah, with the why, with a more deep emotional connection to why. Both those things together can lead to a healthy, motivational and consistent change. The action behaviorals and the deeper understanding of the why are powerful action. Yeah, yeah, it's really good 100%.

Speaker 2: 56:34

Yeah, that really is the key. Yeah, it's really good. 100, yeah, that really is the key. Uh, like, you know everything that we're talking about, coaching, uh, fitness, like real change only happens when the system changes, you know, otherwise it's just a superficial change. Uh, so, like those, gathering those facts, the reason why really go to the core of the belief system and then, and then, when you know it's probably impossible to change it before becoming aware of it, you know, like, really going to the core belief of somebody's life, as soon as you identify it, you're like, oh, those are my limiting beliefs, you know.

Speaker 2: 57:07

So how do I act? You know from it, or, you know, make my way out of it. And yeah, because in our Buddhist term, there is the conditioning. You know there is some sort of conditioning happening or that has already happened that I never questioned, as a result of where I grew up, how I was raised, people that I've interacted with. But then, as soon as you uncover that, you realize, oh, how do I create different causes for different effects? After I've identified that conditioning, I feel like that's what you're saying about finding the reason why they're doing what they're doing and also why they want what they are wanting, and then when that's clear, it's just like motivation, it just comes out organically.

Speaker 3: 57:49

The other thing is the practice of that. Let's say and we say this all the time about the steps and God, or the God of our understanding in the big book If it can solve our drinking problem, it can solve any problem. Obviously, we do encourage people to get outside help, but the idea that spirituality and the task of going through the steps are that powerful, of going through the steps are that powerful A lot of. Again, I drew a lot of parallels to the stuff that I learned of when it came to health and wellness and nutrition coaching that if we can use a certain set of concepts to change somebody's eating, those same concepts can be applied to improve their sleeping and those same concepts can be applied to help them build a better, healthier relationship with their family or whatever it is that they're having trouble with. I mean, it may there's going to be certain variables that are different, but you guys are going to love this. So one of the things that I that I learned about and I struggled with it at first was the concept of willpower. Right, I'm taking this class and we're going to learn all about willpower and proper use of the will and that in many situations, our willpower is relatively worthless without the presence of something more superior, spirit of the universe or God, whatever, whatever you want to call it, our higher power, that that has to be guided. But there was some research done where it was suggested that willpower operated much like the human muscle and that when it was put under duress or force was applied to it that it would strengthen. So a muscle grows based on its meeting its demand of a previous encounter with something weight, whatever, some sort of physical task, some sort of physical task and in order to meet the possibility of a slightly more demanding situation, it grows. It has to be put under a certain amount of stress or it will not change. And that's where a lot of people run into problems at the gym, not to get off subject. But people lift what they think is heavy and it's just not heavy enough to elicit the change that that muscle needs to feel like it's growing to meet a stronger demand.

Speaker 3: 1:00:49

Willpower, and like a couple of different new studies, has been shown to work the same way, in the sense that if I apply willpower to a situation and get a positive outcome, then I'm going to have a larger capacity of willpower available to be applied to the next future situation and it continues to grow. Now it's not infinite, but it can be just like ATP, which is our energy supply for short-term bouts of exercise. You can improve, and glycogen stores as well. You can improve how much glycogen your body can store. You can improve how much stored ATP you have to a degree. I mean you can't just keep going and going and going and we can basically improve how much willpower we store up.

Speaker 3: 1:01:52

And I think most people don't look at it that way, but once it was explained to me, it made more sense. I mean, when we think about certain things, like in recovery, one of the best examples was that first time you turn down a drink, right, your first time you're in that tough situation, old friends call and say let's go party or whatever, or something more serious, a loved one passes away and we hear people say it all the time I don't know what's going to make me drink, if my mom dying or brother, sister, significant other or something like that. And then it happens, happens and we don't pick up a drink. And now we know that we have the capacity to not drink, at least under that situation. So when the next situation arises, we have a firmer belief that we can also repeat that same thing again with the same outcome, and it just compounds the more times that we do it.

