From 300 Pounds to 215: How Anthony Started his Fitness Journey | Anthony O. | Better Man Podcast Ep. 103

Dean Pohlman: Hey guys it’s Dean. Welcome to the better Man podcast. Today we have Anthony O’Leary here. He has a very inspirational transformational story that we’re going to talk about. So Anthony thank you for being here.

Anthony O: Happy to do any sort of fun every time.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So right off can you just tell people the start of your health journey, how much you weighed and just how much you weigh now?

Anthony O: So before I started with man for yoga or really any fitness in general, I was pushing 300 pounds. I was a big boy. I have not ever had any formal fitness regimen. My pretty much entire adult life until I turned 29. And then Covid hit, I was I was furloughed from my job, so I wasn’t unemployed, but I wasn’t working, and I had all this extra time on my hands that I didn’t before.

Anthony O: And I vividly remember the first month I had just played video games, like nonstop. And I said, I.

Dean Pohlman: Mean, that makes sense to me.

Anthony O: Right? I mean, I had, yeah, I had nothing else going on. Essentially, I was getting paid so I didn’t have to stress and it was one of those things where I was like, I could sit here and play video games for the next, however long, and I’ll be 400 pounds before I know it, or I could do something different.

Anthony O: And that was kind of really the initial motivation on my end. I had done P90x a long time ago in college, on and off. I tried a few different things here and there, but nothing really ever stuck. So I knew I kind of wanted to try yoga because it was low impact. And that’s kind of how I found you.

Anthony O: And then again, I had nothing else to do. So I go right into fitness, and here we are four years later. I was probably at my heaviest, like 275 to 80. And now I’m sitting comfortable, probably around 215 ish. I’d love to get down to 195, but that’s, that’s I can’t like, feel to that.

Anthony O: So.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. And we’ve got plenty of people in our community who have not given up, you know, the pleasures of food. And they’re like, you know what? I could lose a bit more weight, but I’m happy where I am, and I get to eat cake. So, you know, that’s pretty.

Anthony O: Much where I am. But yeah, one of my, one of my initial fitness goals when I first started was to get your pants. I’ve. I don’t have a conscious memory of being an adult under 200 pounds. I mean, I was a size 38 waist in pants since I was 14.

Dean Pohlman: And how tall are you?

Anthony O: I’m 511, 16.

Dean Pohlman: Okay. Got it. Yeah. I mean, that’s I mean, 85 pounds is that’s that’s a that’s huge.

Anthony O: I mean, that’s a hefty, hefty.

Dean Pohlman: Excuse the pun, but that’s like, you know, so and so I’m curious for you, let’s, let’s go back to like, that oh shit moment when you realize, okay, if I keep this up, I’m going to be 400 pounds and, you know, just walk me through what you were thinking and then what you decided to do about it.

Anthony O: It’s funny because I literally have a vivid memory of my oh shit moment. I’m sitting on the couch with a Nintendo Switch playing a video game, and my dog was like running around the house, being a nuisance, being a nuisance even though he wasn’t this excited. And I’m looking at, I’m like, can you chill out? Can you calm down?

Anthony O: And I don’t even know where the inspiration struck from. But I just looked and I was like, you need more exercise. That’s me going crazy. I need more exercise. That’s why I’m going crazy. And I started initially I wanted something low impact because again, I didn’t. I had no formal fitness training, my parents didn’t exercise when I was a kid, like I had nothing to go on.

Anthony O: So I was just like, oh, I’ll just walk the dog more. And I got up to, I think, probably ten miles a day for a big chunk of time and.

Dean Pohlman: Ten miles a day and.

Anthony O: Not ten miles. I would do like a lot in the morning, and then 4 or 5 in the afternoon. One of now. Yeah, it was a lot. And that’s a lot.

Dean Pohlman: Of what I mean, that’s like it was a three hours of walking. How much is that?

Anthony O: Probably 3 to 4. It would be less for me now. But back then it was it was hefty. And it started initially as like, okay, I need to do something. Let’s do this. And the dog days were exercise, but then ten miles a day got to be too much for him, which I have a husky, so I didn’t even think that would be a problem.

Anthony O: But I he he literally collapsed in a parking lot and was like, I’m done, I’m not moving. And I had to cancel. So I knew that’s a.

Dean Pohlman: Very husky thing to do, I hear.

Anthony O: Oh yeah, the attitude is strong with this one. But yeah, I mean, that was kind of the kick off point where it was, I need to do something else for myself. Otherwise it’s not going to work. And again, I started with yoga and it was something that I really enjoyed and dove right into, and it was kind of just a snowball from there, because I figured out that I actually like exercising, which who know.

