Brainless Health: Simple Habits That Transform Your Life

Chris Hall (00:00) this is Chris Hall with the Healthy Wealth Experience and I’m excited to bring to you a new guest. His name is John Patton and he’s going to talk today about his health experience coming from his background and we’re going to talk a little bit about that and I’m really excited to have him on the show. So John, thank you so much for being on the show. Tell me a little bit about yourself. John Patton (00:19) Well, thanks Chris so much for having me. And I tell you, you have really identified a great niche because I can’t think of two things that go better together than health and wealth. You know, your financial health and your physical health and we’ll talk about the mental health component as well. But they are two of the most important things. you know, they’re unfortunately two areas that a lot of folks overlook. They think they’ll deal with it tomorrow. So my personal background, I ran a company for 15 years. It was stressful, man. I was up at dawn. I was working 100 hours a week. And I was like, hey, I deserve a break today. That’s what McDonald’s taught me. And so I would go and get a bagel every morning on my way to work. Gosh knows how many calories back then. I would break in the afternoon. There was a Friendly’s ice cream store right around the corner from our offices and I would go over there. It was a physical job. It was warehousing. It was a lot of physical labor. But after a very short time, I was putting on some serious pounds. I have pictures to prove it. It was really scary, but it just crept up on me and it was always, I’m gonna do something later. Chris Hall (01:28) it. John Patton (01:35) And then all of sudden, you know, I changed jobs my my I changed states I moved and started to read I started to think you know, this is a ticking time bomb if you don’t deal with it and so I Committed to join in a gym like so many people do on a on a you know, New Year’s Eve resolution kind of time and But I but I did it differently I said I’m just gonna show up like I don’t I may not even exercise but I’m gonna show up every day. And I had a long commute to the gym, there was a lot of traffic, but I did it. And I write about it in my book, we’ll talk about that later, how I would sometimes arrive at the gym at 6 a.m. and be so exhausted that I would just crawl into the backseat and go to sleep. But I had made it, I achieved my goal. Well, obviously over time, Chris Hall (02:23) the John Patton (02:28) You know, you say this is a waste of time if I’m not gonna go in and exercise. So I started to do it. I did it, I did it. And it just transformed everything about my life. It just changed the way I viewed myself, the skipping my steps, so to speak. mean, people noticed. One thing I love about the gym, you can do physical activity, physical fitness anywhere. I’m a big fan of that. In your neighborhood, in your kitchen, know, in the living room, doesn’t matter. a lot of opportunities, but at the gym you get a chance to actually measure your success, right? You’re moving that pin down, a little heavier, right? A little bit stronger. And there aren’t many times in life after you leave high school and college where you can measure success. I mean, you’re taking tests in school so you know if you’re passing, you’re doing well, you’re getting an A. Maybe you’re playing a sport, you’re winning, you’re running faster, you’re lifting more. Once you leave school, it’s really hard to really determine how well you’re doing. Yeah, you get a promotion and stuff maybe, but the gym is a way to measure it and motivate. Chris Hall (03:34) Right, no, that’s really good. Yeah, it’s funny because like a lot of athletes, what they’ll do is when they get done with their athletic careers, I’m one of these people, like I just stopped everything. I stopped eating right, I stopped working out. And I graduated from college at 229 pounds. And maybe a year and a half later, I was 296. And I stopped all of it. And so I think that happens to a lot of people. And I think, you know, you really nailed it where it’s the biggest thing is just go to the gym. You know what I mean? Just get there. Now I recommend people actually go inside, but still. John Patton (04:08) Yeah, you don’t want people looking in the windows going, hey, and reporting you for homelessness, you’re sleeping in the parking lot. Well, congratulations to you, because that kind of weight loss is super hard. And that’s something I sometimes think about. I’m in the gym, and I come home, and I think to myself, I want to eat that pizza. I want to have the bag of potatoes, whatever it is. And I think to myself, golly, it was really hard. Chris Hall (04:11) Right, especially now. John Patton (04:35) to knock off a couple pounds. You don’t wanna knock off 20, John. That’s gonna be really hard, and it is, so hats off to you. Chris Hall (04:40) Right. So what is your background? said that you were a consultant for a little while there. So what is your background? What led you to this movement besides, you know, your own stuff, but like, what were you doing as a a vocation? John Patton (04:54) Yeah, so I was working in the field of marketing and I was consulting and I stumbled upon a client called the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors. Very difficult name, one that I’m sure none of the listeners are aware of, but it is a national association that represents all the state health departments in the nation that are working on chronic disease prevention and treatment. So diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke, et cetera. And I was just there to do some branding for them, some communications, press releases, this kind of thing. And they said, hey, would you be our communication director? Would you take a proper full-time position here? And I said, sure. Thinking it would last a year. And fast forward 15 years I’ve been there, we are funded largely by the federal government and state governments. to work in this area of chronic disease prevention, and I started to learn, my gosh, diabetes absolutely can be prevented. You know, cancer, we often think cancer comes out of the blue, just hits you out of nowhere. No, it can actually be prevented. You can actually reduce your risk significantly by doing really simple things. know, heart disease the same way, high blood pressure. And so I just got excited. And over the course of working with different populations and these grants to bring awareness, largely it’s awareness and education, once people are educated, they fly into action. But I did find that we were asking people to do a few difficult things, right? Understand the difference between good fats and bad fats. Count your steps, measure your macros. And that’s just a lot for anybody. And so I started to focus on what are some simple, simple things that we could do, we could bake into the back of our brain that would give us, reduce our risk for chronic diseases and help us with weight loss, help us with our mental health, but we wouldn’t have to think about it. And so that’s when I wrote the book Brainless Health, because I knew there were brainless things, things we did not have to think about that we could start to do. So it’s something I took heart. I walk the talk. I, you know, I really will get into some of the ideas but it, you know, sometimes inconvenient but rarely do I have to think about it. Chris Hall (07:19) So how long of a distance is there time-wise between when you transformed your body to when you wrote that book? How long did it take you to go, you know what, I want to get this information out to other people. John Patton (07:31) You know, it was about 10 years. wasn’t quick. I started to make this change in my