Speaker 1: 1:03:01

And I guess one way to say that is the proper use of willpower. And when that proper use of willpower is directed in the right way I mean you're an example of that you go from hey, I'm going to get a gym membership to helping other people with their health and fitness journey, beyond just losing weight or gaining muscle. That's proper use of the will. And then that leads to resiliency or more positivity than negativity, and then we start to build that like a muscle. Oh well, that's positive and light and love and health and wellness, as opposed to dark negativity and the things that come where we can put energy towards that. And I think that is a really good summarization of what, ben, you do and I think, part of your philosophy at Rise Fitness and Kickboxing. And that's through the community, it's through coaching, it's through when we don't have that positive will, it's through consistency with support and all those things to strengthen physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. And I think that's a really good summary.

Speaker 1: 1:04:11

I want to ask you three or four more questions. Clearly this could be a two and a half hour, but we're not going to go that long. How are you different from your old self? So there's fitness focus, exercise Ben or now Ben to broken back Ben prior to working out. How are you different from your old self?

Speaker 3: 1:04:32

Let me start by saying, physically, I'm different in the very obvious way. I'm far stronger, stronger, far more flexible. My joints are stronger, my endurance is better. My, I feel like I have actually not aged almost at all in 10 years. I believe movement is medicine, which is a whole nother subject also that we could go into just about traditional medicine being not all that good compared to nutrition and exercise. What things can be done without ever touching a pill that we are never told about? We're so quick to jump to the other way.

Speaker 3: 1:05:15

But, um, aside from physically being stronger, as much as I am proud of what I've done and like to and work very hard at looking a certain way, um, I tend to try to be pretty humble in that I tell people all the time that, as smart as I am, I still really only know a little bit and that I rely on a lot of other people who are smarter than me or smarter in different areas to help continue to grow. One of the things I like about the gym is that we all specialize in a lot of different things and we don't have any trouble looking at somebody and saying I don't know the answer to that, but I know who does. Let's go talk to this trainer or this trainer, and it's not like a used car lot where we're all fighting over clients. If I can't help somebody with what I know, I'm going to pass them off to somebody who can help them. I have great. I have great joint mobility and joint strength and that's because I listened to a guy at our gym who emphasized the importance of it and I totally agree and I learned from him. I learned from him enough to improve myself, but I didn't learn from him enough that I can necessarily train other people in that area. That's his area, that's his expertise and we're all and we all like.

Speaker 3: 1:07:03

If somebody is like man my back is trashed, like you should probably go see Ben because he's going to tell you the best possible ways to help identify what's causing your back pain and how to fix it, causing your back pain and how to fix it. So I think that I've changed in that I'm just always willing to learn, I'm always willing to grow and I genuinely want everybody who comes through the door, everybody I come into contact, who has asked me something about health and wellness and strength and conditioning, to reach their goals and be successful, to experience what I've experienced to feel like they don't age, to feel like they can do anything that they want. If they want to run a race, they can run a race. If they want to get into a boxing match at 40 years old, they can train and get into a boxing match.

Speaker 3: 1:08:01

There's really not any reason why we're too old. We're not ever too old. You can get on the internet and look up different videos and stuff and see some people who are in their 70s and 80s and are just ripped and lifting heavy weight. It's just amazing to watch. But they're doing very specific things to be able to do that. I guarantee they're not crushing bags of potato chips and drinking Diet Cokes.

Speaker 1: 1:08:35

What has taken your passion and your drive to become healthy to wanting to be a business owner?

Speaker 3: 1:08:44

I have different reasons for that owner. I have different reasons for that. So I've always wanted I mean since I got out of the restaurant business being a trainer. You kind of are your own business owner, even if you're working within another business. You're really a contractor, you're responsible for finding your own clients.