Dean Pohlman: So what did you notice? I mean, within the I mean, you’re walking that much. I’m just curious. So for your first month, like, you know, what did you go through? So in terms of the struggles, but also in terms of what did.

Anthony O: You because I got benefits.

Dean Pohlman: That I.

Anthony O: Passed in that first month just with the straight walking because again, I had no formal fitness, didn’t do anything, no exercise, nothing. And so it was really encouraging to have the weight fall off so quickly, like, oh, I can do this. This is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. But then it ended up being a little too drastic and it’s kind of I didn’t know this ahead of time, but when you lose weight quickly, it’s the same as if you gain weight quickly.

Anthony O: Like your body processes need time to catch up. So I started losing all my hair. I don’t want to say this. Oh my gosh. Or patient. I had patches coming out of my head. Because.

Dean Pohlman: That’s why I love fat.

Anthony O: The rapid loss of fat interrupts the hair growth cycle. So I knew I needed to do something different after that. But during the week, I mean, I didn’t think it was that bad. Really sick. I wasn’t running or anything. I was just walking, which is pretty easy to for most people. So.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I mean, even walking that much, did you did you even change your diet at that point?

Anthony O: There. Yeah. Sorry. Say that again.

Dean Pohlman: You’re good. So even walking that much did you did you change your diet at that point or were you.

Anthony O: You know I didn’t. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything except start walking small. One small little thing that I could do that I was already doing. I mean, before I was walking, I did him, I walked in probably like a half mile at a time, which was like minutes twice a day. It was like, okay, you’ve done to the bathroom.

Anthony O: Let’s go back on. Gotcha. Yeah.

Dean Pohlman: I mean you live in, you live in the city. So you have to, you can’t just walk right outside and or what do you do.

Anthony O: That’s it I live, I have close to the city. I’m in New England but okay. My neighborhood is very walkable. I live right in downtown and in my town. There’s like parks nearby and stuff. So it wasn’t it wasn’t difficult at all to get out more. Yeah.

Dean Pohlman: Gotcha. So you lost 25 pounds in one month just by walking. You had too much weight loss. So your body went through its like weight loss shock episode. And then you decided that you wanted to do low impact exercise, sound mental yoga when you enjoyed it. That’s. So what did you, you know, as somebody? I’m so for someone who doesn’t work out right now and might look as look at exercise as something that’s, you know, really challenging, or maybe they don’t want to do it.

Dean Pohlman: How did you go from okay, I don’t exercise at all to oh, I actually like exercising. What aspect of it did you like?

Anthony O: I think a lot of my early success was in part due to the immediate physical change. I could see because you dropped 25 pounds, you’re going to see it. Yeah. Learning to enjoy it wasn’t really something that I struggled with, if that makes sense. And it was kind of one of those like I’d never done it. So let’s try it and see how it is.

Anthony O: And oh, I like it. Let’s keep doing it. But if you’ve never done exercise and again, in my case, where I had no formal exercise training, it can be definitely overwhelming. Like, where do you start? What do you do? How do you know how to do these things? Really, I think the enjoyment part is the crucial aspect, because if you don’t enjoy it, you’re not going to do it.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, yeah. So what did you like about, I guess, how long did it take you to notice the results from man for yoga. So, so doing that consistently, you know, what were some of the benefits that you noticed relatively quickly early on?

Anthony O: Coming from being so overweight and having lost the weight quickly and then finding yoga to help strengthen the muscles that I was newly discovering, I think the flexibility that I could attain relatively quickly was quite a surprise. I mean, I’d never been able to touch my toes and I think within like the first three months, not even I was doing forward folds, not as nice as deep as I would like, but at the time it was like, wow, I can do this now.

Anthony O: This is so cool. And it was kind of those little moments of like, oh, I can do this now. And oh, hey, this doesn’t hurt. And I wake up and, you know, get out of bed and then, oh, I don’t feel tired. So what happened is it was kind of like an amalgamation of little things and that sense, I mean, as far as enjoyment goes, like I enjoyed the muscle burden of physical activity, which I just did never experienced that.

Anthony O: So it was easy to say like, oh, this is good, let’s do it.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. Got it. That’s cool. So and then so those first few months, were you doing it every day. You’re doing every other day.

Anthony O: Every day. Every day. So five days a week with the Strength Foundations challenge, my go to I think that first way to.

Dean Pohlman: Start.

Anthony O: Is yeah, well, because you did you do the, the six week challenge and I was not religious about it because I wasn’t working. I did nothing else to do. So I was like, all right, there’s no excuse. Like, get it on. That’s why I think the first couple of weeks I was looking forward to it because it was just, I mean, there half an hour.

