Welcome back to the show. My fellow extraordinary Americans. For today’s guest, we have David Roden, a 31-year-old health and fitness entrepreneur and podcaster. He is the co-founder of ALG, Accountable Life Group and runs the ALG podcast. By the time he was eighteen he weighed over 400 lb. was pre-diabetic. And had high blood pressure. He was so depressed and trapped in his own body that he considered ending his life.

At 22, he made the decision to transform his life, and nine years later David lost more than 200 lbs. and competed in two bodybuilding competitions. He has also published a book called Drop the Baggage from suicidal obesity to a life of health and happiness. He has been featured in Men’s health magazine, Yahoo Daily Mail and insider.  

David believes that changing your mindset and being accountable to yourself is the key to transforming your life. He is someone that fought against the odds and is truly an extraordinary American, and I am honored to have him on the show. David, are you there?

Yes, I am here, it’s phenomenal to be here, man. Appreciate the Invite.

It’s amazing to have you on the show. I wanted to ask you so, I know that you are cool, that you’re an entrepreneur, co-founder, and podcaster. Can you tell me and the audience a little bit more about yourself, your background and how you got started and all of that?

Absolutely. So, for me, as you said, I’m 31, my upbringing is very unique to say the least, especially the number one question you get asked is like David, how in the world were you 400 lbs by the time 18 years old and the funniest part about it is, I grew up in a medical family, my dad’s a cardiologist, and my mom was a nurse, and so I grew up in medicine. I grew up in affluence, and yet it’s fascinating how you can get caught in a position where for a lot of circumstances, you get caught behind the 8 ball and some of some of them your fault, some of them not your fault and when can get when you get behind the 8 ball you can kind of lose yourself and lose belief in yourself and get caught. 

And so for me, the number one question I always get asked in early age is like how did you get to this weight? It was really simple. My dad worked 80 plus hours a week as a cardiologist. And my mom loved me dearly. And the way she showed love was always saying yes. And so here you are. You’re 12/13/14 years old, you got basically a Blank check credit card. And you got a mom who always says yes. So, what does every kid want? Pizza And video games. That’s what I did. 

And so, at an early age. I played a lot of video games. I sat a lot, and it got me behind the 8 ball. I was 300 lbs. by the time I was like 13/14 400lb by the time I was 18 pre diabetic hypertensive. My dad had me go into all different types of doctors to figure out what was medically wrong with me, but he worked so much he didn’t know how much I was eating. I grew up in a very large house with an indoor basketball court in our House. And I always had friends over. And so, there was always a full Pantry of food. 

So, you never knew who ate it, but it was usually me. And so that was kind of like early childhood, feeling trapped, trying different diets. Whatever… My dad would literally buy me anything I wanted if I tried the P90X. He bought it for me. Whatever fitness routine, whatever nutritional plan, he, whatever he could do to help me, he tried and ultimately as we come to find out, It does come down to us like it really does our habits, our beliefs, they really compound to create the person you are, whether you like it or not. 

And so, by the time I was 18, that was that whole bit. Early college I went to Central Michigan University, where I actually was pre-Med. So, I was an EMT, which is like a step down from a paramedic like a general EMT, while being a biomedical science degree in college. When I was 22, which is like my super senior year, I decided that Med school wasn’t for me, and so I was in this transformational period in my life. I was like, OK, what I want to do with my life. I looked at what medicine was. I didn’t like where it was going. I didn’t like the sheer hours you had to work and where things were going. And so, I was in this transformational period in my life. And I got connected with some incredible young entrepreneurial kids that were huge into personal development growth. 

So, the first book I read at 22 was The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. And that book profoundly changed my perspective on, like, success. Like I really did because like for me in particular, when it came to obesity. And my weight. It’s like when you’re when you’re building a business or in this case, you’re 200 pounds, you’re 200 overweight, it seems so astronomically impossible. But you just don’t really try like you try for a few days. You may try for a week. You may try even for a few months, and you may lose 10 pounds, 15 pounds, or 20, but you look at how far you still have to go, and it can really mess you up. 

And so, I just never thought losing 200 was possible and so I never really tried. And the compound effect is just a simple philosophy of guess what… It sounds like witchcraft, but if you lose 2 a week for 100 weeks, you lose 200 lbs. and I was like OK, I wrap my head around that and so at 410 pounds, my senior year college was like, OK, I’m going to lose… I’m going to be 408 next week and I said boom, I hit it and I was like, alright, next week and be 406 boom. I hit it alright. Next week, the 404 boom, I hit it. I literally hyper fixated on 2 Pounds a week for the first 50. 