own life and started to kind of preach it to my kids and family. Chris Hall (07:33) Okay. John Patton (07:42) But I didn’t feel qualified to write a book. I felt like I had to get some more years and education under my belt. But that was one of the big ah-has as well. Because as I went to the bookstore, and all the listeners can attest to this, they can go to the bookstore, and you look in the aisle over under health books or health journals and stuff, they’re super technical. I mean, they want you to make a log of this and they’ll tell you how to discern all these different Chris Hall (07:45) and John Patton (08:11) turmeric, know, all these different spices and things are gonna move your metabolism, so very, very complex stuff. And I said to myself, well, John, you don’t need more information. You need to actually communicate what you already know and what everybody could do. without ever really picking up a book, just pick up the basket at the grocery store instead of push it. And I love doing that. It’s a workout, man. And it also helps your wallet because you’re gonna buy a whole lot less in your basket than if you’ve got a big cart you’re filling up. So there again is the connection between the health and the wealth. But there are so many simple things like that. I carry my suitcase through the airport. People look at me like I have three heads. Like why aren’t you rolling that thing? Chris Hall (08:38) You John Patton (08:58) Well, you know, I pack what I can carry and I carry it and it’s incredible workout. Just going to the airport is a pretty serious workout these days. Walk in all those terminals. Chris Hall (09:08) I that’s, you know, I think it’s just the shift, you know, of all the things that we do to simplify our life. One of the things I’ve heard, you know, from several speakers is that disease is basically too much ease in our life. We’re seeking for things to be easy so we get dis-ease because we’re too lazy, we’re too unthoughtful about what we do with our bodies. And so like you said, like just adding in, you know, some basic tenants to like, hey, this may be harder for me, but ultimately at the end of the day, my body’s going to appreciate it more. So I think that’s really good. John Patton (09:52) I just love that. mean, I’m gonna preach that, that dis-ease. It’s really, really true. And that’s the thing, we’re not saying, it’s a walk in the park. I I park my car far away from the door of the mall or the grocery store for a couple reasons. Namely, I want to get my steps in. I want to get a little exercise. And on the way back, by the way, it is a serious workout with bags of groceries in your hands and you’ve got to walk all the way to the end of the parking lot. But… Also, I’m in the store faster. I’m not waiting with my blinker on to get that spot up front, you know? So it’s actually a little bit more convenient. But you’re exactly right. There are things that we’re going to just bake in to our lives, taking the stairs when we see the stairs. They’re in the mall, they’re in the office buildings, they’re staring at us, literally. And we don’t take them. We wait on that elevator. That’s nutso. You know, and so if we can, will give us, would, you know, take us a little longer perhaps, but we need to have that discomfort, that disease to give us health. I love that. Chris Hall (10:55) Yeah, it reminds me. So I was in a, you know, high intensity interval training class. And you know, one of the stations that we almost always end up with was a farmer, what they call farmer carry or farmer walk. And so you take two like 45 pound plates, you put them in your hands and you walk with them, you know, up and down the hallway type of thing. And so it kind of reminded me of you, they’re a suitcase thing, you know, you know, that’s that’s actual workout thing. And you’re just doing it on, you know, for your own good. Just because that’s that’s again your body reacts really well to having that push pull you know for your for your muscles and stuff so that’s pretty cool I like that John Patton (11:32) It is, I that’s a great example. And I love that they call it the farmer’s pole or the farmer’s walk, know, because that was our life, right? Back in the day, we were agrarian, we were laborers, we were moving around a lot. And our culture has… completely engineered Sedentary behavior right so you think about it you get up out of bed you sit down and eat breakfast you then sit in the car and drive to work you sit at your desk you Come home sit in your car again come up sit at the dinner table And then what do do we sit and relax and watch TV and then before we lay down it is unbelievable. know, in many cases your mail is right there, you you don’t even have to walk to your mailbox. I mean, it’s just unbelievable. So there’s no curiosity why we, you obesity has tripled, you know, three times since 1975. There’s no question why obesity has just been you know, going through the roof and diabetes, type 2 diabetes, 39 million people now with diabetes, 98 million Americans with pre-diabetes. Now that was a term that I learned in the last 15 years. It wasn’t a term. I worked on a lot of grants to try to educate people on this term, precursor to having full diabetes. many people will go to their doctor and the doctor will say, hey, don’t worry about it, you’re right, you’re kind of borderline. And then the next time they visit, go, oops, you went over the border. You have diabetes now. And so what we’ve done is really promoted this pre-state so that people can actually reverse that state. Take their A1C levels, their glucose, the sugar levels down so that they’re not even at risk for diabetes anymore. Chris Hall (13:03) Thank you. Well, and I think that, you know, leads to, you know, the medicine seems to be, you know, the medicine side of things seems to be so far behind with, you know, the way that they process things. Like you’re saying, like, we shouldn’t be, we shouldn’t still at this point. I mean, yes, if you’re a diabetic, you should look at your sugars, but you should, we should have easy, clear testing on insulin levels. That’s what we should be looking at. And we’re looking at pre-diabetics. I promise you they have high insulin levels. I promise you they’re already super insulin resistant and that’s, we should see that and be like, hey, you’re insulin resistant. It’s only going to get worse from here unless we handle the insulin part of it. And so we, we always wait as a medical society, we wait till it gets to a sugar problem, but the sugar problem was precursored by 10 years of insulin problem. So, so I feel like, I feel like we have all this information and you know, you know, I know people in the medical profession that I think are very intelligent, smart people. who will tell you that the diabetes is not reversible, which is absolute garbage. Like it’s been reversed and hundreds of thousands of people who don’t believe somebody when they say you can’t be reversed. So I feel like that’s, you know, to me, that’s one of the reasons I have this podcast is because I want that information to get out. You know, when you and I kind of emailed back and forth, one of the things I said is like, please don’t talk to me about the food permit. I don’t want to talk about that. Like, John Patton (14:24) Correct. Chris Hall (14:46) If that’s what we’re going to talk about, I’m wholly against the food pyramid. It is a terrible, terrible thing that has caused, in my opinion, what we just talked about. feel like the reason we have high insulin levels and the reason we end up with high sugars is because we have all of this ultra, ultra processed foods. I do wear a continuous glucose monitor. And I can tell you for a fact that if I have a piece of pizza, John Patton (14:51) Yep. Chris Hall (15:12) my glucose will just go crazy. But if I take a peach off the tree in my yard and I eat it and it’s the sweetest thing in the world, my blood sugar barely budges. It’s not even really the sugar as much as it is. It’s like this food is being engineered to make us sick, I feel like. So I’m really excited about, you know, talking to people who, you know, can give us, you know, insights on how we can improve our insulin sensitivity, lower our blood sugars, things like that. John Patton (15:38) I’m so glad you brought that up. I am so glad because people get so confused about sugar. Natural sugar, it’s pretty simple. It’s natural. It occurs in nature. It’s okay for our bodies. Refined sugar is what we’ve done to… pollute it, to modify it, and our bodies are not designed to handle that. So you’re exactly right. And we’re in a continuous glucose monitor for even just a week. All the listeners could go and get one some way somehow just to test it out because it really is an eye opener. I totally agree. Chris Hall (16:16) Yeah, I actually, call it my snitch. So I basically, if I do something wrong, my snitch tells on me. And so, so that’s, it’s, it’s for me, goes back to like what you had said with going to the gym, right? Like you just got to get there, right? And then once you get there, then you’ve the half the battle, more than half the battles done. So for me, the reason I wear it is because I want to be more mindful of what’s going on. And if I do like, decide to have like a couple of pieces of pizza, like I know it’s going to go up. But it’s kind of like, reminds me of, there was an old Flintstones episode where Fred Flintstone was trying to lose weight. And so he hired this guy to like basically keep him from eating. I don’t know if you remember this one. Every time Fred would go to eat something, he’d just yank it out of his hands and go, and he’d run away. And that was his deal. And I feel like that’s what this thing does on my arm is it basically yells at me anytime I try to do something I’m not supposed to. So. John Patton (16:56) I don’t remember it. I think that is brilliant. And it really is. I’ve been amazed because what it’s doing is it’s giving you knowledge, it’s educating you. If you had to list out all the foods that were highly glycemic, you wouldn’t know what to list. But by wearing that, you’re learning it. And I do believe that education is so much of the battle and we can’t… expect our doctor that has seven minutes per patient to teach us. In particular with regard to nutrition. Any medical professional listening would attest to the fact that medical schools, at least the traditional ones for the last 100 years, will have less than a semester about nutrition. It’s just not in the curriculum. Chris Hall (17:55) Well, that then that nutrition to this day is still being taught based on the food pyramid. It’s still it’s still ultra processed foods, grains, white rice, and you know, all this thing. And again, white rice is no problem, by the way, I actually really like it. And I don’t know if people know this, but if you eat white rice hot right away, it’s very, very sugary. If you let it cool, it turns into what’s called resistant starch, which actually really good for your gut biome, and your glycemic index goes way down on it. Even if you reheat it, it’s the fact that you cooked it, cooled it, and then if you reheat it, it’s like way different than just having brand new hot white rice. So. John Patton (18:34) I’m so impressed. I never heard that. I totally believe it because so many athletes will eat white rice. Complete Asian countries, know, the main staple is white rice and they’re not obese. So I knew there was something going on there. That makes a ton of sense. Yeah, gosh. Chris Hall (18:49) You know, remember the guys in high school and college that just sat there and ate chicken and white rice all the time and they were just ripped all the time. I’m like, how are they doing that? And then you learn that white rice is so bad for you. So I’m like, how come those guys were ripped? Well, because their white rice was always cooled down. It was always resistant starch. John Patton (18:56) Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, well you know, I think that what we’re touching on here, with all the respect in the world that we both have for the medical community, They’re not God. They don’t know everything. They can’t keep up on everything. And I would’ve been amazed since the rise of social media how much information has been flooding the airwaves. And obviously you need to be really careful and you need to double check. If somebody says something, sounds really good, you go check it out. And you can go talk to your doctor. You can Google it. You can do research through PubMed and various aerodite websites. But my goodness, the things that I’ve learned that are very contrarian to typical medical advice over the years, we have to remember that our government doesn’t always get it right. They were handing out cigarettes to the soldiers, That didn’t prove so well. It goes so well. So there are things that we just need to always be mindful of. We need to check our facts. We need to be a little bit Chris Hall (20:02) smooth finish. John Patton (20:13) you know, at least curious enough to do the research. Chris Hall (20:18) Right. And I think, you know, again, nothing against the medical community. I think you nailed it. They have seven minutes. They have seven minutes or less. mean, I mean, I’ve seen some providers, by the way, I was a pharmaceutical rep for 10 years. So I was in and out of these offices all the time, but I see some of them, they just pop in. They’re talking to them for two minutes and they’re back out because that extra time that they don’t have, they have to spend charting, which is, know, Medicare’s way, you know, like John Patton (20:23) Yeah. Yeah. Chris Hall (20:44) the amount of charting that these people have to do to get Medicare reimbursement is through the roof crazy. But that’s that’s the so the government has actually forced them into paperwork versus care. And so I do I feel for the community. And again, how are they going to get their information? They get it from pharmaceutical reps. And I was one. And I can tell you that after being in it for a really long time, like we have a spiel that we’re going to talk about. And at the time when I was doing it, I was like, this is all science. I’m very scientific guy. I feel very good about myself. Then as time progressed, was like, wow, like I sold, I sold Lipitor. I sold the number one selling cholesterol lowering drug in the world. Still probably number one. I don’t know. Um, but I sold that and you know, now here we are several, 10 years, 15 years later, we don’t even know if it’s a good thing to lower people’s LDL cholesterol. We don’t know. Like there’s so many studies that are showing that it has nothing to do with cholesterol as much as it has to do with sugar. So sugar and triglycerides is another measurement of sugar. And we did pay attention to it back then, but I think now we’re paying more more attention to it. But again, you go back to talk to a traditional doctor who’s not really always learning, and they’re going to be like, hey, your LDL cholesterol is really high. And I mean, almost I also would be like, so what? Show me some data that says that lowering it saves lives because after all, John Patton (21:59) I know. Bye. Chris Hall (22:03) 25 years of statins being in the world. There’s not a single study that shows primary prevention And I know from being in the business that when you set these studies up these are set up by actuaries These people sit there and made make these studies to win They’re not making the studies