Anthony O: It’s not intentional. Yeah. I was really worried, like, oh, I can do it half an hour. You can watch an episode on Netflix. You can, you can sit down for half an hour and move your body.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So what allowed you to be consistent. Were there, were there strategies that you employed. Were there. You know, what do you think enabled you to be that consistent five days a week?

Anthony O: I think having the program structure that mental yoga provides is really the best thing. Again, where I had no formal fitness education prior, here’s what you need to do. Here’s how you do it. And then all that was left was to do it. Setting up the structure ahead of time with the program was so easy to follow, because I didn’t have to think about it.

Anthony O: And even now, like with my weight training and stuff, I if I have to like sit and plan my workouts, it just becomes so much more overwhelming in that sense where I just want to look at it and see what I’m to do, and then I do it. That’s it’s just easy.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree with that. Like, some people are surprised when I tell them that I have a trainer because I don’t want to make my own workouts like I have so many other I’m making, I’m making all these other workouts and programs. So, like, I don’t have enough brainpower to be able to do that. So removing that step and having knowing what workout you’re going to do and just dedicating your energy to the workout itself rather than the planning of it, I think that’s I think that’s huge.

Dean Pohlman: So when you were going to do, you would say, I want to, I want you to go to a situation where you don’t really want to do your workout, but you motivate yourself to do it anyways. And what is it that allows you to motivate yourself? Or what do you tell yourself in those situations?

Anthony O: I think it depends on the situation because I mean. In general, motivation isn’t really something I struggle with these days. Initially, it was kind of.

Anthony O: I don’t want to say it doesn’t play a part at all, but I don’t. Fitness isn’t really an obligation to me anymore. I feel like that’s a big barrier for a lot of people. Like, oh, I have to exercise or, you know, but why? What is the why? You have to. Who’s telling you that and why do you struggle with it?

Anthony O: So for me, it was kind of, you know, why do I want to exercise? Well, I like how I feel after I exercise. The endorphins are the movement. Like I just I’ve never not done a workout and then thankfully I didn’t. Does that make sense? You know, like, yeah. Oh, I don’t really feel so tired this morning. I want to go.

Anthony O: It’s a little late. And then you know, not go. You’ve you’ve been going for days a week for four years. Like figure it out. Go. It’s more discipline at that point. And then you show up. And I’ve never had a bad workout. Like I’ve never finished a workout. And then like, oh, that’s terrible. I won’t do it again.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So take me back to when you were first getting started though, and you got, let’s say you’re three weeks in or four weeks in the strength foundations because that’s like, okay, I’m in it now, right? And it’s getting tough and you’re getting all that soreness is starting to mount up. What was your motivation to keep doing it at that point?

Dean Pohlman: What did you tell yourself?

Anthony O: When I first started, I was not happy with my body. I think that’s probably a big motivation for a lot of people. You’re not happy you want to change something? And I was seeing results. I mean, you know, it was more. It was pretty negative, honestly. And I get a lot of negative self-talk, like, you don’t want to be you don’t want to be fat and overweight for your whole life.

Anthony O: You don’t want to be struggling with these things like get up and do it. You need to do it. Yeah.

Dean Pohlman: Which you’re using. You’re using the dark side. Yeah, actually.

Anthony O: Right. I think that was something too, that I learned to kind of harness because you can sit there and tell yourself negative, negative things all the time, but that’s not necessarily productive. So yeah, you know initially it was I don’t want to be fat and overweight my whole life. And then it kind of turned into even as early as a three weeks, I mean, once I started enjoying it and seeing the results, it was more of, I like this.

Anthony O: I want to keep going. And it kind of shifted into more of a positive mindset versus putting myself down there. So you have to do it, or you’re going to end up fat and overweight your whole life, you know?

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. All right. That’s good to know. I think that’s really helpful for people who are just starting out and understanding. Okay. How do I, how do I motivate myself when it starts to get tough. You got so many I hear from so many people who I just got an email yesterday from a guy he was actually saying like, hey, can I, can I do the monthly instead of annual membership?

Dean Pohlman: Because I don’t think I’ll stick with it. And I replied, I’m like, why even buy a monthly membership? Like if you know you’re not going to stick with it? And he said, well, yeah, I just know that I kind of start exercise programs and stop. And, you know, I don’t I don’t know how much coaching I can do or, you know, via email and that situation.

Dean Pohlman: But you know, my, my thought there is, you know, like, well, let’s, let’s, let’s break that cycle. Let’s figure out, you know, what is it that gets in the way of why do you start a workout program and then you give it up after 2 or 3 weeks, like let’s, you know, let’s let’s change the script there.

Dean Pohlman: So I think I think other people understand it could be helpful.

