The Turning Point: My Moment of Revelation

From YouTube's automatic captions, so a few words may be wrong.

00:01 This is not a comfort podcast. This is a confrontation. If you're looking for soft motivation, easy answers, or permission to stay the same, this isn't for you. This is for those who've been overweight, addicted, broken, finally tired of [music] making peace with their own excuses. Here, we choose discipline over comfort, faith [music] over feelings, action over intention. We train the body, sharpen [music] the mind, and rebuild the spirit, one hard decision at a time. This is where the

00:32 old you ends, and the stronger one is earned. This is the Body by Phil podcast. Welcome back to the Body by Phil podcast. This is Phil. In today's episode, I'd like to call the day I stopped feeling sorry for myself. In my book, The Black Sword, I I go into detail about this moment of revelation that I had struggling with my alcoholism um addictions and my massive obese

01:03 brought on by super healthy, super unhealthy food choices for most of my adult life. And people say, "What, you know, what was it that turned everything around? How did you lose, you know, your 135, 140 lbs in one year and then go on to become a uh champion natural bodybuilder and then like what I am today, a personal fitness trainer. Well, it all started with that moment that I stopped making excuses and I stopped blaming everything uh but myself and I

01:33 started to take real responsibility for all those poor decisions that I was making, nobody was making for me. And in that moment, you know, you stopped feeling sorry for yourself and it's replaced by an unbelievable hunger and a drive and an absolute quest uh to go on a different journey and to change your your life. What did it for me? Well, I remember it very clearly. I was sitting on my recliner. I had this big recliner and I was sitting back and I was eating ice cream with one of those big, you

02:05 know, like sauce type spoons. I was eating ice cream right out of the uh half gallon container and I was crumbling up little Debbie Little Debbie cosmic brownies in it and I'm just shoveling this in uh in my recliner which was busted on one side from my weight. So I was kind of leaning off one side watching TV and and eating this garbage. I had a young boy, you know, young son and he was sitting kind of right next to me watching me do this. This was just

02:35 what I did. I did this all the time and I started having these pains in my sides and after some testing and going to the doctor they said okay look look you're super overweight and no kidding and your gallbladder is massively impacted with stones and it's really dangerous you have to have this thing taken out and uh when I when they did this testing they put me on a scale and I couldn't even bend over to untie my shoes or take my took my shoes off or anything so they said just get on the scale and I got on it and I was 304 305 lbs. And you know,

03:09 I never weighed myself back then. I I knew that I was big. If people said, you know, how big are you? I used to say around 245 or 250. But I knew I was bigger than that. I just never I was afraid to get on the scale cuz I just was in such a denial. So, I had my son with me when I got my results read back to me a few weeks later. And in those results, I was told that I had points away from type 2 diabetes. I had a fatty liver disease in beginning stages that that could lead to cerosis if if not taken care of. This was from the masses

03:41 amounts of alcohol consumption I would take in daily. And what else did I have? I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol. I had the internal body composition of a man in his 70s. And I don't mean a healthy 70s. I mean a very old, broken down 70s. And I think I was 41 or 42 at the time. So yeah, I mean this is not the news you want to hear even when you are in denial and you know that you've been making all these poor

04:11 choices and you're not eating right and I had zero exercise in in my life. So it was very seditary. But what turned it around was once I get back to well the doctor told me he said listen remember my son was with me and he was a young kid at the time. The doctor said, "If you don't change your ways, you're a ticking time bomb. You can easily die. You could you could have a heart attack. You can die. You are putting too much stress on your heart, and this is just not not healthy for a man your age." So, I didn't like that. I thought, you know,

04:43 he came at me pretty hard. I thank God for that now, but at the time, it kind of hit a nerve. I get to the car, you know, I grab the wheel and I put my son in the seat and I'm driving and I'm thinking, you know, to myself, you know, how dare this guy come at me like that. You know, it's not his place to, you know, get on my case like that and everything else. You know, again, you're feeling sorry for yourself. You're not taking responsibility. You're not taking any blame for the actions. You're blaming somebody else who's just being honest with you and actually trying to

05:13 help you and tell you that you need to change. But when you're in it, you don't think of it that way. You think of everything else. all the excuses and everything that comes with that. So, I look over at my son and and he's crying now. He's not just, you know, a weepy one tear. He starts balling. He starts really getting emotional. And uh I look over and I said, "What's wrong? What's the matter with you?" And he said, "Are you going to die?" And I said, "What are you talking about?" And he said, "The doctor just said, "You're you're going to die. I don't want you to die."