to find out they’re making the studies to win And so when they don’t win you have to kind of look and go wait hold on They designed a study to win. They’ve designed studies to win for 20 years and none of them have won That’s something to consider. So John Patton (22:33) my gosh. Chris Hall (22:33) What are there some other good ideas out of your book? What are some other good ideas that people can put into their system that will just change their daily life and not really massively make them count calories and stuff? John Patton (22:44) Well you know that one of the things that I talk about is actually just protecting your skin from the sun. Now there’s a lot of great stuff out there that now has only come out now is our massive need and great deficiency, many Americans, in vitamin D. And it’s best produced through the sun. So you want to be in the sun. You don’t want to get burnt to a crisp. And then there’s a lot of proper controversy now about the sunscreens. I just read the other day that skin cancer has increased 200 % since sunscreens were introduced and many of them I mean it’s super documented like… Open-closed case that some of those sunscreens not all of them have some very damaging chemicals in them So so rather than you know my book is brainless health You know rather than get into and I’ve looked at the the chemical makeup, and I do wear some sunscreen But I’m really careful, and I read through it. It’s hard. It’s not brainless What is brainless is a hat what is a brainless is is some some you shirts on I see more people in the swimming pool wearing shirts than I’ve ever seen in my life because they’re just like, hey, I don’t want to get sunburned, okay? And sunburn isn’t just skin cancer, it can lead to sun poisoning, it can just make you sleep poorly and just lead to lot of challenges in life. So put on a hat, hit the beach, it’s pretty simple. Chris Hall (24:13) Yeah, that’s a good one. really like that. You know, something I found fascinating, I mean, I don’t have this fact checked or anything like that. you know, don’t stop doing this unless you do your own research. But someone told me that if you don’t wear sunglasses, if you’re out on the beach and you’re out, you know, with your shirt off or whatever, you don’t wear sunglasses, your optic nerve understands that you’re outside and actually produces like more melanin. So you’re less likely to get sunburned with sunglasses off. than with sunglasses on because you’re distracting your optic nerve and it doesn’t know to produce that melanin. So again, I don’t have any research behind that, but I heard that and I just think like, I just think we’re in the best age right now for information. And yeah, sure, some of it’s probably going to be funky, but you know, like again, leaning towards sugar as opposed to fat has been 50 years in the making. You know what mean? For 50 years, we’ve been telling people to stay away from fat as we get fatter. as we get more unhealthy, more heart attacks, more cancer, more everything. And it’s like, all of a sudden you’ve got this small little wave that’s like, sugar’s bad. What? Oh my God, no way. And it’s like, fat’s okay. So I really do love the world that we’re in right now, where I feel like the voices that were being stymied by the medical community have a voice now. And that’s, again, one of the reasons I have this podcast, is I try to give voices to people wherever I can. John Patton (25:21) you Chris Hall (25:36) So because that information is out there. John Patton (25:38) Yeah, I think that’s, I think you nailed it. The social media has allowed a new voice, has allowed a megaphone that didn’t exist before. It was just whispers in the hallway. was my grandmother told me this or, you know, there’s an ancient secret or something like that. And now you’ve got people with great credentials who have a voice like you’re doing right now. And that I have heard about that, that some, you know, the, Chris Hall (25:46) and . John Patton (26:04) sunglasses kind of thing and whether it’s true or not it makes sense from the standpoint of your body knows how to protect itself your body knows how to heal itself you know it is it’s an amazing you know organism and so you know when it knows that you’re out if you’re not fooling it to say hey no you know it’s you’re indoors it kind of makes logical sense But it’s things like that, you’re right. Go research it. Listen to your body is one of the biggest deals. People, you know, there’s this big thing about no pain, no gain. Well, you can have pain and really hurt yourself and lose a lot of gain if you’re not listening to your body, whether that’s muscular pain or indigestion. Chris Hall (26:50) Yeah, I’m sure I’ll like the column stuff with this, for example, see CrossFit. John Patton (26:55) For example see CrossFit. yeah, man Many people tried to get me into that and and then they were they were falling out sick for muscle tears and stuff like that And I admire those people. I’m just not able to to pull it off without injury Chris Hall (27:10) I do think CrossFit has a wonderful place in society. I believe that it is for younger people. I believe that once you hit 40, that’s not a good space for you. I probably got in some of the best shape of my life doing CrossFit. I also tore my shoulder. just the dynamics, like there’s tons of data to support that if you’re doing CrossFit, you’re going to be injured at least once a year, probably twice a year. So again, like, you know, we’ve got this great wave of exercise and then nothing, and then this great wave of exercise and then nothing. you know, but I know people who are on CrossFit who live it, breathe it, it is very much, I would say like even sort of like a religion for some people. And I mean, there’s a lot of really good stories that come out of it, but I would just say like, once you hit 40, like your body just changes. And I mean, I know there’s people who are 40 doing CrossFit, like absolutely, you know, you’re doing a great job. I’m not trying to tell you not to do it. I’m just saying I think for the vast majority of people, once you hit 40, your body starts changing a little bit. like, you know, throwing around that kind of way, it’s probably not ideal. John Patton (28:14) in a group setting that’s really driving your competitive nature. mean, I always wanna do a little bit more when I’m in a group. I like what you said, I wanna expand on it, and that is that you might get injured once a year. And the older you get, the more those injuries, I’ll use that in the broadest sense of the word, can really take you down. You know, it’s gonna take longer to heal, get back at it. And, you know, not to make a complete analogy to the fire of financial health, but we were talking earlier, when you’re on a good trajectory and you kinda got something just on the autopilot going on, and then you divert from that, and you blow some money, you spend it irresponsibly, you do something like that, you lose a job, you weren’t planning on this and that, it can take you down and it’s a lot harder to get back to where you were. And so I really just feel like that’s how, certainly I tell my kids all the time, my kids wanted me to go skydiving and I would love to go skydiving. But I told them, said, I’m not worried about dying, I’m just worried about like a land and maybe my foot crumples, you know? And I don’t have the bandwidth in my. busy schedule to deal with a broken foot that I maybe couldn’t prevent it, you know? So that’s kinda how I look at health and wellness is what can I do that’s gonna reduce my risk of being sidelined, you know, for a time. Chris Hall (29:36) So when you go to the gym, do you typically do? Is it a cardio, resistance training? What’s your kind of go-to? John Patton (29:41) So it’s both, but I put a real focus on the resistance training, on the weight lifting. And for our listeners, that doesn’t mean I’ve got the dumbbells in my arms, and about to crush my chest with a barbell and stuff like that. Most gyms have these nice fail safe pieces of equipment that you sit down, you push, and if it slips out of your hands, nobody gets hurt. That’s kind of where I focus. Because again, I don’t want to injure myself, we have found I do do cardio I do you know, but maybe three times a week, but I’ll do the the weight resistance training, you know six days a week and We’ve learned that muscle mass is so important and and I know that Mobility for me personally is gonna be that’s that’s my goal You know, I’m not trying to win a bodybuilding contest, but man, do I want to be able to get around, travel. You know, I’ve seen people my own family that once they lost their mobility, it was way worse than losing their car keys. I mean, you know, that’s the first thing to go. Well, then you get in that wheelchair. You can’t go to the baseball game. You can’t go to see your grandson’s, you know, recital, whatever it is. And… I never want to be in that place. So that’s why I do the resistance training, build up the muscle. And I just want to jump in so we don’t forget to touch on the GLP-1 craze, right? The Wigovies, the Ozempics of the world. And we were talking earlier about your background. These are very, there are a lot of drugs that, know, pharmaceutical products that are really good and they’re really useful for certain applications, right? But we have a very… pharmaceutical hungry, you know, population sometimes and these GLP-1s have been, you know, prescribed and requested so much without the proper training that needs to go along with them. Like, hey, you are going to lose muscle mass. You need to get in the gym. You know, you’re going to have less of an appetite. So you’re going to get less fuel into your body and recognize it’s not a, there’s nothing that’s a miracle drug. What are your thoughts? Chris Hall (31:52) Right. Well, and again, think, you know, pharmaceuticals, you know, they take something that, you know, is pretty cool. And then they try to figure out how to like, you know, monetize it. That’s not, they’re not really necessarily trying to figure out how to get people healthy. They’re just trying to monetize it. So what’s interesting about GLP ones is they are peptides. and peptides typically are not something that you are allowed to patent. So what they did was they put it in these delivery systems. And then they do all the with the delivery systems. But that’s why when you can’t get Bozempic, Rogovie or whatever, you can still go get it from a compound pharmacy because it’s a peptide. It’s available. You can get it, but you’re just going to have to draw it up yourself. So it’s once again, just knowing what I know is like with these, you know, these drugs, they’re like, it’s, it’s very American. It’s very like, Hey, you know, if three milligrams will be good for you, 12 milligrams must be better. Like we’ve got to put I mean, like, isn’t everybody on 12 milligrams? And then there’s no breaks, you know what I mean? There’s no, don’t take breaks in the action so that the body can read the receptors in the body can like start over. So what happens is progresses and it progresses and it progresses. It’s like, you know, so it’s just like, once again, it’s like, they’re not holistically looking at it. They’re like, how can we sell more of this drug, which by the way, is not a drug, it’s a peptide. And, and I think it’s honestly, personally, I think it’s a travesty that they charge $1,200 for something that you can get. in a different market for a hundred bucks. So. John Patton (33:19) Yeah, it is a travesty. what breaks my heart is this idea that even if it was completely risk-free with no side effects, which just does not exist in any kind of pharmacological scenario, the benefits that they miss out on from physical activity, from changing your diet, you you sleep better, you think better, you have better relationships, you’re just more… Chris Hall (33:45) Thank John Patton (33:47) confidence you know that no kind of wonder drug will ever deliver and I just you know even back to telepator you know it’s like it doesn’t matter you’re gonna have you’re gonna have to take a probably an anti-constipation drug you know for for that you know so then you’re gonna add that on there was a guy who came into to the to the house one day I was cooking up some some food and smelled it and he said what are you cooking as vegetables and I said Chris Hall (34:03) Right. John Patton (34:14) He started talking about his diet and he said, I’ve radically transformed my diet because I was diagnosed with diabetes, to your point earlier. He completely reversed it through his lifestyle, through his diet and exercise. And he said, John, I couldn’t afford it. I could not afford the insulin. couldn’t afford the Dr. Copays. This was not in my budget. So I had to make a radical financial decision. And I just thought it was a cool story and just a wake up call because people don’t count the cost financially. Chris Hall (34:47) I like that. I like I like that. So one of the lifestyle changes we didn’t really talk about which I really Love and I would like to get your opinion on it is fasting. Do you do you practice fasting? Do you encourage people to fast? John Patton (35:01) I do, think it makes tons of sense. Again, we’re going back to that logic. There’s a lot of great science and intermittent fasting and stuff, but the idea that we’re just cramming our bodies full of food constantly. I haven’t eaten in six hours, I must eat again. What we love about food is it makes us feel good. It’s a social thing, particularly in the US, but in all cultures. Chris Hall (35:25) That’s a dopamine. It’s a dopamine hit. John Patton (35:27) It’s estopamine release. makes us feel good. We call it comfort food for a reason. And so we eat it and it’s just illogical. So I do, like you were talking about, the receptors taking a break. I feel like our digestive system, our endocrine system needs to just take a break. And I always feel better after a fast. Sometimes I’ll just do like maybe a 16 hour kind of intermittent fasting. Chris Hall (35:30) Yeah. Right, for sure. John Patton (35:54) But then sometimes I’ll go a day or if I want to even do two and like everyone seems to agree, you get incredibly clear in your thinking. You feel so much better. You sleep like a rock and then you get back at it. I support it. What’s been your experience? Chris Hall (36:14) Yeah. Good. I think it’s a wonderful tool that we underutilize. I feel like it’s literally free. It costs us nothing. In fact, it probably saves us a lot of money. And that’s, again, I think why the food companies and medical research doesn’t really talk about it because nobody can win at monetizing it. Now, to affect GLP-1s actually do help people eat less. John Patton (36:26) It’s money. Chris Hall (36:42) I mean, that’s, you know, again, they found a way to monetize that. with fasting, it’s literally free. ⁓ I don’t have all of the data right in front of me. I wasn’t prepared for that. But I would tell you, like, they say that if you can do like a 40-hour fast, you know, your body goes into a state called autophagy, where it goes back in and cleans up all of the cells that are limping along, where the mitochondria is having a problem. And so it basically goes in and starts cleaning up all your terrible cells that are in your body, which again, reduces cancer, reduces… ⁓ You know your pancreas having problems, so you’re you know, got diabetes. It’s like all these different things that go into it ⁓ and I don’t have the exact