Anthony O: Yeah. I think that’s probably one of the most underrated benefits of starting any kind of fitness regimen. I mean, again, for myself, where it came from, a place of negativity. In that sense, it’s learning how to listen to yourself in a positive way that really makes the impact. Because I don’t think I would have had the success that I have if I had been telling myself the whole time, like, you’re doing this so you don’t be fat, you know, you don’t want to.

Anthony O: You don’t want to look like your mom. My mother’s been overweight my entire life. My dad’s not doing so great. I mean, my mom recently replaced. It was kind of those extrinsic motivators that it started. But then as you learn how to move and how to adapt and listen to your body, it’s more of like, oh, this feels good.

Anthony O: Like I want more of this for myself. And now I would, I would say probably my motivation is more based in my mental well-being, if that makes sense, because you can’t really have one without the other.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So I would imagine that as you started to shift your motivation that you started to be maybe more excited. I’m just I’m putting words in your mouth here, but I, I would assume that you kind of get more excited about exploring other aspects of health and wellness. Is that. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Anthony O: No. I’m true. Yeah, well, I started with mental yoga. I was probably exclusively doing your workouts for about a year, and then it got an I don’t want to say I got to the point where I got bored of it, but it was like, what else can.

Dean Pohlman: It’s okay. I’m not offended.

Anthony O: No, but it wasn’t even that. It was just more like, okay, I have this newfound strength and, you know, I can move my body in new ways. Like, what else can I do?

Dean Pohlman: Yeah.

Anthony O: And I think at the time you had just launched, you mentioned your trainer, you’ve launched your partnership with Central Athlete. And I was like, yeah, let’s do it. And I still am with them today. So.

Dean Pohlman: Oh yeah. Oh, awesome.

Anthony O: You know, finding other things that you enjoy fitness wise is, I think, part of the fun too, because, you know, okay, I can move and bend in ways that I didn’t before. Oh, I like skiing. I’ve never done skiing because I couldn’t before, but now hey, this is a fun activity to do. You know, like.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, that’s awesome.

Anthony O: Finding training different avenues for fitness also is really, I think, crucial to keeping any kind of fitness regimen because nobody can do the same thing constantly, forever.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. And I talk about that a lot. I agree with you. I think people go through different phases with their fitness. You know sometimes you’re going to be, sometimes you’re just going to have lower energy and you’re going to be totally fine with doing like mostly yoga, maybe 1 or 2, you know, resistance training sessions a week, and then other times you’re going to be like, I’m doing lifting 3 or 4 times a week.

Dean Pohlman: I’m going to do yoga twice a day. I’m going to do, you know, all the other supplementary stuff, like I’m going to do cold plunging, I’m going to do sauna, I’m going to do it all and, you know, sometimes you’re like, I’m you’re not, you know, so I think, I think there are phases. So so my next question is what other, you talked about, you know, going into weightlifting after a year.

Dean Pohlman: I’m curious for you, when did you start, addressing nutrition or did you also start addressing, you know, stress management and more mental wellness? And how did that, you know, how did doing, exercise consistently for a year inspire you to look into other areas?

Anthony O: I think initially I just wanted to see how far I could get, you know, like, what can I do without any kind of extra help? What can I change? That’s easy and not going to stress me out. Nutrition really didn’t start playing a factor until probably I started with Central Athlete. It was like, you know, I’m not going to get as far as I want fitness wise unless I can feel my body appropriately and I mean, no one wants to admit that they eat like crap, you know what I mean?

Anthony O: But for me, it was more, okay, you can still eat the things you enjoy. It’s just you have to do it. The right way, you know? No more eating at 11 p.m., no more having, you know, 10 pounds of sugar for breakfast with all the stuff that is just prevalent. Healthy substitutions was an easy fix for me, and I still struggle with a lot of the other aspects too.

Anthony O: I mean, stress management. There’s something to this day that I know for a fact would make a huge impact. I mean, my job is very seasonally dependent, so I’m coming into my slow season now for the winter and seasons of fitness. I mean, during that work year, for me, it’s sometimes really hard to get up and go and go and go constantly just because I’m slugging away at work all day.

Anthony O: But I mean, nutrition wise definitely started. And then once I saw results like I’m results driven. So when I see it, oh, this is concrete, like it’s working, let’s keep doing it. But yeah, I mean nutrition once I figured that, I figured it out one time once I improve that started seeing other aspects of improvement in the gym.

Anthony O: And then now it’s more of a game with myself. It’s like, how far can I push myself? What how much discipline do I have? I want to, I want to see what I can accomplish without without breaking myself, which I think is really another of my struggles.