And then there was the big aha moment when I stepped, I stepped on the scale down 50lbs. I Burst into tears. I Looked at myself in the mirror and I said, David, you’re going to change everything about yourself. And 18 months later, I was down around 200. That was the catalyst. I fell in love with personal development, reading books on neuro linguistic programming. How does the mind work? Nutrition, fitness really dove into that full head of Steam. Had two excess skin rules surgeries at 25 and 26, and then I fell in love with bodybuilding at 26 to 31 and published my first book, what that was about four years ago now, about four years ago now, I published my first book, and that’s like the thumbnail sketch to the sequence.

Wow, David. So, you know, most people who are obese or like who would have liked to be like 400 pounds. They would just give up hope and they would be like I can’t do this and they and then what? What do you think was the difference between most people and like your mindset that led to this, that led to this change?

I mean the number one thing there is simplifying. I mean I get it like when it comes to obesity in particular and weight it’s more visual than most. Things but I get what it feels like to feel so trapped in, like your body that like, I’m not kidding you. When I was a senior in high school, I considered ending my life because I just didn’t think it was possible to lose 200 pounds. 

I had no control over my food. I feel I Emotionally ate. I binged ate.  I just was, it was so controlling in me that I didn’t think there was a way out. But honestly, it’s a multifaceted change. I like to say that cause like a part of it was kind of breaking down that big size goal into bite sized pieces, no pun intended, where you can just kind of like, OK 2 Pounds a week. Let’s not worry about 50. Let’s not worry about 100. Let’s not worry about 200. Let’s just focus on 2 Pounds a week. That was a huge number two, becoming my best cheerleader. 

That was a big mindset shift for me because. I was a perfectionist. I still struggle with that kind of perfection-based perspective and that makes you trapped because it’s either all or none. And as we all know, in entrepreneurship, in fitness and in health, you find out it’s not all or none like it never is it. But you get caught in what you think it is and it’s like alright, it’s not worth it. I’m trying so hard that I’m. I can’t keep up. And so why bother? I can’t keep going. And you find out that just If you keep making subtle shifts over a decade, massive things can happen, and that’s what a lot of people get caught up in, especially with weight loss in particular. 

But business is no different. Where you think about marketing and sales and accounting and this and this and this. And this and this, and you’re like how I am going to do it. And it’s like, alright, we’ll just work on one thing at a time, get moving, then work on the next and adjust and grow and adapt. 

And so that was one of the biggest things. For me, and that cheerleader realm was just stop trying to be perfect. Like it is, it has nothing to do with perfection. It has to do with consistency and progress and that massively shifted because it would be nutrition wise. It was I would eat “perfect” for two or three days and then I’d have a bad meal and I’d be Like **** it’s over. Like, why? Why continue like I’m a failure and boom, it’s over and it’s like that’s just not how it works, and everyone thinks and that’s what happens is like they have their one little failure, their one little mess up. And they’re like, it’s over. That’s it. 

Put in the cards and like being able to give yourself grace but also learn from it. OK, what made me overeat? What made me create this? Possibly this situation? So, I don’t have that problem again, but also just give yourself grace like alright, I’m learning this is something new I’ve never done before so I’m not going to be perfect and that really helped me with consistency.

David, you bring up a very interesting point because you know, like when it comes to overcoming great odds, right, it’s kind of like climbing a mountain. A lot of times you slip and you fall, and what you’re describing is the thought process that it takes to basically break through that a lot of people will have overwhelming negativity in their minds like they don’t think they can do like, especially what you did. They would just be like all the excuses in the world come to them. In your case, what do you think you would tell people of like what to do when they’re in an overwhelming sense of defeatism inside of them.

I think the biggest thing is to look back in the last 30/60/90 days and look at yourself and ask yourself, OK, what have I done? Right. Obviously own the fact the things you’ve done wrong like we all have things that we could have done better, but very few people will at least acknowledge where they’ve done well. And again, there’s just nothing that sucks the life out of you. More than devaluing progress.

I say this constantly, the number of times I do these tick tock lives, I’ll put between 5 and 15,000 people on them and someone will be in the chat going. I’ve only lost 25 Pounds. And I’m like you’ve only lost 25 Pounds! Go pick up a 25 Pounds  dumbbell and tell me you’re not happy. That’s off your body. Like there’s nothing that just destroys progress more than you are deflating your own progress. 

So, like, one of the biggest things to me is don’t act like you’re perfect. Because that’s never a thing, but also the fact that when you make progress, any progress celebrates moving in the right direction. Because I tell you what; if pain and frustration is your primary motivator, even if you make progress? You rarely keep it. Because as soon as you start feeling good, as soon as you start doing well, that emotion that kept you going, which was pain, diminishes. Because it’s not painful anymore. Like, I actually feel pretty good. 