number in my head, but I believe I saw something that said that like just like one four day fast for Day fast. I just want to say that too loud. I mean too fast Was like a 33 % reduction in cancer Like like that’s how big it is because your body has to go in John Patton (37:30) Yeah. Chris Hall (37:37) and use all those terrible cells that would have turned into cancer ultimately, it uses them for energy. It’s like your body’s very smart. It’s going to go find the things that it doesn’t want to keep and eat that for fuel. So I feel like there’s a lot more research to be done in that area. But for me personally, I’m just trying to get to the point where I can do, like let’s say like you do lunch on a Friday. John Patton (37:51) All right. Chris Hall (38:03) Right. And then where everybody else like they have five o’clock at night, six o’clock at night, and now they’re to go have nachos and a couple beers and hang out with their friends and so that it’s like maybe just go all the way through Friday after lunch with nothing and then don’t start again lunch until lunch on Saturday. Or if you’re going to hang it, you keep yourself busy. Why not have dinner Saturday night? And those are little tiny steps that people just don’t think of. And I think it really kind of falls into what you’re saying is like, that’s not it’s kind of a no brainer, but you have to find a pattern for it, like a pattern that fits you. Like some people wake up in the morning and they’re starving, right? They’re just, I’m so hungry. Well, so they’re probably not going to fast in the morning. But typically those people also are not starving at six o’clock at night, but they still have dinner. So if you’re starving in the morning, have your breakfast, have your lunch, then don’t have dinner. You know, if you’re the kind of person like me, I woke up in the morning and I was told breakfast is the most important day of the most important meal of the day. No, it’s not. It’s breaking your fast. It’s actually terrible for you. So now if you’re hungry, eat. If you’re not hungry, don’t eat. John Patton (38:34) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it’s exactly right. couldn’t agree more and there we go back to listening to your body you know and you said it earlier you know if you have something to do you’re keeping yourself busy just we do this all the time we’re excited we’re thrilled we’re just engaged in something how many times we say oh my gosh I completely forgot to eat eat well yeah you forgot because your body didn’t need it you were cooking along often when I’m snacking it’s because I’m bored it has nothing to do with hunger it is pure boredom and that’s its own issue. So I think that if you can listen to your body and you can try to stay focused and let those cells repair themselves or use up the bad ones like you said. It’s funny, ⁓ I think too because we talked about sugar, sugar is in everything. Sugar is in ketchup, sugar is in milk, sugar is in everything. And so by fasting you’re automatically reducing the amount of sugar you’re taking in your system. And that stuff, that I think we will, I don’t expect the medical community to reverse the knowledge on sugar the way they did on fats and carbs and things like that. I think sugar is truly the biggest problem we’re facing in health. Chris Hall (40:17) Right? No, I agree. I agree with that a lot. And I love that you point out that sugar is hidden from us. You know, and it’s not even just sugar. Like, hey, that ketchup has sugar in it. It’s like that ketchup has high fructose corn syrup in it. And so like up until a few years ago, let’s call it a decade ago, nobody knew what that was. But it was, you know, it was corn syrup. It was made from corn. And it was like, it’s got to be one of the worst things that was ever invented for human consumption. But again like going back to like all the things that the the maha movements doing right now trying to take out food dyes trying to take out these things But like we have seed oils is another one seed oils is like we’ve been cooking our food and beef tallow For hundreds of years and all of a sudden they’re like, you know what? Let’s let’s take this corn and make it into an oil Let’s first add a detergent to it because it smells so bad when we when we when we make it into oil But it’s like now it’s everywhere like you can’t Like there’s like maybe a handful of restaurants in America that don’t use a seed oil when they’re frying. So it’s like, you know, it’s like the whole thing is just so weird. It’s like they almost push us as a society. They’ve almost pushed us into like, Hey, what’s the worst foods we can get these people to eat? Let’s just name them something that they don’t know what it is. You know what mean? Let’s name it something they don’t know what it is like high fructose corn syrup, or, you know, I remember when it was like agave was a big deal. Like, agave is natural. John Patton (41:40) Yeah. Chris Hall (41:41) It was just processed sugar from a different plant. John Patton (41:43) Completely correct. Yeah, they’ve got so many ⁓ Code words and then all those artificial sweeteners on top of we could talk an hour about artificial sweeteners They’re like the devil too. I mean, they’re just absolutely terrible and what’s what breaks my heart is that we Don’t know the long-term effects. We’re actually seeing some of them because of the the crazy rates of ⁓ chronic diseases and obesity and all Chris Hall (41:56) Right. ⁓ John Patton (42:11) But we still, I think, have a long way to go in terms of really seeing the damage that we’ve done to our bodies. So one good thing is that it’s not entirely brainless. It’s pretty cool. A lot of folks during the pandemic, they were at home and they were not community to their offices. And so they started to take up, thanks to the social media, YouTube channels, Instagram, ⁓ making their own stuff. And I was talking to a guy the other day who makes his own salsa now. And I’m like, what? You know, that’s the easiest thing. Open the jar, throw it in there. But no, you look in the back of a salsa bottle, there’s a ton of stuff you’ve never heard of. But fresh salsa, super simple, super yummy, super healthy. And so I think that if people just take a beat and say, you know, what can I make myself? You know, even if it’s just your own breakfast burrito or something like that, you what went in there you know you didn’t put any C2 oils in there you know you didn’t put any artificial sweeteners in there it feels a lot better Chris Hall (43:13) We got so this has probably been five years now, but like right about that time, I was getting so frustrated with jerky, right? Because you could not pick up a bag of jerky that didn’t have sugar added to it. And I don’t know who thought that was a good idea. But that’s apparently like mainstream. And I mean, when I was growing up and we had jerky, like deer jerky or whatever, like we never like went around and like added sugar to it. I just don’t understand where that came from. John Patton (43:26) Okay. Chris Hall (43:39) How it got in there, but it is it’s in there everywhere. So about five years ago right around the pandemic ⁓ We bought a dehydrator and so we started doing our own jerky and so we started getting spices and things like that and salt and pepper for this one and things like that and I’m telling you what like if you start making your own jerky You will never buy a jerky from anybody else again. It’s completely different tasting ⁓ And again, like if you’re a sweet tooth person, then yeah you know, out a way to put some sweet on it if you want to. But, I don’t think it needs it. I think that I like my jerky to be either peppery or like salty or a little bit spicy, but I definitely don’t want it to