Dean Pohlman: But yeah. So it sounds like you, you know, so it sounds like you made a very manageable, you know, course of changes you started. Okay, I’m going to walk. Okay. Now I’m going to do yoga. Okay. Now I’m going to do lifting. Okay. Now I’ll work on nutrition. You didn’t try to do everything, at once. And I would assume that’s one reason why you’ve been successful.

Anthony O: Yeah. I mean, for me, I think fitness is people have people look at fitness as like a goal or like a stop start type of thing. And it’s really more of like a marathon. It’s not a sprint. You can’t you physically can’t do everything all at once. I mean, it’s hard enough to juggle life, job, parents, children, all these other things that just kind of crowd in.

Anthony O: It’s give yourself some space. You can’t do everything all at once. And for me again, to your point, where it was one thing at a time, once you once you practice and get one thing down, it’s easy to just keep doing it while you work on the next thing. So it really doesn’t feel too much at once in that area.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So. So take me back to nutrition. For people who are, you know, I think for a lot of people it is a big paradigm shift. It’s a big just, just, really important but unknown piece of information when they learn that. Oh, you mean I have to eat? Well, it’s not just exercise related. So when you started, making those little changes to your diet, what what improvements did you notice within the first, I don’t know, couple of months?

Dean Pohlman: If there were.

Anthony O: I mean, a lot of them, I think with the diet, a lot of the changes were more subtle. Okay. You know, like, my energy levels changed. I don’t want to say increased. Cook changed. I mean, first thing in the morning, I never used to eat breakfast like, never. And now, you know, if I don’t eat breakfast, I just, I it’s a noticeable change where like, oh, I’m sluggish, I’m struggling to comprehend or like, my brain’s not moving.

Anthony O: Oh, because I didn’t eat, regular bowel movements, as gross as that sounds. Makes such a world of difference. I mean, it’s.

Dean Pohlman: Something it’s a game changer. It’s so much better when you’re just like, you sit down and you poop regularly, and then you’re like, I’m done by. Cool. Yeah.

Anthony O: You’re not thinking about the bathroom all day. You’re not running back and forth, you know? Oh, extended periods all the time. I mean, it’s gross to say, but it really does make a big difference. And then, I guess, in general, eating healthier feels better, you know? I mean, I used to go to McDonald’s and my go to meal was a McDouble, a chicken and a 20 piece nugget, and I pound it down in like ten minutes, and then an hour later, I’d be hungry and dying of thirst because of all the sodium.

Anthony O: Now, if I want to have a 1200 calorie meal, it’s going to be five times the size rice balls eat. It’s. I get excited about this stuff, but for me, nutrition was definitely more of a substitution based approach rather than an action.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah.

Anthony O: And then over time, it’s like I haven’t had McDonald’s in months. I used to eat that stuff daily just because it was accessible and easy. And now I’m not that I can’t eat it, but I just I don’t feel the need to.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I think that’s the thing. And you, you hammered on it, but it’s that eating healthy isn’t a chore or it’s not like, it’s not, it’s not a, It’s not cutting, you know, something good out of your life because the after effects of eating healthy, it just feels so much better. Okay, you could either have, you know, five minutes of pleasure while you’re five minutes of increased pleasure while you’re eating unhealthy food.

Dean Pohlman: And then afterwards, your stomach hurts. You’ve got weird poops, your energy sucks. You know? Or you could have, you know, you could eat healthy food that still taste good, right? That’s still nourishing, that still tastes good as you eat it. But then instead afterwards you’re like, oh, like I feel sated, like I feel relatively full. I still have energy.

Dean Pohlman: I can go out and you know, do the things that I want to do. One thing that I’ve heard about is this kind of this adjustment period, though, of like when you do start eating healthy, did you have some sort of adjustment period where you noticed, like, okay, I’m still adjusting, my taste buds are adjusting to eating healthier food, and it’s just kind of, it feels like a chore at the moment.

Dean Pohlman: Did you have one of those.

Anthony O: Yes or no? So, okay, I think again, before I started, any kind of nutrition coaching or fitness in general with social media and marketing and like all the stuff that gets thrown at us on a day to day basis, I always kind of had this image of like, oh, healthy food is bland and boring and oh, a salad is healthy.

Anthony O: I think learning how to pick apart what is thrown at you and take what you want from it is really an important skill because a salad is only so healthy as much as you put on it, because you can drown it in salad dressing and then put, you know, bacon bits and make it a healthy salad. Except it’s really not.

Anthony O: Substitution really helped in that sense, where it was, I want I want potato chips. Okay. Well, why do I want potato chips? I want something crunchy. Okay, well, what can I have that’s crunchy? That’s a better choice. And I mean, I used to I used to go through bags, bags and bags of Doritos and it was the crunch because that’s the crunch.