Speaker 3: 1:09:00

But it's such a grind. It is a terrible grind. It's almost at the end of the day to make a living out of it. It's not much less of a grind than being in the restaurant business, it's just. At least it's a grind that's around healthier people and maybe not so late at night. Nobody's at the gym training at 2 am. I mean, some people are, but maybe. But like generally speaking, you go to work at 6 am, you're off by 2 or 3, 4, maybe 5 o'clock.

Speaker 3: 1:09:31

It's a long day, but I was still able to spend time with my family, which is maybe part of the reason why I'm separated and getting a divorce.

Speaker 3: 1:09:49

But I always had them in mind.

Speaker 3: 1:09:52

I always had my family in mind, that I was trying to find a way to make more money and work less. I think most of us can relate to that and being a business, being self-employed, does not equate to that being a business owner eventually will, and that may take longer than I want it to. But even if it takes a little bit more time, I already feel like I have a better life. I already feel like I'm more I won't say in charge of my destiny, because anything can happen at any time and you know the rug just gets yanked out from underneath of you. But I've built a strong enough network and community and I just have too many people in my corner to worry about that and that's a really awesome feeling to have that if something were to happen, it may be really unpleasant and we're really uncomfortable, but it would not be the end of the world or the end of me or the end of my family and as a business owner that cares about other people because you can own a gym and everybody's just a number.

Speaker 1: 1:11:24

You wouldn't have the culture you have now.

Speaker 3: 1:11:26

Yeah, you wouldn't have the culture that you have. Being the type of business owner that I am and being so willing to learn and being so willing to be taught and learn new ways of doing things, or admitting that I was doing something the wrong way. All that stuff, I think, lends to the way that people feel about me, and that in and of itself is humbling, because people don't have to feel any particular way about anybody. When I started thanking everybody during Thanksgiving for the support that I'd had at that point for like nine months at the gym, I couldn't finish my sentence. I was just getting choked up because everybody I'm looking at has played some really important role in my personal life and the life of that gym, and that wouldn't happen if I wasn't a business owner.

Speaker 1: 1:12:20

And, lastly, what's something that's surprised you, that you've learned about yourself because of this fitness journey that you, after Chicken Ruth's, what's surprised you about this journey you've been on?

Speaker 3: 1:12:37

There's been so many surprises.

Speaker 1: 1:12:39

That you've learned about yourself as a result.

Speaker 3: 1:12:42

I'll tell you, the best thing that I've learned about myself is that I can have a really positive impact on people's lives and when they, when they say thank you or they tell me just about how something they were struggling with they're not, or something that went really well that day, they attribute to something they've learned by working with me in the weight room or as a health and wellness coach, that I can accept that and just say you're welcome. It doesn't seem like a big. I don't know that everybody's going to understand what a big leap that is for a guy like me, but I remember standing in front of a judge where some at one point, where some other people were describing me as helpful and talking to the judge about how much I helped them and I was like what are they talking about? I am not helpful. I am not a helpful person. I'm fucking selfish and I don't do things for the right reasons and and I start and I and at that moment I started to cry because I was like man, nobody's called me helpful and like I don't know how long and most of my clients and people at that gym know my background. I mean like the full details and sometimes we joke around about it, but a lot of times they're just like. You know, I try not to. I was telling somebody the other day like I don't like pass on the back because I'm not a burden on society anymore, Right, Like I don't want people like it's fine when people say that's really awesome that you've overcome what you've overcome, Cause it is tough as an alcoholic and an addict, recovery is tough, but really we're not supposed to take a lot of credit for that, Cause we're just doing what we should have fucking been doing like everybody else for all of our life the ability to be helpful.

Speaker 3: 1:14:57

And when somebody expresses that, to just simply say you're welcome. It's not like being, it's not meant at all in a conceited way, it's. It's more like just recognizing, um, that we all need help. We should all say thank you and we should all say you're welcome when somebody thanks us they have helped me out. Sometimes not the, especially the ones that have helped more.