taste like candy. So. John Patton (44:19) Yeah, I’m a big fan of all kinds of jerky and I was shocked and amazed like you when I flipped it over and saw how much sugar was in there. mean, nobody says after dinner, my gosh, I feel like something sweet, let’s grab some jerky. I mean, just this never happens, you know? And yet they’re sweetening this product that is not a sweet tooth product. And that is an example of how it’s in everything. So good for you. You’ve got better quality, better tasting. Saving some money a ton of money frankly cuz it So expensive Chris Hall (44:51) yeah, jerky is so expensive. Yeah. And then the other thing is like, can you imagine like taking like you’re at the dinner table and you cook yourself a steak and the first thing you do is grab a spoonful of sugar and pour it over the top of your steak? Like nobody would do that, but they do that to your jerky. They do it for you. John Patton (45:08) That’s a great visual. That is really exactly what we need to think about. I tell you, you encouraged me, man. You taught me more than I ever expected. Chris Hall (45:11) So, yeah, so. ⁓ I love this stuff. And again, like, the reason that I came up with this podcast concept was that, you know, like, I work a lot all day long on people’s wealth, building their wealth, establishing their wealth, growing it, being able to transfer it to their their heirs, trying to minimize the taxes are taken out. These are daily things. But, you know, it became really obvious, like kind of like you had the same epiphany. when you started going to the gym, is like, what are we working towards? Right? Do you want to, I mean, we, we all know people who are 70 who look great and we all know people who are 70 who look terrible. And so what are you working towards? Like when you’re 70, when you’re 80, you know, do you want to be the guy that people are like, how old are you again? Or do you want to be the person that’s like, he’s, know, he’s a not, not long for this world. He’s probably only got a few more days or years left. You know what I mean? Like I want to, I I always joke about there’s a line from Talladega Nights where Ricky Bobby says that, you know, I know I’m not going to live forever, but with my high level of income and modern science, it’s not unusual for me to live to 250, 300 years old. And it’s a good joke, but in the same respect, like we are getting scientifically very rapidly evolving. And I think AI is going to blow that out of the water. I think everything that we know about science and bodies and DNA is going to be just completely overwhelmed in the next two years. But with that being said, like, you know, what are we working towards? Do you want to be, I mean, I’ll live to 105. If I’m walking around and still feeling good, I want to, I’ll live that long. I have no problem. I enjoy being on this earth. But in the same respect, if I’m limping everywhere and my body’s just in pain all the time, or, you know, I can’t like really remember anything anymore. It’s like, no, I don’t want to live that kind of life. So, you know, to me, it’s like the things you did in your twenties are showing up in your forties. John Patton (46:51) Right. Chris Hall (47:08) You know what mean? The things you’re doing in your 40s are going to show up in your 60s. Like right now I’m in my 50s. The things I’m doing now are going to show up in my 70s. So that’s why I have this because I want people to know like it doesn’t matter if you have a million dollars or 10 million dollars or a hundred dollars. It doesn’t matter if you’re not healthy. You are not wealthy. Period. John Patton (47:27) I couldn’t agree more and I’m glad you brought up that analogy again because ⁓ there are tools that you now have in wealth creation that we never had before. There are different saving mechanisms and tax deferred. products and investments and everything is changing so radically. ⁓ So people need to be educated and aware of those new tools. Well similarly in health there are supplements. Not every supplement is great. A lot of them are you know unregulated and tragic but doing their homework and saying hey I’ve got a deficiency in vitamin D maybe you know the deficiency in magnesium you know maybe my thyroid needs looking at and I could adjust it with with a supplement. Let’s take advantage of that or maybe I just eat more foods that are rich in you know that that mineral or vitamin ⁓ but we really owe it to ourselves to get educated there’s no excuse anymore. Chris Hall (48:23) You mentioned vitamin D a couple times. there any other supplements or minerals out there that you think people are deficient in they probably should just do some more research on? John Patton (48:31) You know, it seems so elementary, but a gentleman recently reminded me that one of the Nobel Prize winners won because of his research in vitamin C. That vitamin C is just this unbelievable miracle vitamin. know, it’s just, and we don’t get enough of it, it’s water soluble, so you can’t OD on it, you’re not gonna risk hurting yourself. And it is, and my research has proven to be unbelievably powerful. During COVID, a lot of people started doing IV therapy with vitamin C. It was very common with great, great, great results. So that’s one that I would promote significantly. Magnesium, do take that as well, ⁓ you know, but ⁓ I think there are a lot of natural sleep aids and things like that, melatonin, things like that, that are worth exploring. if you’re having challenges there, but doing the homework is pretty simple these days. Chris Hall (49:34) Yeah, no. And so like for vitamin D, typically, like what I’ll do is during the winter or fall or even the early spring, you know, I’ll supplement more vitamin D. But then in the summer when I’m out, because I coach football, or I’m out coaching or whatever sport I’m in at the time, you know, I’m outside all the time. So like, I don’t really take a lot of supplemental vitamin D, because I know I’m getting it. So I think and I think, I mean, I would say if you’re listening to this podcast, when was the last time your Dr. Drew? your labs on vitamin D. Because I last time I looked 85 % of Americans are deficient in vitamin D. So if but how do you know like if you don’t pull your labs, how do you know how do know you’re not I mean, realistically, you’re not part of the 15 % if you haven’t had a lab drawn. But still like those are good things like, you know, we don’t we do lab tests for LDL cholesterol, and we do blood pressure checks and stuff. But we don’t regularly say, Hey, how much magnesium do we have right now? John Patton (50:19) Right. Right. Chris Hall (50:31) which we probably should. We should probably find out how much zinc we have. We should probably find out how much calcium we have. These are all things that are important to us. And again, I know that you had mentioned grilling some vegetables and stuff like that. I’m more of a meat eater, but I would just say even the foods that we eat that we think are good for us, the vegetables are coming out of soil that’s been overworked. The animals that are eating grass, even if they’re grass fed animals, those are coming out of pastures that have been overworked. So the meat, the minerals and vitamins that have come out of those, you know, vegetables or beef, or chickens or whatever, you know, those are not the same as they were like 50 years ago. You know what mean? 50 years ago, when somebody put a slab of beef on your plate with a potato, that potato was different, that butter was different, that meat was different. ⁓ I think that people really need to understand that supplementation is probably more important now than it ever was before. Not because you’re not eating right, but because the thing you’re eating is not eating