Anthony O: I like the crunch. And so now my go to is I’ll snack on like peanuts, honey roasted peanuts, I’ll do, pretzel wafers. Like, it’s just, healthy is a relative perspective for me. I mean, what’s healthy for me may not be healthy for you, might not be healthy for the next guy. So yeah, I mean in terms of adjusting, there definitely was a period where I was like oh I want all this junk food, I miss it, I can’t have it, you know.

Anthony O: And I think also learning portion control was a big deal. You know you have all the food in the country. You look on the back, it has the serving size and all the nutritional information. And it’s like, okay, well you can have some potato chips, but just don’t eat the whole bag. You can have a piece of cake, but don’t eat the whole cake.

Anthony O: You can have ice cream but don’t have the whole gallon.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah I think that’s a great point. So were there specific sources of information that you found helpful.

Anthony O: Not in general that comes to mind. Okay. I think it was more.

Dean Pohlman: Like, was it, were you reading books? Were you like following people on social media? Were you talking with your coaches or, you know. Yeah.

Anthony O: I mean, a little bit of all of that to some extent. But it was I don’t want to point to one thing and be like this thing. I think from my perspective, it was more learning the self-awareness to sit. And I mean, who you don’t, who looks at food labels regularly without practice. Yeah, right. I mean, you go to the supermarket.

Anthony O: Well, for me, I didn’t ever usually, I mean, oh, I like this, I’m going to buy it. And then I go to, I look on the back and be like, oh, there’s a lot of fatness or oh, there’s a lot of.

Dean Pohlman: Oh, that’s why it tastes good. Right.

Anthony O: So it was, Yes. But no, I guess it’s my answer.

Dean Pohlman: Okay, cool. So other question, how has how helpful has community been for you in the overall health and wellness journey?

Anthony O: I think it’s a very, very underrated tool and so, so important, especially for me again, where I had no formal fitness background, I didn’t do any sports in high school. My siblings into sports in high school. My parents didn’t have any exercise regimen. I didn’t have the people around me to kind of show me how that worked.

Anthony O: And then joining, for example, your Facebook group, the Mental Yoga community, it really helped to see like, oh, I’m not the only person that’s struggling with this or oh, I’m not the only person that has this problem. And then, you know, you get all this input, impartial input. Really. It’s not like these fingers don’t have any stake in my wellness, you know.

Anthony O: All right. So it was like, oh I didn’t think to do that or oh let me try this or oh that’s great that that worked for you. Let me see if I can implement that. And then also having the support of the community going back and saying, hey, this is what I’m struggling with, where somebody can do like, oh, try this.

Anthony O: And then you find something new that works for you and you love it. I don’t necessarily think I wouldn’t have been successful without a community aspect, but it definitely has helped make it so much more easier.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I think that’s what the community does. It just makes it easier. And it also just makes it more enjoyable. Like, yes, you could use discipline to get through it. Maybe if that’s who you are. But having the community, having like this sense of being pulled back into something and knowing that you, you have that excitement and you have that support, it just it makes it easier and it makes it more enjoyable, I think.

Anthony O: Absolutely. And it’s also too I mean, for me, I look at it as you surround yourself with what you want for yourself. So you put it, you put a healthy apple in a barrel of rotten apples, the healthy apples going to rot. Eventually, you put a healthy apple in a healthy apple bin while the rest of the apples doing the same thing you’re doing.

Anthony O: It’s going to be easier to stay healthy.

Dean Pohlman: I didn’t know that about apples.

Anthony O: You general example, but yes, I mean, for me, where I didn’t have that kind of support in, in the community aspect way, like I just didn’t have examples to look at, except for example, social media, you know, you go on social media, everybody’s ten pack abs, huge biceps, they’re, oh, you don’t do this, don’t eat that. And it just kind of is inundating with like, it’s not do versus like here’s something that is manageable that works for everybody.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. Yeah. Did you well how did your friends react to it? Did you did you lose friendships over this? Did you have anybody who was like, not supportive of it?

Anthony O: I don’t think so. I def I got some comments. It was like, oh, what did you do? You look great. And it kind of came off as more like not condescending, but I could tell that it was more a place, more like the comments that I did receive came from more of a place of insecurity. Then they want to take me down a peg, you know?

Dean Pohlman: Yeah.

Anthony O: I don’t want to say I lost. I mean, it’s funny because I have a lot of my friends now. They’re like, oh, you look so good. Like, I had one of my friends last week. She was like, do you want to train me? And I’m like, I’m not a trainer. I appreciate the gesture, but like, thank you. But that’s not where I’m at.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. That’s cool. So what’s the next thing in your health and fitness journey? What’s the next challenge? What do you want to work on next? What are you working on now?