And you actually start to self-sabotage because you don’t feel the same way because you like. The pain and then you want and then you quit and then all of a sudden, like, oh, I can get painful again. And it’s like it’s a self-revolving door where I’ve met a lot of people that use pain as their motivator. And it most of the time doesn’t work because guess what, as you create progress it feels good, and if you’re always using pain and frustration as your motivator. Eventually you feel. Good working out and eating better than like now you’re trying to you. You have to try to find ways to create pain again because that’s just not your motivator. 

That’s why it’s like celebrating progress is such a good feeling that it just keeps you more consistent for an extended period of time. It’s the same as the saying … The man who loves to walk will always out walk the person who walks for a goal. Finding ways to enjoy what you’re doing throughout the process will make it 10 times more consistent than just like I’m just going to white knuckle this sucker. And we’re just going to do it. It’s like. No, that’s such BS, this idea that things have to suck all the time for to be successful. I just disagree. You can find ways to enjoy the process. You can find ways to … Now it’s again, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but you can find ways to enjoy the process enough to make it enjoyable that you want to stay consistent.

So, David, like speak or what you’re telling me a lot of people go to the gym, right? They start off really excited and they’re full of passion and motivation. But then within two to three months, they see the hardships. And they’re like… Man, I can’t do this and by the 4th month, or fifth month, they all drop off. Because it’s just too hard.

You’re talking about extended consistency. You know like from getting from 400 pounds to 200. Pounds you have. To do it over a consistent extended period of time. But during that process, there’s so much there’s so much negativity which where you be like, I can’t do this anymore or I slipped up and all that So what? Would you advise people on how to? Keep going over a long period of time.

This is, I say, this one constantly. Stop using your motivation. Stop using feelings as your primary decision making for your life. Like this is this is one of the biggest misconceptions, especially Western culture in America has right now, which is like your feelings are always valid ********. No, there’s sometimes your feelings are not always valid, like for example, I always make this joke. There are certain areas of life you feel a certain way, but you don’t act on it. When I hear a screaming toddler in a public place, I want to walk up to the kid, slap him across the face and say, shush, you’re acting like a child. Like growing up but I don’t do that. Even though I feel like it, I don’t act upon it. 

So, there are certain areas. And maybe think about it from a perspective of relationships. If anyone who is a guy for the most part and all of a sudden you, you’re dating someone or you’re married to someone and you see a smoke show girl walking down the street and you’re like, wow. I’d love to see her naked. Now you’re going. I’m not going to do it. But obviously there, that’s like, what would it be like to hook up with her? And it’s like those thoughts happen. How do you act upon them? That’s the difference. And how does that creation happen? It’s your standards, disciplines, and expectations for yourself. 

You set standards, Disciplines and expectations for yourself and the biggest consistent manner that’s going to make the most progress in your life, both nutritionally fitness wise business wise is not doing things based upon feelings. But doing things based upon what are your standards, what are the decisions you make in your life? What are the quality traits you want to live by? Those things you can create consistency from feelings, feelings change all the time. You don’t like feelings coming and going.

We don’t have complete control over them, but what we do have control over is decisions. We do have control over standards. Those are things that you can set for yourself that no matter the situation, I tear my knee, I get in a car accident, my girlfriend leaves me whatever. These are my standards. These are my expectations for myself. And regardless of external situations around me, this is what I’m holding myself accountable to. 

And that’s where consistency comes from. If your consistency is, if your decision making is based upon the feeling of motivation, you’re screwed, you’re done cause it’s like taking a shower like it’s you. You got to take a shower all the time or you smell like garbage. Same thing with motivation. It’s constantly deflating. It’s constantly deflating. And if you’re doing everything based upon feelings, eventually It’ll catch up to you, it always does.

No, I mean. It’s pretty true. A lot of times people feel a certain way and then they act upon it. Actually, most of the time, to be honest, the main thing that you brought about is accountability and discipline. 

I think one of the key elements of success is having accountability and discipline, being consistent and being accountable to yourself and being disciplined. But most people like to just give up after some time because they don’t have a set program, but I don’t know. Like is there anything else? That I’m missing regarding that.

No 100%. I mean, it’s and it’s a tough one because like it’s such a balance I want to convey the importance of the individual’s accountability in their life, obviously like making yours but you also got to look at other influences as well, like for example who you surround yourself with most is who you become. 

And so, if you surround yourself with people that don’t give a ****, more than likely you’re going to start becoming that next person. If you surround yourself with people that care. That has standards just like you do. You’re probably going to stay like that. And if you’re in an environment that is very negative, the idea of you saying super positive is a lot more difficult and so then you have to look at switching up your environment. You have to look at taking up other tools and tactics. It’s super important like I don’t want to. Sit here and. Say just bootstrap, it will just work harder. And that plays a role, but also you have to look at the other influences in your life and figure out what you need to do. 