Speaker 3: 1:15:40

Um, I always make it known at various points that, as as as clients, I have learned a lot. You know, as their coach, I've learned a lot from them and they have gone to bat for me in several different ways. You know, just more like a friend than a client, and that doesn't always happen. I mean, that's not, you know, maybe it's not professional, maybe it's irrelevant, but I'm not going to.

Speaker 3: 1:16:09

You know, if something happens organically in a professional relationship, I think it's only natural that people that spend a lot of time together eventually become friends, and so as helpful as I've been to them there's no denying that I have made hundreds which feels weird to say hundreds of really close friends, and many of them I will know, probably for the rest of my life. Whether we keep in close contact all the time or it's more like, you know, they just come visit when they're back in the area, which happens too. Like that blows my mind that somebody would come back to maryland from another state and be like, while I'm in town I'm gonna go visit my trainer. You know what I mean. It's like what?

Speaker 2: 1:17:02

okay, cool, so good stuff is all anything from you before we wrap up and for this and um, I like everything that I've heard. Thank you and um. What I get the most out of is pretty much the note that you're ending about the real meaning of life the essence is and the meaning that we create. You know, like the connections it's not about, because there's a lot that is happening beyond what we're seeing. You know, it's like feelings, memories being created, and then that's more important than numbers. In that material world it's just very limited to the spiritual and the feelings behind it. So it's really great to connect with you on this podcast, appreciate all the things that you share and thanks, luke, to you too.

Speaker 1: 1:17:48

Yeah and Ben. Where can listeners learn more about you and your team at Rise Fitness? Where can they reach you?

Speaker 3: 1:17:57

Risefitnessandkickboxingcom is our website, and then you can always follow us on social media Facebook, rise Fitness and Kickboxing Same handle for Instagram at Rise Fitness and Kickboxing. Same handle for Instagram at Rise Fitness and Kickboxing. And I will say real quickly while the focus, as it's all said, is often not on the numbers, if anybody does want to lose weight or put on muscle or just get absolutely ripped, we can do that.

Speaker 1: 1:18:28

Hell yeah, hell yeah. Absolutely Well. Before we wrap up, I want to take a moment and express deepest gratitude and thanks to each and every one of our listeners and your support certainly means the world to us and we're incredibly grateful for the opportunity to share our insights and inspiration with you each episode. If you enjoyed today's episode and found it helpful on your wellness journey, please consider liking, subscribing and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform, especially an Apple podcast. It certainly helps. Your feedback helps us reach more people and continue growing our community of health and wellness enthusiasts. Additionally, if you feel called to support the show financially, we welcome any contributions or donations you're able to make. Simply visit the link in the episode description to access our PayPal donation page where you can make a one-time or recurring payment. Your generosity helps us expand our offerings, create new courses and produce more written content to support your wellness goals. No donation is too small and every contribution makes a meaningful difference in helping us serve you better.

Speaker 1: 1:19:31

So, as we reach the end of this enlightening conversation with Ben Biondi, it's clear that physical exercise isn't just about building muscle or losing weight. It can be, but it's all about transforming our entire lives for the better. From improving our physical health and boosting our mental well-being to cultivating discipline, resilience and self-confidence, the benefits of working out are truly endless, so let's take this opportunity to express our gratitude to Ben for sharing his wisdom, practical tips and inspiring stories with us today. Whether you're just starting your fitness journey or you're a seasoned athlete, remember that every step you take toward prioritizing your health is a step toward a brighter, healthier future.

Speaker 1: 1:20:13

As we wrap up, I encourage you to take what you've learned from this episode and apply it to your own life, whether it's committing to a regular exercise routine, setting realistic goals or embracing a holistic approach to health and wellness. Know that you have the power to create positive change in your life, starting today. Stay active, stay healthy and keep rising to new heights. My name is Luke Ben. Thank you all for listening. Thanks, guys. We'll see you next time.

Speaker 3: 1:20:38

Love you guys. Thank you both for having me.