Anthony O: Now my current my current fitness regimen is not as intense as I would actually like. I would love to get back into doing a little bit more yoga. I mean, coming from when I first started five, six days a week, now I’m lucky if I get 2 or 3. I think my next steps for my fitness is going to be stress reduction and getting back up to the frequency that I like.

Anthony O: When I don’t do as much yoga as I want, I, you know, you build a little injuries. My oh my elbow hurts and oh, my knee aches. And it’s like, oh well my knee hurts because my I.T band is tight because I haven’t done any yoga. I’m lifting four days a week with central AC. I do pretty much full body strength and conditioning.

Anthony O: I keep telling myself I want to get into running, but I just running doesn’t seem like something I’d be really good at, I guess. But, Right now I’m taking it slow. I’m not really pushing myself too hard. I want to I want to recover from my busy season at work, so to speak. Yeah. Right now, this month, it’s pretty much just get back into the swing of things I don’t.

Anthony O: I yoga is the first thing. It drops off my regimen, if that makes sense. Yeah, I left religiously for days a week.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah I think yeah I think that’s a, I think that’s pretty common. I think a lot of people look at the yoga as a look at me saying the yoga, a lot of people look at yoga as the, the nice to have. Right. Like oh I feel so much better. Yeah. If I did. Yeah. But it doesn’t.

Dean Pohlman: It’s not as you know, if you have an hour like twice a week, then you’d probably go do strength training. But if you have the extra bonus time then, then maybe it’s yoga and that’s, you know, one type of person. But, I think that is a common way to think about yoga. Yoga though, so that doesn’t surprise me.

Dean Pohlman: So, did I ever tell you that your wife sent me an email?

Anthony O: I think so this when I was trying to get into the retreat that first time.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. And it was the first time that I received an email from somebody else telling me about their partners progress. And I was so caught off guard, like, in a good way. I actually started tearing up reading the email, because a lot of the time I get emails from people and, you know, they say like, this is really help me.

Dean Pohlman: And I’m like, oh, cool, cool. And I feel good about it. But for some reason, hearing somebody else describe it was just like it was so powerful for me. So, I mean, she was saying that you’re a totally different person, like you used to be kind of negative. And now you’re you’re more positive, you’re more excited about life.

Dean Pohlman: And that was so cool to see. I wish I had the email and I’d read it aloud. No, I wouldn’t do that here unless you want.

Anthony O: To.

Dean Pohlman: But it was, it was so it was so cool to see that. And then. Yeah, we we got you into the through the retreat. We made it. We made it happen. So. So that worked out, but,

Anthony O: Yeah, it’s for everyone.

Dean Pohlman: I just wanted to mention that because I know.

Anthony O: I remember it happening because she did. She I didn’t read the email, but I remember you mentioning it before.

Dean Pohlman: What’s what’s her name?

Anthony O: Mandy. My wife’s name is Mandy.

Dean Pohlman: Mandy. Sorry, I was trying.

Anthony O: I was I had emailed you separately and was like, I want to do this. Like, how can we make this work? And then she emailed you and I was talking to Jesse, but it was actually you. And just it worked out great, obviously, but I don’t think I would have been as successful without her being in my corner, let’s put it that way.

Dean Pohlman: Can I read it? I found it.

Anthony O: All right ahead.

Dean Pohlman: I wanted to share my personal thanks to you for everything that you’ve done to help my husband. My husband is Anthony O’Leary. He has quite has had quite a journey over the last few years. I’ve seen such an improvement in his mood. He’s so much happier finding man for yoga and investing his time into it helped him center himself and jumpstart his fitness adventure.

Dean Pohlman: He’s lost so much weight and so much negativity. He’s dedicated his health and wellness and is truly an inspiration with his journey. He couldn’t have done it without the support he got from your programs, and I cannot thank you enough for your part in making my husband a much happier and fulfilled self. Your program is amazing. I love how real and genuine that’s just about me.

Dean Pohlman: So we’ll skip that. But yeah, it was so cool to see that though. Yeah. Anyways. And I got to read it and hopefully you’re.

Anthony O: My number one fan.

Dean Pohlman: That’s so awesome. So awesome to have that support from her. That’s really great. Okay. Happy together. We’ve got we got five quick questions. What’s what do you think is one habit, belief or mindset that has helped you the most in your overall health and wellness?

Anthony O: Be patient. Be patient. That’s such an underrated aspect of fitness. Like it’s I said it earlier, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. People. Again, social media, instant gratification, all these things like, oh, I want it now, but you can’t. That’s not how fitness works. It took you your whole life to get where you are now, and just because you want to change, doesn’t mean you can ignore everything you did before.