Like if you have some toxic friends, some toxic family, some whatever environment you’re in, you’re like this is just not serving me. You may have to adjust. There are certain avenues in your life that may have to adjust because it just sucks the life out of you.

Actually, dude, I was going to bring that up. So, a lot of people would complain, and they would tell you. Hey, David. OK, I want to improve. I want to make a change, but my friends and my family are basically not supportive. And in fact, they would actually criticize me, or they would try to bring me down. It’s kind of like the crab. Bucket mentality, right? Yeah, so. What would you advise somebody who’s surrounded by people that have that crab bucket mentality?

It’s super fun. I literally do. I was on a client call last night where this came up, so one of my clients, she’s down 60 pounds now. 55/60 pounds. Her mother went through kidney failure like 35 because she was significantly overweight, didn’t give a **** about her health, and she’s been on dialysis for like 20 years. Her mother has.

And she still doesn’t care about her health. She doesn’t do anything to change it. And here’s this woman who’s made the decision to transform her life. She’s down 55 or 60 pounds. She’s doing great and her mother still makes these sticks at her all the time. Like she’s trying to get her to eat certain food and she’s like, no, I’m not going to do that. I have my nutritional plan. That’s what I’m saying too. And then she’s like, she’ll just make these little jabs. 

And it annoys her and understandably so. I guess my biggest two are. There are two avenues to it because obviously you do to a degree have to limit your time with people that suck the quality of life out of you. 

Now I would be careful with just the burn-the-bridge mentality like I just don’t believe you have to just shut people off completely. You may have to kind of put them at arm’s length. But I don’t know, I just. I just think more abundantly than that where it’s like, oh, no, you got to get him out of your life. Like maybe just got to limit your contact. That’s number one.

And number two, you gotta see it from their lens. I think project understanding, projecting like projections is super important and I’ve dealt with it for myself and my journey and my weight loss journey where there is a population that knows how normal you are and they know you for your worst and you’re making a change that they wish they could do, but they can’t muster themselves. 

And so, what happened is as you make progress, the people around you that know you at your worst, so you start to make progress. And whether you like it or not, it hurts them because it makes them feel worse about themselves, because they know how normal you are. And it makes them go. Wow. I am a ***** ** **** because David’s figuring this out and I can’t. 

So subconsciously these people try to knock you off your path to make you feel normal again so they can feel better about themselves. And once you understand that you don’t take it so personal, it’s like, oh, Uncle Buck tried to take me off my path again. Yeah, he he’s dealing with **** himself. It is what it is. I feel bad for him. Hopefully, as I make progress, he’ll start to inspire himself to make the changes and whatever way, shape and form I am. 

But I’m not making I don’t make my decisions based upon what other people think of me. I make my decisions based upon what I think about myself. And that’s why I say this one constantly. Especially when it comes to obesity transformations and weight loss. If you are transforming your life for the validation of others and what your parents, what your grandparents, what your brother and sister, what your kids think you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. 

Because you can’t control that like you can’t control how someone decides to react to your change, you have to know you’re making the change for yourself, and there may be benefits; Knowing that if I’m healthier, I can help my family. If I’m healthier, I can help my friends and do this stuff. But if you’re doing it for the fact that ohh well, my wife will love me more. no. Like you don’t have control over what your wife decides to love you for more or not. So, if you’re changing your quality of health for the sake of someone else’s opinion. Good luck again. 

But dude, here’s an interesting point. A lot of People are motivated by the fact they do things because they want the love and affection from people around them, and they also don’t think that they’re good enough. And so, they have to compensate by doing all these things. But a lot of but a lot. Oftentimes, yeah.

It doesn’t work. Well, and that’s the number one thing and like that’s why I internally go back to constantly, which is if you’re not doing it for your own validation, meaning your own self, love, your own self-interest, again, that’s just projecting your own issues. If you’re constantly needing the love and affection and the validation of others, that means because you don’t love yourself fully yet. Like that’s the issue. Cause you’re projecting it now into other people. You, I need XY&Z’s love and affection because you’re not getting enough for yourself. That’s it. 

Because I can promise you that when you love the person you are, you admire and appreciate the love and affection of others. You don’t need it like I don’t like it. It’s like when I warn people all the time on social media. If you are building a weight loss account on social media for the validation of others of like to get ohh, you’re an inspiration. You’re amazing. It’s hollow. Because people can give you all the accolades in the world, but if you don’t give it to yourself, it means nothing. 