05:44 In that moment, which was the the hardest moment to hear, that's what changed it. Okay, that was the moment of revelation for me. Those little sounds coming out of my son, his voice shaking, crying, scared, not wanting his father to die. was that moment when I knew that I was being selfish, self-centered, that there was more to my health and my fitness and my nutrition and getting my life together than just a selfish me or how I

06:17 wanted to look or how I wanted to feel. That I had somebody that was depending on me to be there for them. That my decisions were way, way bigger than just myself. And yeah, sure, as a parent, you should already know these things. But when you get caught up in addiction and you get caught up in these unhealthy lifestyle habits that aren't just you doing that everybody in your life around you, all the people that you surrounded yourself with are also doing. These unnatural things that we look at now

06:48 become very natural when you're in the moment. They don't seem as crazy as they are until you step away from it. In that moment of revelation where I stopped being selfish. I stopped making excuses. I didn't go home from the doctor's office when my son asked me if I was going to die. I stopped. I pulled right into a gym that I used to pass every day. Every day going to the liquor store, every day going to the fast food places to buy my bags of garbage to consume. Every day I would pass all all

07:19 these other places on my way to work. But this gym, I never stopped at until that moment. And I pulled in. And I had my son with me and I walked in. My voice was shaky. I became emotional. I saw a gentleman behind the desk and he greeted me. And he said, "How can I help you?" And I looked at him, my voice cracking, and for the first time in my life, I said these words, "I need help."

07:51 And that's a hard thing to do. That was a really hard thing for me to say. I didn't even really know what I needed help with. I just knew that I I couldn't keep going the way I was going. My choices that I were making were going to kill me. And I had a reason to live. He was standing right next to me holding my hand. So, with tears streaming down my face, putting it all out there to a total stranger to say, "Can you help me change this me that I am and help create me into something I know I can be?" And

08:23 it it it changed the course of my life in that moment. And when the gentleman looked at me back and said, "Okay, you know, let's let's talk." And after our consultation and we talked and I told him what I wanted to do and you know where I didn't want to be. I kind of half expected him to say, "I really don't think I could help you. Maybe you're too overweight. You're too out of shape. You're too old to start a workout program." him and instead he said, "I got you. Okay, let's do this.

08:54 Let's start tomorrow." And I did. But it was that very first bold stand, that stance that I took to say enough is enough. I am ready to change my life. I am ready to do this for something. If you find a reason that you want to be alive, if you find a reason you want to be healthy, if there's something in your life, maybe there's things in your life you want to do that you've never done. Maybe like me, you had somebody that depends on you that needs you around.

09:24 Maybe it's a spouse, maybe it's a daughter or a son, maybe it's just that you want to become a better version of yourself. Whatever that is that's making you unhappy or making you live in these bad choices. You may feel that you're stuck in a rut and you can't get out. I was you. I felt all of those things for over 20 years and I really didn't think there was a way out. hiring a trainer, having somebody help me,

09:55 having somebody believe in me and push me to places I never thought I could go was such an inspiring thing in my life that it actually changed the entire destiny of my being. Now all I do is take people like me that walked in that first day afraid, maybe ashamed, scared, defeated, unhealthy. And show them that they can change too, that they are stronger than

10:25 they think. The same as I was stronger than I thought. and show them one step at a time on how you can be better, how you can be stronger, how you could really accomplish any goal that you set your mind to with the right plan of action, the right people in your corner, and a little discipline and self-control. Hiring a personal training was the greatest thing I'd ever done in my life. It was really, really hard. It helped not only shape me physically but it changed the way it sharpened my mind.

10:58 All the cans that were holding me back became cans and then impossibilities became became possibilities. I wanted to try things I had never done because of my obesity and my current healthy state. I wanted to do stuff. I I got into natural bodybuilding. I'm now a master's uh champion boxer. So all of these things that you know these doors were once temporarily closed to me were opened just because yeah sure it was my physical state but it was my mental

11:29 state that said I'm going to try something and if I fail then I fail but I'm not going to go out saying I didn't try. It started with that moment of stop being selfish. Stop blaming other things in your life that are holding you back. This is your life. If you want to make these good, positive changes, then you do have to take that first step. Don't be afraid. Take the leap. What do you have to lose except more years off of your life.

12:01 One day at a time, one step at a time. Surround yourself with the right people that can help you. And go get the help that you need. You are strong and you can do these things. Stay tuned. Keep uh keep watching the Body by Phil podcast. Thanks.