Anthony O: If you want to be fit, it’s going to take time and dedication. It’s not going to be a two week adventure. It’s not going to be, you know, you’re not going to get a six pack abs in three months. Coming from, you know, where I was, 300 pounds, just not physically doable. And I think learning to sit back and say, okay, I’m working at it and be being kind to yourself in that way is really, really important.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. And that’s great advice. What is one thing that you do for your health that you think is overlooked or undervalued by others?

Anthony O: Taking time for myself, I think is a skill that I picked up with my fitness journey. It’s it’s very easy for me, especially where I can just sit and run through the mental list of all these activities that I have to do this, this make this phone call. I got to work. You know, it just is a constant refrain in the back of my head.

Anthony O: And taking time to sit and I picked this up with the yoga, with breathing, the breathing exercises. You know, just learning to sit in your body and let go of a lot of that stress has really helped me out a lot.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. What’s the most stressful part of your life?

Anthony O: My job. Hampton.

Dean Pohlman: Which part?

Anthony O: The job. I’m a big.

Dean Pohlman: Part of interactions.

Anthony O: So. So I’m a department of one. Currently. I handle the entire logistics for all of Canada. So if I don’t do it, I have to do it later. And and it’s gotten it’s gotten to the point where I can’t keep up anymore. I have I can’t physically do the amount of work in one day that is required in that one day.

Anthony O: I think and I know this for a fact, because now that I’m coming into my slower time of year when I don’t have as much going on, I’m still trying to recover from that burnout. You know, when you get to that point where you’re so physically exhausted and you can’t do the work that you’ve been able to do before because, oh, it takes me 20 minutes where I took the two before.

Anthony O: Yeah. My job.

Dean Pohlman: Okay. All right. I’ll, I’ll be sure to write them, a yoga instructor’s note to excuse you from or to get you extra help. I think that I think that’s.

Anthony O: Well, next year, next year we’re getting help. So I’m, I’m.

Dean Pohlman: Oh, good.

Anthony O: I’m, I’m happy that it’s happening.

Dean Pohlman: But that’s good to hear.

Anthony O: Yes.

Dean Pohlman: What is the biggest challenge in your fitness right now? I kind of touched on this, but I’ll ask again.

Anthony O:

Anthony O: Probably my stress, which is related to the job in the sense that. Cortisol, I mean, not that like being stressed is impacting my fitness directly, but the cortisol, like my body physically being stressed for so long has it really takes a toll. I mean, sometimes I go to a workout and I’m like, wow, this is great. I’m killing it.

Anthony O: I blow through it. You know, I have a great workout and other days I’m like, wow, this is really hard. Like, I can’t lift the weight. I want to lift. I’m struggling to be here. And you know, I finish the workout and I feel good and I’m glad that I did it, but it’s like, wow, it’s going to take me a day to recover where I wouldn’t have had that before.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. What’s your best piece of advice for men who want to be healthier?

Anthony O: Be kind to yourself. That was that was probably one of the hardest things for me. I talked about it earlier, but coming from a place of negativity and putting yourself down is not going to help you achieve your fitness goals. You can’t. I guess for some people it could, but I can’t imagine having the success that I have had.

Anthony O: If I’m sitting here telling myself like, oh, you’re, you know, you’re fat, you’re not good, you can’t do these things. Why are you trying? Being kind goes a long way. It’s it’s yeah, a mental shift in that sense, where you have to learn how to talk to yourself kindly. Something that’s something that really helped me, that actually I picked up from my wife, was, if you wouldn’t say it to someone else, why do you say it to yourself?

Dean Pohlman: Yeah.

Dean Pohlman: I won’t answer that because my my answer wouldn’t be kind of myself at all.

Anthony O: It’s it’s, it’s a simple phrase, but when you really dissect it and apply it, it’s like, wow, I didn’t realize I was being so negative all the time. And it’s it’s it’s a slow process to get to that point, but it’s definitely worth it.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. All right. Well, those are all my questions. I think that was a really great interview. Thank you for all that you’ve done and participated. In the man for Yoga community. It’s been an inspire.

Anthony O: Hopefully I’ll be able to jump back in a little more than I have been lately.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, work that down. But why? I appreciate what you’ve been able to do. We appreciate it. So, So thank you. Okay.

Anthony O: Thank you, I wouldn’t be. I know you don’t want this kind of stuff, but I wouldn’t be where I am without your programs and the community you’ve built, so. Thank you.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. You’re welcome. Yeah. All right, guys, well, I hope that episode inspires you. I hope it gives you some useful information. And it also helps you understand the process of getting healthier and the hurdles to expect along the way. And yeah, I hope this inspires you to be better, man. I’ll see you on the next episode.

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