It’s like for me and obesity and where I was at 400 pounds like think about it from the most extreme perspective, here’s a kid. I was 18 years old and I had every single resource you could ask for living in America, the American dream. You’d had a dad who made $600,000 a year. You had a mom who loved you dearly. Both my parents loved me dearly. My dad used to put me on the bathroom counter. Have you sell, have me look in the mirror and say David, tell that guy in the mirror you love him. I grew up with all the friends, all the love, all the support you could ever ask for. And yet at 18 years old, I want to kill myself. How is that possible? 

Because every single person that constantly is seeking the validation or resource of others. If you’re constantly seeking that external validation, it’s because it’s not in here yet and like when you truly love yourself and where you’re at, all the rest of it, you’ll thou see. But if you hate the person in the mirror, if you don’t have that self-love. For whom you are. You’re constantly seeking the validation of others, which is half the problem in the first place.

And so this is something that, that, that people don’t make it take enough time on, which is that internal relationship with who you are as an individual and that’s being congruent and consistent with your character traits with the person you want to become and having a good relationship with yourself because if you have a good relationship with yourself;  No amount of accolades from friends, family or colleagues matters.

I think it’s coming down to the basic fact that most people deep down don’t actually consider themselves worthy of being loved on a sub subconscious level. And so, they are looking for proof outside of themselves. Like them it’s  a very hard thing to do, but like it, this is the ultimate thing that. Requires you to change yourself.

But David, so what was the biggest challenge that you had during this process of transformation? How did you overcome it on a mindset level?

So, for me, honestly the mindset to change is the number one thing because there are neural pathways, you have habits and rituals that you have accustomed to since a young age and now you got to change it and it doesn’t feel good.

Like that’s the whole thing. When you change a diet routine, when you change a fitness routine. When you change a whatever. It doesn’t necessarily feel good and so and then and then within that perfection is a myth and so, you make mistakes. And it’s like I’m going to eat better, bubble, blah, blah. I’m going to do this and this. And you don’t. And working on that inner dialogue was one of the biggest things for me. Because I was so dismissive and self-destructive with trying to make change and so one of the biggest shifts for me. I fell in love with Neuro Linguistic programming and stuff like from Tony Robbins. 

And when I was in my back end of my senior year at Central, I lost probably 90 pounds. 100 hundred, 100 pounds. My senior year in college. And I used to do this little drill where I’d be in the cafeteria with different friends and we’re eating and they’re eating pizza and burgers and all that kind of stuff. And I’m eating a grilled chicken salad or whatever and I got four or five friends around me, and I would be eating my grilled chicken salad and I would stand up with everyone right there I go. David, great job. I gave myself a high five and I’d sit down and eat it. And all my friends looked at me like I was insane. 

But again, I needed that reassurance for myself. Like, actionably, like externally that I was doing the right thing and like that was just a huge mental shift for me because you get caught, you get caught so much in the motions that you never affirm, you never support your better actions.

And I always kind of convey it like this where I think of you like anyone listening right now. That has a Kid, if every time they did something wrong, every time your kid did something wrong, smack them outside the head and go, what are you doing? And then every time the kid did something. Right. You were dead silent. What do you think the kids are going to do? The kids are going to freak out? He’s like, I don’t know what’s well. All I know is pain and so, so just screw this. I’m going to stop trying everything. Cause this doesn’t feel good. And so, it is super important to try to find ways to enjoy the process, to reaffirm what you’re doing, because if you’re constantly belittling yourself in the process, it’s just super difficult to find consistency.

No, I totally agree. I mean, ultimately, it’s coming down to what we discussed earlier. It’s like external validation versus internal validation and knowing that you’re worthy of being loved. But it’s easier said than done, right? It’s almost like it’s a process that takes time and I would advise myself.

Oh yeah. 100%.

Audience to go on that journey. You know you don’t need External values. You’re good as you are right. And so.

100%.

So, David, on a national scale, I wanted to ask you like and you’re like one of the perfect people. To ask like America is right now, going through a lot of negativities, you know, on our national scale and from your perspective, from your whatever. You learned over the years; 8 to 10 years regarding transformation, how do you think America should act on a mindset level to transform from where they are in this negative state to a positive state as you have done in your life?

Yeah, this was so funny, I talk about this all the time, like perspective, is everything. I constantly say this like, again, is America perfect? Absolutely not. Like, no, there’s plenty of things that we can progress on. There’s plenty of things that we can do better at. 

But America is also in this victim Olympics perspective where it’s found the worst thing possible and exacerbates it to the norm, like this one small thing happened in this one small community and act like the whole country is in this is believes the exact same thing that happened as one very small place. And it’s just, it’s crazy to me because I’m 31 years old. I’m on the back end of being what’s called a millennial, and it’s crazy to me how many people think that America’s a bad place to live. It blows my mind like I mean and just the world in general. 