right. John Patton (51:34) That’s right and it’s deficient in the vital very vitamins that you think you’re getting. You know the broccoli doesn’t have the vitamins that it that it should have had or used to have. So I agree you know I went to a conference years ago and there’s a huge movement around the soil because exactly what you said we don’t have healthy soil. We’re going to have healthy plants we’re not going to have healthy animals it just goes right in the cycle. But that’s really hard right you know it’s hard enough to find a grass-fed piece of beef in the grocery store, let alone try to trace it back to the soil. But supplementation is not that difficult. And then I think your point about asking your doctor, hey, draw my labs for vitamin D. Draw my labs for testosterone. You know, that’s something that they never test. Chris Hall (52:04) It really is. John Patton (52:21) I’ve had my doctor look at me like crazy when I’ve asked for heavy metals testing. Tony Robbins tells a great story of having so much mercury in his system he should have died. And why? Because he was eating so much fish that had tons of mercury on it, but he thought he was being healthy. But your doc isn’t gonna do that without you asking, and we do need to be our own advocates. Chris Hall (52:27) Right. All right. Right. I agree with that so much. By the way, if you get your testosterone checked, have them check your free testosterone because most doctors check your total testosterone, which can look fine, but your free testosterone is the most important one and that can be terrible. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s really, it’s, it’s really almost the epidemic at this point. I mean, again, it’s based on our food. It’s based on our diet. It’s based on our not picking our suitcase up. John Patton (52:58) my gosh, that is a great takeaway, man. I will do that. Chris Hall (53:13) as opposed to rolling it, it’s all part of the same system. But like they’re saying there’s now drastic drop-offs in testosterone in kids that are 20-ish. You know what mean? They have like testosterone, they’re like 60-year-olds and they’re in their 20s. And again, it’s based on food, it’s based on exercise, it’s based on those things. when you, but again, going back to the medical community, you know, the average medical doctor is going to pull a total testosterone, which is not indicative to having whether you have good testosterone or not. So because again, that’s what they’ve been taught. And so you have to go in and say, I want free testosterone. And they go, sure. Of course, I don’t mind giving that to you. And then they realize, shoot, you are deficient. So. John Patton (53:51) Yeah. man, I I love that, I absolutely do. And there is so much in our control. And I just encourage people to take control. And they’re gonna feel better. You we didn’t even touch on really, I could talk an hour about the mental health crisis in our country. You know, with one in two kids saying they have some level of depression or anxiety, in addition to more severe conditions. ⁓ Chris Hall (54:02) Thank and John Patton (54:17) It is the mind body. can’t disconnect the brain from the body. We’re feeding the brain with our foods and through our exercise. so to me, I’m not scratching my head for a minute wondering why we’re in such a ⁓ state of mental dis-health, ⁓ un-health. ⁓ so let’s start with, mean, the brain is certainly a complex part of the body. So let’s start with the easy parts. Chris Hall (54:25) Right. Yeah. That’s a great that’s a great point too. And I actually just read something the other day that said that they’ve ADHD to ultra processed foods. So like if you’ve got ADHD, there’s a high chance you’re on a lot of ultra processed foods. And not for everybody. Obviously, everybody’s different. mean, don’t like light me up in the comment section saying I don’t I eat great and I still have it. I understand that. But I’m just saying in general. John Patton (55:01) Yep. Chris Hall (55:08) It’s a there’s a huge link between that. I’m sure that there’s a link between that and anxiety. I’m sure there’s a link between that and depression. ⁓ So again, just staying away from ultra processed foods, I think will help everybody’s countenance all the way across for sure. ⁓ What’s another like what’s like, I want to be respectful your time. I told you we’d be about an hour we’re sitting right at about an hour. Like what’s a take home message for everybody listen, what can they what can they do today that will change their life a little bit for the better. John Patton (55:36) You know, I just think that in general we have to care more about our health. You know, there’s all kinds of incentives that insurance companies will say, hey John, I’ll give you $50 if you fill out this survey or take this health risk assessment. If you go and get your free wellness check, you know, we’ll give you another 50 bucks. And I’m sitting around going, guys, this is… a brainer. is the only body you have. I can abuse my car. I can abuse my house. I can go get a new one. can abuse my clothes. You just go buy a new one. Okay. You make more money. You go get your body is the only is the only one you you screw it up. You break your kidneys. They’re broken forever. You’re going to be on dialysis three times a week for the rest of your living day. You know people have got to know I say this in my work. You know we’re not Chris Hall (56:10) Yeah. night. John Patton (56:29) telling the whole story. Yeah, grandma had diabetes and she still hung out at Christmas with us and she seemed to be happy. Yeah, but you didn’t see the pain and suffering that she went through. Number one reason for lower leg amputation, number one reason for blindness is diabetes. We need to tell people the whole story and you don’t get your eyeballs back when you go blind. That is not reversible. So I think that’s the takeaway is care Chris Hall (56:48) Yeah. Right? Right? John Patton (56:59) more. I’m gonna go in for my colonoscopy on Friday. It costs me nothing. I mean okay it’s a little inconvenient. I get ready. know somebody drives me there. my gosh. If they can find colon cancer early, they take care of it and you live to be 105. But you wait and they catch it in stage four instead of stage one, you’re gonna have a terrible, terrible ⁓ last few years of life. ⁓ Chris Hall (57:18) Right. Right. Yeah, you’re not only going to pass away, you’re going to pass away miserably. Yeah, absolutely. Good point. All right. Well, John, thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate talking to you. It was super fun. Tell us the name of your book. John Patton (57:31) Correct. Sure, it’s brainless health, it’s simple health habits for smart people. It’s not dumb people, it’s brainless health. Bake it into your brain and forget it. Chris Hall (57:45) Great. Yeah. So I’m going to put the link in the description so you guys can click on the link and go get his book. I’m also going to put a link in for a company called Stellow. They’re the ones who do the glucose monitoring. You can buy it over the counter. You don’t have to get a doctorate prescription. You don’t have to go to a pharmacy. They’ll ship it right to your door. It’s done by the same people who do Dexcom. It’s great. I’m going to put any links in there that you guys request as well. But ⁓ John, just really appreciate having you. I hope everybody buys your book. I hope you guys learn from this. And I hope you guys just take a little bit of few brainless steps in your life to just improve your quality of life. And again, remember, the steps you’re taking now are the body that you’re going to have 20 years from now. So John, thank you again for all your time and effort on this. And keep spreading the word.