Like the world is sunshine and rainbows right now. Are you kidding me? 200 years ago, we still had slaves. 400 years ago, we had the black plague that killed half the world. Like, I mean, you just think about like what a few thousand years ago it was kings and Queens and peasants. 

And like you just and like I mean, obviously, wealth inequality still happens, but starvation. I hate to break it to you boys and girls, but starvation across the world is almost non-existent. It’s still there. It there’s pockets, but it’s almost nonexistent. In 100 years of capitalism and progress in all of what we’ve done, we’ve almost destroyed starvation. It’s still there in small pockets. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but in the scheme of things, it doesn’t like it’s massively diminished. 

So, is there plenty of progress that needs to be made in this world? Absolutely, but it’s like. But again, keep things in perspective. Just like what I talked about when it comes to body transformations. If all you’re going to focus on is all the ****** things in the world, why try? What’s the point? What’s the point if you can’t even acknowledge that there are good things in America, if you can’t even acknowledge that there’s good things happening in the world and it’s all just woah is me victim Olympics, there’s no feeling of wanting to try like, cause, cause you’re going to like, what’s the point? 

Like what’s the point and so my biggest take away on like Americans particularly where like the mindset is it’s just so victim Olympics and so pessimistic. That is why anyone would want to try and in the reality of things, we got a lot right. There’s still some progress.

We’ve got a lot right.

They’re dear. I totally. I totally agree. Like you see, like, right now you. They’re like two major sides. And they’re always blaming the other side. And there’s like all this, this victim mentality going on.

So from your Perspective from what you’ve done with regards to your transformation from 400 to 200 pounds, how would you apply that to? Let’s say you had to like, let’s say, run for president or something. But you were honest, and you just wanted to tell people the truth on how they should live their life, the American masses. What would it be?

Holy moly, so this is a funny one. I have a buddy of mine who is pretty conservative fiscally… socially, like libertarian, fiscally conservative, because again, it’s like we can’t just print money like there. There is a fine and supply like there’s fundamentals to, Like he was tangent.

I mean we are printing money right now. It’s causing inflation.

Trillions of dollars and you just can’t do it. Like, just look at every… It’s just like the Roman Empire. Why did it fall? English is so habitual. Humans are so habitual and make the same mistake over and over and over again. It’s wild.

Are they expecting different results? And here’s the….

It’s hysterical. You make a Fiat currency and then it all gets diluted because of war and social welfare programs. And it does the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And so, like, it’s super interesting. My biggest thing would be Super Blunt, which would be like that’s what I like. I love the, the, the bluntness of… It’s tough. I love the bluntness of Trump. 

I don’t like everything, Trump said, I love the bluntness. like just being able to be blunt and be like, no, that’s a politician statement. That’s not he’s not being real. Like, that’s ********. He’s just making. He’s just saying something to make you feel good. But when push comes to shove, he has no actionable, tangible things… It doesn’t. 

This is always my biggest thing is like being objectively realistic and saying, you know what? We need to work on homelessness, we won’t cure it. It can’t be cured because humans make poor decisions and no matter how good we are as individuals, as a society. People can make whatever decisions they want. You know what? I like, I believe in, the freedom of having your own gun, because we need to protect ourselves. And you know, there’s that’s an awful thing, too, cause people can do awful things with guns. You know what I believe in freedom of speech, but simultaneously, it’s awful that people can say really mean **** with freedom of speech. 

And it’s being super transparent knowing that freedom of individual choice is clunky, and it’s somewhat painful because at the end of the day, people can make the wrong decision and we have laws to kind of limit that. But again, people can make the wrong decision and that’s their choice. And you know what I want to create, for example, for myself. I’m in the process of building out a nonprofit to help people that can’t afford weight, like excess skin removal surgery, who have lost a significant amount of weight, whose insurance won’t cover it. I want to build a nonprofit to help that process.

That’s all. Would it be nice that the government does it? Sure, but the government can’t do everything like I just don’t trust the Government. I don’t, I don’t trust one person or one group to somehow be the purest of we have too many times in history where you give one person or one group too much power and bad **** happens. And you know what? It’d be nice if we could give it our all. The power to one person or a small group of people, and they’d make the right decisions.

They just don’t.

It never happens.

It just doesn’t happen, and so instead of giving this sunshine and rainbows, the world’s going to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. I  believe in the approach of how can we limit the worst case scenarios? How can we promote the best-case scenarios but simultaneously limit the worst-case scenarios.

So, I was going to say, like for all the major problems that we’re having on a national scale. Your strategy of consistently basically improving like you know, like the way you said 2 Pounds a week and then at some point it gets really better if we utilize the same process of consistency and discipline and then basically sort of blaming other people, everything like we were practical, we found solutions like that that then for something that applies and like benefits all people then that usually solves everything.

Well, and my biggest thing there would be better, like just how just how a lot of us have poor communication skills within ourselves. It’s very self-inflicting, very, very, diminishing, very pessimistic and it’s not. It’s not constructive. It’s destructive. Like there’s nothing wrong with criticism, but most people’s critical tactics are destructive. They’re not constructive like when people say, well, I think we should go to flat tax. That’s stupid. That’s a destructive criticism. Like that doesn’t actually benefit anyone. Like explain to me why you think Flat tax is bad. Give me your constructive criticism to make a better system, and let’s have a conversation. 

But right now, it’s just basically two sides, just basically one side calling one group of fascists. The other group is calling the other one racist and it’s just destructive criticism left and right. No one is actually having a constructive conversation of how we can make the place better. And this is my, because oftentimes both sides want the same thing. That is, have different tactics. Like fix it but then it’s like you’re just stupid. Like you’re stupid. It’s like that doesn’t do it.

No, totally, David. What do you think is the biggest obstacle that most Americans are facing when it comes to realizing their personal American dream? And how do you think they can overcome it from your perspective?

If you live in America, it’s more personal decision making than anywhere else. I mean, obviously when you go to the rest of the world, there are truly like I mean for example like you go to India like there are truly. Things that hold you back from being able to scale the economic ladder. You go to Argentina; you go to similar places. There are truly things in place where you just can’t do it.

In America we have some of the lowest barriers of entry to succeed in anything. It’s not like it’s hard. America is a little more ruthless than most countries like where Europe and other places are a little more about family and work balance. America is pretty ruthless. It’s like if you want to be a billionaire? You’re not going to sacrifice your family a little bit or what? There it is. And so like me it’s like if you live in America, it’s you got to get rid of the victim Olympics and stop blaming every single resource.

It just doesn’t work. I like how you say the victim Olympics, that’s.

It’s a constant battle. If it’s not, it’s just brutal because it’s as if that were true. If that were true, then Oprah Winfrey would never have been a billionaire. And if that were true, then every single wealthy rich kid would it be, would be worth their weight in gold, and actually a lot of them end up in freaking drug rehabs and dead because they’ve been they’ve been given sunshine and rainbows my whole life, so if we’re just being honest, like it, let’s just be honest here; If you live in America, I mean, are there still some barriers to entry that we need to work on? Most of them have been broken down, like most of them are gone, and if you want to show me one that’s up there. It’s like so many things you want to show me something we need to fix, great. 

Give me, give me a tangible thing. I’m not a huge fan of the credit system. I think it’s pretty f***** up, I think. We need to work on our credit system but again like let’s have a conversation, but this constant revolving door of it’s finding the most unique trade by yourself and believing and believing that’s the reason why you’re trapped. It’s just not true.

No, totally. Yeah, it’s basically. You have to stop being the cause. You know, like think about your own life if. You if you had played the victim when you were like at 400 pounds and you need to Change yourself later on like you would still be where you are, you know, like at the 400. Pound thing, but you decide to make that mindset. Shift and I think on a national scale we have. To do the same, you know.

It’s one of my ways of always saying that pandering to someone’s victim complex is the most destructive character trait. You can give somebody because at the end of the day, when you, when you, when you support someone’s constant narrative of I can’t because of a blank you rob them of all their power like it’s gone like it. There is no way they can change because you are supporting their false narrative in their head.

You know what the most…. And they say it’s unempathetic to challenge someone on their negative narratives. Well, it’s because I’m fat. It’s because I’m sure it’s because I’m tall. It’s because I came from a poor family. It’s because my family’s Latino. Whatever. Whatever someone wants to say. The most empathetic thing you can actually do is let them use that to stay trapped. One of the most empathetic things you can do is say, hey, I know you may think that’s where you’re stuck. You can change and you can progress because that’s almost empowering places you can be when. You actually take 100% accountability for your life. That’s not disempowering. That’s the most empowering place you can be because that means if I just change some things in my life. 

My life changed and my life progressed. If you think you’re a victim to your circumstances, you’re here forever. Like wherever you’re at. You’re there for life and so it’s actually more empathetic to support someone’s victim Olympics than challenge them on it.

Always laugh when you say victim Olympics.

Because it’s pretty true of you. But yeah, that’s the battle.

Like one thing I would note is that a lot of leaders do gain power by appealing to the victim, to the victim mindset of people and. And so yeah, they’re there. That’s how it happens. But yeah.

Well, it’s like me in marketing when it comes to weight loss and stuff, it’d be so easy for me If I made marketing ploys of… I got this. I’ve been down 200 pounds for a decade and there are secrets you don’t know. Everyone will be hooked. But that’s not the truth. The truth is most people know what calories are. The truth is most people know they shouldn’t be eating ice cream every day. The truth is they know they should be moving their body more. They just don’t want that. No one wants to hear that. They want to hear if there’s something hidden that the government’s hiding in our water. 

Everyone wants to find the secret chemical that’s holding them back when in reality it’s, you know what, you eat too many calories. You sit too much, and you have no fitness routine at all, and you don’t get quality sleep like that. That’s the truth. And it’s like no one wants to hear that. They want what they want to. Know there’s something in our milk.

I mean it’s basically, yeah, most people want the shortcut, but what can you say? Like they don’t want to hear that change requires a lot of effort.

Yeah, it’s the carbs, it’s carbs. It’s all the Carbs’ fault.

There are very few people that are wanting to hear that the Yeah, but dude, can you tell me and the audience a little bit more about ALG Accountability life group and also your podcast.

Yes. So, a comma life group ALG for short was started a little over two years ago with my business partner John.

John’s lost 300 pounds himself and we were just in this position where we both really want to make an impact. Truly, obesity transforms so. I hate to break it like that. I don’t really work with people. I need to lose 10/20 pounds like hey, I’m a new mom and I need to help lose 25 Pounds so like I mean, obviously I’ll give you some tips, but that’s not where I find passion.

 And so ALG is truly a group of people that if you need to lose over 100 pounds learn things like building a support system, education and a way to help you transform your entire lifestyle to live a healthier and happier life. 

That’s what ALG is for accountable life. Building that accountability in a group setting and then we have a podcast where we talk about nutrition, fitness, all the kinds of stuff we bring on different guests that have lost over 100 pounds themselves and are doing a really good job. We’re pushing on 100 episodes now, so we’re about to hit 100 episodes. We’ve had like 30 people on the podcast, and have lost over 100 pounds. So, it’s a really cool vibe for anyone if you struggled with weight, you’re going to get a lot of different perspectives on different experiences of obesity and living an overweight life and the quality changes and the life changes of doing that. So yeah.

Wow, that’s awesome. I would definitely recommend my audience like anybody that wants to lose a lot of weight and also like to have mindset tips to like definitely take a look into that you know.

I appreciate that.

So, David, I know you. Wrote this book called Drop the baggage. Can you tell me in the audience a little bit more about the premise of how you wrote the book and what got you started on? That in that book.

Absolutely. So, I published it about four years ago now 4 1/2. So, it’s called drop the baggage from suicidal obesity to a life of health and happiness, and it’s basically broken into thirds. The first third of the book is my story. So, from childhood obesity, my depression, suicidal thoughts, all this kind of stuff, and the progress and transformation into changing my life.

The second third of the book is on the mindset shift for change. Learning how to like, reevaluate like Neuro Linguistic programming, talking about how to rewire neural pathways, talking about belief systems, all that kind of stuff. 

And then the final third of the book is on nutrition. I really don’t even really get into fitness because it’s such a small portion of Weight loss success. It’s so funny. So many people spend so much time in the gym when they should spend way more time on how I eat. It should be 90% nutrition, 10% fitness, but most people go 90% fitness and 10% nutrition. And so last third on nutrition and to be honest, I need to rewrite the book because they’re like the last of the books on nutrition and I use peer reviewed literature to support my different conclusions. 

But even in five years of my experience and reading the peer review literature and getting more concise with the science, there are things in there that actually, have learned are not necessarily true and so it’s. I got to write. New book. But the last third is the fundamentals to the Nutritional side of things.

That is awesome. Yeah, I think you’re right about that most people are more into, like lifting weights and all that and less into what they’re eating.

And they, and they wonder why I’m working out. I’m running. I’m doing all this hard work. My muscles are sore, but I’m not losing. Any weight and it’s like cause honestly weight. Loss is 90% nutrition and 10. Percent fitness, it really is.

Yeah, that is, that is awesome. So, David, how can our audience get to know more about your work and connect with you?

So, my social media is my main thing. So TikTok Instagram is my main go-to, so all my social media handles are fit_drock That’s like the main place you can get a hold of me. I have, like, just over 100,000 followers on TikTok and have like 40K something on Instagram. So those are my 2 main platforms.

Awesome, David. I’m really honored to have you on this show, and I would like you to be an extraordinary American. What you’ve achieved is truly extraordinary where most people would have just given up. You managed to like to pull off something truly miraculous. I would say, but we know that it’s not a Miracle It’s a lot of hard work, effort, and consistency. And I’m sure like a lot. My audience will be inspired to do the same in their own goals as well.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

And I would hope that you come back to the show. At a later time.

Absolutely, this is this. It’s a fun episode.

Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun and I want to conclude this show by telling my Fellow extraordinary Americans that Look, there’s an extraordinary within each and every one of us, it’s our duty to awaken it and unleash it until the next time. Bye for now.